Can you show me how to create a shortcut to open more than one Web site simultaneously?

In order to have all three sites appear, you need to change a setting in IE. Select Internet Options from the Tools menu, click the Advanced tab, and uncheck the box titled Reuse windows for launching shortcuts. As for using the JavaScript trick from the previous tip, you definitely can do so as long as the URLs you want to open don’t make the batch file lines longer than the command processor accepts. The following batch file launches your three URLs in such a way that each takes about one vertical third of a 1,024-by-768 screen, with a bit left over at the bottom for the taskbar:

start iexplore.exe javascript: resizeTo(1024,240);moveTo(0,0); document.location.href=”http://yahoo.com”

start iexplore.exe javascript: resizeTo(1024,240);moveTo(0,240); document.location.href=”http://www .google.com”

start iexplore.exe javascript: resizeTo(1024,240);moveTo(0,480); document.location.href=”http:// weather.com”

These three batch file lines wrap dreadfully when formatted for publication, so keep in mind that each begins with start and ends with a URL in quotes.

We discovered an odd problem with this technique on an older Windows 98 system, however. Every time the batch file sent the three commands in rapid succession, IE’s Content Advisor kicked in, even though it was clearly turned off. To solve this problem, we introduced a delay of a few seconds between the commands using an old batch file trick: The CHOICE command presents an optional prompt and waits for the user to press one of a specified set of keys. It can optionally return a default value after a specified time-out. To get a batch file delay of 5 seconds, insert a line like CHOICE /c:x /t:x,5 between each line that launches a URL. With this addition, the Content Advisor problem disappeared.