Miscellaneous! F.A.Q. ...because inquiring minds want to know! What's an FAQ, anyway? FAQ is an acronym for Frequently Asked Questions... or for those of you with a more optimistic outlook... Frequently Answered Questions. Please limit your questions to those that are relevant to this site, the region, me, etc. Only expect answers that will benefit the majority of visitors. I plan to include an easy to use question form, but... for those of you with a burning desire to know the meaning of life... I can't guarantee an answer. I will, however, do my best! Q.001 - What is meant by the term Screen or Monitor Resolution? A.001 - While this can easily become a complicated explanation, in its most basic sense, Monitor Resolution is how many pixels your screen displays and is given in pixel dimensions, such as 640 x 480. Other popular sizes are 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768. Think of pixels as millions of tiny dots that make up a picture. For example, 800 x 600 means your monitor's screen will have 800 pixels on the long horizontal side and 600 pixels on the short vertical side. Generally speaking the lower your resolution, the larger each individual pixel. This usually means you will see less information on your screen and usually at what appears to be a lesser quality. On the other hand, higher resolution, such as 800x600 or 1024 x 768, means smaller pixels and finer detail. It also means more screen 'real estate', meaning that you can see or fit more information (windows, pictures, etc) onto your screen at one time. Q.002 - How does my Screen or Monitor Resolution affect my experience on this or other websites? A.002 - Heavens On Fire is optimized for a monitor resolution of 800x600 or higher. In fact, special extended content is targeted specifically to users at 1024x768. Persons visiting this or similarly configured sites, while in low resolution, such as 640x480, may find themselves continuously scrolling horizontally to see even basic information, and some text or graphics may unusually large. Users at 800x600, however, see everything that needs to be seen quite comfortably, and can optionally scroll to see extended content if they choose. Finally, those persons surfing at a high resolution, such as 1024x768, will see the complete site at all times, including a wide variety of rich, extended content. All, with no horizontal scroll bars. Q.003 - Why are some sites designed for high resolution and others are not? A.003 - In it's simplest terms, the web designer wants to present his/her information in a fashion that they believe best befits that information. That's certainly not to say that every website design is attractive or functional, often by the limitations of the abilities of the designer. However, a great many sites are, quite simply targeted at an audience that is prepared to view it as it was meant to be viewed. That was one arguement. Another approach, is to consider the current and near future technology, as used by the majority of surfers, as opposed to a targeted audience. This was an extremely important consideration when I first got into web design about 10 years ago. At that time, most folks used a 14" or 15" monitor, with 17" being the largest. Additionally, all monitors were shipped from the factory at a setting of 640x480, and very few people had any idea that this setting could even be changed. Frustrated web designers around the world were forced to design to the lowest common denominator, particulary when designing commercial sites. To add insult to injury, the great majority of users were only using 28.8kb modems, with some folks still at 14.4kb! That's right 56K wasn't even born yet, much less broadband! Now, with monitors shipped at higher resolution, as well as a more knowledgeable userbase, able to change their settings at will, many sites are now targeted to the higher resolution user. More content can be delivered to the end user in a well laid out fashion. Add to that, the advent of 56K modems and blazing broadband connections, and freelance web designers finally have a canvas to present their most lavish designs, while commercial designers can now offer rich, useful content to their audience. Q.004 - How can I determine what my resolution settings are and change them if I desire? A.004 - Glad you asked! If you are still surfing the internet in 640x480, you are not seeing the internet the way it was meant to be seen. I suggest most users start out by switching to 800x600 before trying 1024x768. Those with very poor eyesite may have trouble at the highest resolutions, but otherwise there is no good reason not to use it, if your monitor will support it. Here's how to do it. In Windows, Under the Start Menu, select Settings. Then Select Control Panel. Once in the Control Panel, select Display and then Settings. Slide the drag-bar to the 800 x 600 screen resolution. If you have a Test button visible, choose that first. The screen will flicker for a moment and you will see some colored squares. If you see them correctly, choose Yes or Continue to make the appropriate change, otherwise just hit cancel and you'll go back to your low resolution. (The reason for this test is that your specific monitor and display adapter determine what resolutions will work properly on your computer. It may be different from one PC to another) One last tweak. After you get a resolution that you are satisfied with, you will want to adjust your Display Frequency. The Frequency Setting adjusts how fast the screen flickers or refreshes - faster is usually better, or at least more comfortable on the eyes. This is adjusted from a drop down menu, usually located just underneath the resolution slider bar that you dragged earlier. Generally, you should have the highest possible number for the given Screen Resolution selected. Use the test button, as before to make sure the new Frequency Setting works correctly. For reference, I use a Refresh Rate of 85Hz at 1024x768 resolution. As with any adjustment to any device you are unfamiliar with... if you are unsure or uncomfortable, consult your vendor before making any modifications. Q.005 - Why are many websites now designed specifically for Microsoft Internet Explorer? A.005 - It is an unfortunate side effect of progress, I suppose. To truly understand why no one really designs for Netscape anymore one must take a short trip back in history. When I first started