Information Box Help
The box at the right side of the home page provides you
with information regarding your system. If you see all green, you should be fine.
If anything is yellow or red, check below for more information.
Statistics are as of October 2009.
Operating System
OS refers to your operating system, the part of your
computer (or other device) that makes it run and actually have a use.
Color Codes
If
the operating system appears as green, it is considered a supported operating
system, one which has been tested to work well with the website. If it appears
yellow, then it is either outdated or cannot be detected. This does not mean the site will
not work; instead, it simply means that there may be slight issues regarding
your system or that your system could not be detected. If it appears red, your
operating system is incompatible with the website; while it might generally
display okay, there are some significant issues. Yellow and red also indicate
that an upgrade is recommended.
Recommendations
Any PC
running Windows XP or newer or any version of Mac OS X should work fine. As for
Linux, because there are many different distributions that get updated often,
most popular releases in the last few years work best.
Statistics
97% of visitors are using a compatible operating system. Nearly 3% use a
fairly-compatible operating system. <1% use an incompatible operating system
(mostly mobiles).
Web Browser
The
browser is the piece of software actually used to view websites on and off the
Internet. Some browsers also have additional functionality, such as aggregators,
media players, and analyzers.
Color Codes
If the browser appears as green, then you
are running an updated, secure, and compatible browser. The site should work
well on it. If it appears yellow, then an update is highly recommended (or the
browser could not be detected). If an update is not available for your operating
system on that browser, a different browser or a newer system is recommended.
Some minor issues may occur on the website. If it appears red, then your browser
likely doesn't work with very much of anything and may be highly problematic on
this website.
Recommendations
Very few display problems occur
on these browsers: Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox 2+, Opera 9+, Safari 3+, Chrome
(any version), and Netscape 8+. IE6 shows boxes overlapping and large gaps in
pages (along with its terrible transparency), while Firefox 1.5 has some
graphical flaws. Older browsers may have serious issues. Other browsers may or
may not work and have not been tested extensively. Cell phone browsers tend to
not work well, but may still bring usable results; iPhone and BlackBerry work
best.
Statistics
90% of visitors are using a compatible
browser. 9% use a browser with some incompatibilities. 1% use a browser with
major incompatibilities.
Screen Resolution
The screen resolution is the exact size of
your screen in pixels, be it a monitor, a television, a projector, or a mobile
display. Pixels are the individual dots that make up the picture that you see.
Color Codes
If the screen resolution appears green, then your
screen is at least 1024 pixels wide, which is the current standard for
displays. The website should work fine with your display. However, if your
screen's width is extremely large (generally, greater than 1600), there may be
some text issues, where reading may be difficult due to long lines. If it
appears yellow, then your screen is at least 800 pixels wide (or could not be
detected), which is the legacy standard, now being adopted by non-computer
devices such as home consoles. Although the site is designed to retain
compatibility with displays of at least 800x600, there may still be some issues
regarding width. If it appears red, your display is incompatible with the site
and is less than 800 pixels wide. This is common with mobile phones and other
small-screened devices. A larger display is highly recommended as some objects
on the site may roll off the edge unless your device supports scaling.
Recommendations
A screen with size between 800x600 and 1600x1200
works best. Screens at least 1024 pixels wide can enjoy several pages with
slightly larger images (as scripting scales them down for screens under that
size). Screens smaller than 800 pixels wide will face overlap in text and boxes
being shifted around unless your browser supports zooming. Screens larger than
1600 pixels wide will face difficult to follow paragraphs due to lines being
very wide.
Statistics
Statistics for screen resolution are
not available.