Playing the Talk Excerpts:
Q) When I try to listen to the samples-- the sound is choppy or "stutters" very badly - makes it near imposible to listen to the songs. What Can I do?
A) There are several causes for this- but most have to do with the browser trying to play the sound too soon - before it's had enough time to download (enough) of the song.
First an explanation: Most modern browsers try to deliver content (in this case - the Talk) as fast as posible. To do this - they do a bit of calculating and guessing. First they monitor the incoming song to see how fast it's coming in. They already know how long the excerpt is (in bytes) so after a while they can calculate the total (finish) time to get the sample. Once the browser has downloaded enough of the sample so that it thinks it can finish downloading all of it - before playing the excerpt will reach the end - it starts playing the sample - with the idea that the excerpt will finish downloading by the time playing it gets to the end. In an ideal situation - the excerpt playing - and downloading it -- will tie. playing the sample - after the shortest delay in downloading. In the real world, unfortunately - data doesn't alway come in nice, fast - uninterrupted streams. If the net itself has traffic shifts, the server's load increases, etc. - the data may not come as fast - and may slow down a lot. When this happens - the "player" part of your browser plays the sample faster then the download happens. the result is that when the "player" runs out of data - it stops. As soon as it gets more data - it plays some more - until it runs out again - or finally does indeed get to the end of the song. Depending on how the data packets arrive - the effect can be anything from gross hurky-jurky starts and stops - to stuttering - to something that sounds more like a chainsaw - nothing like the intended sample.
Site Graphics and Navigation:
Q) I'm having trouble with the menu items: it's hard to tell what to click on and sometimes when I click - nothing happens. What am I doing wrong?
A) Probably nothing wrong-- some browsers, especailly older ones, aren't real good with newer graphic links. Here are some helpful "hints"...
1) As you move your pointer about the screen using your mouse, watch it carefully - most browsers will change the arrow into something else - such as a hand or pointing finger - when they "hover" or pass over a link. You can then click to activate that link to take you to that new page / location.
2)Some browsers also don't do well with a single quick click on some links - particularly graphic links. If you hold the mouse button down for a bit (on Macintosh computers) or RightClick (on Windows computers) a pop-up menu will appear and you can choose "Open this link" or similar appropriate choice.
Q) The pictures are very washed out (or very dark) and hard to see. Anything I can do?
A) try adjusting the contrast and brightness of your monitor. Sometimes webpages render darker or lighter than other graphics - but often you can compensate by adjusting your monitor.
Q) I'm visually impaired and use an aural browser.
and / or:
Q) I use a browser that doesn't handle graphics. As graphic intensive as your site is -- it's very difficult to fully access it. Can anything be done about this?
A) Yes. If you can - disable "FRAMES" in your browser. Once FRAMES are disabled, the site will then download alternate pages which are TEXT in content.
