specs.htm: searchlores' sitemap and specifications

~ Specs / Sitemap ~

				Specs

Updated April 2004

[How] [Noads] [Images & swords] [Your specs] [Mirrors]
Sitemap: [Moving around] [Rose]
A REAL "sitemap" for wanderers (wait for upload and gasp in awe)

HOW

My site has been ENTIRELY coded per hand using [ultraedit 32] version 5 (by Ian. D. Mead), a very advanced and versatile text editor, that you will be able to find on the web, which beats hands down every other text editor I have ever used. I know that Mead is continuously updating it and he is now past version "10", but I am against continuous software updates :-)
Version 5.0 works perfectly well and you'll find it (or any other version) either on the web, or, for less than one euro, on many a second hand magazines' cd-roms (old version 5 appeared around the first semester of 1999). Alternatively you may download [here] the even older - but perfectly functional - version 3.10 of this great text editor for windoze.

The advantages of coding per hand are so evident to all conoisseurs that I wont even bother explain you why you should NOT use overbloated "frontpage-similar" applications, which would and will gladly fill your html code with unwanted crap.

NOADS

There is NO ADVERTISEMENT whatsoever on this site, nor will you ever be asked to click on a banner, since I find all form of advertising vulgar and insulting, on the web and elsewhere.
Actually there is a whole [anti-advertisement] section where you'll be able, inter alia to learn how to [remove banners] from the so-called "free" providers. See: I dislike zombies clicking on banners almost more than the idiots that design, publish or (try to :-) impose them: I think that the former deserve the web-inferno they are condemned to live in. For the latter, being impossible - and possibly illegal - to hang them physically to their PC-towers with their own mouse' cables, the only hope is that they will die soon, pancaked by a truck, or something similar.

IMAGES & SWORDS

I know that most good knowledge sites do not use any images at all (there is actually a very good and sound "trend" towards ["almost imageless"] sites... mostly among the very people you should strive to browse to :-) yet I always enjoyed going against currents :-)
Thus I have decided to have heavy slow-loading images nevertheless (only for the main sections of my site), for aesthetic & didactic reasons that would be too long - and pompous - to explain here.
I hope that you'll excuse this small frill of mine. Consider on the other hand that all other essays and hint pages will load quickly.
Since, as you should know, images slow heavily down any form of page-loading, it is probably a good idea to avoid loading them at all, and not only if you are in a hurry or on a slow connection. For this purpose (and for many other good reasons) you would be well advised to use [OPERA] to browse my site.
Actually you would be well advised to use Opera to browse ANY site on this increasingly advertisement-polluted web.
Opera is a marvellous european browser, which is totally customizable, very powerful and small (vis à vis the two horrible american browsersaurii: Iexplorer and Netscape). Moreover it does not conceal any "snooping" code [as opposed to Iexplorerì. More! Opera allows you to SHUT OFF on the fly any kind of image loading (even backgrounds), which is an increasingly necessary option on this terribly commercial inflated web, in order to avoid the banner and advertisement hell I spoke of above.
Consider that for a seeker the browser is prolly his main weapon, your sword, so to speak, the tool you will use to cut deep, trough the commercial pudding noise, in order to find your treasure: the rare jewels of knowledge buried in the depth.

Anyway you may use any browser you like on my sites of course, I simply don't care - nor check - if the site looks "nice" as well for those among you that still do not use Opera. Note that there is now a Linux version of Opera as well.
Note that on the snooping web you would be well advise to connect any browser - ALWAYS - through the good ole [proxomitron] (see Proxomitron and Junkbuster chaining, an important lore and the fundamental Surfing with the Proxomitron :-)
Since getting rid of microsoft explorer -especially if you use windows 98- is far from being easy (on purpose), here you have a link to [http://www.98lite.net/], which will help you on this worthy endeavour. My special page [tutti all'opera!] could also be of some help on your journey towards intelligent browsing.

