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WEBSITE VIEWING INFORMATION The First Nassau Masonic District's website is beginning to implement the latest web standards, which are HTML5 and CSS3. All you need to know about these is that they are used to determine how your computer screen displays internet pages. More precisely, it is how your browser displays the internet. If you have a Windows system, it came with Internet Explorer (IE) as your browser. If you are a more advanced user, there are a number of other (free) browsers available. Similarly, Mac users have available their own browsers. This site is developed to appear reasonably well on all the most likely browsers. It turns out, however, that not all browsers are created equal. Taking internet explorer as an example, there are now four version out there that visit the website: IE6, IE7, IE8, and IE9. Firefox is a free alternative that is rapidly gaining popularity, as is Google Chrome. Safari, for Mac users, follows in fourth place. Others are Opera and SeaMonkey (a descendent of Mozilla's Netscape Navigator). This site is viewed/tested with IE6, IE8, FireFox 3.6+, and the latest version of SeaMonkey. It turns out that Microsoft's Internet Explorer doesn't support for HTML5/CSS3 . . . until version 9 (IE9). There is a free update for Windows users, IF their system can support it (Vista or Windows 7 only). As a result, the website often looks a little visually off for many IE users. Not messed up and unusable or anything like that, but some of the items you see just look a whole lot better to users with supportive browsers. (This text box, for example, has a diffuse shadow, and the big heading, "Site Info" is in an interesting Font). On April 5 2011, I started to include some code that detects your browser and corrects some visual problems (with IE9 or less), such as convert some neat-looking yellow text with dark shadows to plain navy-blue text. Note that the shadow-font at the top of this (and most others, on this site) page is created by a javaScript function I wrote for the purpose. The new browser standards are just too much fun and too useful to ignore. With some difficulty, I will resist suggesting to you what you should do, for although I'm strongly opinionated, this website is not the place for me to take sides. I have, however, included a graph, from Wikipedia, showing the decisions others have been making (Jan 2011 data). You can also click below and measure where your current browser stands (and check a list of 'all' browsers).
Test Your Browser!
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GETTING EVENTS POSTED Experience has taught that the most effective manner to keep the website events up-to-date is according to the following policy: E-Mail events to the Webmaster and they get priority treatment - a genuine A.S.A.P. This is, in no small part, a reflection of the fact the the lodge/organization hosting the event consider it important enough to proactively seek website presence. Also, the informational portion of the email can be cut/pasted into the webpage: easier and less chance of error. If tthere is a circular for the event, please attach a copy if you'd like it posted as well. This is preferred to a paper-copy which will need to be scanned (which requires making time for the scanning). The webmaster has applications to work with virtually any file format. Lodges who send their monthly bulletin to the webmaster will be happy to know that it is read and used to update the website. This is a slower process, for sure, as it obviously requires time in the postal system and then further time whilst the bulletin is scoured for events (which are not always neatly listed). At the other extreme? Hoping that an announcement at some meeting will be written down or in committed to memory. Draconian a concept though it may be, experience has shown that if no one felt it worth the effort to contact the Webmaster with the information then it's not important to them - and by implication - to anyone else. |
Last Update: MAY 6 2011