Display Resolution refers to the number of pixels of data displayed on your monitor. Pixels are for our purposes the smallest units of information on the display; think of them as the grains, or as dots. A display resolution of 800x600, for instance, means that your display will consist of a grid of 800 dots across the top and 600 dots along the sides. Since items displayed on your monitor are defined in terms of pixels, the percentage of your display’s space that they occupy depends on your display resolution (and is unaffected by your monitor’s overall size). To continue with the same example, a 100x100 pixel object would occupy 1/8 of your display’s horizontal space and 1/6 of its vertical space.

Likewise, the photos in this site are sized in terms of pixels. If a photo’s pixel dimensions are greater than the area in which it is put (which is much smaller than the total display space because of extraneous matter such as frames, margins, borders, toolbars, etc.), parts of it will be lopped off, and you’ll have to scroll in one or more directions to see all of it. You’ll enjoy this site more if you don't have to do that.      Return

Frames are partitions within your browser’s display area. On this site, they are bordered and have different background colors. Their purpose is partly to keep different types of information and controls separated, but their main use is to allow scrolling around in one frame while not affecting the contents of other frames. For instance, you can scroll up and down in the list frame on the right while leaving the contents of the main (picture) frame and upper right menu frame fixed. You can request one photo after another from the list without having to press the "back" button to get back to the list, because it’s always there.

You should be able to resize the frames on this site by positioning the cursor on the border that you wish to move (it should change into a bi-directional arrow when it’s close enough to a border) and dragging it left, right, up or down until you get the sizes you want. It would be worth dragging the vertical border to the right, for instance, if you keep having to scroll horizontally to see the left and right sides of the photos. Having to scroll around all the time to see the whole picture is annoying.

If you change your mind about resizing frames, or if any other problems crop up on the display (missing items, something doesn’t work, etc.) using your browser’s Refresh or Reload button can often fix it. This causes a new update of the page and should restore the original frame sizes and perhaps other default settings.      Return

Click the button to "select" the address (URL) of the particular photo page being displayed (this will also cause the photo page to expand across your browser’s entire display area). You can then bookmark that page or mail that page to a friend, etc. If you don’t use the URL button, the active page (from the viewpoint of the browser) is the home page, which may or may not be exactly what you want to bookmark or mail. Afterwards, use your browser’s "Back" button to return to where you were, or the button to re-establish the framed display.      Return

Changing text size and/or font is allowed by most browsers. In Explorer 4.0+, click on the View pulldown menu and select "Fonts" or "Text size" for a list of options. In Netscape 4.6+, click on the View pulldown menu and select "Increase Font" or "Decrease Font". If you’re using a different browser, hunt around for a similar-sounding option. Netscape has the advantage of only changing the text size in the frame you’ve "selected", so for example, if you only want to increase the text size in the species list on the right, click somewhere in that frame and then do the size change.

Note that your change may cause some text to wrap differently and appear less orderly (this site is somewhat optimized for "Medium" font), but it’s probably more important that you can read it comfortably. If you do change font/text size, realize that in some browsers it will apply to all websites you subsequently visit, not just this one. Of course, you can change it again any time you want.      Return

Taxonomic order is a sequencing based primarily on evolutionary relationships among families and species. It is most often used by ornithologists, and also with increasing frequency by birders. To some, this ordering is so familiar that it’s easier to use than alphabetic ordering. But if you aren’t familiar with taxonomic ordering, you’d probably be better off switching to alphabetic ordering (the button is in the upper right frame).      Return

Download times: The size of the photos on this site average about 15K (kilobytes) each. With a 56Kbs (kilobits/second) modem connection, loadtime per photo should average about 2-3 seconds. But there are other factors generally beyond anyone’s immediate control which can slow this down.      Return