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Ads
We don't like advertising. The Internet is being destroyed by it. However, we do benefit from a sponsor who we trust, and who supports our aims without interference. We also try to produce material, or products, or well... just want to draw attention to something we think might be interesting to you. When you come to a page on our site, most times you will also see a menu at the top of the page. Now and then, an ad may appear but in a short time it will be replaced by our menu system.
Aims
Just one: To support and encourage the idea that everything is built bottom-up. Using a microscope - examining detail of the very small - 99% non-commercially - and assisting anyone to do that socially is about right for us. And now and then (a lot sometimes) we rant a bit. We also seek out other people who share something of value in all countries and try to help show their work and observations. We can't help with money, alas, but we maintain a very strong web presence and compete effectively against giants to ensure true research, observation, and the 'little' guy/girl and their input to this valuable aspect of human endeavour is not lost in the 'noise' of the Internet. We are very successful in achieving that, not by luck, but by considered intent and collective hard work by people who also share this spirit. We may not ourselves all agree about a lot of things, but we do agree to maintain, contribute to, and continually advance a contemporary amateur/enthusiast microscopy presence. And without the global commercial lock-in of all the other sites you may visit on the web.
Complicated web Name
A legacy of the past. Best bookmark when you find us! You can also type in something more simple like: mic-uk.net
Contact
You may wish to contact the author of an article, page, image, or video on our site or in our e-Zine. People come and go. Email addresses change. If you are unable to contact an author through a link on their page, drop us a line here on our contact form, and we'll try and help get your message through. We receive the odd silly boy messages in our contact form, and of course, we ignore them. Any contact which is serious, we always try to respond to.
Contributing
People from all over the world contribute material (articles, videos, images) freely to our web site and e-zine. This is the success of our presence. We believe good information is like gold, but we feel all people should be wealthy. So, everything is shared with others without reservation except when commercial presences or entities wish to re-use material published here. We constantly try and find good people who involve themselves with aspects of microscopy or macro-study, to ask them to contribute. Perhaps you would like to contribute material to be published here. If so, please contact the editor of Micscape Magazine, David Walker. We will be pleased to hear from you. Contribute in other ways?
We know many people use social networks to share their explorations into microscopy, but beware... if you read the small print, they own just about everything you share. We don't do that. If you contribute, tt's still your work. We have no further rights other than what we may wish to agree with you after you contribute.
Docx files
These are files created by people using Microsoft Word to create articles for our e-Zine. You can download them to read locally, or install a Browser plug-in or 'App' to read them on line. Google do one here (at the time of writing): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/docs-online-viewer/gmpljdlgcdkljlppaekciacdmdlhfeon?hl=en
E-Catalogues and Flip books
We frequently convert pdf files, and sometimes Docx files, submitted to us into Flip books or E-books so they can be read easily on site. You will not require any other software or plug-ins (Apps) to read them, other than what should come 'packaged' already with your Browser. [Note: May 2016 - these files use an Adobe Flash type format and have been discontinued ].
Ebooks / Kindle / Kindle Firewire / Mobile devices
As of May 2016, we are attempting to make all our Micscape article available to Kindle users and KindleFire. The format is 'Mobi' for mobile type devices. Several Kindle Ebook readers are available freely from Amazon here to enable Kindle type content to be read on a variety of devices, both mobile and static: pc / mac. (Note: some small loss of the author's original layout may be (often?) lost through conversion. If you have the time and wish to try to understand the competing environments and protocols for making content available to mobile devices, this external link (of it continues to exist), may help.
How many people visit you?
Last count? About 4 - 6 million per year (24,000 per day). It grows each month. We have a loyal visitor base of around 50%. We try to dominate the topic of amateur / enthusiast microscopy in a nice way against the trend to commercialise just about everything. We stand against commercialism for its own ends and try to encourage freedom of truthful information. It's tough. We need money to run it all.
History (How did it start? Is it a company?)
Two of us started it in 1995-ish - David Walker & Mol Smith. We still run it, with lots of help through contributions from a hand-full of great people who send in articles each month for Micscape Magazine. We are not a company. One guy, Mol, formed a company called Onview.net to protect the resource from all kinds of issues. The company is not-for-profit.
