Last Updated: Wednesday, November 12, 2003, 12:43 PM PST
Introduction Browsers, Standards and Fonts Rejected email Problems Viewing Graphics Site credits
This page gives some technical details about how this site is constructed, and the software that runs it. It includes some observations that you may find useful if you are experiencing problems with the site. If you have any questions or comments, please email me: fitz@jfitz.com. Browsers, Standards and Fonts As far as possible, pages on this website are fully compliant with the W3C HTML 4.01 Transitional Standard. Pages are occasionally checked for compliance using the W3C HTML Validation Service. This means that these pages should render reasonably well in any HTML 4.01 compliant browser. Browsers that these pages have been tested against include:
Limited use is made of Cascading Style Sheets, (CSS). A CSS-compatible browser is not required to view this site, but it is recommended to achieve the best viewing experience. Rejected email If your email gets rejected by my mailserver, you may have run afoul of my spam filters. I use my own filtering and analysis tools, to filter out unsolicited commercial email and common email viruses. The rules are quite aggressive, which has reduced the amount of unwanted email from 100 or more a day to a handful each week. The downside is that legitimate email may be rejected from time to time. If this happens, the best approach is to send a text email, (no HTML or JavaScript), with proper mail headers, and omitting "spam-like" discussions about sex, selling, or any generally wonderful thing that you can do to improve my life. Also, please omit any web links to "spam-like" sites, (and what commercial sites aren't "spam-like" these days?). My spam filters are capable of following web links and including their content as part of the evaluation criteria. If your email is still rejected, your mailserver, (or possibly even your email address), may have been included in my blacklist. If this is the case, it might be time to think about a new ISP and/or domain name. Problems Viewing Graphics Many of the graphics on this site are coded using the Portable Network Graphics, (PNG), format. Some older or obscure browsers may not support PNG files. If you can see the Apache logo below, but none of the other graphics on this page, then your browser is not "PNG-compatible". The PNG format is favored over the Graphics Interchange Format, (GIF), since, unlike GIF, PNG is truly an open format. For more information about PNG, and supported browsers, please see The PNG Home. Site credits For the most part, this site uses freely available, open source software, and I can recommend all of the products listed below. While the initial learning curve for free software tends to be steeper than for the Windows equivalent, the resulting stability, flexibility and cost savings have more than made up for the extra initial effort. I do keep Windows on one or two of my dual-boot client machines, but it strikes me as insane to spend money to run servers using costly, closed-source software that has a spotty reputation for stability and security. Note: Paint Shop Pro requires a license, (best $60 I've ever spent on software -- 5 years with no upgrades). XNView requires a license for commercial use. Everything else listed below is available free of charge.
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