designing web pages back in the early to early-mid 90's, most estimates indicated that Netscapes early versions of Navigator was used by the overwhelming majority of users. There were estimates that Navigator commanded over 95% of the market, with Explorer and one or two other minor contenders sharing the remaining 5%. In fact, for a brief time, the pre-netscape version of Navigator, called Mosaic was basically the ONLY graphical web browser available! At any rate, during that time, Netscape was the aggressive innovator, changing the previously text based and boring internet into a graphical, albeit simplistic, experience. Netscape essentially changed the way the internet was viewed by the public, and how the public viewed the internet. You can find some extraordinarily interesting articles in the sidebar to the right that delve more into this history. However, Microsoft, not to be out done, had an evil plan. Realizing that nearly every PC sold at that time was running Windows 3.1, they would plan to bundle and market their own browser in their next major product revision called Windows 95. Not only did they bundle and market their new browser, named Internet Explorer, but with the full clout of the giant Microsoft, they began doing other things, like writing proprietary HTML tags that only worked in Explorer. They also 'strongly' encouraged other companies and vendors to pre-install and write only for Explorer. At one point, they actually made the entire support section of the Microsoft Windows website accessible only to Internet Explorer, leaving Windows users with Netscape unable to perform research or get web based product support for their Windows operating systems! Netscape fought valiantly for a few years, but could not overcome the behemoth Microsoft. This was to the dismay of many early web developers, such as myself, who embraced Netscape and resisted the evil giant. Unfortunately, the polls indicated more and more users split between the two browsers, which, for a year or two created a living hell for professional web page designers, who often found themselves with clients wanting features that worked in only one browser or the other, but not both. Countless man hours and client dollars would be spent trying to satisfy both sides of the browsing audience. That struggle ended, for the most part, by the year 2000. Once everyone got over the fact that the world did not end, commerce did not grind to a hault and all the lights did not go out... a hush came over the camp of veteran web builders. The new generation of designers already knew it, but it took the rest of us by quiet surprise... some new polls indicated that Netscape only accounted for an anemic 10% or less of the browser market. It was over and the message was clear. Either design for Explorer or be left behind. Most designers, I would think, still try to make sure a site is not a disaster in Netscape. It's called graceful or at least minimal degradation. But, the bottom line is... the audience is using IE, the majority of useful scripts and tags are written for and work better in IE, and as a result... most web pages are now designed with the expectation that they are viewed in IE. It's a tough nut, I agree... but as they say... them's the facts. Q.006 - How does resolution affect picture quality when using a digital camera? A.006 - This is actually a big pet peeve of mine, since the documentation that comes with some digital cameras, including my Fuji FinePix A200, is extremely unclear on this. In fact, it it downright misleading. The instructions that come with some digicams, attempt to correlate a dimensional resolution measurement, such as 640x480 or 1024x768 with printed picture quality. This may not be so much of a misinstruction, as it is an unclear and extremely abbreviated one. You may have already noticed that depending upon which quality setting you set your camera to, the actual printed size of the image changes, but the actual quality appears to be unchanged, furthering the confusion. To help understand this phenomenon, refer back to question #1 of this section, where I discuss Screen or Monitor Resolution. Your monitor screen is a fixed size, and thus increasing your monitor resolution to a higher setting, forces more Dots Per Inch (DPI) into the fixed viewing area of your screen. This creates the perception of better image quality. The quality of printed material, including photographs, is somewhat reversed. Since there is no real limitation on the size of the paper or other material, the quality is actually defined by the actual Dots Per Inch of the image. Many, if not most consumer level digital cameras fix this setting at 72 DPI. You can prove this to yourself, by taking a photo at both the lowest and highest resolution settings on your fixed DPI camera. Then open the images in a high end graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Photopaint. You will see from the 'image information' screens that both photos are 72 DPI. Setting your fixed DPI camera to a higher resolution setting merely changes the amount of information allocated to each dot. There are still 72 Dots Per Inch, however, with less information per pixel, the printed image can be larger and still retain the original quality. This, as opposed to attempting to stretch a 4x6 digital image to 8x10, which will kill the quality... go ahead and try it in your graphics program. For your information, you can refer to the following chart to get an idea of what pixel dimensions will approximately equal what printed picture size. Please note that this chart is only correct at 72DPI. Actual Pixel Dimension Approx. Printed Size Crop or Reduce to Final Printed Size 640x480 = 8.89x6.67 = 4x6 or 5x7 1280x960 = 13.33x17.78 = 8x10 or 9x12 1600x1200 = 16.66x22.22 = 11x17 or 16x20 The above table is just a guide, of course. There is no reason you can't crop a 4x6 print out of a giant 1600x1200 photo... just don't try to stretch a small photo to a larger print! The bottom line to understanding what the camera manufacturer means when they talk about increasing or decreasing the quality, when you are using a fixed DPI camera, is... the higher the resolution setting, the larger you can make the printed photo and still retain the original quality.		So, where the heck is Hazleton anyway? Click here to find out! How will I know if someone I've met is from Hazleton? Click here to find out!