What is Micscape?
A monthly eZine with articles on microscopy, biology, nature, and science. It's main content is microscopy and it's aimed at the enthusiast microscopist. The magazine is published on the 13th of every other month. The Editor is David Walker. Anyone can contribute, just email David. The magazine is ISSN registered with the British Library.
Why can't I print your pages easily.
We use a framed menu system. To print a page if you are using Explorer Browser, right click anywhere in the lower frame/page, and select 'Print' from the new box that opens. Pages on the Internet are more designed to be part of a paper-free world, so we don't really consider the printing aspect too much. We have our own print option on our menu under the 'TOOLS' icon. See how to use our custom print method.
Google Chrome Browser users can simply click on Print in our menu strip at the top of the page. In fact, Explorer users can use it too, but a new error window opens. Ignore it and reselect the prevoius open window. The print window should be open and visible there.
PDF files & eCatalogs
You need Adobe Acrobat reader to view these files.
Advertising?
We feel the Internet should not be so commercialised. It's bad enough getting marketing calls day and night, driving behind buses splattered with ads, and putting up with a constant assault on our senses - all to sell you something. We keep most of our site ad-free. We carry a small amount of advertising, mostly for Brunel Microscopes, a family business in the UK with a long history of aiding others to share the practice of Microscopy. They have been great
helpers and sponsors since we started, and Mol uses their microscopes for his projects and work on here.
Funding
We use our own time and money to run this venture along with donations and subscriptions from people around the world who are generous and realise the worth of our site. No-one has to donate as everything here is a free resource, but it helps. If you would like to donate, please go here.
Shop
Mol started an Internet shop on here in 2001 to support microscopists with microscopes and accessories. There were few online shops back then. It took too much work and was assimilated into a Brunel Microscopes shop as part of a deal to keep it going and for part sponsorship. We promote the shop on our menu system and front page. Microscopists need microscopes and Brunel is a great little business to buy them from. We remain free in our running of our site.
Linking To Us
Please do, but include a note saying you are doing that on your page next to the link, please.
Missing Links
We often link to external resources. If you follow a link like that and end up getting a zero result, the external page or resource has likely gone. We have been maintaining a web presence for 20 years so a lot of things change in that time. However, if you expect to see one of our pages when you click a link, and get a zero result - maybe give us a 'heads-up' and we will take a look to try and fix it.
Using Our Work
We get loads of requests from authors and educationalists to use pictures from our stuff in their printed works. It is up the author (copyright owner) to consider each request. Most author's are benevolent if the request is non-commercial. Many established 'profit-making' publishers and book authors seem to want freebies. Good images taken through a microscope are not easy to achieve and we strongly encourage proper payments to copyright owners for their skill and work. If you want to use something you see on our
pages, email us, please. Don't make assumptions. Everything here is legally copyrighted and our publication is a formal ISSN registered work.
Cookies
Cookies are sinisiter because they collect information about you. We DO NOT COLLECT ANY INFORMATION ABOUT YOU. We did not use them up until August 2014 but then we implemented them in our menu system. Our cookies are 'session cookies'. So what happens is this, when you come to our site, we may display a banner either advertising something interesting on our site or a message if there may be issues with our site. A cookie is written to your device browser to say we displayed the banner. As you navigate around our site, the banner is no longer displayed. Fifteen minutes later the cookie is deleted and you may see the banner again. The cookie should be deleted by your browser after 15 minutes. This is all done to ensure you are not constantly seeing that banner. We do not track or gather information about you. We just time out any banner displays to prevent you being bombarded with our own messages. If you fail to use 'cookies' because you have them set to [off] in your browser, the menu header may stay large in each page. Sometimes we alter the banner delete time, but in the main, we do not use our site as a marketing device.
[NOTE: If you see content on one of our pages which embeds say a video from YouTube, you can bet your life, that embed will have also set a cookie on your device. We cannot do anything about that. They are third party cookies. You can always delete BROWING HISTORY to get rid of that cookie, although we have noticed that many major web presences now store cookies and browsing data outside of the prescribed legal area. Good luck with that one. We don't!]
