The Avengers Forever: Frequently Asked Questions

	Frequently Asked Questions Page 7 of 9

What do you use to build the pages? The page layout is established in FrontPage 2003, which simplifies the formatting of complex tables. Once the layout is set, the HTML code is hand-edited. READ MORE

What do you use to capture the images? I use VLC Media Player to capture frames from my PC's internal DVD player.

How do you process the images? DVD screen grabs are imported into Corel PhotoPaint Version 9. After adjusting gamma, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and cropping, the images are reduced to the target size and saved as JPEG files with minimal compression.

Why don't any of the images link to larger ones? Originally image enlargements were omitted due to space consideration. Although there are no such limitations at present, the daunting task of capturing and saving all-new larger versions, plus coding links for nearly a thousand image across many hundreds of pages, would simply take too much time.

Why do you pay for web space when you can get it for free? There is no such thing as a "free lunch." All so-called "free" web space is paid for by some other means, such as ad banners, popups, redirects and other promotional gimmicks. Free web spaces are also prone to many problems: slow speed, more frequent downtime, limited bandwidth, content restrictions, and even loss of service. Not to mention that it would be virtually impossible to find a free service that also provides full support for active server pages and dynamic databases (which runs our Forum). Plus, most of the websites that are a part of TheAvengers.TV wound up here because they were originally hosted at free web spaces that have ceased to exist. The take-home lesson is: you get what you pay for! The cost of hosting is subsidized by TheAvengers.TV eStore.

Why is there a big brown stripe down the right side of every page? Visitors to this site may be viewing it at one of several different screen resolutions. Whereas 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 are the most common resolution settings, some may be using 640 x 480 (particularly the visually impaired). Out of necessity, web pages must be designed to suit the lowest setting (or, at least, should be), and at 640 x 480, the white portion of this page will nearly fill the screen. The remaining screen space has a background image to simulate an open book on a table, in keeping with the metaphor of an encyclopædia, as suggested by Frances Lash.

There used to be a visitor voting system. What happened to it? Sadly it had to be taken down because no matter what I said or did, there were always creeps who insisted on ballot-stuffing. Visitor voting has been removed and will not be brought back.

What's your hit rate? This site receives an average of around 3,000 visitors a month, with a grand total of roughly a quarter of a million visitors since it was launched.

What awards have you won? Long ago, when the internet was much less commercial and webmasters respected and recognized one another for their talent, I used to apply for the occasional award, and actually received one from a peer who realized the virtue of emphasizing content over presentation. The other responses I got were polite "nice site, but not up to our standards" put-downs. What they were looking for was exciting and dynamic visual design—layout, color, imagery, animation—essentially, useless eye candy; they could care less about quality content. As the years passed, the purpose of awards mutated from mutual respect to advertising: awards were ways for people to distribute links to their sites, and they would hand them out indiscriminately, making them completely meaningless. In all the years TAF has been online, I have never received an unsolicited award, and any more I honestly don't care. My real awards come in the form of wonderful visitor comments.

How long has the site been on the internet? It was launched September 1996 and looked like this. READ MORE

How long did it take for you to create the site? Over ten years of spare time.