Please spend a few minutes reading through our Technical Tips; this should enhance your experience of this web site and may improve your browsing across the whole Internet. Whilst every effort has been made to achieve accuracy, note that the Disclaimers set out in CIRCLIST’s Legal Notices apply to this page to the same extent as they apply to the core parts of the web site.

Page contents:

• Privacy. How much do we know about you, the surfer?
• Content Labelling designed to activate 3rd party filtering software
• * Check that your browser handles .png images correctly
• * Check that your browser handles <iFrame> calls correctly
• Selection of typeface (font) for display of CIRCLIST pages
• Browser Compatibility issues
• * Optimising your screen display
• Disability Access information
• * Magnifying the screen display
• * Downloading Quick Time Player from Apple
• * Adding Chinese, Japanese & Korean Character sets to your computer

Items marked * in the above list apply to the whole of your internet browsing, not just to CIRCLIST.

We do not collect personal data; no “Cookies” will be placed on your computer when you visit this site. That said, in common with just about every website on the planet our server maintains an access log. A typical entry reveals:

• The date and time of each request for a page from CIRCLIST,
• The IP address of the computer originating the request (without which we couldn’t respond!),
• If on a click-through from a Search Engine, then which engine and the question asked,
• The URLs of the pages and images viewed,
• The browser type and version number used to submit the enquiry.

Unless you have a fixed IP address publicised as being individually yours, the most this can do is identify your Internet Service Provider. It does not identify you personally. The data is automatically analysed to show us the times when the site is busiest and which pages are the most popular - information we need in order to run CIRCLIST effectively.

Not everyone wants to encounter nudity, sex, the sight of blood and so on when they (or their children) are browsing the Internet. CIRCLIST’s policy is to oppose censorship but support classification. To this end, the site has been made the subject of Content Labelling. The classifications adopted by the Editor acknowledge that the CIRCLIST web site includes:

• Visible genitals including erections, appearing in both drawings and photographs,
• Explicit sexual language in the text,
• Images and descriptions of blood and surgery involving humans, and
• Vulgar terms in the text...
  
• subject to the qualification that all the above appear in a broadly medical and/or educational context.

Three forms of control have been enabled. The most robust of these is the one formerly managed by the Family Online Safety Institute and called ICRA. This has been applied to every page of this web site, a policy we intend to continue even though the system is now obsolescent. The ICRA logo is illustrated below.




Some browsers are delivered with compatible Content Control Software built in. If you need a separate software package there is one available free here: http://wraac.org/. In combination with the correct Operating System, this will function across the whole internet - not just in respect of the CIRCLIST web site.

Another system is based on the content of the Meta Tag "keywords". Our aim is to ensure that one word consistently appears at this point in the concealed header of every page of the CIRCLIST website. Anyone using this filtering method can lock out most of our pages by adding the single word "circumcision" to their banned list.

Thirdly, there’s the possibility of filtering on the basis of the Meta Tag called "Rating". Throughout the CIRCLIST web site, this tag is set to "14 years".

The appearance of any web page can be greatly affected by the choice of typeface. As part of the 2009 revision of the website’s basic structure, a hierarchy of font choices was introduced. Unless you deliberately over-ride our code or have previously installed fonts not normally associated with your machine, your computer should automatically pick the first known typeface it encounters in this table and use that to display our pages, irrespective of what normally happens when you visit other websites. In the unlikely event that none of the named font definitions are present in your computer, the default serif or sans-serif font will be used as appropriate.

Generally speaking, serif fonts are used for the main body of text whilst sans-serif fonts are used for labelling diagrams and suchlike. Exception: If the labelling of a diagram is embedded in the image, everyone viewing it will see the same thing anyway.

If all this is gobbledegook but you would like to learn more, try Wikipedia here for serif typefaces and here for sans-serif ones.

Most browsers allow you to over-ride a website’s choice of font, but if you exercise that option it will apply to all websites, not just ours, until such time as you cancel the over-ride. Please consult your browser’s Help facility for instructions. If you decide to over-ride our choice be aware that you will, almost certainly, introduce layout changes that may corrupt the intended presentation. It is precisely in order to retain control over layout that the defined typefaces have been introduced. That said, the last word rests with you, the surfer.

As part of an ongoing re-write, a considerable quantity of Microsoft proprietary code is being removed from this site. All fully revised pages should now display in all browsers designed for HTML version 4.01 or higher. The proprietary code wasn’t a deliberate attempt on CIRCLIST’s part to promote Microsoft, but an unintended consequence of a previous editor composing pages using the program Front Page - a Microsoft product. The fully-revised pages of CIRCLIST comprise mainly hand-written code.

