Welcome to the Jenners' Web Site
Introduction
We hope you enjoy our offerings. This site is an exercise in self teaching. It should be considered work in progress, rather than an end in itself. Its purpose, after being an attempt to learn something new, is to give us somewhere to showcase our capabilities, hobbies and interests.
The site is divided into a 'General' section and individual sections for each of us. Hopefully these will maintain a consistent style, and while there may be some overlap in our interests each area should put our personal perspective on a given subject.
Technical Stuff
Browser Compatibility
The site is quite simple employing only HTML 4 and CSS 2. Most browsers should render this fairly faithfully although we have not undertaken rigourous testing.
If you happen to view it and exprience anything you consider to be unusual please let us know the combination of browser (name and version) and operating system using the Contact Us link under the General section of the menu, not forgetting to remove the spam filter.
System Requirements
Every site seems to have a section like this these days. Ours is probably viewable at 800 x 600 but our advice would be to use 1024 x 768 or better. For colour depth as much as possible is always a good idea otherwise the photo sections may suffer.
Development History
It was a not inconsiderable time after we went on-line that we contemplated seriously using our web space for something constructive. During 2004 Andy became involved with the Amateur Radio UK Web Site. Draft Press Releases were prepared and posted to this site. At that time this site did not exist and one of the first steps was to get a basic site operational quickly so that various drafts of the Press Release could be uploaded for review by the other moderators and founder members of the ARUK Forum.
Version 1 - First Attempts
The first incarnation of this site was a complete plagiarization of one prepared by Andys college friend Mark Hirst. With hindsight Marks version of the layout was superior to the plagiarized version that Andy hashed together. Mark has updated his site since this acknowledgement and the graphic below is now considerably out of date. However the link to his site remains valid at this time.
Version 2 - First Home Grown Improvements
As a Christmas project we decided to revamp the site into something more genuinely of our own creation and January 2005 saw the launch of what could honestly be called our first web site. Having grasped the basics of both HTML and CSS, thanks to hacking Marks original source code, Andy came up with what we considered to be a much improved layout. The menu system remained cumbersome however and was not amenable to being treated as a standard element meaning that every page had to be thought out in terms of where it sat in the menu hierarchy. However the setup lasted the best part of 2 years and many new sections were added to the site including the first contribution by a family member other than Andy.
Version 3 - Include Files
Well, the menu structure was approaching breaking point and this was before significant sections for other family members had been introduced. In 2007 the opportunity was taken to address not only the menu issues but also to revamp the site layout and use much more of the CSS structure to control placement.
Version 4 - Current Version
Once again, it is the menu element that persists in detracting from the overall layout. Although the use of 'Include Files' gave a standard menu layout, it seemed to be browser sensitive in the way the indentation was treated and moreover it remained cumbersome extending off the screen in later versions of the design. In this iteration we went for a more simplistic layout putting much of our efforts into the menu system. There have been a number of drop down menu systems put forward on the web, although many of these seem to rely on scripting. It is more or less possible to construct a drop down menu using just HTML and CSS and our version is heavily based on the menu used on our ISPs website
Our ISP
Our ISP is UKFSN.ORG. We continue to use their services because, to paraphrase another commercial campaign, they do exactly what they say on the tin.
They also donate monies raised through ISP activities to Free Software Projects which gives us, and we suspect others, a nice warm feeling as we surf the web and send and receive e-mail.
Up until the end of 2007 we operated a basic dial up account. However, since the beginning of 2008 we have upgraded to one of their Max ADSL packages which has proved to be very reliable. Their support service is very good. They also offer business services and both home and commercial hosting. If you're looking for a new ISP for personal or commercial use it's well worth looking them over. Go on what have you got to lose?