Slingshot 263

The latest issue of Slingshot (number 263, March 2009), the bi-monthly publication of the Society of Ancients, went to the printers last Monday. Apologies for the lateness of this issue. My understanding is that the issue has been delayed a further couple of days to accommodate the printing of membership cards, which are enclosed with the magazine, so it may be another week before it arrives with you. The incentive game is not included with this mailing and will be sent separately.

This issue is 60 pages long, not including the cover pages. It's published in the same format introduced with issue 258.

The contents of Slingshot 263 are as follows. For games articles, I've indicated the relevant rule set where it's not immediately obvious from the title; with historical articles I've tried to indicate period if a similar issue applies.

• Cogadh Gaedhil: Medieval Irish warfare 600AD-1500AD, Part I, by Mick Hession
• The Battle of the Granicus, by Patrick Waterson
• Recent Reconstructions of the Battle of the Granicus, by Philip Sabin
• “Oh merchant, how you use up silver!” (Mesopotamian Notes VI), by Alastair McBeath
• Ambush at Callinicum 531 AD (The Case For Reliable Arabs), by Stewart Hey
• The Longbeards, by Robert Heiligers
• [DBA] Campaigns for Wargamers 7 – The Normans in Italy, by Paul Burton
• [WAB] Thinking About Romans, by Adrian Goldsworthy
• [AMW] Ancient and Medieval Wargaming, by Neil Thomas
• Of Brushes and Bowstrings, by David Edwards
• Honouring the Dead, by Edward Harvey
• Plastic Alchemy Update 2008, by Andrew Lawrence
• Book Reviews, by Marc Adda, Phil Barker & Will Whyler
• Figure Reviews: 28mm Celts and Romans, Tibetans & Macedonian Successors, by Mark Watson
• The Great Commanders at Milton Keynes Campaign: 9 -10 May 2009, by Graham Evans

Windows Issues

Tim Myall mailed me to tell me about a bunch of issues on Windows IE, starting with the home page. I’ve been going through and fixing the various issues that Tim called out, and a further group that I subsequently found. Right now the home page is fixed, and some other problematical pages such as the Slingshot Previous Issues is fixed. There are some alignment issues on some remaining pages, which I’ll iron out this week, and a couple of issues on some of the pages with fancier menus.

Some observations:

I use a Mac, and had hoped some of these issues were caught by simply asking the committee to provide feedback from their Windows machines. Daft idea. I will try and check on Windows (under emulation) when I add pages going forward.

The pages in question all work under (on a Mac) Safari and Firefox and (on Windows) Safari, Chrome and Firefox. The home page issue is down to a bug in IE6 and IE7 which has been fixed in IE8. The remaining issues I need to fix are problems only in all versions of IE. My strong suggestion - if you want a better Internet experience, and can’t afford to drop Windows completely, at least get yourself a better browser.

More discounts for members!

Immortal Miniatures are now offering SoA members a 10% discount on their products. So far they have released 28mm Greeks and Persians, and Assyrians and Babylonians. See their website at www.immortalminiatures.com. And of course, make sure you quote your membership number when ordering.

Events

The events page was extremely slow, basically because it loaded the events from a very slow third party calendar server. Accordingly, I’ve replaced it for the moment with an embedded Google Calendar, which is less pretty and functional but which takes less than 20 seconds to load. It also allows somebody else to maintain the events list, which is in line with the intent of being able to distribute responsibility for the website in line with various people’s remits, rather than concentrate it because nobody can edit it but the webmaster. Anyhow, the address has now changed, and you may have to refresh the site in your browser to pick up the new tabs.

Printing

I had a complaint pointing out it was impossible to print out a page sensibly. This has been fixed, for those pages with substantive (text, or styled text with images) content. For some of the fancier pages (such as and including the home page) it’s not really possible to get a sensible print of the page. In general everything you find on the home page should link to a more content-full page elsewhere, which can be printed. Please use the Contact Us form to let me know of any further problems with printing (use the “Website Enquiry or Comment” topic).

Championship Online Results Submission

A new form has been added to the championship pages to allow you to submit results online; you can find it here. You can also download a printable copy of the results form from the Downloads page, in which case you’d then have to mail the result to Bill Thurlow (our society ombudsman; you can find his mailing address on the inside front cover of the latest Slingshot).

Website News

What, three blogs on one server? Actually it’s just an easy way of providing news feeds and there’s a deliberate decision to avoid having news from one source bump major society news off the main page. I’ll use this one for simple updates on changes/fixes to the website. Hence, the entries are going to be fairly short, much as this one is.