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WORK ZONE
This site is undergoing some structural reconstruction. You may find different pages have different style menus. The old, original style had fixed font floating JavaScript menus. The middle style had CSS accessible floating style JavaScript menus. The new style has fully CSS styled and floating menus, no JavaScript required. The gotchas: The two JavaScript versions have a full top screen backup menu system for when JavaScript is off. The new CSS version only has a main menu in the header and a full menu in the footer when CSS is not supported. More work will be done as time permits. Thanks for your patience and, please, let me know if you find anything broken---in any broswer other than IE7 (Contact Us).
Home Subsection Home Page
Surprise! This is a "second" HOME page for this site. It's really the "home" page for the home subsection of the web site. Why is this page here? It's here to provide a consistent interface and page access for people who do not have Javascript support on their computers. They do not see the floating menu bar but instead see a top-of-the-page static text link menu bar that is normally hidden from people with Javascript support. Is it necessary? Of course not but I don't wish to limit the accessability of this site until I better understand how the users are equipped. My web host's site statistics system will provide that information.
If, in a year or so, it seems that better than 99% (or some reasonably high percent) of users have Javascript support I expect the hidden menus and the supporting page organization for them will go away. (HINT: to people who refuse to keep their browsers relatively up to date, get on the bandwagon, get a more current computer system, do what it takes or you WILL be left behind. While most sites still support earlier browsers there are a few today that only work in CSS 2 mode with Javascript support---the number of sites that will only support such browsers in the future will rapidly increase over the next 5 years and this site will likely be among them.)
You should also be aware that this site is optimized for a 600 by 800 pixel screen. Many pages will still be useable on smaller screens but some may be tedious to use and awkward looking. With the low cost of higher resolution screens these days it rarely makes sense for anyone serious about succeeding at inventing to use anything less than 600 by 800. Your competitors will be and their productivity will likely be two or more times yours.
You will quickly discover that this site has a strong bias to present a lot of text. That is how it achieves it's informative and educational purpose. The strongest link to your brain is through your eyes. And by far the most efficient method of loading information to your brain via your eyes is through text. It is also practical for text-to-speech systems to present the same information aurally. If you truly know of a better way to convey information to the most people more efficiently or cost-effectively I'd be delighted to hear (or read) about it.
If your problem with text is simply that you don't want to make the effort to spend time reading, you want some easier way, such as just asking questions, then please visit the Questions page.
Future Developments
One of the things I would like to get operational is a true multi-level floating bar menu but that takes time. Either time to locate an already written program that will handle a myriad of browsers with and without Javascript or time to write one myself. If you know of such a Javascript program don't hesitate to let me know (but if you don't understand programing and just find a multi-level menu that looks neat you probably shouldn't let me know about it).
More pages like the main page are also planned. One that concentrates on various manufacturing processes/materials will probably be the first one but I won't promise it in any particular time frame. See the Suggestion Box page if you would like to contribute.