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Enabling TrackEngine
Disabling TrackEngine
Email address
Tracking sites using TrackEngine
Managing My Bookmarks
Editing My Bookmarks
Receiving TrackEngine E-Mails

Enabling TrackEngine

Q: How do I enable TrackEngine?

Goto Setup, and drag the Track me! button to your browser toolbar. [Show me!]

Q: Does TrackEngine work with my browser?

TrackEngine works with any browser that supports Javascript.

Q: What is the minimum system configuration required to run TrackEngine?

Any system that supports a browser with the above configuration is able to run TrackEngine. No additional hard-disk space or memory is required.

Q: Do I need to install any plug-ins?

You do not need to install any plug-ins.

Q: I am a Mac user. Does TrackEngine work on my machine?

TrackEngine works across all platforms as long as the browser understands Javascript.

Q: I want to use TrackEngine from home and from office using two different computers. Can I do that?

Yes, you can. As your profile is stored on the TrackEngine server and not stored locally, you can access TrackEngine from anywhere with Internet/browser access.

Disabling TrackEngine

Q: How do I disable TrackEngine?

To temporarily stop all TrackEngine emails, click on Change tracking status in My Profile page, and click on [Disable]. If you wish to disable tracking permanently, you will have to delete all the bookmarks in your profile.

To remove the TrackEngine icon from your Internet explorer toolbar, simply right-click on the icon and choose Delete. Users of Netscape's browser will have to use the Edit Bookmarks tool to remove the icon.

Email address

Q: How do I change my email address?

1. Goto My Bookmarks.
2. Click on Change email address.
3. Enter your new email address.

Q: Can I specify more than one email address?

Yes, you can specify up to three email addresses.

Tracking sites using TrackEngine

Q: What kinds of web pages can I track?

In general, any web page, even those generated from CGI scripts by querying a database. The guideline is, as long as a particular URL can be reliably bookmarked, it can be tracked. TrackEngine tracks primarily textual content, so pages which use a lot of graphics will not perform as well. In addition, pages which uses a lot of JavaScript, particularly to perform document rewriting or redirection, could potentially pose some problems to TrackEngine.

Q: Do I have to visit the TrackEngine site each time I want to mark sites for tracking?

There is no need to visit the TrackEngine site. TrackEngine operates unobtrusively in the background, tracking sites for you. You only need to visit the TrackEngine site if you want to manage your bookmarks.

Q: Can I track dynamic HTML pages?

Yes, TrackEngine allows the tracking of HTML pages which are dynamically generated.

Q: What happens if content is deleted on the page?

Since TrackEngine only monitors for new content, there will be no notification.

Q: Can I track non-English sites?

Yes, the current TrackEngine version supports the tracking of non-English sites in a limited way. We are working towards a full- fledged multilingual version.

Q: What happens if only the format of display of the page is changed?

TrackEngine only alerts you when there is new content. If the presentation of information, such as formatting, is changed, TrackEngine treats these as cosmetic changes and will not alert you. In cases where the presentation changes represent a contextual change i.e. there may be new meaning in the information due to a positional change, you may not be notified by TrackEngine.

Q: Can I track images and attachments?

The current version of TrackEngine does not support tracking of images and attachments, unless there is an accompanying text change eg. version number, file date etc. We are working on a version that will have this capability.

Q: Can I track changes on bulletin boards?

Yes.

Q: Can I track search results?

So long as search results are represented as unique URL addresses i.e. they can be reliably bookmarked, they can be tracked using TrackEngine.

Q: I understand the capability to include keywords. Why do I want to exclude keywords?

There may be cases where you may be interested in a subject matter, but do not wish to be affected by related topics under the same subject. For instance, you may include "fishing" as a keyword filter, but want to specify "bait" as a keyword to ignore.

Q: Can I track changes on pages full of numbers e.g. stock quotes?

Yes and no. TrackEngine will notify you of any changes in the page. However, remember TrackEngine ignores layout. Therefore, a number which has appeared before will be ignored, even if it is now found in another row/column of the table.

Q: How do I temporarily disable tracking for all my bookmarks?

Click on Change tracking status in My Bookmarks page, then select the [Disable] option.

Q: How do I track a web page which uses frames?

A web page which uses frames is actually composed of multiple web pages, each forming a section of the overall page. Often, you can tell if a web page contains frames if you see a scroll bar controlling only a section of the page instead of the entire page. To track a framed page, you need to identify the particular section or frame that you want to track, and load it into your browser by itself.

In Netscape Communicator, first move your mouse onto the section of the page that contains the information that you wish to track. Make sure that the mouse is NOT pointing at any of the links in that section. Click on the rightmost button of the mouse and choose the Open Frame in New Window option. A new browser window will pop up containing only the frame that you specified. Now you can click on the Track me! button to track the page.

http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/powertoys/

For Microsoft Internet Explorer, you will need to first install the Internet Explorer 5 Web Accessories (or Internet Explorer 4 Power Toys) add-on in order to track framed pages easily. Once you have installed this utility, you can follow the steps described in the previous paragraph for the Netscape browser to track a framed page. The screenshots below show you how you should right-click the mouse to select the frame that you want to track.