As the site is revised, you will see W3C coding approval logos appearing on more and more of our pages. An example is displayed to the left of this text. These certify that our HTML has met the very high standards of the organisation that oversees compatability issues on the Internet. Pages that qualify for this accolade will display the W3C logo at the foot of the page, after the copyright statement.

Now let’s address one of the great mysteries of surfing. Why is it that people spend a lot of money on their computer, then fail to set it up properly?

First, a short history lesson: When home computers first came on the market, the Video Display Unit (VDU) or Monitor was at best a purpose-built Cathode Ray Tube device half the size of a tea chest. Mere mortals made do with general purpose composite video monitors; a few put up with the inconvenience of connecting to the family TV set. None of these devices satisfactorily reproduced the typefaces then in existence, all of which had been crafted for old-fashioned paper and ink printing. The computer industry’s response was to commission new typefaces that skated around the technical issues causing existing fonts to appear ragged around the edges when displayed electronically. Hence the creation of Georgia and Verdana, to name but two.

A year or two later, along came LCD displays. These introduced a whole new set of problems requiring different solutions. Again the industry had to react; what they chose to do was to include in 'screen driver' software the means of adjusting the computer’s output to suit the type of screen to which it was to be connected. But in many instances they omitted to provide a "Wizard" to guide the proud new computer owner through the process of adjustment. Instead, these tweaks were hidden away, accessible on demand somewhere in a "Control Panel" or "Settings" facility but not pushed to the forefront. The result is that many (some would say most) domestic computers do not achieve their full potential when it comes to displaying words as opposed to images. Text remains less sharp than it might be, degrading the screen image and potentially threatening eye strain during prolonged use.

CIRCLIST wishes to encourage you to explore the possibility of improving your whole Internet experience by checking this dark corner of your computer. The instructions will be in a Help File - somewhere. You may need to repeat the exercise for several different items of software, especially your Browser and your Desk-Top Publisher/Word Processor.

PC running Windows XP (SP3)

Apple Mac running OS X 10.4 or later

Linux

Selected pages from CIRCLIST have been tested in all six of the browsers listed. The versions shown were used for the tests and any later version should work at least as well. Earlier versions have not been tested and might not work; you are advised to update to the latest version of your chosen browser.

Do not use the following link to Quick Time Player if you already have Quick Time Pro installed on your computer. There is a danger that you might overwrite some of the Pro version’s files. Quick Time Pro should play our video clips satisfactorily but for optimum performance we recommend upgrading anything prior to Version 7.xx.xx.

If you do not possess any Quick Time software, you can obtain the necessary minimum program (called Quick Time Player) as a free download from Apple.

Some pages of CIRCLIST now use Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters. You may need to enhance the capabilities of your computer in order to see these in their full glory. In the absence of a full utf-8 character set, a small box will appear in place of each missing character.

Mac Users:  If you did not install East Asian Characters when you first acquired your machine, you will need the original Install disc, or that for a newer Operating System (eg Leopard or Snow Leopard) if you have upgraded your OS. Use Apple’s "custom install" feature to augment the available character sets before attempting to add any extra fonts you may find available on the internet.

PC Users:  The following instructions relate to Windows XP; please consult the Help function for other editions of Windows.

1. Save your work and close all windows - this involves a re-boot!
2. Do your disc housekeeping. Run first "Disc Clean-Up" and then "Defragment".
3. Click on the Start button.
4. Click on Control Panel. The Control Panel is directly accessible in the standard Start menu but it is inside Settings in the classic Start menu.
5. Click on "Date, Time, Language and Regional Options."
6. EITHER Select the "Add other languages" task OR click on "Regional and Language Options" and select the Languages tab.
7. Check the "Install files for East Asian languages" option and click on the Apply button. At this point in the process you may be asked to insert your original Windows XP Operating System disc into your CD-Rom drive; the file being requested is <xjis.nls>.
8. Click Yes when you are asked to restart Windows. Once restarted, re-connect to the internet.
9. Go to "Add other languages" again (Steps 3 to 6 above) and click on the Details button.
10. Click on the Add button.
11. Select the language you want to add in the drop-down list of input languages.
12. Click OK as many times as you are prompted to and then close "Date, Time, Language and Regional Options."

Do all this before attempting to add any extra fonts you may find available on the internet.

Everyone:  If you want to experiment with different Chinese fonts, do an internet search on the exact phrase "Chinese Fonts" and you will find plenty, some for sale and some free.

Press the "Back" button on your browser to return to the previous page, or close this window if it was opened independent from your main broswer window.

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