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| Pop-up Advertising
Blockers There are no pop-up ads on this
site. If you click on buttons or links and
find that the expected page does not open, you may need to adjust your
pop-up blocker settings to allow new browser windows to be opened when
using this website. If this makes your use of the site inconvenient,
please
bring this problem to our attention.
This website opens new windows in many
situations, such as to browse the website of one organization of potential
interest without closing the current window, such as a directory of multiple
organizations in a region, state, or specialty of interest.
This approach makes it easy to compare similar content on such sites in
multiple browser windows, or to explore related content and then simply
close that new window. After all, Microsoft Windows and browsers were
designed to handle multiple windows of content, so our design takes
advantage of this capability to explore related content of interest without
closing the primary window where such content was found.
Unfortunately, some programs which block pop-up
advertising may also block the normal process of opening two or more windows
intentionally. This can usually be controlled easily by the user
through the configuration settings for the pop-up blocker software. |
Do many pages scroll off
your display to the right? (not just down) See
our comments
about display settings. This
website is designed for use with high resolution display settings which are
now in common use, rather than older standards.
As a
result, some pages will be too wide for users with older display settings to
view without scrolling because of the amount of content we present in a
simple table column format for quick reference. We generally try to
keep the information of most common interest in the left columns.
If this is a problem which inconveniences you, please let
us know. |
| Do you see a button in the
box at right ? >>>
If not,
please contact us so that we become aware of the problem.
These navigational buttons use simple scripts instead of an ordinary link,
which normally poses no problems, but it is possible for security settings
to interfere with their operation. |
If your pop-up blocker is set to prevent new
browser windows from being opened, this button link or other links may
not work properly, such as thousands of normal links to other relevant
websites as found in our many directories of contacts. You should see a button above which links just
like this to our global Contacts
page. |
| This website
design uses many button links such as the above. These are
simple and standardized scripts which make hyperlinks easier to recognize
and use at a glance. Unfortunately, there are some
websites which include malicious scripts which can cause actions to be taken
in the "background" without the knowledge or consent of the user.
As a result, browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer
and various security programs, including "pop-up" blockers, may potentially
misinterpret this normal type of hyperlink as a potentially dangerous script
simply because they don't really differentiate such scripts.
We are trying to assess whether some of these recent
security changes by such programs will require redesign of our website pages
to eliminate such buttons, which are otherwise convenient and normally work
for visitors without any such problems. |
In general,
this problem can be readily fixed by adjusting your browser settings, but we
obviously do not want to use web design components which are going to
inconvenience our users by requiring any changes from normal browser or
security settings. If you encounter this
problem, we therefore urge you to bring it to our attention, because we will
modify the design of our website if necessary to avoid such unexpected
problems.
For now, as best we can tell, it is a rare problem, and
such buttons are useful.
We appreciate your feedback, however, in case we have
misjudged this situation.
Thanks in advance for your consideration in helping us to
provide a better service to visitors. |
Scrolling to content "below the line"
Most pages of this website are long and will include considerable "below
the line" content, rather than very limited content at the top of a page.
This helps to keep relevant content together, as in the case of directory
lists, GUIDE Area Profiles, Service Profiles, and many other types of pages
since this is a reference website with links to thousands of resources,
rather than just a single company description or transaction-oriented
website.
Links to bookmarks lower on the page are generally used
for convenience at the top of the page to easily reach the content of
interest on long pages, with similar direct links to such content from other pages.
One can also use the "find" option (Ctrl f) to quickly find anything on a
page. The Google site search, for example, will find relevant pages
quickly, but not highlight keywords and position the browser window to them
in search results. |
Why don't we use database
forms instead of long directory lists? This site was
designed for quick reference. It is faster to scroll through a well
organized list than to do multiple database queries to seek information of
interest. Lists also do not make it necessary for a user to correctly
select the right query terms to find what is of interest, or to perhaps make
multiple attempts in different ways to find what is needed.
The other key point is that, as a reference website, the
pages were designed with search engine optimization in mind so that relevant
content would be kept together, and easy for search engines to index
properly. Information in databases generally remains difficult for
search engines to process. Users may not realize that the content they
find through database queries within a site may not even be found through
search engine results, even though some results may appear to be similar.
By contrast, most pages on this site are easily processed by search engines,
with many links to navigate to related content. |
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Add our site search tool to your iGoogle page
