tech

NC FOREVER
The Techie Notes

BANNER-FREE COOKIE-FREE SITE
(click on the Netscape menu Go and then Back to go back to previous page
click on the NC emblem to get back to home base - how techie can you get?!)

Update 2001: The rest of this page is now obsolete! It was written in Dec 1996, when we were pioneering in some media areas, and trying to provide multimedia help information to allow viewers to get the best of our site. Since then, these capabilities are built into all recent computers. It is interesting that the technical choices we made in 1996 were also the ones, for sound, video, etc, that the industry made.
This page will be kept here for a while as an amusing read, but is no longer a relevant technical resource.

(Hints on this page were originally written for Netscape 3. We now recommend Netscape 4.51, the best browser to date, currently available free on the Netscape site. In NS 4.5, the Options menu referred to has been re-located under Edit and Preferences. Please tell us when to stop writing for Windows 3.1 and Netscape 3).

ADOBE .PDF

FONTS

JAVASCRIPT

WEBSITE NAVIGATION: Much of the site is only one page deep - it is intended that you use Netscape"s Go/Back function for most of the navigation. Simply click on Go in the Netscape menu, and then drag down to Back.

We suggest doing this rather than using the Back button on the Netscape toolbar, because we further suggest that you temporarily remove the tool-bar! To provide maximum screen space for the photos, it is suggested that you click on Options and de-select the Show Tool-bar and Show Directory Buttons choices. You then go back to previous pages using the Netscape menu. (Netscape 4.5 allows all of these functional bars to be minimized in place, elegantly achieving the same effect that we have been promoting for two years!)

On the picture pages, other linkages are provided, enabling you to loop through a particular series of photos, but you can always get back to home base by clicking the main NC emblem.

VIEWING: These pages were created specifically for Netscape 3.0 or higher and a 800 x 600 video display: they are best viewed using that combination, with the viewing window maximized. They haven't been tested with other browsers; and they do use features that are specific to Netscape.

If you use other browsers, or the older Windows video default of 640x480, the text will be readable but odd and will not line up well, the colors may be not as intended, and the photos will be too large to view comfortably. Functionality on some web-pages may be lost. Also, your underwear may feel looser than usual. If Javascript errors show up on your screen, it's time to upgrade!

SCREEN RESOLUTION - Changing to 800x600 video:

Many experienced users have adopted 800x600 as their default.

Changing the screen driver is easily effected; however, depending on your familiarity with Windows, local help from an experienced person may be advisable. The video resolution is reset under Control Panel/Settings/Display.

[If you inadvertently select a video display which is incompatible with your monitor, leading to a blank screen display under Windows, the remedy in Win3.1 is to boot into DOS by pressing F5 during the boot-up, and under the Windows directory, type SETUP to regain the opportunity to set your default video driver; under Win95, press F5 during the boot-up and select "safe mode" to reach a similar position. Er, you won"t be able to view these words if you hit this snag, so you might want to make a paper note before adventuring].

[If you use Win 3.1, you reely-reely should look at moving to "95. With Win95b, (a small goody among a host of other great improvements, such as the ability to view a wider range of video-clip types), it is quite simple to change your video driver, and you can even download an amendment, QuikRes, that MicroSoft thought of after the fact, which allows you to do so without re-booting.].

ENABLING JAVASCRIPT: You should enable Netscape to process JavaScript, a screen presentation language that many web-pages (including NC-Forever) employ to enhance the basic functions of HTML. To do so, go to
Options>NetworkPreferences>Languages
and check-mark the appropriate box, if it isn"t already.

PDF DOCUMENTS: You may wish to set up your Netscape browser to use Adobe"s Acrobat for viewing .pdf files, if it isn"t already. This is not necessary to peruse this site - there is only one .pdf file, but it is a mainstream wide-usage move. More info on this, click here

FONTS and BACKGROUNDS: Microsoft offers a number of attractive free typefaces designed for screen usage. Using as a default a typeface which you like, will enhance your viewing of all web pages, including NC-Forever. However, for best viewing of the NC-Forever pages, please turn off your own custom selection of colour or images for backgrounds, and allow these to be set by the pages themselves.

