Current Known Issues:
(1) Some ScotMus.com e-mails are being bounced by some other mail servers on the mistaken assumption that they're spam. This means that although I always reply to readers' e-mails, some replies aren't getting through. So if you've sent me an e-mail and haven't had a reply within a week, chances are I have replied, but it's been bounced. In which case, please re-send your e-mail to alert me to the fact, and I'll try and re-send my reply. All very annoying — I am working on it, though. :-)
The technological principle underlying the ScotMus.com website is that it should be instantly usable for anyone with any (standard) online desktop or laptop computer, regardless of which (major) web-browser or (common) operating system they use, and without requiring any weird browser plugins or other exotic third-party software (but please check my "Software-Specific Notes" below).
I'm keen to hear from users who've spotted any broken bits I've missed, or who experience problems in using the website. So if your story falls into either of those categories, please feel more than free to drop me a line — but first, please check "Current Known Issues", above! :-)
Testing is routinely carried out mostly on Microsoft Windows and Linux Debian-based platforms (and occasionally on Apple Macintosh), using the latest official versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome and Opera — all with the official Adobe Flash plugin (Linux users should read the "Software-Specific Notes" below). So in theory, "Things Should Work"™ on any sensible combination of those — if it all goes wrong on a more exotic operating system or web-browser, I might not be able to help you. Equally, my design does not consciously cater for hand-held mobile devices, although various helpful gizmo-geeks occasionally tell me that it works functionally-enough on some.
If there is one browser that I design for first, then it's Mozilla Firefox, which I warmly recommend either as your main browser or as a secondary machine for when your operating system's default browser inevitably blows up (winks to Windows users in particular). It's available for all major operating systems (although Linux users should read the "Software-Specific Notes" below).
Standard cross-plaftorm and cross-browser compatibility being the main goal, the primary technologies behind the ScotMus.com system are: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and Flash programming. All code, script & text is hand-crafted in a range of enhanced text-editors. XHTML and CSS Validation is carried out on the usual W3C services. JavaScript is tested in the first instance on Opera, which seems to operate a fairly universally-applicable standard.
If you're a fellow nerdy-geek who wants to know what software I abuse, I'll be doing a short blurb on that soon enough. In the meantime, let's just say that I work mostly on Windows (for reasons of its inexplicable popular pseudo-compatibility, rather than personal preference), and deploy a range of commercial, open source, and custom-built applications. If you're interested in seeing even more nonsensical examples of my previous online crimes, they're mostly available for public disapproval on my CyberScotia domain.
Software-Specific Notes
Adobe Flash: At least in theory, all you need in your web-browser is the official Adobe Flash plugin (version 9 or above), which well over 90% of web-users have these days anyway (most, without even realising it). Basically, if YouTube works for you, then ScotMus.com should, too. And if you don't have the right plugin, my website's designed to tell you where to get it — so unless you can't see/play my tunes, you should just assume you're OK. It should only really be an issue for Linux users who've not got the official Flash plugin. However, I'm also aware of a surreal issue in the Konqueror browser on Linux KDE systems, which seems to refuse to load my Flash content even with the official Adobe plugin installed, but at this point, I haven't worked out a solution (other than to suggest using a good Adobe-enabled version of Mozilla instead).
Internet Explorer: Prior to Version 8, Explorer was notorious for not complying with the widely-accepted W3C standards that almost all other major web-browers had accepted for years. As a result, pre-v.8 Explorer often mangles web-page layouts. I can't be bothered bailing Microsoft out by writing multiple versions of my web-pages to compensate for this historical idiocy, for which I make no apologies whatsoever. If you use Explorer, I suggest you make sure that you've got at least Version 8.
Linux Browsers: Not all Linux versions of good, standards-compliant web-browsers are as "standard" as you might think — most versions of Linux have re-written, unofficial versions of popular web-browsers that often aren't as good or reliable as the official releases. Add to that the fact that (for apparently ideological reasons alone) many Linux distributions seem to go out of their way to avoid including the "standard" default system-fonts that you generally find in Microsoft or Apple operating systems, and you end up with a situation where a vast number of perfectly workable pages on the web get mangled up on Linux browsers in ways that not even the earliest versions of Internet Explorer ever did! So, given the vast and ever-diversifying number of Linux distributions in existence (and thus the vast number of "anti"-MS/Apple fonts and proprietorially-rewritten Linux browsers clogging up the web and our computers), again, I'm not going to waste my life making the site perfect for every single one. Most importantly, though, Linux users will often find that they'll have to install the official Adobe Flash plugin before ScotMus.com works for them — third-party Linux "Flash" plugins are often very amateurishly-designed, and I really ain't going to waste my life compensating for other programmer's pointlessly-non-standard whims! Flash is now a widely-accepted standard, and it has a widely-accepted and superbly-functional official version — end of story!!!
* Page sub-title with sincere and respectful apologies to the unfeasibly-large-suited Mr. David Byrne (ex of Dumbarton) and other Talking Heads.