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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
Contents
General Subjects
Automatic Notification of Changes to this Website
How do I type "special Scandinavian characters" on my Windows computer?

Help and Tips for Using This Site
Using Your Browser's FIND Feature
Controlling Font Sizes In Your Browser
The Shopping Cart & Cookies
Automatic Notification of Changes to this Website Top 
Just send me an email to receive my E-News email philatelic newsletter whenever important changes are made to this website. This is the best way to find out about new price lists and new special offers.
How do I type "special Scandinavian characters" on my Windows computer? Top 
To do this on a computer with the Windows operating system, hold down the ALT key and type a four digit number using the NUMERIC KEYPAD. You must use the NUMERIC KEYPAD, not the number keys at the top of the keyboard. After you type the four digits, stop pressing the ALT key and your desired character should appear.

Common Scandinavian Characters:

Danish, Norwegian, Swedish:

Å = 0197
å = 0229

Ä = 0196
ä = 0228

Æ = 0198
æ = 0230

Ö = 0214
ö = 0246

Ø = 0216
ø = 0248


Icelandic:

Á = 0193
á = 0225

Í = 0205
í = 0237

Ð = 0208
ð = 0240

Ó = 0211
ó = 0243

þ = 0254
Þ = 0222

Ú = 0218
ú = 0250

Ý = 0221
ý = 0253


Other:

É = 0201
é = 0233

ê = 0234

Ü = 0220
ü = 0252

Using Your Browser's FIND Feature Top 
The Find feature of your browser searches within the text of (only) the current page you are viewing. You can "Find" for keywords that interest you. In my "Literature" price list pages, this is particularly useful; for example, a search for "censor" will find those books that include censor markings, etc.

In all browsers with which I have experience, to get the Find dialog box or field, you can either type "CTRL f" (hold down the 'control' key and type the lower case letter 'f'), OR on the browser's main menu, click "Edit" and then "Find...".

When using "Find", select your keywords carefully. Searching for "censorship" will find "censorship", however, it will not find "censor", "censored", etc. Instead, search for the root of the word; in this case "censor". Doing so will find any and all descriptions that include "censor" in the text ("censor", "censored", "censorship", "censoring", etc.).

Most importantly, experiment and explore. Eventually a searching feature will also be implemented for my website.
Controlling Font Sizes In Your Browser Top 
Until all browsers (particularly Microsoft's Internet Explorer) adhere to the industry standards, controlling font sizes in your browser may be a never-ending battle. However, if you are troubled by font sizes that are either too small or too large, the problems may relate to your settings, not necessarily to that of any particular website. There are two basic settings that you can control: font preferences in your browser and your monitor (screen) resolution.

You can control your font preferences in your browser. This will not affect your viewing of all websites, as some sites have "hardcoded" the size they want you to see, even if it is too small to see!

To make temporary changes, in most browsers, on the main menu of the browser, click on View and you will see a Font Size menu item. Adjust as necessary, but write down the original setting information before changing it. In some versions of the programs, these changes will "stick"; in others they will revert to their previous settings when you next restart the browser.

For lasting changes, in some browsers, use the main menu of the browser to go to Edit, Preferences.... Click on [probably different names from one browser to the next, but you get the idea] Appearance, Fonts. There you will see specific settings for Fixed and Variable width fonts. Again, write down the original settings information before changing it.

The other major "font size problem" that people overlook is their monitor's resolution setting. Most monitors are delivered to their new owner with moderate default resolution settings and there they sit, never changed. I have good eyes, thus I use a very high resolution setting. The higher the resolution, the smaller the text will appear on the screen. Thus, more text will thus fit on the screen. On my monitors, because I use a higher resolution, I can see at two to three times as much area as can many users. If you wish to experiment with your monitor resolution you can do do so, usually quite easily. You MUST close all programs. If your computer has not been rebooted/restarted for quite a while, shut it down properly and restart it before proceeding. With no programs running, follow the instructions either for your brand and version of operating system and/or the instructions supplied with the monitor. You can/should also (before you start this process) search Google for "[name of operating system] changing monitor resolution" or something like that. Be sure to print out the instructions before you start the process -- while you are doing the process you should not have any programs running, thus you won't be able to see the instructions unless you have printed them out.