Netscape Communicator

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Q: How do I track a web page which requires authentication?

This requires you to know how the web site authenticates its users. If it uses HTTP basic authentication, you can enter that information into the bookmark under the HTTP authentication section. If the web site rolls its own authentication scheme using cookies, then you will need to know what information the web site stores in the cookie, and populate the same information in the Cookies section of the bookmark.

Q: Can I track SSL-encrypted pages?

Yes, TrackEngine can track SSL-encrypted web pages.

Managing My Bookmarks

Q: What do the different icons mean?

Indicates a folder where none of the contained bookmarks have new content.
Indicates a folder where one or more of the contained bookmarks have new content.
Indicates a bookmark without new content.
Indicates a bookmark with new content.
Indicates a bookmark which has been disabled from tracking.
Indicates a bookmark which is encountering download difficulties.

As an easy guide, point your mouse cursor to each of them, and the popup text will show you what the icons mean.

Q: Are these bookmarks stored on my computer?

No, the bookmarks are stored on the TrackEngine server.

Q: What's the difference between clicking on the bookmark and clicking Report?

Clicking on the bookmark brings you to the actual page itself, while clicking Report brings up the current version that is stored on the TrackEngine server, either in highlighted or summary mode.

Q: If I delete my bookmarks, can I restore them?

Once bookmarks are deleted, there is no way for the user to restore them.

Editing My Bookmarks

Q: How do I rename my folders?

Simply click on Edit along the folder you want to rename.

Q: What does Make this my default settings mean?

Most of the time, users want to track pages using more or less the same settings. This setting allows all the desired parameters to be set so that there need not be too much twiddling of the parameters each time a page is tracked.

Q: Can I have more than one default setting?

No, the current TrackEngine only supports one default setting.

Receiving TrackEngine E-Mails

Q: How do I identify emails sent by TrackEngine?

Emails from TrackEngine have subject lines which begin with [TrackEngine]. Some email clients allow you to filter according to certain keywords. You might want to setup your email reader to filter TrackEngine mails to another folder for viewing.

Q: Why do I get a notification email from TrackEngine?

This is to ensure that the page you are tracking is the one you have specified. In some cases, especially when dealing with framed pages, users may be tracking the wrong URL since framed pages are inherently a group of web pages.

Q: The page I am receiving doesn't seem like the page I am tracking. What's wrong?

There can be a couple of reasons why the page you are receiving doesn't seem like the page you wanted to track. The most common reason is that the URL shown on your browser when you activated tracking was not the URL of the page you wanted to track. This happens most often with framed pages.

If you still can't figure out what's wrong, please forward us the URL of the page you were trying to track.

Q: I want to change the parameters of a particular page I am tracking. How do I do that?

Simply click on the hyperlink in your email that allows you to manage your profile.

Q: I can't see the highlighted portions even though TrackEngine tells me there are changes. Why is this so?

Try changing the highlighting colour. Sometimes, the highlighting colour is the same as that of the text being changed, or it may be a bit difficult to spot due to the background colour.

Q: I sometimes receive TrackEngine e-mails without the TrackEngine header. Am I missing something?

This is due to the way some pages are rendered using absolute positional addressing. The TrackEngine header is actually prepended to the HTML being sent, and as a result, may be overwritten by text or images positioned right at the top of the document. To track such pages, change the delivery parameter for that page to [Summarize new content and send me the page].

Q: I want to receive WAP notifications instead of E-mails. How do I do this?

If your email service provider supports WAP access, then you can access TrackEngine mails through your WAP device. In this case, it might be better to set the delivery parameter for your bookmarks to [Summarize new content and send me the page].

Q: Sometimes I get notified of changes in numbers or dates, which I am not interested in. Is there any way to minimize such notifications?

Yes. Under the Filter keywords section of the bookmark, check [Ignore sections containing only numbers] and [Ignore sections containing only dates].

Q: Can I ignore links which are actually part of an advertisement?

Yes. Most of these advertisement links points back some ad server eg. doubleclick.com. Simply enter the domain name as an exclude keyword under the Filter keywords section of the bookmark, and all links containing the domain will be ignored during tracking.

Q: I asked for the highlighted page to be sent to me, but all I see are funny HTML tags in the email!

Not all email readers support inline HTML display. Netscape Messenger and Outlook Express seem to support inline HTML display reasonably well. Web-based mail clients such as Yahoo Mail and Hotmail also cater to inline HTML display. If your favorite email client does not support this feature, change the delivery parameter to [Highlight new content and send me the link]. When you click on the hyperlink, it will bring up your default web browser and load the highlighted page from the server.

Q: Some highlighted pages sent to me via email does not display at all, or looks garbled in my email reader!

Different email readers exhibits different behaviour and degrees of robustness when dealing with inline HTML display. If your email reader has difficulty rendering a particular web page inline, consider changing the delivery parameter for that page to [Highlight new content and send me the link].


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