COMMENTS. We welcome your comments and suggestions on our site. Please direct them to the Webmaster, e-mail: webmaster@birzeit.edu
BROWSERS. We would recommend a Netscape Browser to take advantage of the Netscape extensions our HTML authors have used. Maximise the screen to get the most of your browser. Netscape is available free from http://home.netscape.com . As of mid-1997, we are making our pages Microsoft Internet Explorer-friendly. Explorer is also available free from http://www.microsoft.com.
OTHER LANGUAGE WEBPAGES. Eventually we will have an Arabic language Website, but this is some way off as staffing explorations, testing of software and HTML solutions has only just begun. Seeing as most of the Web-connected world is in English-speaking countries, this has not been a major focus but we will be addressing it comprehensively in the future. If any company wants to sponsor us with good Arabic HTML authoring programmes and browsers, and a webmaster, sponsor away. Birzeit University, with the most advanced LAN in Palestine, serves as a model for other Palestinian institutions. Our initial French and German websites are ready. Look out for the Brief Information section to appear in Dutch soon!
PROBLEMS WITH PICTURES? Get a good video card (if you're connecting through Windows) to view *.gif and *.jpg files properly, otherwise they will look like impressionist paintings and the formatting of text and images may be skewed. It is worth the effort and cost in the end. Alternatively, experiment with your video drivers to make sure that you have configured the right one. You are looking for SuperVGA as an IBM user. Mac users had this problem sorted out for them by Apple a long time ago.
GRAPHICS ON THE WEBSITE. Our graphics have been mostly scanned on at 75 dpi and we have tried to keep "Load-with-the-page" images below 25K to speed access for those of you with a slow Internet connection. Most are far smaller. Higher-resolution (100 dpi) graphics have only been included in some pages (e.g. "A Personal Diary" in the Palestine Archive) as a second load option for Netscape although other browsers may just load the hi-res nightmare. We're open to correction. Otherwise, hi-res graphics will be included as an option only, such as in the Birzeit Photo Archive. We are now trying to offer ALT text inside all our image tags to facilitate Web browsing for partially-sighted and blind people, thanks to a suggestion from Sue King from Britain's Royal National Institute for the Blind.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION. We are constantly under construction pretty much everywhere, so take it as read, although most places have good initial information. We deliberately delayed connecting our website to the Internet for six months until it had reached a certain standard precisely to avoid users of the Information Highway constantly having to slow down for road works!