Frequently Asked Questions About the Café

If you are a newcomer to the Chat 'n Chew Café, you may have a few questions about how things operate in that establishment. Here are answers to a few of the most frequently asked questions down at the Chat 'n Chew Café.

Just where exactly is this Chat 'n Chew Café located?: The Chat 'n Chew Café is symbolic of all the small town coffeeshops where farmers and business folk have congregated for years to shoot the breeze and share gossip about corn, soybean, wheat, cows, hogs, bankers, basketball, lawyers, and the like.

How much can I trust the coffeeshop talk that goes on the Chat 'n Chew?: The information you'll find at the Café originates primarily from reputable crop experts from landgrant universities around the U.S. Be aware that if you farm in an area far different from that of the source institution, you may want to consult with your own landgrant university crop experts about the geographic applicability of the information provided in an article.

Why do you so freely link to information from sources other than Purdue University?: That's an easy answer. The proprietor freely acknowledges that Purdue does not monopolize the market when it comes to information that is potentially useful for the Indiana agricultural professional. The beauty of the Web is the ability to link to a broad array of information sources to provide Café patrons with the best possible advice. Secondarily, the proprietor also selfishly admits that offering menu items from nearby states gets his foot in the door with potential Café patrons in those same states.

I see the following warning message at the top of my Internet Explorer Web browser when I open the Cafe. What is the reason for this?: The Cafe proprietor recently added Java script dropdown menus to the bottom of the Cafe page banner. Your Web browser is warning you that it has restricted this page from running scripts for security reasons. If you want to view the dropdown menus, click inside the warning dialog box as indicated.; Next, click the "Allow Blocked Content" menu choice.; Then click "yes" to allow the Java script to run on this Web page. After this, you should be able to view the dropdown navigation menu of the Chat 'n Chew Cafe.; If you are scared to death of the security risk of actively running Java scripts, then do not click the warning message box. You can still access the information from the dropdown menus by simply clicking on the titles of each menu (e.g., "Grain markets").

How do I navigate to other Purdue Ag Web sites?: You can navigate to certain other Purdue Web sites by clicking on the names listed in the page banner for the Cafe.

What on earth is the purpose of that Google™ search box I see near the top of the Café pages?: You can search through musty archives of the Leftovers section of the Café for articles posted in prior months and years by typing one or more key words in the search box and then clicking the "search" button. The search "engine" is customized to search specific directories on the Web and not all of Cyberspace.

What on earth does that little symbol next to some of the titles mean?: That symbol signifies that the linked document is mostly a photo gallery of images pertaining to the subject of the title.

What on earth does that little symbol next to some of the titles mean?: That symbol signifies that the linked document is PDF formatted and requires the Adobe™ Acrobat Reader™ for viewing. This software can be downloaded for free by surfing over to the Adobe Web site at http://www.adobe.com/acrobat/readstep.html.

I've got Adobe™ Acrobat Reader installed on my computer, but cannot open one of those files? What gives?: Chances are the file has been created with a version of Adobe™ Acrobat Reader™ that is newer than the one you have. Go to the Adobe Web site at http://www.adobe.com/acrobat/readstep.html and download/install the latest version.

What on earth does that little symbol next to some of the titles mean?: That symbol means that the linked article is one of the freshest items on the menu. After about a week, menu items lose their freshness and no longer merit the distinction associated with that symbol. After about a month, menu items are removed from the menu entirely, but are kept available indefinitely in the Leftovers section of Charlotte's refrigerator.

The contents of the Chat 'n Chew Café are too wide for my monitor screen. What gives?: Well, that means that your monitor resolution is probably set at 640 x 480. Extensive surveys of the Café patronage reveal that the overwhelming majority of you are accessing the Café with monitor resolutions of 800 x 600 or greater. The Café proprietor decided to design the Café site to accomodate the majority of the users. The management apologizes for any inconvenience this may create for a few of our customers.

Why do some of the links at the Chat 'n Chew Café open up in a brand-new browser page, rather than the one I was using in the first place?: The Web authoring technique of forcing a link to open up a new window is an admittedly sneaky way of ensuring that the Chat 'n Chew Café remains in your original window so as to prod you to return to the Café after you are done perusing the information at the linked site.