Without doubt you feel the need to become disorientated; we receive orientation in excess.

a-pam (del nas) is offered as a public service to help people become disorientated. We will explain here how to use it (we also have contradictions, just like everyone).

You need to have Java installed (if not, download it from the Internet) in your operating system and activated in the browser (this may be done either in "preferences" or in "Internet options" of the same browser).

You must use a browser that supports CSS style sheets and PNG graphics (this applies from a certain version number on, depending on the browser. If you have a new version it almost certainly already supports them).

We recommend:

For Linux-Debian: Konkeror

For MacOS X: Safari

For Windows: Mozilla 1.6 or higher as the browser (Mozilla is the open code browser developed by a community of programmers and based on the Netscape code) but you can also operate with MS-Internet Explorer from version 5.5 or with Netscape 7.

Join the session from the home page by clicking on the link marked (coincidentally) "join the session".

If you cannot see the link or the grey box it leads to you probably do not have Java installed or activated.

At the moment a-pam maintains a session open and accessible simultaneously by various people, where a certain number of nodes have already been created.

Once inside a-pam you find a series of nodes represented by circles and connected by lines. Each node corresponds to a page on the World Wide Web, with the lines corresponding to links that exist between these pages. A double line means the link between the pages is mutual.

The size of the nodes is not the same and some of them contain images. Most of the nodes are small and in a muddle. This is because a-pam shows you the network structure from a local viewpoint. There is a larger, central node, which is where you are. It was chosen at random when you joined the session. The nodes connected to this one are smaller and nodes linked in turn to these smaller still. From this point on the nodes become increasingly reduced in size. In the first three levels the system optimizes the representation to make the structure as clear as possible, but from the fourth level of connection we stop worrying about clarity.

The graphic allows adjustment of the visualisation options in order to improve (or worsen) orientation.
Underneath the graphic, the links appear which point to the current page from the rest of the pages explored. Clicking on the icons opens a new window which shows the full versions of the texts or images of these links as well as their source codes.

To navigate, click on one of the nodes (you will only be able to click on a node directly linked to node you occupy). The node you click on will become the central node and the structure will be reconfigured from this. 

When you click on a node a-pam looks for the web page on the Internet and extracts its links, creating new nodes with which the first becomes connected. If another user had already visited that node this analysis will already have been carried out, but the system still checks that the page has not changed.

On occasions, a message will appear indicating that you are on a node from which you cannot navigate. This is a terminal node, either because it has no links, or the page has disappeared or it has an illegible format (basically it does not contain HTML). Click again and the system will take you automatically (and randomly) to another node.