Using the QED website
Yes, it's just a website, almost like any other. We make use of a hosting service, because we aren't big enough to justify the expense of dedicated servers and the like. It means that there are one or two little restrictions on what we can do, but by and large, these only affect us as we create content; you as readers can consume the content as normal.
But just as any set of books will have its own little specialities, we too have conventions for the website. In the text of this page and in the pages linked below, we describe the way we operate.
- Screen and text sizes — making best use of our display real estate
- Browser choice — each browser product behaves slightly differently: read our observations which may influence your choice while reading our site
- Internal and external links — our ground-rules for window management
- Explanatory tool-tips — help where you need it within our pages, but without needing a fresh link
- The meaning of dates — what the two main timestamps tell you about our content
- Printing pages from the QED website — conventions which should make a printed version of our information (if you really must commit it to dead-tree format) more logical for that medium
On a more general note, we are committed to preserving a balance between richness and simplicity on our website. We frown on egregious gimmicks (so beloved of other sites, even those in our own subject area) such as non-discretionary audio, video, flashing and slideshows: their novelty value is very short-lived, and some may be medically dangerous for some viewers. In any case, they are just a waste of bandwidth.
