For quite some time, we have realized that we needed to do a thorough revamping of our
Software Downloads section. Many of the files have newer
versions, some are just plain obsolete, and we had several pages that contained basically the
same information. Today we are proud to announce that we have completed a thorough upgrade of
this entire section. We have many new and updated files, including some nifty new Smith Chart
software. We've also streamlined the number of pages, eliminating two altogether. We
still have some old files up, but they're in a section of their own now. Check it out!
Visit our NEW Online Store!
September 16, 2002
We have finally reopened our Online Store! At the present time
we have for sale our most popular book, Electronic
Applications of the Smith Chart, by Phillip Smith. You can pay for this book via Paypal or
check in advance. We also offer our CD Rom for sale, as well. Soon we will also offer mugs and
tee shirts -- check back with us for your gift ideas!
SSS Initial Update is Complete!
January 2, 2002
We declared victory today on our basic site update of Spread Spectrum Scene Online. What does
this mean? It means that you will no longer find pages with the wrong contact information, dozens
of broken links, and chaotic internal navigation.
When we took over the site in late October, 2000, no information had been posted or changed for
nearly two years (the date the previous owner retired). We launched a 3-phase update program:
Change contact information on key pages and become familiar with the contents of this
very large site. We completed that phase just before Christmas, 2000.
Reorganize the site into 16 major sections, or Topics, and add a new navigation system to make it
easier to find subjects on the site. The details of this system are explained in our
Navigation Help page). We completed the design and initial
implementation of the new system by the end of January 2001. At that time,
menu pages for all 16 Topics were posted, and each of these menus contained a complete list
of pages assigned to that topic, as well as a list of related pages.
Update every subordinate page in all 16 Topics. This involved reformatting each page to match
our new structure, updating contact information on those pages that had not yet been changed, and
fixing broken links. With the posting of the final pages in our "Site Information" topic
on January 2, 2002, we completed this phase and declared victory on our initial update.
This does not mean that we are satisfied with the site and don't intend to make further changes. There
is still much work to be done! Although we have added a number of new pages and features,
published three issues of the SSS Online Ezine, and added substantial new content to many of the
at the same time we were working on this basic update, there are still many pages where the information
is not exactly "up to the minute". We want to fix that. During February, we were able
to spend much more time doing content updates, and as time goes on we intend to concentrate on this
area more and more. To find the new stuff, check out our
Change Directory, which we try to update at least monthly.
We still have some site mechanics that need improvement, too, and are currently working on two areas
in response to your comments:
"We can't read your menus!" We discovered that many modern firewalls won't allow java,
as it can carry viruses. Our menus with the shaded buttons were written with Java applets. We have
taken down all the java menus and buttons (except a few on old issues of Spread Spectrum Scene
Online ezine and old news articles) and have replaced them with a streamlined menu that doesn't
rely on fancy scripting. We're still tweaking the menu format so that it will work well on all
different types of browsers and monitors, and it will probably take another month or so to finish up.
"Your pages load too slow!" No one likes to drum their fingers waiting for a page to load,
and unfortunately we don't all have access to superfast internet connections, so we're making a number
of changes to improve load time. The new menu helped a lot. We also found that the flashy Java Script
ads coming from other servers were slowing us down substantially, so we're replacing them with simpler formats.
We're also splitting some of the larger pages into two or more smaller ones, with
special navigation features to make it easy to get from one page to another. We're making other minor coding
changes on graphics and tables to speed things up, too. Turbocharging updates are complete now on all the
topical menu pages and our 50 most popular pages, and we're now working on other pages farther down the food
chain.
These changes won't be highly visible when you look at the pages, but we hope it makes the site easier and
more pleasant to use. As always, if you have ideas of topics that you'd like to see on the site, please let us know!
We're here to serve you, and want to make this site your primary RF / SS / Wireless resource. If you have
any suggestions, comments, criticisms or complaints, please send us an email
() or
leave a Comment. Please share your
thoughts, suggestions or ideas with us on how to improve SSS Online and thus
serve you better -- Remember, we are HERE TO HELP and SERVE YOU!
ALSO...if you have any technical articles that would be of interest to our readers,
please contact our Webmaster for information about publication in SSS Online.