YOUR SPECS

You are expected to have a monitor resolution of 800*600, which is the current standard. There are no frames on this site, nowhere. Of course there are neither flash nor shockwave craps on my sites.
I assume you are using windoze, because I am fishing in the pond where most fishes are, but the information bulk on my site will of course be useful for GNU/linux and mac users as well. In fact some of the advanced pages will be useful for you only if you use a serious operating system (i.e. GNU/Linux) and not a toy system like Windows.
There is no need for me to advice the poor readers that are still stuck with windoze to try GNU/Linux out: the battle is already over and GNU/Linux has already won :-) In fact there are so many reasons for you to move to GNU/Linux and leave windoze to the drooling slaves that I don't even need to list them, since you'll go to GNU/Linux pretty soon anyway, no matter what I or others could say. It is indeed not necessary to advertise GNU/Linux at all, as you'll understand by yourself when you'll have gathered enough knowledge, here or elsewhere. The move to GNU/Linux is just a pons asinorum (sortof) for any internaut... btw, google, prolly at the moment the best among the "main" search engines, [moved to] GNU/Linux, eh :-)

MOVING AROUND

A "sitemap" for wanderers

The 'philosophy' of searchlores
As you will eventually notice, this site differs inter alia graphically from most sites on the web.
This has been done on purpose. The problem is that most sites have been made with ad hoc applications (golive, fontpage, dreamweaver, you name it) that, apart from filling the html source code with tons of unwanted crap, are terribly dull and the sites created with them are so similar that you could call them 'zombified'. Have a look and you will notice that almost all have for instance their links on the LEFT side of the screen (and/or on a navigation bar on the top): "See how smart: no matter what his resolution might be, he'll see my links!" "The top and left sides in a browser window are prime real estate" and similar "guinea pig" considerations: 'consistence' for lobotomized AOL-surfers with an attention span of three and a half seconds :-)
You'll also notice the attempt to 'hyperconcentrate' all messages deemed relevant for visitors on the front page, thus frequently provoking an awful 'minimal common denominator' effect. Also most sites gladly bend backwards in order to AVOID you having the possibility to leave the premises, with links, mostly 'dull' - at times coded - that will either open inside frames or span a new window, keeping the visitors 'trapped' there, the longer the better.
This site follow a completely different philosophy. It's up to the visitor to study it's workings to take advantage of the information that is provided here. You will also have plenty of opportunities to leave it for intriguing paths to excellent destinations. It could even happen that you wont be able to find some parts of this site that are not 'on prime real estate'. Many visitors may leave for ever. Good riddance, others will come: the web is a Quicksand.

The four main sections
There are only four main sections at searchlores. Note that on each side of the big images, in the main sections there is a forward and/or a backward narrow 'column' image that will allow you to pass to the next -or previous- logical main section.
the basic pages	the advanced pages	the classroom pages	the farewell pages

Minor sections and sidealleys
So called "minor" sections will (try to) go in the depth of a specific branch, which, though deemed useful for your seeking knowledge, you may leave aside without any problem if you don't care about it. Here follow four examples, but, as you will see, there are many more sidealleys in the depth of my iceberg.
Introduction	proxies	reality cracking	anonymity pages
Linked pages and essays
Most pages linked from the four main sections carry at least one small jpg image, some pages, being relevant for more than one section, carry more than one. Clicking on these smaller images you will always land back at least one level higher, no matter how deep inside my maze you will have landed.

As you'll discover perusing my site, there are many more sections. For security reasons some of them like the [PHP lab] are located on a different server while some other will become accessible only once you yourself will have gathered enough searching (and hopefully ethical) skills. Yes, there are indeed many pages on my site... you are not compelled to follow any logical path. You may peruse everything at will, you are welcome. Do not be scared, nor paralysed if you don't understand everything immediately, knowledge is like one of the chill white wines bottled in the old lagoons I come from: you should sip it slowly and knowingly, else it won't do you no good.

SITEMAP

Kinda funny when you can see a complete internet constellation

A REAL "sitemap" for wanderers (wait for upload and gasp in awe)