ReliefWeb
HELP
Last updated: 15 Nov 1997
What can you find on our site?
Click here for the About pages which
explain the
menus, document selection criteria, and contents of the site.
In October 1997 ReliefWeb introduced new functionality to expedite document publishing on the Web, providing users with the following new services:
- Continual site updates - documents now appear on ReliefWeb the moment they are received: Lotus Notes/Domino technology allows us to publish Web pages directly from a Lotus Notes database, eliminating the need for manual HTML conversion and documents. The Domino site contains all documents entered in 1997, as well as DHA documents from 1996 and 1995. Click here for the Help section of the new site.
Note: the Financial Tracking, Map Section and DHA-Online are not yet included in the Domino system, and therefore function as before.
What can you find in Help?
-
How to navigate and find information in ReliefWeb.
-
The organization and structure of the site
-
Technical questions on use of the site and the World Wide Web.
HELP Contents:
How to find specific documents
How to use our documents
How to monitor site updates?
How to communicate with us
How to optimize use & Technical
questions
How to retrieve and save documents on your own PC
(downloading)
How to deal with graphics, postscript files and
large tables
How to print maps
Glossary of technical terms
How to:
Find specific documents:
The documents are arranged by Emergency, which can be a country or
geographical
area. Start from the Emergency menu,
select
a country or region. This is the easiest way of finding all
documents related
to that emergency or natural disaster. For example:
-
If you are looking for the latest DHA situation report on
Angola, go to
-
Emergencies, select Angola: you see a chronological list of the
documents starting with the latest and you
can click directly the one you need.
-
If you are looking for reports of certain type:
-
select Emergencies, then Angola to get the Latest page. From
the Latest page,
click Source from the red menu.
Then, select
DHA from the sources list. A list of all DHA documents
about Angola
will appear.
-
OR from Emergencies, select Angola to get the Latest page.
From the Latest
page, click Format from the red
menu. Then, select
Situation Reports. A list of all situation reports about
Angola from different
sources will appear.
To return from a document or a map to the menu-level, use the
Back
button of the browser.
To go from one format to another:
-
Explore the Latest, Source, or Format pages. From each you can
click Map
Center or Financial tracking on the red menu to view the
related area maps
and financial tracking tables.
-
From the Map Center you can return to the Emergencies main
page. From Financial
Tracking you can return to the ReliefWeb home page, or you could
use the
GO/ History and Back buttons of your browser (on the
top menu bar).
Use the Back button to return to previously viewed pages.
You can
also use the Go option from the browser
menu.
Back to Help Contents
If navigating by Emergency does not satisfy your needs, try the
search
capabilities of our site:
-
full text search looks for all words in all documents. You give
the keyword
for your search, and will get the results arranged by date. Go to search Help.
How to use our documents:
All documents are in the public domain, and can be used for
educational purposes.
They are not for resale or redistribution without the explicit
consent of
U.N.DHA with the exception of United Nations documents and the
ReliefWeb
maps.
How to monitor site updates:
-
We aim to publish twice daily, at 12 and 18 UTC. In acute
emergency situations
updates are more frequent. The Latest pages of emergencies are
the key to
new entries.
-
There is software to monitor changes to our site: The URL-
Minder service
looks for changes on specified Web pages, and alerts you by
e-mail. The service
is free, and it can be reached at
http://www.netmind.com/URL-minder/URL-minder.html .
A software package called Smart Bookmarks monitors changes, it
can be ordered
from www.firstfloor.com.
-
What if the site does not look like the latest version? If you
and your
organisation are using the site all day, it may be that the
proxy server
or your cache stores an earlier version of the site: to refresh
it, click
Reload/ Refresh, and check that the real site is visited. If not, you
may have to
empty the cache or contact your LAN administrator about the
proxy server.
-
Subscribe to the Bulletin via E-mail. Click here for instructions to subscribe.
How to select language (Français) / language of documents
The menus and navigation are available in English and French
(soon). Most
documents are currently in English. We are developing our French
and Spanish
documentation.
How to send comments or E-mail to
ReliefWeb
Click the Comments item on the red menu to get an e-mail
form. E-mail
is also available on the bottom of each document in ReliefWeb.
How to submit information to ReliefWeb
Click on the Submit item on the red menu to get the Submit
form. Fill it in and send to us.
Back to Help Contents
How to optimize use & Technical
questions:
How to get best results with World Wide Web browsers:
Recommended browsers and browser versions:
If you do not have access to the Web you could still access the
Internet by E-Mail. More information about Web access via Email can be found at http://www.bellanet.org/email.html, or download the instructions from Offline Internet Access.
How to retrieve and save documents on
your own PC (downloading)
-
Download a document: Select File Save As... from the browser's
menu to save
it in HTML format on your own hard disk. If
you prefer
to have the text only, copy the text from the screen and paste
it into a
word processor file.
-
ZIP-files cannot be viewed on-line:
click the link
to get a dialog-box which allows you to download (Save file..)
the file,
and unzip (using WinZip) it on your own system.
-
GIF-files: to download a map in Netscape,
click the right
mouse button on the map, and you get a menu where you have the
option to
save the image. (Our maps are on HTML-pages, so simple File
Save As.. does
not save the map.)
How to speed up the loading of documents:
-
If you face problems with access speed, the problem may be with
network
connections, busy time on international networks or the speed
of your own
equipment.
