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Contents of this page

URLs

You should enter this web site by using the URL https://www.savazzi.net (or alternatively, https://www.savazzi.com or https://www.savazzi.org). If you bookmarked a different URL, please change your bookmarks to one of the above URLs. Any other URL may be temporary, and may change without notice. Individual pages within this site can be reliably bookmarked after entering this site through one of the above URLs.

Please note that parts of this site may be hosted at different Internet locations, and that their geographical locations may change at any time. The URLs above are the only permanent way to reach my web site.

Ads

I used to display ads on my pages, albeit not currently - it simply does not generate enough money to have any practical impact, takes space on the pages and is distracting to visitors. If you see any ads on my pages at present (other than in the Google site search pop-up), your ISP is adding them, or you have malware on your computer that does so. Alternatively, you may be visiting my pages through frames of another site. In this case, use one of the above URLs to visit my site instead.

The site search functionality on the home page of this site is provided by Google. Google may choose to display ads and links to sponsored sites in the pop-up that contains the site search results. I have no control over the contents of these ads or their relevance to the contents of this site, and I don't endorse any of the linked sites in these ads.

Updated and changed contents

I usually indicate new pages with a image icon in index pages. Usually, this icon remains until the next major addition of new pages in the same section of the web site. I also update pages whenever new information is available, or whenever I discover errors. Updates happens fairly often for pages of this site, and may range from the correction of misspellings to major additions and/or alterations of contents.

I mark updated pages with an image icon only if the changes are substantial (e.g., major errors have been corrected, or significant materials have been added). The best way for you to know when a page was last updated is to check the "last updated" file date in the footer of each page. This is actually the date the file was last saved on the server, so it may reflect a change in contents, or only cosmetic changes to the layout (for example updates in order to function with current browser versions), or changes of my web authoring tools.

Required web browsers

This web site requires a modern, HTML 5-aware web browser, as well as JavaScript. The code does not function properly without these, and no longer attempts to display a warning if the browser fails to comply with either requirement.

I used to have a couple of Java applets on this site, but continuously changing security requirements and continuously evolving security threats made it too bothersome to keep these applets updated and safe. There are at present no Java applets on this site.

I have tested, and found the current version of this site to work, with Firefox version 78. Other versions and other browsers may work, but have not been tested.

Site history

I started this web site in 1990, hosting it on a Windows PC under my desk in my university office. It is currently hosted by a US-based web provider and its contents are in accordance to and protected by US laws (in particular, by their strong protection of freedom of expression). I am physically resident in Sweden, which grants a similar freedom of expression.

This web site was hacked just once, on May 17, 2000 (when it was running under Microsoft IIS on another host). The home page was substituted with this. For a free, and more reliable, multi-platform alternative to Microsoft Internet Information Services, see the Apache web server.

Over 10 years ago I stopped using my own web server, and since then I have been running this web site on servers provided by hosting companies in the United States.

Judging from web hit counters, visitors of this web site are primarily located in the United States, with lesser numbers from China, Japan and Australia, and a smattering from other countries including even the least likely places on Earth. Visits from EU countries are logged by the individual country. Added together, EU visitors usually come in first or second place.

Major changes

In 2015, I converted this site to a mobile-friendly format.

The appearance of this site is mostly unchanged for visitors using a large screen, but the new layout is simplified with respect to the older one. The visible changes affect mostly users of small tablets and smartphones:
- Fonts increase in size, to make text easier to read on a small screen.
- Figures automatically resize to fit the screen width.
- Figures are linked to the original image file, to allow viewing at the original size on all devices (this may require scrolling and zooming on small screens).
- Two-column and three-column layouts become one-column layouts on small screens.
- Navigation buttons and hyperlinks become larger and more widely spaced on small screens, to allow operating with fingertips.
- Groups of navigation buttons may rearrange on small screens, to avoid horizontal scrolling.
- Some tables may still need scrolling. This is intentionally done to display the information in a meaningful way.

In this conversion, I followed Google's recommendations for responsive design and verified the web site with Google's webmaster tools.

In 2021, I begun to edit existing pages for better compliance with HTML 5. From now on, I only support the HTML 5 standard, and whenever I work on a given page I also remove the legacy HTML code that used to support the quirks of old browsers. Since support for JavaScript is obligatory in HTML 5, disabling JavaScript in the browser makes parts of this site invisible or inoperable.

In mid-2021, I gave up on using Adobe Dreamweaver templates, and removed all traces thereof from the HTML code. The Dreamweaver template functionality, which I started using in version 6, has become more and more broken during the years In version 21, I found it unusable because it crashed Dreamweaver every time I tried to use it, often corrupting HTML files. This function apparently cannot cope with some (correct) HTML code that has nothing to do with templates. Adobe has been aware of these problems for many years, but has refused to fix them.

Among several other complaints I have about Dreamweaver, its automatic HTML formatting and indentation is flaky. The configurable settings work with some tags, but not with others (even commonplace ones that have been part of standard HTML for decades).

Since I have the nasty habit of visually inspecting the automatically generated HTML, I am also aware that the Dreamweaver WYSIWYG editor randomly inserts various oddities that may unpredictably break HTML validation. This requires me to go through the code and manually fix the bugs.

