Due to the Civil War
Institute for Analytical Philately, Inc. and DPS
David Herendeen, Institute for Analytical Philately
In late 2009, a group of dedicated philatelists and researchers formed the Institute for Analytical Philately, Inc. (IAP). IAP is a nonprofit, educational institution dedicated to applying analytical techniques to philatelic studies which are intended to provide long term and wide ranging benefits to all aspects of philately.
At IAP, we believe there is a large pool of untapped technical expertise and human resources in the philatelic community. We further believe that this expertise can be directed to the betterment of philately through the performance of rigorous, analytical research in many areas that can benefit from new technologies.
Our mission then is simple. To facilitate these benefits, IAP will provide research grants and technical support to qualified philatelists to assist them in performing their research. To support this activity, IAP also provides educational mentoring, training, support and guidance to researchers.
Scientists understand that strong collaboration often leads to major breakthroughs. To foster such collaboration, IAP is developing strategic alliances with major philatelic organizations in the U.S. and abroad. This will allow us to leverage resources by providing our researchers with:
- Access to libraries and archives
- Access to a staff of “experts”
- Access to research equipment
By doing this, we believe that IAP and our alliance partners will be able to:
- Reduce technical risk
- Quickly share and disseminate results
These alliances will allow us to dramatically reduce overhead. As a virtual organization, we can use modern technology to communicate, coordinate and disseminate information.
Because we are a nonprofit corporation, we rely on contributions and memberships from philatelists like you. We must raise funds through contributions such as yours to fund research grants to other philatelists who have proposed specific scientific and technical research projects.
Where does DPS come in? The DPS concept meshes perfectly with our paradigm of rapid technology transfer. One of the strongest requirements IAP places on its researchers is that the results of all grants be published either in the philatelic literature or in technical journals. IAP plans to publish an annual that may contain the results of important research.
As one of the early proponents of the DPS concept, I know how important this medium will become as time progresses. I believe that publication of results in electronic formats, using the capabilities of dpsworkshop.com, is a natural medium for disseminating new knowledge and research results to as may philatelists as possible. IAP looks forward to working in the coming years to help grow the DPS concept. 
Philately Stamped Out In Internet Age
The Times of India has a new article - Philately Stamped Out in Internet Age.
Once considered the “king of hobbies”, fit for those who seek knowledge and aesthetic pleasure, stamp collection is no longer a thing of attraction for the tech-savvy generation of this fast-paced internet age.
Happy New Year 2010
Happy New Year!!
Hope everyone has a healthy and successful 2010. We’re on vacation, so no article this time. We’ll be back next year.
Which Word Processing Software Do You Use?
Fonts and Web Fonts
Albert W. Starkweather, Philatelic Communicator
The general font rules that govern print publications also apply to visual presentations. While text fonts should be chosen for a high degree of readability, poster-style title fonts can be particularly attractive, as well as inline and contour variations. Many of these work particularly well when they are set in bold primary colors.
Type size is very important in planning pages for Internet / intranet display. What may appear to be normal sized on a large, high-resolution monitor, may shout on a small monitor at low resolution.
Web designers essentially are at the mercy of the viewers and the fonts they have installed on their computers.
The safest choices are serif and sans serif. Nearly all Windows-based computers have Arial and Times New Roman and Macintosh computers have Times and Helvetica. Both have the ubiquitous and generally despised Courier. Text set in sans serif is generally easier to read at screen resolution.
To force the browser on the viewer’s end to display serif or sans serif, the following Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) coding may be used:
or .
The browser will attempt to load the first choice. If it is missing, it will attempt to load the second choice. If this too fails, it will load a generic serif or sans serif. Color may be assigned to HTML text.
New Web technology can force a viewer’s browser to display specific fonts. However, the safest bet is to specify serif or sans serif fonts to ensure the highest level of compatibility.
Some good fonts for presentation.
A specific font for a splash screen or heading may be generated by creating a Graphic Image Format (GIF) or Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG or JPG) image in a drawing or imaging program.
It must be remembered that GIF and JPEG images do not contain searchable text that can be found by site visitors or Web crawlers that index sites.
Designers who desire to have their pages appear as they have created them have turned to the portable document format (PDF) which maintains consistency across different platforms. Its largest drawback is that it puts another interface on the browser screen.
Another problem is getting special characters to display properly. Special encodings are necessary to create extended characters. However, if there is any uncertainty about this, the type should be generated as a GIF or JPEG graphic. In general, it would be wise to use the words associated with certain symbols, such as copyright and registered trademark.
Christmas Stamp Art
Exhibiting Digitally (2)
Wobbe Vegter, South African Philatelist
(continuation of the article Exhibiting Digitally Part 1)
Having your own website also means frequent updating and maintenance of the site. I used to have a dial-up facility (I’m based in South Africa) with a phone subscription with a fixed-cost-unlimited-time-call after hours which enabled me to spend hours of dial-up time at minimal cost provided I did it all after 7 pm or during the weekends. It was a financially acceptable but slow and time-consuming system and I soon realized that a more speedy ADSL line was required. I got that installed some time later.
What have I added or changed since then?
• I’ve redesigned my home page a few times so my website is featured on page one when one googles for “computer stamps”.
• In the first version I carried a few links to other sites on my home page. I’ve now removed these links to a separate page where they should have been in the first place.
• I became curious to know how much traffic would come to my site, so I’ve added a counter to track the number of visitors. I only count the number of visitors on my home page although one can also track the number of hits per individual page. That looked like too much admin to me so I went for home page visitors only. To date I get about 50 to 80 visitors per month with a higher volume when I’ve done substantial changes to my exhibit(s). Obviously I should have included this feature from day one but I never thought of it. The feature itself was installed at no extra cost.
