Smartville FAQs

How To Use This Site

The Smartville page features a new concept in site design. It's the first to feature fast scroll technology. This means that you can grasp the slide handle, and zoom to the bottom of it in seconds, click anywhere in an open grey area of the slide bar to make jumps, or hold the arrow buttons down to slowly move through the content. Unlike other web pages, you don't have to wait for this one to fully load. The links are hot even while they are being drawn. This explains why it's very important for you to learn your way around it. You can start reading, or clicking on items, as soon as you see the Smartville waterfall. If the server at the site you're using doesn't fetch the page correctly, press the reload, or refresh button on your browser. Doing this reloads the images, and should bring them up. To get the most from this page you'll have to make regular visits, since it contains so much important information. Changes are made regularly, so visit often. Smartville is a live page model you can use as a reference source to help you with your own designs. watching it evolve helps in furthering your understanding of page building.

Why This Page Looks Different From Others

Because of its unique nature, Smartville can't be like the other web sites you visit. Constantly having to stop and click on buttons would break students concentration, so the entire main page loads at start up. It's felt that it's better to wait at the beginning, rather then being distracted by clicking on links every few minutes. This not only disorients you, by taking your attention from the subject matter, but also slows you down needlessly. While you have the servers attention, it's best to ask for everything you want, rather then having to wait in line for individual page requests to be processed. The idea is that it's better to make payment in full rather than in installments. Once this page has fully loaded, it will draw much faster when you return from a link. You can use the hot link button to go to the home page for services, and use your back button to return to Smartville when you are done.

Why Enroll In This Free Course?

Smartville residents not only get free PC training, technical advise and Web business training, they also get to meet new people from around the country, and around the world. Those that join are highly motivated indivialual interested in bettering themselves. It's hoped that they'll form relationships that go beyond this class room. This virtual community offers countless services that cost a small fortune in the real world, absolutely free. Our aim is to permit others to enjoy the powerful devices we have mastered also.

The Main Drag

This page is extremely long because it's the Main street of a virtual town. Each heading takes you to a different neighborhood in this community. This site is a unified tool. It has an excellent search engine platform, a computer course, a trouble shooting guide, and an interactive help desk provided through our communications sytem. It doesn't cost a time to ask for help. Smartville is a long road that takes you on a journey of discovery. Those that live here, visit regularly, often hang out on particular blocks, but you should know them all. If can join the community before you finish the page, please keep in mind that its your text book. Although we don't give tests, the instructor, and your classmates will both know when you haven't done your homework.

How Much Does Citizenship Cost?

We believe in helping beginners, and are willing to do more than pay the concept lip service. The only thing you will be required to give in exchange for the many benefits we offer is the time you'll need to learn. Although this is a virtual community, there are a great number of real world responsibilites that must be taken care of. Those that join the class will be asked to volunteer from time to time. This is also part of your training. All participants are expected to lend a hand, when they can, to keep the town going. We have a wide variety of jobs and projects that will teach you things. The more responsiblity you take on, the faster you will learn. For example, those that regularly volunteer to test new software, we get from our software scouts, get to install and use these free applications before others in the community. They get hands-one development experience, while learning how to test, and shake down software products.

Resident Responsibilities

As a citizen of this town you will be expected to come to meetings, and to have the communications system, we help you build, running one hour a week. In most instances your help won't be needed, so this is actually a stand-by assignment, just in case we are implementing a new system, or testing sites, or software. You can think of this work as a field trip that's an important part of your education. Much of the work we do in this community involves developing advanced systems that empower our computers. Smartville is unlike the small hamlets you see as you drive down the highway, we use highly advanced technology. In this community, being a good citizen means working to gain computer skills. Residents of this town believe in empowering both themselves and their PCs, so we take meeting, and these projects very seriously. All the systems we have prototyped are cutting edge, so they let you do things like talk to friends, and family around the world for free, have your e-mail delivered to your desktop, and give your PC more speed and intelligence.

