I've tried to make it easy

If a website is illogically designed and hard to navigate, we do our visitors a disservice. If you are kind enough to grace my site with your time and presence, then I should give you the courtesy of making your visit as pleasant as possible. If I have failed to do that, please let me know.

There are a few things I can tell you that might get you on the fast track toward having the best possible experience here and other sites you visit. (This is for folks who might not be familiar with all the little tips 'n tricks.)

Column widths:

Generally speaking, it is easier to read narrower newspaper-like columns. Many web sites are going to an "elastic" or "hybrid" format. That means you can control the width of some (hybrid) or all (elastic) of the columns by adjusting the width of the window. On this site, only the center column will adjust. The side columns widths are fixed. Play with it 'til you like it.

Links:

I struggled with whether to force offsite links to open in a new window or not. I read that lots of folks would rather make that decision for themselves. So it's now considered "best practice" to let you decide how you want to deal with it. I defer to those who've apparently done the research.

So just for those who don't know, here's a couple of points about navigating to offsite pages via links.

I am familiar with three of the most popular browsers; Internet Explorer, Opera and Firefox which is my favorite. They all will get you where you want to go and have many similar features. Here I'll mention just the "clicking of the link."

Left Click: generally opens the new page in the same window. In some browsers you can use preferences to change that.

Shift click: generally opens linked page in a new window or in the case of Opera a new tab. You can open a new window in Opera by RIGHT clicking the link and choosing open in a new window. Supposedly you can do it with a "mouse gesture" but apparently I'm too clumsy.

Ctrl click: opens a new tab in IE7 and FF. (Not IE6 and prior) This is the method I most often employ unless I want more than one Web page open at the same time.

You will figure out what is easiest for you. This is just to let you know that there are options.

Why "writersbytes"?

When I was looking for a web site name I wanted something about writing and, if possilbe, publishing on a computer. If you've never tried to find a good web site name that isn't already in use, you ought to try it just for fun.

I kept putting names into one of those domain name servers and finally typed in "writersbytes" and seemed on target and most important it was available. Byte is the abbreviation for binary term which is computer geek speak to describe a unit of electronic storage which is capable of handling a single character.

It occurred to me that in a snese a byte could be thought of as the basic unit of writing.

Ever since mankind evolved from using only crude pictures to express and preserve thoughts, ideas, observations, current events and history, we have been stringing multiple single characters (bytes) together in the hope that other people will be able to decipher what we are attemptin to communicate.

Whether on cave wall, the earliest clay tablets, papyrus, animal skins, the finest books or the electronic page; the writer was and is still doing the same thing. We place one character after another in an attempt to preserve our thoughts and share them with other members of the species.

Text Tricks