• I’ve added a few other computer-related club exhibits to my website.
• I’ve added a digital copy of every article I wrote about my topic (including when/where it was published). This includes a list of about forty – and growing – personalities involved in the development of the computer: my private list of Cyber Heroes.
Philately and the Internet
• My own exhibit has since grown from 75 pages to 128 pages and this has been reflected on the website as well. My fellow computer-collectors requested if it was possible to show both new and previous version(s) of my exhibit. To accommodate them I introduced a special “trap-door” feature so they could always go back to a previous version to compare individual pages.
• The first digital version was about 20Mb in size. The current website runs to about 140Mb. One needs to keep substantial growth in mind when calculating the cost of hosting a site.
• On request I’ve added a page with a short biography of myself. Access is by clicking on my name on the home page.
• Also on request, I’ve added a date on the home page to show when I last modified the site.
• I’ve added a log of when I applied which modification to my website. One can access this log by clicking on the Date Last Modified on the home page.
• I’ve added a list of awards – my own Palmares – for my “From Abacus to Internet” exhibit. Awards for the website itself I’ve included on the home page.
Conclusion
It has been a satisfying journey. My website has been operating since 2002 and it’s receiving an increasing number of hits. Since then I’ve made numerous changes and additions to the site as could be expected. Although it takes time to keep a site like this up to date, it gives one a digital visibility which was impossible twenty years ago. I’ve met many new people (electronically) all over the world and through all these contacts I’ve managed to improve my exhibit and philatelic knowledge. I would certainly recommend any computer-literate exhibitor to set up his own website and digitally share his exhibit with the world.
Lastly, I now have a vehicle to digitally publish this article as well.
Encyclopaedia Philatelica
The Encyclopaedia Philatelica is an interesting research tool for thematic collectors and philatelists in general.
Multilingual encyclopedia composed around four sections: Personages, Fauna, Flora & Geographia. Image gallery about Iconography, Genealogy, History, Art & Taxonomy.
Let’s Get Visual!
Albert W. Starkweather, Philatelic Communicator
In addition to traditional publishing methods — essentially printed words and illustrations on paper, there are several other ways of presenting information. These include traditional video / film, slides and overhead projections, and the more contemporary on-screen presentations (including CD-ROM), and Internet / intranet sites. Participation by viewers may range from passive to interactive.
Planning
Care equal to that required for a printed publication is necessary for visual output. In additional to style sheets and dummy pages, flow charts may be necessary planning elements. While slides, overhead presentations, and videos and films follow a linear flow, on-screen presentations and Internet / intranet sites usually offer the user different viewing options through hypertext links.
To ensure that a project meets its designed goals, rough sketches of sample screens are needed, along with templates, style sheets, and flow charts to define the flow of information. When developing Internet / intranet sites, the key is links to related information as well as links to return to decision points where the viewer is presented with alternative destinations.
Another major consideration is color, which can be a powerful ally in presenting information or a hindrance. It should complement the message harmoniously without detracting from it. In general, a very limited palette should be employed. “In your face” color, typography, and graphics overwhelm many audiences, particularly when new or unfamiliar information is being presented.
There are five general considerations in planning a visual presentation: (1) overall appearance, (2) typography, (3) graphics / images, (4) audio, and (5) writing, and two issues specific to Internet / intranet and CD-ROM; (6) navigation and (7) interactivity. Special attention must be given to material that will be presented both online and in print to ensure consistency. Although Web sites do not support the same degree of typographical flexibility as print, certain styles should be established — information hierarchy, font styles, color.
Considerations
(1) Overall appearance is determined by the theme of the presentation and the intended audience. Consistency is achieved by adopted a master design and color scheme — usually no more than two or three hues. Slides and overheads usually carry one thought each. Formats — always landscape — must match the projection-screen or monitor. Internet / intranet and CD-ROM pages should seldom scroll horizontally and vertical scrolling should be kept to a minimum.
The simple rules for (2) typography are: Use no more than two or three fonts set in an easy-to-read point size that complements the subject matter. Hyperlinked text should be underlined to indicate that it is a link. To attain maximum readability, use bold and italic for emphasis only, not as body copy.
(3) Graphics / images should have a common design and have colors compatible with the overall scheme. They always should be of the highest quality for the medium, with the added consideration that Web graphics and images should download quickly. Inclusion of animated GIFs and film clips also should follow these rules.
(4) Audio sound bites and music can enhance a presentation and, like graphics, should download quickly if they are included on Web pages. Be sure that music does not mask the spoken word.
To ensure that the message is delivered, (5) writing must be concise, friendly, and easy to understand. Faulty spelling and grammar can ruin a presentation by implying that the facts are also faulty. Be sure information is up to date and correct, including e-mail and snail mail addresses, telephone numbers, and personnel rosters. Remember: Read, revise, rewrite.
(6) Navigation aids are an absolute necessity for Internet / intranet sites and CD-ROMs. These include navigation buttons, word links, drop-down menus, site maps, and image maps. Points to remember include the number of main, sub, and sub-sub screens that spin off the home page. How many mouse clicks does it take to reach them? There should be ample opportunity to return to a given point, escape from a screen, and to move through long text blocks.
Levels of (7) interactivity can range from a button that summons the user’s e-mail or an e-mail form to response and order forms (which may be printed out and mailed or faxed in the case of CD-ROMs), customization or appearance and/or user preferences, and search engines.
A further consideration for Web site design is that it should be appealing and easy to navigate. Pages should download quickly so viewers do not became impatient and leave the site.
