General Tips:

http://www.amazon.com/ - change the ".com" to ".co.uk" (UK) - ".de" (Germany)
When searching for specific software - There are portable non-registry installed versions of most sofware - Ex: In the Google search window, type "Textpad portable" [without the exclamation marks] . This portable program is a "standalone" program and is basically the same program as the standard "Textpad" program but it does not install anything into the registry. Also the portable versions of the program allow you to "try" the program first before obtaining the standard version. The search result of "portable software definition" will shed further light on this type of software.
Retrieving Websites That Are No Longer Available--

Example Site 1: http://www.u-boot-greywolf.de/

1) and copy-paste address above into the "wayback machine" address space and click "Take Me Back"

2) From the next page - select a year and date: I selected 22 August 2006

3) The archived page comes up (if not, select another year and date) - year and dates can be moved forward in time until you get the last (newest) archived page - scroll horizontally at the top of the archived page to change the date

4) Any links on the displayed page could be active, depending on the age of the last archive for that website - the older the former page, the less chance to see links (or photos)

5) Note also that the archived page address

http://web.archive.org/web/20060822103037/http://www.u-boot-greywolf.de/

can be translated by copying and pasting into this page and right clicking on the right hand box (German to English translation was selected)

6) I then selected an item from the "Main Menu" - I selected "Articles and contributions from guest authors" - Click on this item and it will also appear translated

7) This is a handy tool to access data which no longer available - but is it?

8) Sometimes websites change their addresses. Try taking statements out of the archived page and see if you can search and find this item in Google. Go to the archived main page and copy the second item from the bottom of the "Main Menu" into a Google search box "Interessante Presseartikel über die dt. WK-II U-Boote". The result of this search gives the new website address: "www.kbismarck.com/u-boot/index.html". Notice the difference between these two pages and .

9) An interesting item on this page - directly above the "Hauptmenü:" - Click on "U-Board" and you get this page . Go above the first message "Victor Oehrn - Jürgen 24.9.2006 19:52 (3)" and click on "Archiv" and go to the bottom of the this page and click on "1". This will be the resultant page - note the date of the first message - 21.1.2000. Many of these messages have been archived (and are translatable). The range of messages for this forum is 21.1.2000 to 24.9.2006.

Example Site 2:

1) Next we display this general page of U-Boat related links and we select a link on this page called "The U-boat Campaigns in the Bristol Channel 1939-45" and we get which is NOT what we are looking for, not even related. The original link "http://www.swanseahistoryweb.org.uk/subheads/ubindex.htm" can be copy and pasted into the box on this page and click "Take Me Back"

2) I selected 5 June 2008 from the resulting page and I get this page but clicking on the underlined links at the top of the page results in an "Authorization Required" message

3) Next go back to this page and select the date of 21 December 2001

4) The resultant page is and NOW the underlined links at the top of the page are active

5) Now click on this link at the top of the page to verify link activity [ U-boats that entered the Bristol Channel ]

6) This page will now appear and the links on this page - Example U-1021 should be also active
To download videos directly from a website, i.e. YouTube or other videos, without any external software. Download the browser "CometBird" here . As an additional download agent for CometBird - download and install "BitTorrent" (listed below). Once both installed:
Under the CometBird "Tools" pull down menu - "Download Media Files" - Check off the top 3 items - Capture Audio, Video And Flash. When playing a video file in the browser, you will see the video file and size displayed at the bottom of the "Tools" "Download Media Files" menu. Click on the video file and you will retrieve it. File retrieval will occur 90% of the time. If difficulty ensues, the program "BSR Screen Recorder" will do the job (listed below).