Finding Specific Topics on This Site
     The Site Search link in the header of every page on this site opens a customized search window which allows you to search the entire Web, or only the contents of this site. As with any Web search, pages which have been added or revised since the site was last 'crawled' may not be accurately indexed. You may also find it useful to install the cseligman toolbar, which provides links to every page on the site.

Known Browser Issues
(1) Greek Letter / Similar Font Errors (SERIOUS FIREFOX PROBLEM):
     Special characters (such as the Greek letters used to designate stars' "Bayer designations") are displayed using the supposedly web-safe (that is, factory-installed on virtually all computers, and properly displayed by almost all browsers) fonts, Symbol or Wingdings. However, I very recently discovered that Firefox does not recognize the Symbol font used for Greek letters, and only Internet Explorer supports Wingdings. Firefox replaces Symbol and Wingdings characters with non-standard characters which make little or no sense. Safari and Chrome support Symbol, but ignore Wingdings characters, replacing them with a blank space. This means that I have to search through the 800+ pages on this site, and replace all Symbol and Wingdings characters with "standard" characters. It will take some time to do this, so if possible, this site should be viewed with Internet Explorer, and if not, by some browser other than Firefox, until this note has been removed.

(1a) Non-Standard Character Problem (PRIMARILY USER-CONTROLLED BROWSER PROBLEM):
     Some "standard" font characters do not seem to display properly (particularly with Firefox), because the default character setting for the browser does not allow their display. The result is strange-looking characters inserted in various places, such as in non-English names/words with accented letters. I am trying to resolve this by inserting a character-type tag on every page of my site, but if your browser is set up to ignore the character-type specified by the webpage you're viewing, you'll still see strange characters. To fix this problem, check the default font settings for your browser. You should be able to find a check-box which says something like "Allow pages to choose their own fonts", and/or a drop-down menu which says something like "Default Character Encoding". For the latter, try setting the default to Western (ISO-8859-1). That should take care of the problem.

(2) RSS Feeds May Not Display Properly (IRRITATING PROBLEM, BUT APPARENTLY FIXED):
     The RSS feed page linked from the banner above has instructions for working around this. The solution is more than a bit of a kludge, but at least it seems to work (if it doesn't work for you, please let me know).

(3) Text Size Adjustments (MIDDLING PROBLEM, BUT FIXABLE):
     This web site is best viewed with Internet Explorer (or Netscape running like Internet Explorer) using View / Text Size / Medium (by "best viewed" I mean that the site's formatting is optimized for it; since Internet Explorer is one of the buggiest browsers ever created, I'm not sure it's the best one for viewing any site). For Firefox (or Netscape running like Firefox), using View / Text Size / Normal works reasonably well. Google Chrome and Safari's default text size seems larger than other browsers', so although they display most pages correctly, the text size setting may have to be adjusted to properly view some pages. If you have problems with your eyesight and need larger text, I do not recommend changing the text size, as that will cause many pages to display and print incorrectly. Instead, use your browser's "Zoom" setting to make the entire page larger, not just the text.

(4) Flashing Star Problems (IRRITATING, BUT NOT CRITICAL):
     Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari can't "see" links which lie underneath the flashing stars on the home and a few other pages; to fix this problem, widen the window, so the stars lie outside the text box. Also, the Flash routine which creates the stars can sabotage some browser print routines, so pages with the flashing stars cannot be printed out for later study; if you have this problem, check the print settings for your browser, and disable printing out background colors and images.

(5) Paragraph Problems (IRRITATING, BUT NOT CRITICAL):
     There is no standard web-page code for indenting the start of a paragraph, so various techniques (such as invisible images or blank spaces) have to be used to produce "normal" looking text. I have mastered solutions to this problem for Internet Explorer, and the paragraph indentations on any given page viewed with that browser should be identical (barring inadvertent errors). However, if you are using any other browser, the indentations on this page are probably half again to twice as much for some paragraphs as for others. This slightly spoils the look of the page, but does not make it harder to read, so I have decided not to waste any more time trying to address the problem (I may change my mind if the different browsers ever adopt a uniform approach to this problem; I just don't expect that to ever occur).


Printing Problems (Right margins cut off)
     If printing a page (or using the Print Preview function) cuts off the right side of a page, try the suggestions below:
     For Internet Explorer (or Netscape running like Internet Explorer), use the Page Setup tab to set the left and right margins as close to zero as the browser will allow, or (on some versions of IE) choose Shrink To Fit on the Print Preview page.
     For Firefox (or Netscape running like Firefox), select File / Print Preview / Scale / Shrink To Fit.
     For some tables, browser adjustments may not be adequate to provide proper printed output. For such pages, I have provided web-based and PDF versions; the web-based version may be used for online viewing, but the PDF version should be used for printing. Your computer should include a PDF reader, but if it does not, you can get a free download of Adobe Reader at the Adobe site. (There are also some PDF files available through my toolbar, which are excerpts from my novels or complete short stories; but they are not part of the website, and are of interest only to my fans.)