This Last Month 

Although I had used a translucent screen over the background since establishing this website in 1999 - it has only just come to my notice that Internet Explorer was about as fast as a snail in treacle when scrolling these pages. I do not use IE other than for testing and historically had relied on friends with IE for testing new webpages. At that time the sluggishness was attributed to slow internet responce. (If you are using IE and want to see for yourself click - Map of This Website - below - scroll down to the bottom then click - Graphics for Genealogists).

My first reaction was to make the background selectable according to browser - but this could lead to long term page maintainance problems. I had designed my pages to be viewed by the greatest number of browser types - including older versions that might have still been in use - all without browser typing.

That was nearly five years ago - a very long time in computing terms - and time to move on. With this in mind I have set the older limit to Netscape 4.x and IE 5.x browsers (or equivalent). Older browsers can still view these pages - but the layouts may not be as intended.

Having decided this I was able extend the use Style Sheets which allow control page layouts from a single common external file. The original pages and page template were designed using Netscape Composer - which like most screen editors - inserted a lot of unnecessary html tags - also leaving empty ones when parts were deleted - and enevitably the opening and closing tags got out of step - making page layout unpredictable.

Converting to Style Sheets has been major surgery - taking from 15 to 50 minutes per page. Tags must be removed in matching pairs - with pages having upto 1,200 lines - finding matching tags has been a labourious task. I would have liked to have made even more use of Style Sheet but complete browser compliance is still a dream.

New Webpage-sets
I am presently preparing two sets of pages for publication at this website - these being:-

• A Digital Camera for Genealogy - which describes the selection process leading to the purchase of a Canon PowerShot A40 in October 2002 for general & genealogical use. These pages also review how the Canon A40 has performed over the last year - and met my purchase requirements. I have taken in excess of 1200 shots over the year and a range sample shots will be included.

  I had originally intended publishing this review during October but decided that it was more important to update my website as a whole before adding more pages. There will be about 8 new pages which time permitting - should be ready for uploading early in December.
   

• Security Issues - having been hit by a couple of pernicious worm-virus earlier this year causing havoc - and having talked around. It became apparent that something was needed giving an overview of these issues - and suggesting defensive actions.

  I drafted an outline for these pages back in August - and had intended publishing them in a few months time after further research. However - the issue of security was raise at a WSFHS computer group meeting - and a security discussion has been set-up for the 7th January meeting.   I will be trying to publish about 10 new pages relating to this by then - BUT DONT HOLD YOUR BREATH.

These new page-sets will use frames for their navigation. Generally I object to frames being used on a website - as bookmarking of individual pages is impossible - thus forcing all traffic to enter via the home page. This in turn increases the load on a website as visitors may need to navigate via two or three pages instead of going directly to any given page. This is a double wammy as the extra load slows the responce and you also have to wait for for unwanted navigation pages to load. Exceptions to this are websites that generate pages according to form input - such as - search engines - flight & train times etc., where frames are a positive advantage.

So what's my excuse for using frames? Well these are sets of pages intended to be viewed as a group - and frames are ideal for this. There is only need to bookmark the title pages and this is still possible.

Life is still throwing things at us that put extra demands on our time - consequently we still haven't completely recovered following our move. So there will still be delays in replying to your email - sorry but there are just not enough hours in the day (or night).

Genealogy
I added the surname BRACKPOOL to my interests early September and I've already had a positive responce. If this links it could take me back to c.1660 in one swoop - give or take a bit of validation.

The rarity of the name must make it a contender for a one-name-study - does anyone know if it already is?

Whilst on the one-name-study subject I still harbour the idea of doing a COWING one-name study - but wouldn't want to do it single handed. Anyone interested?

Spam
I am still being plaged by a high volume of junk mail - but there is some good news on this front - the EU is at last followed Austraila's and made it illegal. The downside is it can only apply to EU sourced spam or spam promoting EU companies - but if you do get any EU sourced or publishing EU companies - do us all a favour - report it!

I am surprised that the providers of throw-away addresses such as HotMail - Yahoo etc.are not required to restrict the amount of mail that can be posted from any given address in any given time period - thus allowing the complaints to come in - and preventing vast batches being posted.

I have been testing MailWasher since April and after couple of weeks spam had dropped from 100 to 15 per day - but it has crept back up to nearly 40 per day. I'm now suspicious that spammers recognise bounce notices - and use these as confirmation that an address is valid - so don't use its bounce facility.

Now MailWasher bounces mail via your own ISP and the bounce message format will vary according your ISP - which doesn't identify MailWasher. The only thing I can think of is that the time delay before getting the bounce message is greater than it would be with a live automated bounce - particularly if you don't check your mail every day!

So has MailWasher become a victim of its own success? Well not through recognisable bounce messages - and if it is by date stamp delay - it would apply equally to any other programs that bounce mail.

I really don't understand the mentality of these spammers. If someone is bouncing mail then it is obvious that they don't want it! And sending me - mail about getting more from Uncle Sam etc. when I have a .co.uk address. What is wrong with these people? Maybe our government should ask the countries that host them for compensation for the costs that are inflicting on us all!

Worms
(This has been left in from last month as it relates to security) I have have had a second worm infection (or rather my computers have) FunLove this time which managed to infect a lot of files before being dectected. That will teach me to keep my virus files up-to-date. I suspect it jumped across my network and infected our second computer that is without virus protection because it is not used on the internet. The infection had also spread to some CDRW's used for backup - so it has been quite an exercise in exorcism - ugh!.