July 23, 2002

Do you see four Stooges above?  If not, the following may be important to you.  As you probably know, all the graphic images you see on this or any web page are computer files in some format or other.  Most of the pictures you come across on the Internet are JPG files but some are GIF files, while a small number are in different formats.  Your browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, whatever) can almost certainly view JPG and GIF files and can probably view most of the others.

Currently, both the JPG format and the GIF format are under fire.  A company in Texas is claiming that they own the JPG (or JPEG) format and that everyone who uses it owes them royalties.  Here's a link to an article about this.  In the meantime, a European company called Unisys is insisting they have some sort of proprietary rights to the GIF format.  Here's a link to an article about this.

It is highly unlikely that either claim will prevail but, regardless of what occurs, a lot of web sites could switch all their graphics to some other format...perhaps out of protest, perhaps out of caution.  A number of new formats will soon enter the fray, as well.

In the space above this text, I have placed four Stooge pictures in four different formats.  The Moe picture is a JPG file and the Larry photo is a GIF file.  Unless you're using one of those Korean War issue browsers, you can see both of these.  The Curly picture is a BMP file...a format that's already used occasionally on websites.  The Shemp is a PNG file.  This is the graphics type that most website builders will probably switch to if they find it necessary to switch.  If you don't see all four Stooges up there, you're probably using an old or antiquated browser and you might want to consider a change or an update.  The problem will only get worse as folks flee from GIF and JPG.  Click on the following names to download the latest Internet Explorer or Netscape.

For what it's worth, I've played with both and with a couple of others.  I find Internet Explorer to be the most comfortable, but keep Netscape around because it's occasionally able to get into some website that I.E. can't access.  (I also keep it around so I can check this site in a different browser.)  A lot of folks swear by Mozilla, which is somehow related to and almost identical to Netscape.  The fastest and best-designed browser I've tried is Opera.  What's stopping me from making it my software of choice is that some sites employ plug-ins that are not easily found and installed for Opera.  There's probably a way to access those sites but, when I'm in Opera and hit one, it's just easier to switch over to Internet Explorer.

In any case, it's a good idea to always keep your browser up to date.  Often, an older one will be altering the appearance of a website in ways that you may not even recognize as originating with your browser.  About 80% of the mail I get that says, "there's something wrong with your website" turns out to be caused by someone using an old browser.  The other 20% is due to my own ineptness.  If you'd all upgrade, then 100% of the errors would be my fault...which would, of course, make me feel worse.  But it would make your life so much easier.