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This document is meant to be humorous,
please see the footnotes for useful information.

The document you are viewing is best displayed in a browser. Any browser.¹ But that may not save you. It probably wasn't spell checked², likely contains coding errors³ and may be designed to adhere to a standard that doesn't exist.⁴

Enabling JavaScript may help. Or not.⁵

Enabling cookies may help, likely not.⁶

Flash and other multi-media probably wll not help.⁷

For best results I recommend getting a Pentium I machine⁸, and running Lynx⁹ on it from a console. It won't make the pages any prettier, but it will prohibit all sorts of stuff on all sorts of pages you probably didn't need to see anyway.

For those of you who are determined to have things like pictures and interactive pages, I recommend Firefox¹⁰ since it works in Linux, Mac and Windows and generally does a decent job of presenting web pages. You should probably Add On¹¹ NoScript¹², Adblock Plus¹³.

As long as you're going that route, check out Foxmarks¹⁴ too, because using a GUI system means that you'll almost certainly have to upgrade stuff occasionally and eventually your system will crash. Don't say I didn't warn you.¹⁵

¹ I really do try to design my web pages to be compatible with all the common browsers and not rely on scripting or other non-html technology for content. Internet Explorer from version 3 through 8 should be fine. Firefox or even it's predecessors should be fine. Netscape, Chrome, Opera, Safari and other browsers will probably work too. If you've got something exotic, then maybe... well just maybe it will still work. ⇑

² I do most editing in Firefox with the included spell checker these days, but it doesn't catch every error and there are a few pages that may not have been built with it. ⇑

³ Coding errors should be minimal, but they do happen. I hope there are exactly zero, but really I'm just not aware of any right at this moment. ⇑

⁴ HTML has various standards, but this is probably XHTML which is sort of HTML and sort of XML but not really either and not really all that consistent so I might argue that it isn't really a standard at all. ⇑

⁵ JavaScript has come a long way towards being reliable since the early days, but it still may not work for everyone. I try not to rely on it for anything important. ⇑

⁶ Cookies, little bits of data that are remembered by your computer to allow a web page to interact with the browser, are enabled by default for most people and in most browsers, but some people and some tools may turn them off. I try not to rely on them for anything important. ⇑

⁷ Flash is what youtube uses to show videos. Most people and most browsers allow flash content, but not everybody does and not every system is able to use it. I typically avoid using it. ⇑

⁸ If you get a more modern machine, you can do a lot more with your computer. Being able to do things with your machine can be fun, but also distracting. ⇑

⁹ Lynx is a text only browser that will display web pages and is reliable if ugly ⇑

¹⁰ Firefox is one of the best browsers available and widely popular for many good reasons. You could also use Opera which is a free, fast and powerful browser with a sterling reputation. You could also use Chrome which is Google's baby and well received. Apple users are likely to use Safari, but there is not much I can say positive from my own experience. Internet Explorer is still the huge leader in numbers, and I am okay with IE7 and hopeful for IE8. Earlier versions really were somewhat lacking, so I can't recommend them. Konqueror is decent enough but pretty much only used by Linux users who tend to be clued in already that they have a lot of options. ⇑

¹¹ Firefox allows various mini-programs to be added to give you more of the things you do use and want without forcing you to have a bunch of stuff you don't. ⇑

¹² This will assume websites cannot be trusted and refuse to let them do anything that might break your system unless you explicitly give them permission. It tends to speed up many pages tremendously ⇑

¹³ Advertising has it's place, but until people figure out how to do it without interrupting your access to what you are after, this is a life saver. You should consider turning it off for sites that you want to support so that they can generate advertisement revenue. ⇑

¹⁴ Foxmarks will synchronize your local bookmarks with an account online. This makes it easy to move from machine to machine and keep all your bookmarks at hand, and if you have to start over, it will mean you still have your bookmarks available. ⇑

¹⁵ This page was really full of good advise disguised as cynicism. I particularly like the bit about putting all the friendly advice in footnotes since that is where you usually find all sorts of nasty surprises instead. ⇑