Favicons

Does the address bar on your browser look similar to this, with a little Leewood tree displayed? When you look at your bookmarks, do you see nice little symbols next to many of your favorite urls instead of boring icons of pieces of paper or an "e"?

The tiny icons you are seeing are called Favicons. This stands for "favorites icons". The idea was originally put forth by Microsoft to enliven our browsing experience, but interestingly their browser is now one of the worst when it comes to displaying them properly. If you empty your temporary files often and use Internet Explorer you might not ever see them.

There is a nifty little program out called AM-Deadlink which will help you see the favicons that should be there for your bookmarks, and while you are at it, it finds the links you have in your bookmarks (favorites) that are outdated. It is free, helps you clean up your favorites folder, and makes it more attractive to boot! Besides, you really should be able to enjoy Leewood's own favicon which you can for sure if you bookmark this site (and/or the message board). If you use a browser that has tabbed browsing (Firefox, Netscape) you get to see the favicons on each tab. It really is fun!