FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
www.USNA63.org


Subject:         Ask more Questions -


Audio

Q.  I'm able to get and hear some audio but it seems to come in bursts.  I get a few bars, silence, then a few more.  If  I click on the same link later, it works fine ... what's wrong?

A.  First let's recognize that audio clips vary from browser to browser and plugin to plugin.  What you describe is called "chunky" audio.  It means that it started to play before it had all arrived from the Internet and your player had played all it had and had to wait for more.  The reason it worked OK later was because your browser saves things you ask for in some temporary storage called cache memory.  Since the clip was in your cache it didn't have to wait for Internet delivery, you heard it all from beginning to end because it played from the cache.
 

Q.  I click on a basic audio clip and it takes _forever_ to start, then plays quite nicely.

A.  Unlike Real Audio, basic audio has to collect the entire clip from the Internet before it can play it.  Some audio files are quite large and it can take a minute or more for them to be delivered.  We have tried to keep all files on the site as compact as possible, but sometimes you just have to wait.



Error Messages

Q.  Sometimes I click on something I have seen before but I get a grey screen that says something like "document not found on this server".  Is our web site broken or did I do something wrong?

A.  Your web browser "remembers" a lot about where you have been and what you have seen.  This "memory" is called a cache.  Sometimes the web site has relocated material but your cache has the old location.  Requesting the old location will produce the grey screen error message you describe.  You can recover from it by clicking your browser's Back button, then click Reload/Refresh and click the link again.  If you get the same error report, please report it to our site webmaster@usna63.org.
 

Q.  Why does my screen sometimes show a little box with a black dot border and in the upper left corner a square with its lower right corner torn up?

A.  That's a missing image, similar to the question about "document not found on this server.  It means that your browser asked for an image that the web server was unable to locate.  The easiest way to recover from this is to click the browser Back button, then Reload/Refresh and try again.  If you get the same result, please report it to our site webmaster@usna63.org.



Site Navigation

Q.  Why am I sometimes told to click the Back button and other times have icons and links to use?

A.  Sometimes your web server does not know how you arrived at a spot on the site.  Your browser always knows.  When the server can't be sure where you came from, it will suggest clicking the Back button.  When it's sure or it doesn't matter, it will offer navigation aids.
 



Company Webmasters

Q.  I was thinking of applying to be a company webmaster, but I am barely e-mail capable, and certainly have no programming skills - is this a requirement?

A.  Absolutely not!  All we want from our Company Webmasters is the willingness to exchange information with your own Companymates, and provide it to the site.  If your Company wants some additional info or whatever on the default company page already set up under your company guidon, just send a note to the Hostmaster or Webmaster, and we'll do it!



Company Information

Q.  How do I access Company Information, e.g., 5th Co. info?

A.  There are a couple of ways to access Company Information; we'll demonstrate with 5th Co:

Method 1]:    Go to the Companies page:

 http://www.USNA63.org/classmates/companies/

and click on the 5th Co. guidon;  that will take you to the 5th Co. home page, and from there you can click on the 5th Co. roster, which will bring up the [miniature] Lucky Bag photos of all your companymates, with their home states and zip codes.  If you click on any photo, it will take you to that person's Lucky Bag page, and if they have current info, you'll see right on the page, 'View Current Info'.

Method 2]  You can send an e-mail to [Craig Thrasher, the 5th] Co. Webmaster, at:

 Wm05@wm.USNA63.org

The Company Webmaster can send out a message to all [5th] Co. folks with e-mail, and by that means you can contact all your companymates at once.

Note:  By USNA63.org site and Class policy, we can only post personal info that any classmate has authorized by providing in their current bios, e.g., by clicking on the photo on their Lucky Bag page, and filling out the resulting form.  However, Company Webmasters may post your e-mail address under a Companymate Locator Map, for example, so if you don't want it posted, you may need to so inform your CWM.



Q.   Once before I retrieved Lucky Bag sections by company, Battalion and by state. I tried to search by state today in the Electronic Search part and got nowhere. Any ideas? I'd like to be able to print out all the classmates in any particular state.

A.  We have two classmate search engines.  The 'elder' version is the Electronic Lucky Bag at

        http://www.USNA63.org/classmates/lucky_bag/

This 'elder' search engine does not have a search-by-state capability. What we have since developed, and what you want to use, is our Dynamic Classmate Roster at

        http://www.USNA63.org/classmates/roster/

which has both a 'by state' search capability and a zip code search capability.



Q.  How do I provide some current contact information on myself?

A.  By clicking on your photo on your Lucky Bag page, and filling out the resulting form.  If you have already done this once, the form won't re-appear for editing; just e-mail your updated informtion in to webmaster@usna63.org


Have a question that wasn't answered?  Just submit it here to the site Webmaster@USNA63.org.



This FAQs page updated:
  25 June 2000
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