Attendance Policy

Our regular weekly meeting is on Saturday at 12:00 pm EST US, or 17:00 hours London time for those on the GMT standard. It's held at our Delphi club. If you would like to attend one to see if you're interested, feel free to do so. We have a link to it, and our other clubs on the Free software & Services page. Joining one does not automatically make you a student in our course, Filling in our registration form means something. Once you put your name down, you are expected to make every effort to attend the class you have asked to take. If for any reason you can't attend a workshop, you are expected to give prior notice. Those that miss two in a row after joining, are automatically dropped from our ro.ls. Students are responsible for getting notes and assignments from classmates when circumstances prevent them attending one of our meetings.

Smartville And Older PCs

The applications you'll need to use as a resident require Windows 95 or better. However, we have made concessions for people that don't have enough memory or space. In many cases we can provide alternate versions of packages that can be run on less powerful devices. We also give free consultation on necessary hardware, and software upgrades to our students when needed. If you don't have enough memory to join Smartville, then you really aren't experiencing the Web the way that others do. You therefore should be thinking in these terms of either making an upgrade, or as we usually suggest, buying a new PC. These devices hold the key to success for those that master them, so making the necessary sacrifices to get an entry level machines, that runs today's software should be a priority anyway.

Our Citizens

We invite people from around the world to join us. You do not have have to be interested in opening a web based business to become a citizen of Smartville, but you do have to be comitted to helping yourself and others. We are a community of PC users with goals, and dreams. Although each of us has their own goals, we work together to help one another reach our ends. In Smartville, people don't mind if you stand on their shoulders. In fact, they want you to! We want people from all walks of life to join us. You don't have to know anything about computers to participate. We can bring you up to speed in no time, if you're willing to put forth the effort.

Signing The Guest Book

Signing our guest book grants you land in Smartville. It's up to you to build on it. If you already have a page it must meet the guidelines for the Smartville site at which you joined. We have several in various locations. They don't permit porno links, or pages that pay sponsors other then their own. Profane language and material is also not permitted. If you have anything of these things, please submit a copy of the page with the banned material removed, before asking us to post it. All pages are reviewed before they can be put up.

Our Gobal Agenda

We are in the process of FTPing this site to servers around the world, something our students will be taught to do, once they construct their own pages. In the near future, people around the world will be able to dial a local access number to visit our site, as long as we can get a free page on a COM site in their countries. As it stands now, most overseas resients have to pay a tax to access USA servers, so we are bringing our free training to them whenever possible.

Why Build Here?

This site has several clubs and facilities that let it do outreach work that benefits the Internet community. All our clubs have links that transport visitors to this village. Our citizens have the right to a featured link, under a name they choose, under the Buiding section. This showcases them for the world to see. Having yours at a site with other interesting links, and tons of free software, is far better than just giving your page address to friends, family, and strangers. New residents are expected to build one within two months after signing the guest book, if they don't already have one. Your design should incorporate free software, and links to value information. It is hoped that this small town will someday become a city filled with wonderful things to see and do. How it takes shape is up to our residents, so we look for quality in pages we post. They represent us all.

The Smartville Network

This virtual village isn't a Web ring as you have come to know them. They usually involve members linking to each others pages. This town functions differently. Instead of a circle that leads visitors from one site to another at random, Smartville is the hub of a page network. Visitors enter the town, and go down our page visiting links. The difference is that they alway return to the starting point, so they don't get lost in their journey down our Main street. In addition, the advanced communications system we utilize makes us different for a traditional Web ring. Those that join Smartville can reach others in the community help, and to get questions answered. They have a whole town helping them learn and grow in any number of areas.

Thank you for taking the time read this information. You are now ready to start your educational journey. If you would like to take our orientation, please visit the following links to for our concert tour. To get the full effect of this virtual trip, please go to the next entry once the music stops. Just skim over the information for now. There is also a message in the music. Can you figure it out by identifying the song titles?

SMARTVILLE ORIENTATION CONCERT

1. Smartville FAQ (Button)
2. Town Charter (Button)
3. Bill Gates' Head (Gif)
4. Where I Get Off (Button)
5. The Internet (Button)
6. Sherrif Dan (Gif)
7. Lake Smartville (Gif)
8. Smartville Philosopher (Gif)

Once you have completed this overview, please visit these links again when you come back to town, and read them for meaning when you do. The Smartville pages make up the core material for our free course, so get to know them.

Thanks for taking the time to this read section. Rember to turn your speakers on when you see the musical notes, and enjoy the orientation concert!