This web stuff is still too complicated. We've tried to take advantage of some of the web's advances of 2003-2006, what the web now has to offer, balancing 'coolness' with 'functionality', trying to achieve a website that we can be proud of. We believe we've reached that milestone.

Why did we abandon support for older browsers? A number of reasons, most notably, several things we've programmed simply will not work in the older browsers; the industry, as a whole, is pushing hard for the user community to move forward; and, it cut (literally) half-a-year off the time required to go live. Firefox users upgrade with wanton abandon (because they revel in the joy of modern CSS 2/HTML 4/XHTML 1 websites), and though Internet Explorer users are slower to change, Microsoft is going to force this change upon them by FEB 2007.

There are several 'technical things' that a user must have, in order to browse our site. For most people, this stuff will work without any changes to their browser settings. For others, there will be some changes that must be done. To navigate our website, you will need:

Internet Explorer 7 (or newer):

Download Internet Explorer Here

IE6-SP1 will render the site correctly, but; it occasionally crashes for no apparent reason.

Firefox 2 (or newer):

Download Firefox Here

Firefox 1.7 should render the site correctly, but; this has not been tested.

Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.5 (or newer):

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader Here

An embeded MIDI player (usually Apple QuickTime):

And the following component capabilities must be ENABLED:

ACTIVEX - ENABLED

IE7, by DEFAULT, will warn you that the site is trying to use ACTIVEX

MIDI - ENABLED

You must have the MIDI "mime" file type configured in Folder Properties

JavaScript - ENABLED

This is normally ENABLED unless you or your admin disabled it.

Enable JavaScript in Internet Explorer

Tools ť Internet Options ť Security ť Custom Level ť Check "enable" under all "scripting" options.

Enable JavaScript in Firefox

Tools ť Options ť check "enable JavaScript."

Configure Apple QuickTime for MIDI:

Configuring Quicktime for Mozilla/Firefox

Cookies must be enabled:

+ we set a cookie for style sheet preference (1-year)

+ we set a cookie for member login (session only)

+ we set a cookie for member privalages (session only)

+ we set a cookie for preferred font size (session only)

How to RESET Internet Explorer 7 - if ActiveX (e.g PDF files won't display) fails to operate properly:

Reset Internet Explorer 7

Microsoft is starting to strongly encourage everyone to upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. While in most cases the process goes smoothly, there are a few cases of problems.

If you do have problems after upgrading to IE 7, try this:

1. Go to the Control Panel.

2. Open the Internet Options.

3. Click on the Advanced tab.

4. Click on the Reset button.

5. A warning will come up - click the Reset button again.

Internet Explorer 6 - will occasionally crash when you change styles, this is an IE6 bug and cannot be avoided.

There are a couple of on-going law-suits in progress, one by a company named Eolas and another by a company named Balthasar, who each (seperately) are suing that Microsoft's web browser is violating their patients and copyrights.

The bad news for the rest of us is - this means that Microsoft will be "disabling" and "re-enabling" functionality of embeded stuff as the law suits progress - which will very likely impact what your browser does and when and how.

We are NOT experts in these matters, but; felt you should be alerted to the potential impacts. For instance, we've seen that some embeded content (like MIDI files) play fine when browing them LIVE, but; when browsing them locally, on our own desktops, they simply will not play. Firefox has no issues playing such content - locally or live on a server. Neither does IE6. But, IE7 does (go figure *sigh*).

If you have other difficulties browsing or using our web site, please e-mail the web team.

Tek-EEZ - Web Technical Stuff

From the DOWCK Web Team