I am aware that there are better development tools for HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Brackets are two of them, and are free for non-commercial use. The only thing that keeps me from switching full-time to either of these is that the WYSIWYG HTML editor in Dreamweaver still is - sadly - better than the competition. Nothing beats the ease of displaying HTML, Javascript and CSS code and rendered page on a split-screen, and switch editing at will to any of these panes with just a mouseclick.

In 2022, I switched from HTTP to HTTPS for all contents of this web site, without exceptions. If your web browser complains that the contents of this web site are mixed (i.e., that some of the contents are served in unencrypted HTTP, this is probably because your browser cache still contains old files originally downloaded with HTTP. If this is a matter of concern, refreshing the browser cache should display the contents of this web site as fully secure. Check the documentation of your browser if you do not wish to refresh its whole cache. For example, Firefox allows you to refresh the cache of the currently displayed web page with Ctrl + F5. This command leaves the rest of the cached pages unchanged (until they expire).

In connection with this update, I revised the HTML code of virtually all pages to comply with SEO recommendations, and updated CSS and Javascript files shared by these pages. I also renamed a few dozen pages to comply with SEO requirements. I am aware that these changes have likely broken many incoming links from other sites, as well as visitors' bookmarks, but this update is an example of the unavoidable changes required to keep a web site over three decades old in line with changing standards and user expectations.

Hardening against hacking

This web site contains only static HTML pages, so it is extremely unlikely that hackers will find anything interesting to do here. There are no databases, no web CMS and no web stores to break into, no web application to break, no user comments or bulletin boards to harvest or troll, no way to upload anything through the web interface, no web forms to exploit, and no server-side languages to exploit. Just lots of information in HTML 5, CSS 3 and client-side JavaScript.

All content creation and styling is done offline at a remote location before uploading the files to the web server. If a hacker should succeed in altering or deleting this web site, I can simply upload an exact copy of the original within minutes on this, or another, web server.

Cookies

See cookie policy.

Ad blockers

This site will never ask you to switch off your ad blocker. In fact, I do recommend that you always use an ad blocker on any web site, period. Ads should be really optional, not something being forced down your throat whether you want them or not. I stopped visiting some web sites I previously used on a regular basis, when their insistance on switching off my ad blocker ads became too much for me. I will continue to do so in the future. I do appreciate that the publishers of web sites do need to put food on their tables, but do not accept that they do so by forcing ads on me. If they believe that the contents of their web sites are really that desirable, they should consider selling access subscriptions instead, or less intrusive ways to make an income from their sites.

Using an ad blocker on this site makes no difference because there are no ads on this site (with the possible exception of sponsored links on the Google search results page, which is generated by Google).

I do wholeheartedly support the idea of untraceable ad blockers that do download ads from their respective servers, send the expected replies to the ad servers, but selectively drop the ads into a black hole before letting the browser display a web page. The technology is entirely feasible, and not that complicated. The web site owners and their ad sellers see their ads being downloaded to my browser, I see no ads, and everybody is happy.

The law

In accordance with EU law, I can link to your (or any other) publicly accessible web site without asking your permission and regardless of whether the materials I am linking to are copyrighted. Cross-linking to images and other media on another site to make it appear as a part of the linking site is explicitly allowed by EU law, regardless of whether the link target is copyrighted.

For example, I am allowed to link to a copyrighted picture on your web site and present the picture to a visitor of my web site to make it appear like the picture is a part of my web site. I rarely do this, and only with good reasons. I always add a link to the picture that leads back to the original source or web site of the picture. However, be advised that I am under no legal obligation to do this.

Many other countries or states have similar laws.

I choose which links to other sites to publish on this site, based on a single criterion:

  • I link to web sites that I personally find to be useful in the context of a specific discussion on my site.
    Further explanations:
    • I am aware that millions of web sites are useful in a general sense, but I am not in the business of compiling and maintaining a list of web sites useful to the general public.
    • I am also aware that the web contents I find useful may be too elementary or too advanced to be interesting to others, and vice versa.
    • In special cases, I may publish non-clickable URLs to specific web sites to warn others against visiting these sites.

Please also note:

  • I do not engage in link swaps (i.e., you link to my site, and I link to yours in return)
    • Further explanations:
    • I make no money from visitors of this web site, and I am under no pressure to increase the number of visitors of my web site.
    • Google is more than good enough to draw a sufficient number of visitors to this site.
    • I am satisfied with my site only being visited by people who are interested in the contents I provide.

Over the years, quite a few of the external pages linked from my web site have been shut down, moved, or are temporarily unavailable. When I discover that the linked contents are no longer available and have not moved to an easily discovered location, for example when I generate a new sitemap with an online web crawler, I add a (dead link) comment after the link. When a link is automatically redirected to a new location, on the other hand, I take no action. There are intermediate situations, such as an old link now leading to the home page of the destination site. As long as the link no longer displays the originally linked materials, I regard the link as dead. When I have reason to believe that a linked page still exists but is no longer openly accessible and requires login, membership or the like, I add a (login required) note.

However, I have better uses for my time than continuously checking all the external links on my site. Therefore, I make no guarantee that the links on my site are still working.

You are free to link to my web site, or to specific pages or materials on my web site, as you see fit. You do not need my permission to link to my site. However, please note:

  • URLs on my site may change without notice. It rarely happened so far, but I might be forced to do this in the future, for example if I will find it necessary to restructure my site or delete obsolete information.
  • Linking to my web site does not imply that I will reciprocate by linking to your site.
    • I will link to your site only if I have a reason to (as explained above), and regardless of whether you link to my site.