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Barling Bears Oct 31, 2007

Hi there!    
I would just like to bring up a little matter that could help everyone.  Now that you are looking at your screen, do you know where your "Refresh" button is? ( maybe called "Reload Page" or something else perhaps).  (On my page, it is a button on the top lefthand side, next to the back\forward button and looks like a curved arrow going backwards!) If not, please find it, as both Artists and potential customers could be missing out on things!   
 
I bring this matter up because a little while ago, a few people asked me when my website was going to be up and running.  It had been up for about a month  so I asked them to try again and let me know if they still couldn't find anything.  It transpired that with a few of them, they had "bookmarked" my website and it just kept reloading a very old page which just stated that my site was "coming soon" each time they tried. When I recommended they tried using the Reload /Refresh button, hey presto, the website came up!   
 
I have been experimenting with four computers, (AppleMac and a PC) to see if alterations to my website are automatically being reloaded properly.  On some it is working fine, on others it is not despite leaving it for a couple of days just to see.  I checked this out with my local Apple store and basically, with all the multitude of different computers around, their age, operating systems etc., it is so easy to be missing things on various websites because maybe your system is not potentially refreshing/reloading an updated website.  So, if in doubt, press your button on each new page and see if there are any changes. 
 
As an experiment, my website has been updated today and should show " ..updated 31st October".  If you log on to it, and it is still reading "21st October", then please press your refresh button and see if it changes!  If it already says the 31st, then that is fine.   
 
Thank you. 
 
Marilyn

ivuska.h Oct 31, 2007

Hi, this is caused by a feature of web browsers which make a local "copy" of websites to make it's loading faster when the user visits it again. The browser should know how old the copy is and check with the server every time. If there is a new version available, it updates the local copy. But sometimes this goes wrong. You can disable this process (process of using these local copies) by adding <meta http-equiv="cache-control" content="no-cache"> and/or <meta http-equiv="expires" content="0"> to the meta tag section in your website source. But this has one disadvantage -- the site will load much slower, because you have a lot of pictures there and they would load again and again.

Anyway, I would not think about this very much, it happens sometimes (the error can be both on server and web browser) and if anyone thinks that he is not seeing the right content, he should reaload the website (but this doesn't work always), I think this is quite common practise.

All Bear Oct 31, 2007

It's also a good idea to clear out your cookies and temporary internet files regularly, so that your computer doesn't rely on them to load websites for you.  Computers use their memories to load websites quickly for you to view and sometimes that means you aren't given the most recent information.  The 'refresh' button is a great help in Internet Explorer, but I have found my AOL browser can sometimes take several days to provide the most recent changes.  Annoying innit???

Barling Bears Oct 31, 2007

The 'refresh' button is a great help in Internet Explorer, but I have found my AOL browser can sometimes take several days to provide the most recent changes.  Annoying innit???

Hi,
Yes, it is annoying   which is why I brought the subject up because there are a large number of people who, like my Mum, would turn a computer on and search websites etc without knowing how a computer works or indeed what functions are there for them, which is absolutely fine.  The people who contacted me about my website fell into this category and had never used the "refresh" button and didn't know what it did.  It certainly solved the problem, so I just thought that mentioning it here may help other people if they have a similar problem with various sites.  No harm in trying it - it may work, it may not!!

Happy browsing!
Hugs
Marilyn

DebbieD Oct 31, 2007

I'm glad you brought it up, because there are a LOT of people still out there who are computer illiterate (myself!!  )  So learning all this is a BIG help, and can be a good pointer if people are getting an old page