Visit a Web Page

Accessing the wireless Web is truly one of the most exciting facets of any smartphone, and the Treo makes this prospect particularly compelling, given its relatively high screen resolution (320x320). Blazer is the standard Web browser on Treo devices, and it does a good job of allowing you to view both mobile-specific and general websites designed for full-sized computers. To visit a web page by using the Blazer Web browser on your Treo, follow these steps:

1.	If the mobile radio isn't turned on, hold down the Power/End button until you hear a tone and a screen appears that indicates you're being connected to the wireless network.
2.	After you are connected to the network, press the Option key followed by the Phone/Send button to launch the Blazer Web browser. The web page for your wireless service provider will likely open by default. Tip As a shortcut for entering the URL of a web page you'd like to visit, tap the Earth icon in the Blazer toolbar to open the Go to Web Page screen, or just tap the address bar of the Blazer browser and enter the URL directly in it. If you enter the URL directly in the address bar, tap the Go button to open the page.
3.	To visit a different page, press the Menu button, scroll over once to the Go menu, and then scroll to select the Go to Web Page menu item. Press the Center button to issue the menu command and open the Go to Web Page screen, as shown in Figure 2.17. Figure 2.17. The Go to Web Page screen enables you to enter a URL for a web page to visit, and it includes several helper boxes for entering common URL components.
4.	Enter the URL of the web page you want to visit by typing it on the keyboard. You can use the helper boxes just above the text entry area for common parts of the URL, such as the www. at the beginning and the .com at the end.
5.	When you're finished entering the URL, tap the OK button to accept it and open the page in the browser. Figure 2.18 shows the splash page for my website (http://www.michaelmorrison.com/) open in Blazer. Figure 2.18. The web page you specified opens in the Blazer Web browser and displays as best it can, given the limited screen size.

Although the layout is different when you view the page in a normal desktop Web browser, the content is still visible in a reasonable format in Treo's Blazer browser. Some pages scale down better than others, but most pages are at least readable on your Treo. Just keep in mind that the Blazer browser tends to stack Web content vertically down the screen even if its original layout is horizontal. Figure 2.19 shows my page on a normal desktop Web browser, which illustrates what I'm talking about because the image and text appear horizontally as they were intended. (Compare this layout to the one shown in Figure 2.18.)

Figure 2.19. This full-size web page is oriented properly in the desktop Firefox Web browser.

Tip

The Blazer Web browser also supports a Wide Page view, which doesn't stack the content on a wide page vertically as in the default Optimized view. Instead, you must scroll left and right in the browser to view the full width of the page. To toggle between Optimized and Wide Page view, tap the toolbar icon that looks like a miniature Blazer screen (located to the left of the Earth icon). You'll find that Wide Page view is often preferable on pages with a layout you're accustomed to viewing a certain way.

The toolbar along the top of the Blazer screen allows you to perform common Web-browsing tasks, such as navigating backward or forward a page, refreshing the page, changing the page view (Wide Page or Optimized), jumping to the Home page, and accessing bookmarks. The Blazer browser is a powerful little Web browser with lots of handy features that are covered in detail in Chapter 10, "Browsing the Wireless Web."