-
Select a good time: morning in Europe is better for connections
than late
afternoon or evening when American users are also connected to
the Internet
in large numbers. The peak hours for traffic on the Internet
are between 2 to 6 UTC.
-
Check that your browser settings have enough cache memory
reserved for quick
reloading of pages.
-
Set a proxy server if available
(consult your
LAN administrator or Internet service provider about this). You
get more local storage capacity, and some
documents may be found locally in the proxy if someone else using the same proxy has visited
our site
recently.
-
Before loading a graphics file (like a large map) make sure
that your network
connection is fast and your computer has enough capacity (These
are relative
values. Closing any additional software and graphics if you run
Windows 3.11
would also help).
How to deal with graphics, postscript
files and large tables
-
Documents with the extension PDF are in Adobe Acrobat-format.
You need the
Acrobat viewer which you can download from the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/acrobat.
Our site rarely has any documents in this format.
-
Postscript (EPS) is a file format developed
by Adobe and
used by high-end printers. You need to have software and a
printer capable
of interpreting Postscript files to be able to view, edit and
print them.
-
We provide our maps in GIF which is the
format best known
by Web browsers, and also in WMF (Windows
metafile) format
for downloading and local editing.
-
Some of our tables and maps are too large to fit on the normal
screen or
to print on an A4 paper. If available, a large monitor helps.
-
Sometimes graphics colours or pictures may not display
correctly on your
monitor. If your monitor has only 16-colours, it is not enough
for many pictures. In case of 256
colours display,
you may run out of colours as well, if one picture uses all
codes of the
colour palette (like photographs often do). Other pictures then
have to adapt
to that one, which usually gives a less than satisfactory
result. Some
browsers do not handle graphics well: to
correct the
situation, load and install (or buy) one of the recommended
browsers from
the Web.
-
Browsers handle graphics and tables slightly differently.
Though we make
an effort to standardize graphs and tables, those from other
sources may
follow unique coding practices which result in diverse formats.
How to print maps
-
Landscape printing: if the map or financial tracking table is
wide, select
landscape printing instead of portrait in the printer Setup.
-
Financial tracking: print only the GIF-image table, not the
whole HTML page.
In Netscape, this is done by clicking the right mouse button
and selecting
print from the pop-up menu. If you have Lotus 1-2-3 software,
download the
Lotus 1-2-3 table and print it from that program for a higher
quality print-out.
-
If the map does not print on one page, you must download it and
use a
graphics program to resize and print it.
-
If your browser is not able to print a map, you have to save it
first in
the cache memory or in a file, and print it using graphics
software. Consult
your browser's Help-function for instructions, or install a new
browser version.
-
Colours: our maps print also in black and white even though they
have been made
in colour.
More questions?
Send us mail at:
<help@reliefweb.int>
Back to Help Contents
Glossary of technical terms
Bitmap format used by Microsoft Windows. Very popular, uncompressed
raster
image format in PC applications.
Any program which you use to 'browse' the Internet and view
material prepared
for the World Wide Web. Netscape, Mosaic, Microsoft Internet
Explorer are
commonly used browsers. (You see the name of your browser or any
software
on the top of the window, and next to it the name of the currently
open file.)
A program used to extract information from a server. For example,
a browser
is a client to the Web server program.
Compression
Many files, especially large image files, are saved in a format
which reduces
the space needed for storage and hastens transmission speed. Our
site uses
compressions like GIF and JPEG which
your browser
may be able to interpret without any additional software. If this
is the
case, you will see pictures immediately. Files that have ZIP-
extension are
compressed using WinZip program. You need to start it and extract
or 'unzip'
the files.
Transfer of a file from a remote computer like our server to your
own computer.
Encapsulated Postscript. A scalable image format developed by Adobe
and used
by many high-end printers. It can be edited in many ways: objects
can be
separated, deleted, resized, moved, etc.
A high-compression, packet-oriented image format developed for
transferring
images over a modem. Most popular raster image format used in the
Web. The
image scan lines are interlaced which permits the viewer to see the
basic
GIF image after receiving a relatively small amount of the file.
HyperText Markup Language. A document formatting system which is
understood
by Web browsers. HTML documents look neat on your screen when
retrieved through
the Internet. If you like to know more about HTML, take a look at
the
Beginner's
Guide to HTML.
Image formats
See GIF, JPG, BMP
-bitmaps,
EPS, WMF. Some of our maps may use proprietary
formats
like formats created by ArcView or MapInfo which could be processed
further
with respective software.
From Joint Photographic Experts group, JPEG is a condensed &
layered
(Web-type) image format. In general, JPEG allows for higher quality
images
than GIF, the most common image format, and it is used for more
complicated
pictures than GIF.
An automated electronic mailing list, managed by a listserv
program. Listservs
are commonly used by discussion groups. The ReliefWeb listserv
sends the
Bulletin to subscribers.
Portable Document Format developed by Adobe. It is used by some
Web-sites,
but the disadvantage is that you need Acrobat reader to view the
documents.
A server that acts as an intermediary between your computer and the
computer
you want to access. Proxy server retains the latest retrieved pages
in its
memory, and thus it may speed up the access time for you.
Server
A program, running on a networked computer, that responds to
requests from
client programs running on other networked computers.
Uniform Resource Locator. An Internet address. For example,
ReliefWeb's URL
is www.reliefweb.int
Windows metafile is a scaleable image format. It can be edited in
many ways:
objects can be separated, deleted, resized, moved, etc.
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