This information may be too detailed or sound intimidating for many users. However, it gives you an idea that some of the aspects of font size and resolution are under your control. Perhaps the next time the "family computer expert" comes visiting, you can ask them to show you these various settings and work through the process with you. If you make notes about what you changed, you can always change it back.

Disclaimer: As with anything that has to do with computers, things can go wrong. Do not attempt anything with which you are not comfortable. One should always have backups of data (every year several clients bemoan their lost data).
The Shopping Cart & Cookies Top 
First of all, if you have any type of problem using my website, please let me know. I am always seeking to improve the site.

The first time you use the shopping cart on a particular computer, your browser may ask you if it may accept the "cookie". It will probably only not ask if you have already set the browser to "accept all" or "deny all" cookies.

If you click on a "Buy It" button, it should put the item into your shopping cart. If you then click on one of the shopping cart picture icons, you can see the contents of your shopping cart. If there is nothing in your shopping cart at that point, then the situation is extremley unusual.

The shopping cart system uses a "cookie" (a silly name) to connect the data in the shopping cart on my server with who you are, i.e. your computer. That "cookie" is recorded as a small plain text file on your computer. This is typical of virtually all simple shopping cart systems. The "cookie" that I use does NOT record any personal information about you -- it does not even know your name.

If you use different computers at home and work, they will have different shopping carts -- the cookie on each computer connects one specific computer to one specific shopping cart. (Thus from a different computer you can not see the contents of a shopping cart created on another computer.)

Public computers (airports, cafes, libraries) are supposed to delete all cookies between users, thus you are usually not able to go back to a shopping cart session on a public computer once you have left that session.

If at any time, on that computer, you have instructed your browser to deny cookies from www.JaySmith.com, you will not be able to shop on my website until you set your browser to allow cookies from www.JaySmith.com.

Because I don't know what browser any individual is using and I don't have access to all browsers for testing, I can't easily give explicit instructions. However...

Open up a browser window and go to http://www.JaySmith.com. I believe that if you look in the lower right corner of the browser window itself (i.e in the border of the window), you may see an icon relating to cookies. If you hover over the icon with your mouse pointer, text may appear which may say if your browser is accepting or rejecting cookies from www.JaySmith.com. If you click the icon you may have the option to change it to accepting cookies from www.JaySmith.com.

If that does not work, try looking for the cookie file itself -- it is possible that something has corrupted that file. Somewhere under your browsers menus, perhaps under Tools or Edit... Preferences, there is a menu item in your browser menu relating to one of Cookies, Cookie Manager, Security Settings, Temporary Internet Files, or something like that. Under IE, I think the cookies are under Security Settings and are called Temporary Internet Files. You should be able to view the list of such files/cookies. Find the one for www.JaySmith.com. If such a file is present, but the shopping cart is not working, then delete the www.JaySmith.com cookie file.

Alternatively, there may be a list of DENIED/DISALLOWED cookies. You do NOT want www.JaySmith.com to be in that list. You DO want it to be in the ALLOWED list.

Once that cookie file has been removed, if you do find and remove it, and/or you instruct your browser to allow cookies from www.JaySmith.com, try shopping on www.JaySmith.com again. When you click on the FIRST "Buy It" button, it should attempt to set a cookie. For the shopping cart to work, you must ALLOW that cookie if it asks you. If the response page says that your browser is not allowing cookies from www.JaySmith.com, you must do whatever you would normally do in your browser to remove www.JaySmith.com from that DENIED/DISALLOWED list and then to allow that cookie.

If you do ever run into problems using my website, please email with full information about the problem, your computer operating system version, and your browser name and version. I will help if I can.

Disclaimer: As with anything that has to do with computers, things can go wrong. Do not attempt anything with which you are not comfortable. One should always have backups of data (every year several clients bemoan their lost data).

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Jay Smith & Associates   P.O. Box 650   Snow Camp, NC 27349-0650   USA
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