FREE MICROSOFT WIN95 FONTS. Download, save, double-click: installs clean and fast.

SOUNDS: There are two MIDI sound clips on this website:

TRADNAP.mid, the tune of the calypso The Tradition;
and
NAP.mid, the tune of Naps" College Anthem.

If you are using Netscape 4.5 on a multimedia machine, your browser should play these automatically when you click on their links. If not, you need to explicitly link Media Player to .mid files (MIME type audio/x-midi), similar to the description below for .mpg.

There are also two sound-only .mpg files. See the information on Movie Clips in the next section.

Sound-playing boards or software can get thrown off by some preceding activity, so if these files sound unrecognizably odd, try rebooting and playing them again. They should sound clear and simple.

You can adjust the volume of your multimedia player using its menus. If you cannot get the sound to work, check that the volume control has not been set or has not reset itself to nil. (Happens). Also, hem, check that your speakers are plugged in, and into the correct jack on the soundboard.

You can also set the music clip to repeat automatically (under Options under Edit). We suggest you do this for TRADNAP while you read the words. Doing this will automatically bring back images of Farallon Is., Flat Rock, Herdes" Booth, Sa Grado"s Tomb, Library Corner, Naps men (and women) from long ago, the tall canes on the back cliff, the downs trees, the playing fields, the quadrangle, doubles, tropic breezes in an old colonial town, and the poinciana trees with the bright red flowers and fine fronds...!

MOVIE-CLIPS: To view the video-clips on the site, or to hear audio-clips recorded in video formats, you need a videoplayer that reads MPEG-1, or else RealAudio.

If you are using Win95b, Microsoft's ActiveMovie will have been loaded as your video player, and this is your ticket. (To tell what version of Win95 you are using, right-click on "My Computer" on the desktop, and select "Properties"). You can invoke ActiveMovie explicitly by going to Mediaplayer under Accessories, or notify Netscape that it is your video player for MPEG and MPG (under Options>GenPreferences>Helpers) if it doesn't come up automatically in Netscape. If ActiveMovie isn't on your Win95 Media Player, you can get it for free by downloading. Here is more info on ActiveMovie and .mpg files

RealAudio: If you have a RealAudio player on your computer, try the RealAudio clips provided. RealAudio files are "streamed", much smaller and more clickable than MPEG, but the visual quality is not as good, given the processes involved. (Instead of downloading an entire large media file, your RealAudio player begins displaying image or sound as soon as it has received enough information from the webserver to start. It starts the display expecting that it will continue to receive a data stream from the source, containing the rest of the media file, at about the rate that it uses it up. In our case, we have specified that it can expect a connect speed of 28.8 kb/s for our files). You can get a free copy of a RealAudio player (not the Plus version) at this address:

http://www.real.com/products/player/index.html

(Netscape 4.5 bundles RealPlayer, which we picked as our streaming-software of choice a year ago).

After you download and install RealPlayer, it is supposed to automatically link to Netscape. But if it doesn"t, then upon the first usage from Netscape, Netscape will ask what it should do with the link. Be sure to choose Pick App and then browse to tie in your /../realplayer.exe to the RealAudio link. If, subsequently, Netscape will not automatically play RealAudio upon clicking a RealAudio link, go into Netscape helpers (as described elsewhere on these pages for Acrobat and ActiveMovie) and link netscape.exe to .RM, .RAM, .RM files, for MIMEtype audio/x-pn-realaudio

RealAudio files on NC-Forever are currently scaled for 28.8k (or faster) modems. The response speed of the RealAudio player is excellent, but it is not instantaneous: a wait of about 30 to 45 seconds is normal after clicking on an RA link on the NC site.

RealAudio movie and sound links are indicated by [RA] and [A]
~ NC Forever ~