 Quick jumps to items on this Help page: Start by reading "Introduction: what are these pages?". Then scroll down to the bottom, and click on "Next in blog" to read some more. If you leave and come back, the Blog index will generally be your starting point. Scroll down past the entries you've already read, and click on the next entry. If you remember the number of the last entry you read, it may be faster to use the Numeric index. Another way to read the blog, if you want to read all the entries on a particular topic of interest, is to use the Keyword list, which can be reached via a link at the bottom of any index or help page. A blog entry may have one or more "keywords", which identify certain common themes in my writing. These are written in capital letters, and preceeded by an asterisk, e.g. *TECHNOLOGY. If you find you want to peruse all the stories with a particular keyword, go to the Keyword list, and click on the desired keyword. This will take you to the first entry (in blog order) tagged with that keyword. Then, at the bottom of that entry, click on the same keyword. This will take you to the next entry tagged with that keyword. Continue in this manner until you get to a screen telling you there are no more. Be sure to always click on the same keyword each time, not a different one. Another way to find all the stories with a particular keyword is to search any of the indexes for the desired keyword. The preceeding asterisk makes it easy to avoid accidental hits - that is, search for *TECHNOLOGY, and not just TECHNOLOGY. Searching in an index lets you see a brief description of the entry. Most browsers will open up a search window if you type <Ctrl-F> (the "F" is for "Find"). A superscript note such as Note 1 is a reference to a footnote, which is way down at the bottom of the page. It is a link, so you can click on it, and you'll be taken down to the footnote. After reading it, if you click on the link [return to text], you'll be brought back to approximately the position of the footnote reference. Footnotes are used for various purposes. Sometimes they are just attributions, or translations, or very brief additions to the text. But they also sometimes contain additional stories which are just a bit outside the main thrust of the text. I think it's often better to ignore the footnotes on a first reading, and then come back and look at them later. Hint: if you ignore the footnotes on the first reading, when you get down to the bottom of the text, you can scroll to the bottom of the first footnote, Note 1, and click on [return to text]. That will take you back to the position of the first footnote reference in the text, making it very easy to find. Taking advantage of hypertext, a blog entry may include links to a related blog entry. Here's a good way to follow these without losing your place. Instead of left–clicking on the link, right–click on it. In the small menu that opens up, left–click on "Open in new tab" or "Open in new window". Then, when you're done reading the linked-to entry, you can just close the new tab (or window), and you'll be back where you left off. The blog home page is the gateway to the blog, and contains notes on new blog entries. This is the only page that is really technically a "blog" (a "Web log"), because it is ordered with the most recent entries first, and chronicles ongoing events (the addition of new entries). But from there, you should generally go to the Blog index to continue reading from where you last left off. Write me to request a weekly e–mail notification of new entries (typically every Thursday evening). Your e-mail address will be used for no other purpose, and will not be given to anyone. That also means that the notifications are sent "blind", so that your e-mail address is not exposed to anyone else on the list. Other information can be found on the following pages: Enjoy! Larry   Note 1: Sample footnote. To return to the reference, click here → [return to text]  |