The worlds largest specialist site of Antique and Precision
Watches on the Internet
Even if you are an experienced user of the Internet you will
probably benefit from reading this document when using our Site.
This site is designed to be viewed with frames capable
browsers. We recommend either Netscape 4 or Internet Explorer 4. It is possible
to use earlier versions but not all features will work and getting around the
site will be somewhat difficult. We think you will find it easy navigating
around our site, however it is large (about 150
megabytes in total) containing thousands of images. To avoid lengthy pauses
while the images load a fast modem, at least 14400, should be used. See
Speeding things up below. The pages are designed to be
viewed at a minimum width of 800 pixels and 16 bit colour. If your standard
screen resolution is 800x600 you should place it in full screen mode. At higher
resolutions allowing the pages to extend the full depth of the screen will
help. It is possible to use a 640x480 screen or 256 colours but you may get
some odd results with the images in the descriptions.
Most of the time you will see a fixed bar of
buttons at the top of the page. These have links to the more frequently used
pages. Below this are more buttons:- these will dissappear as you scroll down
the page. Links to the Stock Indexes and Site Index are to be found at the foot
of most pages. If you get lost you should try using one of these to get you
back to "square one". Also at the foot of most pages is a link for E
Mail. Use the Site Index for links to the more obscure sections and pages such
as those listing our old catalogues.
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for more help on Navigation |
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for more information about the top bar |
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for more information about the lower
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There are a number of things you can do to speed up your use
of our site without going to the expense of a faster modem or computer.
- One sure way to greatly speed up looking through the indexes is to turn off
the images. This will suppress loading the thumbnails and load only the text.
You can still quickly look at the medium size picture of the watch by clicking
on the icon that remains.
In Netscape do this by clicking through:
Edit - preferences - Advancedand un-tick the line marked Auto load
Images. Anytime you want to see the images you can use the Images button
on the bar. They can be turned on again by repeating the procedure and placing
a tick beside Auto load Images.
In Explorer do this by clicking through: View - Internet Options - Advanced
- Multimediaand un-tick the line marked Show pictures. Explorer
does not seem to add a button so you must reverse the procedure and click
Refresh
Unfortunately this also makes the navigation buttons difficult to use!
- You might gain a little advantage by increasing the size of the disk cache.
In Netscape do this by clicking through:
Edit - preferences - advanced - cache.
In Exporer do this by clicking through: View - Internet Options - General -
Settings.
The cache is commonly set to 5Mb. If you are a heavy user increasing this to 20
or more could have a slight affect. Its not a good option if you are short of
disk space (and don't bother backing up the directory its in!)
- Print an index file. This allows you to read through it at your leisure.
Note: You should click in the index first and select print from the File
menu and print only the Frame.
- There are files which contain the text only of some of our previous paper
catalogues. Most of the watches in them are on the site if you want to look at
the images. These file contain no graphics and are about 100K in size (About
the same as two large graphics). It is best to save them to disc or print them
as above, but you don't need to turn off graphics. To find these files go
through the Site Index and click on Catalogue
Text.
- You can buy a Compact Disc of this site. This can be used in a CD-ROM
player on your computer allowing you to find your way around at many times the
speed of an Internet connection. See Pieces of Time on
CD
- If you are really dedicated you could use a Site downloading program such
as Web Whacker. This should download the whole of our site. Be warned though
that this site is about 400 Mb in total and you will need that amount of free
disk space and probably many hours (or days) on line!
Using the Internet can be frustrating at times, you get
disconnected, it stops, it doesn't do what you want! Below are some things you
can do to cure common problems or get around quicker.
- If the page you are. looking at seems to stop loading, or wont even start
loading:
- Force it to try again by hitting the stop button on your browser. The
chances are its trying to load an image and will now at least display the text
its received so far. If you still want the page or you've got nothing hit the
reload button. Often you will find the page loads quite quickly. Its almost as
though an operator had put you on hold and forgotten you.
- If you still get nothing more after three or four attempts try a page on
another site (preferably using a bookmark). Still no joy means that either your
service provider is very busy - or you might have been disconnected. If you
aren't sure try dialing in again, there's no point just sitting there!
- If you think the page you are looking at should have been updated:
- Hit the reload button. Your browser might have loaded the version in its
disk cache. If it happens a lot check in the options/preferences
setting for the cache to check it verifies documents at least once every
session.
- If some images appear as only icons:
- Check you have Auto load Images turned on or hit the Images button
again.
- Hit the reload button. Sometimes browsers seem to give up! If it still
doesn't display an image on our site please contact us, we might have made a
mistake! (Oops). If its on some other site we'll leave to your conscience.
- If images look fragmented:
- Try scrolling them off the page and then back on again. This can be caused
by your browser not redrawing the screen properly.
- To get around more quickly try using the Back, Forward
and Go buttons on the menu bar of the browser. The advantage of the
Back button is that it will take you to the same place in the document as you
came from, and more quickly. You will probably find that the Go or
History button will do the same.
- When you find a page you like, or think you might like to look at again -
use the bookmark feature. Its easier to delete the bookmark later than find the
page again.
- Bookmark more than one page on a site if you go there often. For instance
you might be mainly interested in repeating watches and bookmark that index
along with the other two we recommend - The Index of New Watches and
the Watch Of the Week. (You could even make that your home page to
make sure you check it every time)
- Most browsers allow you to group your bookmarks. Try creating one for this
site or horology in general.
We hope that this document has been of
some help and not too basic if you are an experienced user. If you have any
comments or would like more information please contact us.
