HBC Technical Topics: Computer Settings


Figure 1.--

Please look here to see our suggestiins as to how your computer should be set to best read HBC. Please report any problems you encounter in reading a HBC page, such as oversized fonts or broken lnks. HBC was created at a time when Netscape was the principal browser. The site is thus designed to be best viewed in Netscape. Of course Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) is now the most commonly used browser. We are thus gradually shifting our settings to those designed more for IE. Of course this will take some time and in some cases we do not know yet how to correct some problems. For details and some other technical information about our site look here. We are of course anxious to hear from readers who might have some idea about how to improve the settings and HTML codings or who have other technical suggestions.

Problems and Errors

Please report any problems you encounter in reading a HBC page, such as oversized fonts or broken lnks. HBC is an active website and we do attempt to correct errors that we encounter. Your assistance here would be most appreciated.

Browsers

HBC was created at a time when Netscape was the principal browser. The site is thus designed to be best viewed in Netscape. Of course Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) is now the most commonly used browser. We are thus gradually shifting our settings to those designed more for IE. Of course this will take some time and in some cases we do not know yet how to correct some problems. The most serious is how to create a better margin around the various images. Netscape does this automatically. IE does not. In early 2005 we found that the browsers being used by readers were IE6 (86 percent), IE5 (6 percent), and Mozilla Firefox 1 (6 percent). No other browsers registered usage above 1 percent. So you can see that HBC has to be structured to be read on IE. Several of you have mentioned other browsers to us and I am sure that some are better than IE, but as over 90 percent of our readeres use IE, we clearly have to design HBC to be read on IE.

Operating Systems

Almost all of our readers use some version of Windows. In early 2005 it was primarily Windows XP (nearly 80 percent). Other Window version included 98, 2000, and ME). There were some Apple users that repoted using Mac OS (4 percent) as well as a few Linux users (1 percent).

Plugs Ins and Pop Ups

Many readers have installed plug-ins. The most common are Dynamic HTML Binding, Windows Media Services, and Shockwave Flash. We have attempted to design HBC without a lot of fancy faetures such as plug-ins. The principal reason is that we want the pages to load fast for you so you dont's have to wait when you come to a new page. You might also notice that there are no pop-ups. These pop-ups are one way to finance a site. We find them very irritating as well as slowing a page from loading. Thus we have chosen to ask readers to pay a small annual fee so that we do not subject you to these annoyances.

Color Depth

Most readers have their computers set for "True Colors", nearly 90 percent. Some have chosen"High Colors". We would suggest True Colors.

Screen Resolution

Most readers have their screen resolution set at 1024/768. over 60 percent. This is the screen resolution HBC is designed for and that we suggest you use. We do note that some readers use 800x600 (nearly 20 percent) and 1280x1024 (over 15 percent). HBC can be viewed with these settings, but we believe you will have a better experience if you use the sggested settings.

Technical Assistance Appreciated

Our site is written in basic HTML. We are by no means teckies. We are of course anxious to hear from our more technically profeciant readers who might have some idea about how to improve the settings and HTML codings or who have other technical suggestions.







HBC





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Created: 7:34 PM 4/10/2005
Last updated: 7:34 PM 4/10/2005