Due to the complexities of Web technology, your viewing experience may vary greatly depending on the computer hardware, operating system, Web browser, and additional software available to you. The following are some suggestions that you may find useful for a better viewing experience.

Recommended Windows Display Settings

The graphic elements used on the STWS are created with true color (24 bit) and saved in either GIF (8 bit) or JPG (24 bit) format. These images look best when the display of your computer is set to True Color. If you have a graphic card in your computer supporting only 8 bit color, you will see colors not intended by the designer and you will also see heavy dithering effects where fine gradations occur in the image. If your display's setting is at High Color (16 bit), the appearance of graphics will improve, but some dithering may still be visible.

Chances are that you will have a graphic card in your computer that supports true color. If you see strange colors or heavy dithering on these Web pages, you may want to check if you can change the display settings so that you can get the best viewing experience. To set your monitor to display true color in the Windows environment, do the following:

1. Right-click anywhere on your computer desktop and select Properties in the pop-up menu.

2. In the Display Properties dialogue box, select Settings panel.

3. At the lower-left corner of the panel, there is a drop-down menu labeled Colors.

4. Click the downward pointing black triangle at the right end of the menu and select True Color (24 bit).

Note that limitations on the memory of the graphic card may require that you reduce the resolution of your display.

Recommended Web Browsers

We recommend you use either Netscape 4.x or Internet Explorer (IE) 4.x or 5.x., since earlier browsers do not support JavaScript and Style Sheets, which have been implemented on this Web site. To download the latest version of Internet Explorer go to the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web site. The current versions of Web browsers from Netscape are available on the company's Browser Download Center.

Additional Software

Since small Flash animations are used in some pages on STWS, a Flash player is required to view them. The software (plug-in), with the installation instructions, can be downloaded free of charge from the Macromedia Download page. Note that the new versions of the Internet Explorer support Flash natively and you will be provided with a choice for the Flash player when you download the new versions of the Netscape Web browser.

To check if your Netscape Web browser has the Flash plug-in, go to the Help menu and select the About Plug-ins command. If you see that ShockWave Flash is listed as one of the installed plug-ins, you are all set for Flash animation.

PDF Files

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It was developed by Adobe Corporation to allow efficient electronic distribution of large documents. A PDF file will look the same on the screen and in print regardless of what kind of computer you are using or which software package it was created from. A large document can be compressed small enough to download quickly, and displays text and pictures as if you were looking at the original book or brochure.

To read and print PDF files, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader. You may download Acrobat Reader from Adobe's Web site. Instructions of how to download and install the program is provided on the Adobe Web site.