Privacy Policy and Legal Implications
Privacy Notice and Cookie Policy
Privacy
This website does not collect information that would allow us to identify you unless you choose to provide it. If you send us a message using a contact form, you need to provide a name and an e-mail address, but you do not have to use your real name. If you want a reply, then obviously you must provide a real e-mail address. We do not store records of you on this website. We do not send out news letters or harbour email addresses. We do not store anything here about you or harvest email addresses. WE ARE NOT HERE TO USE YOU.
First-Party and Third-Party Cookies
A cookie is a small file, typically consisting of letters and numbers, that is stored on a computer or other web-connected device when the user accesses certain web sites. Cookies allow a web site to recognise a combination of a browser and a user’s device.
First-party cookies are cookies that are set by our web site when you visit it.
Third-party cookies are cookies that are set by other web sites when you visit external web sites via links to them in our pages, or where external resources are linked. Note: third party cookies are not within our control. If you are concerned about your privacy (we are!), you might wish to configure these 'third party cookies OFF in your browser.
To use our web site properly, you need to enable 'first party cookies' only. And you need to ensure javascript is enabled.
Bookmarking/Restore/ Show link to page/ Email link
(Scroll down for help on printing).
Bookmarking/Restore
You can use your browser bookmarking if you wish but our site is complicated. You may not end up bookmarking anything except the starting page! If you just want to return to a page you were reading last time, use our [BOOKMARK] in our top menu. This writes the page link into a cookie and saves it to your browser for 12 months. Anytime you come back, click on [RESTORE] and the page you saved will reappear (Hopefully!). Just remember if you click [BOOKMARK] again, the link you saved is over-written with a link to the new page you are reading. Just a one shot bookmark! (Note: if we have presented a page from another site, our site search, for example, this feature is disabled!)
Show link to page
We use frames to present a menu at the top of most pages (not all) and it helps us manage several thousand pages on our site. Your browser address window may not show the correct link THE CORRECT LINK shows in the menu header at the top of the page. Note: if we have presented a page from another site, our site search, for example, this feature is disabled!)
Email Link
Just click on this and the link to the page you are reading will be put into an email allowing you to then send it to yourself or a friend. (It's a bit slow opening your default email software, so give it 30 seconds or so).
Print
If you just use your browser 'Print' option, it is not going to work as we use frames. We display a message if you try, so as to remind you. YOU MUST USE our 'Print' option in the Menu at the top of the page. SELECT THE TOOLS ICON AND CLICK ON IT. IN TOOLS MENU, CLICK ON PRINT PAGE. Note: you might wish to print in LANDSCAPE, or in your printer option use 'Scale the page to fit'. Why? Because our page is wider than an A4 or Letter sized piece of paper. Also see Printing problems!
Spelling, Typos, Errors
Blame the typos and spelling errors on Mol. He works day and night on the web doing loads of projects, not just this one. He misses keys :) Any other errors (wrong facts) you notice, drop us a line to correct them please. Contact the Editor, David Walker for Micscape errors.
Searching
Our own site search engine at www.mic-uk.info can be used search both the web and our site. Just leace the default 'ALL' enabled. We used to spider lots oif microscopy sites, but just spider our one now.
Videos do not show
Yes. We know some don't play. This may be due to the changes made by evolution of formats like Adbobe Flash movie players. Try downloading the most recent plug-in for your browser. We did use a lot of the Adobe Flash movie plug-in type formats and the CHROME browser removed their support for that due to 'as they say' security issues. We do try to go back and revisit these issues but it is a bit like painting the longest bridge in the world. Our site operates in an ever-changing environment :(
Forums
We don't do them. You can find a list of good ones on the Micscape and Mic-uk front pages. Or join a facebook group.
Web Server
Our site is hosted on a virtual private server. It is not on a shared hosting platform. It should be fast working, and up 24/7. If it isn't you can email us to tell us, although we probably already know :) If access to our site is slow, there is probably an internet related problem involving the larger network.
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