This FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page was started on June 16, 1997. We will add to it as needed. Last updated on September 24, 2000 What is BigNoseBird.Com? Actually, The proper name is BigNoseBird.Com, Inc. Bruce's wife, Janene is the majority stockholder so that she has the official authority to tell him to stop spending so much time working on the site, and to go fix something that is broken around the house. BigNoseBird.Com was created by Bruce Gronich with the mission of providing web authoring information and assistance to novice and intermediate web masters. Who is BigNoseBird.Com? Bruce Gronich: Formerly a management & systems consultant with over 15 years experience working with Unix and large relational database systems. Extensive work in marketing as well. Considers the WWW just too much fun to call work. Playing with the WWW since 1994, loves Apache or Netscape on SGI, Linux, and Solaris. Sticks mainly to site management, HTML, content development, and scripting. Dangerous to self and others when holding a pencil. Currently the Senior Applications Architect for A S&P 500 company. Christine Hunt: Official Crayon Handler and Artistic Director. By day, mild application developer for Xceed Inc (www.xceed.com). Chriss works with IIS, ATG Dynamo, Apache and Lotus Domino servers in internet, extranet and ecommerce environments. On top of her artistic abilities, she is also experienced in Lingo, ASP, VB Script, SQL, Java, C++, HTML, JHTML, Lotus Script, Flash & all that kewl multimedia stuff. Does BigNoseBird.Com take on commercial work? BigNoseBird.Com's primary function is education. Our professional accomplishments allow us to provide this service to the Internet community. We are usually pretty busy, but if you have a requirement, we would be more than happy to discuss it with you. Contact us only by e-mail. Please do not call us at our work numbers. We cannot take calls. What if I can't get one of your programs to work? Please refer to the Script Troubleshooting Page for some suggestions. If you still have no luck, please write Bruce, describing as best you can what the symptoms are. Also, give us an idea of what your experience level is. We can't promise that we can solve every problem, but we will try to help you out. Why do your example programs offer so few options? The example programs are meant to be simple, yet useful teaching tools. Adding options to programs increases both their complexity and size. We want to show you how cgi programs work. Once you really get a feel for what is going on, you will find that a complex program is just more simple programs mushed together. It is our intent to produce more advanced tutorials, but we want to make sure they are understandable by people whose first language is not computerese. Scripts that are provided outside of tutorials such as the Virtual Card Script and BNBFORM Form Handler are in fact quite feature packed. Why is BigNoseBird.Com different? BigNoseBird.Com is the evolution of two processes. One is what we experienced in learning the art & science of webmastery. The second was the requests of friends for tips & advice. The objective of this site is very clear, to provide everything that the novice to intermediate webmaster needs to accomplish their objectives. This is not a link site. We have enough of them already. We strive to maintain a level of 95% original content. What else is different about BigNoseBird.Com? This site is not a traditional how-to or tutorial on HTML. It is about learning all of the skills involved in becoming a webmaster. It is unstructured and problem solving oriented. Also, it is our objective to keep things light and not take ourselves too seriously. What if I don't agree with what you have to say? That is what makes the world go around. As long as you get something out of your visits here, including a differing opinion, we have accomplished our goal. How come if I view source from my browser, your examples look different from your source on the screen? Two reasons. First, there are characters that you must enter special codes to display properly. Such as &, <, and >. The second reason is that we keep most of my graphics in /images and certain documents in /docs. To keep things simple we try and avoid the extra path information at times. Why are you no longer non-commercial? BigNoseBird.Com was non-commercial until September 1, 1998 when we teamed up with the Reallybig.com Network. The site has become fairly popular, and to further increase our readership we felt in necessary to join up with other complimentary sites. This change will in no way affect BigNoseBird.Com. We remain completely responsible for all of our editorial content. If an advertiser doesn't like what we have to say, tough. ;-) When will this site be completed? NEVER! Are contributed materials welcome? Yes. If we decide to use it, you will be given full credit for it. Please submit via e-mail. Where is BigNoseBird.Com located? The primary server is owned and operated by Bignosebird.Com, and is located at the Vastnet NOC in Melville, NY. Bruce lives on Long Island, NY USA. Chriss can be found tooling around in her truck down in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas. Can I link your site to mine? By all means! We can think of no higher honor. Please check out the Bird Sightings List page. There is a cute little button, and we will add your site to our list. Can I copy or reproduce your work? Yes, for non-commercial use- provided that you advise us you are doing so and give credit for it. This way we can have that feeling of satisfaction... Also, please let us know where we can see it. Commercial publishers- please e-mail us and we can talk about it ;-> All of our writings, original graphics are © 1997-9 BigNoseBird.Com, Inc, as are our scripts that are not designated as being in the public domain. How did Bruce come up with such a weird name? Bruce and his wife took the kids down to Florida for vacation. Each morning they would have breakfast out on the deck and every bird within a five mile radius would join them. Of particular interest to their three year old son was a White Ibis. His son referred to it as the big-nose-bird. Bruce explained to him that it was in fact an Ibis, but he insisted that it was the big-nose-bird. This reinforced for Bruce, two important points: A few common words can convey more meaning than one technically correct word. You can't win an argument with a three year old. ;-> We hope you understand why this site is named BigNoseBird.Com. What is this award you give out? The Tasty Tidbit of the Week was given out on a rather irregular pattern sort of, barely mimicking a week. We decided to drop it due to it's elitist nature. What about the Year 2000 (Y2K) Problem? You really want to know? Okay, please be sure to read our Year 2000 Statement.