In order to explain why the symbols on our Home Page are important to us we have to delve into the history of the internet a little.

In the begining, which was not so very long ago, the internet was the exclusive domain of academics and the military in the United States. The militery had put up the money for DARPA net so that they could have a secure communications system. Much of the research was being done at Universities throughout the country. In those early days all of the development was based on the "trusted community" model. There were only a few computers, everbody knew who had access to them, and they all trusted one another (This fact is the root of many of our current problems with viruses and other malaises). Although the machines were directly linked to one another, the small number of machines and the variety of systems and communications methods meant that few people had access or the skills to use the system.

Then in 1987 the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed a cross platform application called telnet and communication became much easier. More and more universities acquired computers and joined the club and big business was knocking at the door too. It was still an exclusive venture.

Then in October of 1990 while working at CERN Tim Berners-Lee started writing the project which would become the World Wide Web and the rate of change escalated. The browser he created was named Nexus.

1992 - NCSA introduces Mosaic
1994 - Netscapes arrives
1995 - Microsoft licences Mosaic and brings out Internet Explorer

Browser Wars

The browser wars were on. During the period from 1996 to mid 2001 the competition between Netscape and Microsoft pretty much eclipsed all of the other browsers. Each added bells and whistles at a furious pace with little regard for the standards being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Devotees of each camp started creating bigger and better web sites that could only be seen with one of the browsers (and only the latest version). Clients world wide ended up paying three and four times the price for web sites if they wanted bleeding edge sites because developers had to build three to five versions if they wanted to get the audience.

A whole chunk of the web was devoted to telling developers what worked in which browser on which platform (computer and operating system).

It is getting better. Netscape 6.1, Opera 5.2 (and 6.0 beta), and Internet Explorer 6.0 are much better when it comes to implementing the W3C standards. The next versions will doubtless be better still since the makers seem to have gotten the message.

I can hear you saying "I should care?"

Yes, you should. Those people who were paying three and four times are paying again as the sites have to be patched again and again to make them work with each new browser version (and even minor updates). You could be one of them.

We care because we don't want a client coming back to us unhappy because the latest and greatest browser she just downloaded, or the old Mac that her son's buddy has scrambles her web site.

We think it's important that everyone (including those with physical impairments) can see what she paid for. We think it's important that they continue to be able to see it even as browsers come and go.

The only way that we can be reasonably certain of that happening is to build web sites that carefully comply with the current standards.

- This is the current standard for page markup and our site complies with it. The logo has a link to the W3C validator. Try it. See how your own or some other site fares.

- Our sites are built using style sheets to control the presentation. It's important to us because we can change the look of the entire site in one file. It's important to you for the same reason since it takes us a lot less time to make changes. Click here for more information on style sheets.

- The HTML Writers Guild provides courses for web designers seeking to improve their skills and a forum for problem solving. It has been and continues to be an invaluable resource.

- The Web Standards Project is a group drawn together by thier vision of a World Wide Web which is free to all and readily accessible to all. It was formed during the browser wars as an instrument of public opinion to forward the views of it's members to W3C, Netscape, Microsoft, and other major players. While the browser wars may have subsided and standards compliance is in sight, there are yet many other battles to fight in this ever changing landscape.

- This one speaks for itself.