Helpful Hints

Searching:

On the home page, and the oral history and exhibit index pages you will see a box so that you can search for references to particular people or aircraft. This will search the documents on this site only. As with most search engines, you will then get a list of articles which contain references to your search terms. You will also be given the opportunity to refine your search at that point. When you go to one of the articles that has been found, then use your "Find" function on your browser to locate your items of interest within the article. For more information, see the search engine tips.

PDF Files:

The files that are in pdf format are easier to download if you want to read the information offline, and retain their formatting better.

To read PDF files you need the Adobe reader. Most people have some version of it hanging around their computer, but if you do not, go to the Adobe site to download a reader.

The PDF files are quite large (on the order of 200kb) and may not load for people with limited resources on their computer. In this case, either try to free up your resources, or read the information in web page form. How do you "free up resources"? Close any other applications that are open, and if you have been using your computer for a while without reloading the system check your system utilization. (In Windows 98 this is in the control panel under system information, performance). Restarting your computer will automatically reset your system utilization to the best that you obtain.

It is easier to navigate PDF files if you have your Adobe reader set to be a "helper" application, rather than to open in your browser. Apparently that also helps to some degree with the large files. If you have version 5 - 7 of the reader, all you need do is edit preferences within the reader itself (uncheck the box that says show it in the browser). If you have lower versions of the reader, check out the Adobe site to determine how to set your reader properly, or, better yet, download a new version of the reader. You can then go to particular pages in the document easily, and also search for particular words within the document. You can also then use your browser to have the graphs and charts available as you read.

If you have version 5 of the Adobe reader there is a known problem with accessing files on the internet. If you get a mysterious error message, try unchecking the box "fast web access" under preferences.

Files in html (web) format:

The oral history is divided into parts so that people with limited resources on their computers could read it. I would like to keep the parts as large as possible as then it is easier to use the search function on your browser (CTRL F in both Netscape and Internet Explorer) to look for items of interest.

If you cannot load the oral history, please contact me, as if people have this problem I can divide it up further. The files for the exhibits are now small enough I do not think anyone will have difficulty with them.

You might find it handy to have two browser windows open so you can peruse charts while looking at exhibits, or exhibits while reading the oral history.

Browsers, Resolution

The site works best with Internet Explorer v.6, and the resolution on the computer set to 800x600. Netscape and Mozilla should also work and if you have the latest version of them, I haven't spotted any "hiccups" yet. Just for your general web experience I encourage you to download the latest version of your favorite browser. There have been numerous improvements in the browsers and you will find that many pages throughout the web will not be displaying properly in the older versions. On this site it is possible that the Photos section will not display properly with older browsers. The resolution probably doesn't matter a lot except for esoterics, but it is the setting used for checking out the code.

Navigation

All text pages have the navigation bar. For the graphics in the exhibits use the back button on your browser to return to the previous page.

Java

I hope that everyone has their browsers Java-enabled. The rollover effects and other more subtle benefits come through Java. You will be missing a lot on the web in general if you do not have Java enabled, although this site should work for you.

Photographs

I have had so many requests for photographs, and unfortunately have few. The photos of airplanes that are used as the navigation buttons are generally from a website by Richard Seaman, http://www.richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Aircraft/Naval/ or from http://www.air-navy.com/aircraft.htm

Both sites have some wonderful pictures on them, and links to other sites with photographs. As you may have guessed, all the aircraft are from, as they say, "the Spangenberg era" of Naval Aviation.