How to Use my Site:

This paper needs to get an update!

First of all, I try my very best in order to get all of my visitors satisfied. However, there are some technical restrictions that I cannot escape. Hence, I have to find compromises. Finally, my Internet knowledge is still limited and my English as well. Hence, don't hesitate to give me any suggestions.

Disclaimer (Haftungsausschluss):
I cannot take any responsibility about the contents of external pages outside of my site, even when they are reachable directly or indirectly via links of my pages. That means, it is in your own response to use them or not. However, I will do my very best in order to supply good and useful links only.

Navigation & Links:
The main navigation is from the index, left hand side, which you can always use (whenever visible). However, there are follow-up links in the main screen area too. Please, have also a look where the mouse cursor changes its form above icons, photos, etc. respective watch the browser's status bar. Additionally, a hint text is often displayed when the mouse focus is on an icon or picture. But, I don't want to write "click here ..." everywhere. I'm going to avoid such things. Simply, use look and feel!

Except, your are in the middle of a tour, you can always go directly back to my start page as you like when you click at the home icon (the "H" or the blue house).

Please notice, the tour pages have an own navigation mechanism as I don't want to waste the image pages by temporarily unneeded frames. Hence, there is a separate tour-internal navigation instruction. See the tour portal pages for more details!
But, you won't need more than two mouse clicks in order to go back to my start page, even in the middle of a tour.

Browser:
I check my pages with Mozilla 1.x, Internet Explorer on Windows 2000 and Linux as well and at different screen resolutions. Mozilla 1.5 has become my preferred browser thereby.
Please, do not use such old browsers like the 4.x versions of Netscape or of the Internet Explorer.

Screen Resolution:
Because there are a lot of pictures inside my pages, I recommend any resolution that fits best to your screen. The rule is that the screen width devided by the screen height should be equal to the horizontal resolution devided by the vertical resolution. - For instance:
Recently, most of the computer tube screens have 4:3 format. Therefore, 1024 * 768, 1152 * 864, 1280 * 960, 1536 * 1152 and 1600 * 1200 resolution settings should be fine then. But, don't use 1280 * 1024 (equals 5:4) there as it introduces a wrong width-to-height ratio then!
However, a lot of the larger flat screens use a 5:4 format with 1280 * 1024 resolution. They are also okay for my images.

The resolution of 1024 * 768 is minimal requirement in order to avoid the horizontal scroll bar in all of my pages and in order to be able to see my photos in one piece.

Following some rules (see below), my site is optimized for 1024 * 768 resolution (or above). This is very important to the tour pages.
Furthermore, I recommend to maximize the browser window and to auto-hide the Windows task bar as well.

Mozilla 1.x / Netscape 7.x: In order to get the best tour page layout, i.e. frameless without any need for scrolling, you should make the following settings:
First, hide the navigation bar. The command is: View -> Show/Hide -> Navigation Toolbar (Ansicht -> Zeigen/Verbergen -> Navigationsleiste)
Then, hide the side bar. Command: View -> Show/Hide -> Sidebar (Ansicht -> Zeigen/Verbergen -> Seitenleiste). Or simply, press the F9 key.
Finally, choose the View -> Fullscreen (Ansicht -> Vollbild) command. Or simply, press the F11 key. All the frames will disappear now.

Internet Explorer: In order to get the best tour page layout, i.e. frameless without any need for scrolling, you should make the following settings:
First, choose the View -> Fullscreen (Ansicht -> Vollbild) IE command. Or simply, press the F11 key. All the IE frames will disappear then.
Second, move the mouse to the remaining IE bar and select the Auto-Hide command (Automatisch im Hintergrund) using the right mouse button.

Color Setting:
You should set "True Color" in your desktop settings in order to enjoy my photographies, i.e., 32768 colors only are absolutely insufficient for this purpose.

Contrast & Brightness :
You should increase the screen contrast control, which defines the white point, to 100 %. At the other end, the brightness control defines the black point of your screen. It should be opened enough. But, take care that black areas are still displayed as black and not as gray!
My images are optimized for Windows gamma settings.

Security:
In order to get the best out of my site, you should switch on JavaScript. Although most of the pages are running without it too, I need it for certain effects and for optimization purposes as well, i.e., the preload of images, mouse-over effects, etc. Furthermore, the tour portals are setting a cookie in order to remember your preferred tour display options.

Download Speed:
I recommend to use a high speed Internet access. I try to keep the file sizes as small as possible. - But, it's always a reasonable compromise between quality and speed.
Please, take care that your browser cache settings are not too small as I'm trying to speed up a lot of my pages by preloading images.

Language:
During the set-up of my pages, I made the decision to choose English as the primary language. This is because many of my friends are fit enough in English, but some have problems with the German language.
However, for some of my pages, you will have the choice between English and German language in future. It's just the question of how much time I can spend in order to supply both.
It's a pity, but I'm not yet good enough in English. Please, correct me where you have found any mistakes.

Feedback:
Don't hesitate to inform me when you find any design mistakes, language mistakes or even broken links please. I'll see then what I can do in order to improve.

Thanks a lot.

Bonstetten, 15.02.2004