Help

We are just starting this area of our website. In it, we plan to have helpful hints for not only using our site, but also the web itself.

This site looks best at 800x600 resolution, with the browser set to full screen. It has been developed using Internet Explorer (IE) 6, but we try to also make it compatible with Netscape, Firefox, Mozilla, and other Mozilla offspring. If you use AOL/Compuserve, they provide their own browser, but you can use one of the standard browsers after you have logged on to AOL/Compuserve. There is no easy way that we, or many other web designers, can check out our site on the proprietary browsers of AOL and Compuserve. Because of this, and their unique way of doing things at times, many sites do not display properly. For your own viewing pleasure, we recommend using a standard browser when browsing the internet.

If your IE browser always wastes part of the screen with some stuff on the left hand side that you rarely use anyhow, you are looking at one of their so-called explorer bars (Netscape and Mozilla have a similar arrangement). This can be turned off by going to view, explorer bar, and unchecking everything listed in that submenu. If for some reason you ever want it turned on again, just reverse the process.

This website is designed so that it uses the Arial font, but you can adjust the size of the font for yourself. To do this, in IE, click view, text size and then choose your size. "Smaller" looks to be about the size print of our buttons in IE, adjust it so it appeals to you. Once you learn about this you can always make other's sites appeal to your sense of aesthetics, IF the sites have written their code so you can make it conform to your desires, rather than the designer's. The size of the print that is actually part of an image (such as our buttons) does not change when you adjust the size of your font. See our document on font sizes for an interactive demonstration of how font size can effect you!

We hope everyone has learned the power of their back arrow in the browser. It can get you out of so many problems! Although we put our navigation links on most pages, if you ask for a "printer friendly" page (see the icon at the bottom of many of our pages including this one), what makes it so friendly to the printer is the elimination of all the banners, buttons, etc. Use the back button to return to the "non-friendly" page before it!

Our ever growing list of computer/web hints:

• Browsers, ISPs, Hosts, and Search Engines -- Find out the difference and understand the structure of the web. Life will be simpler, after you do -- guaranteed!
• Caching -- It can affect even the casual surfer
• Favicons -- What is that little green tree?
• Font Sizes -- How to make browsing more comfortable
• Internet Security -- Cookies, Firewalls, IPs, etc.

Site Specific Hints

• Editing your Message Board Posts -- How to Edit the posts on our message board
• Searching -- How to find things on our site