 Frequently Asked Questions |
| Q. | How will I know that my laptop will open up far enough to sit correctly on a Prop-Forward? |
| A. | As long as your laptop will open up to 160 degrees (or more) then it will be fine. Most laptops open up this far, but there are just a few that don't. Take a look here to see what this looks like. |
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| Q. | I would like to use a Prop-Forward, but my laptop has a floppy disk on the front. IS that a problem? |
| A. | Well, if you put floppy disks in and out of the drive often, at the workplace that you plan to use the Prop-Forward, then Yes, you should probably look at other options even though they do not offer all the benefits of a Prop-Forward. However, if you will just use one floppy disk, you can put that in before you start as long as you can prevent the laptop booting from it. Other solutions we have heard of are people using a docking station on a Prop-Forward with the floppy on the side, or using one of those external floppy drives that some laptops can use. Here at ActiveNET we cheat and put the floppy disk into the floppy drive on the server which is shared out across the network… |
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| Q. | Why isn’t there any adjustment on a Prop-Forward? |
| A. | Some of the much larger and expensive stands have a solid adjustment facility, and some of the flimsy cheaper stands also adjust. We wanted to create a stand that was relatively inexpensive, yet aesthetic and sturdy and reliable. We wouldn’t trust an expensive laptop to a flimsy stand and figured lots of other people wouldn’t either, so Prop-Forward was designed to accommodate the vast majority of laptops without compromising reliability or aesthetics. |
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| Q. | Can you get Prop-Forward in any other colour than black? |
| A. | Well, like Henry Ford said, you can have any colour, as long as it’s Black… but like the Ford Motor Company, we guess that one day we might produce some other colours as limited editions, but that won’t be for a while yet and we will offer a discount for any existing customers as a loyalty reward. |
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| Q. | I see that the Air shipping takes up to a week to reach some parts of the world. Why can’t I opt to pay more shipping and have it delivered faster? |
| A. | Well, we figured that no one would want to pay more than the cost of a Prop-Forward to have it delivered and so we don’t currently offer that as an option. If enough people tell us that they would like to pay that much for urgent shipment then maybe we will add that option (hmmm, or maybe we should make Prop-Forward more expensive!) ;o) |
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| Q. | Why isn’t the Prop-Forward made of plastic? |
| A. | Well, it would make it cheaper to ship, but we felt that it would not offer the rigidity prop-forward has when it’s made from aluminium. Please also note that the Prop-Forward is completely recyclable should you ever come to dispose of it (we can’t think why you would!) |
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| Q. | Why is the Prop-Forward priced only in UK pounds, US dollars and Euros? |
| A. | These are three well-understood and relatively stable currencies and so we do not have to adjust pricing on a regular basis, and everyone knows how much (at least one of) these currencies is worth compared to their own. You can purchase with a card that uses any currency and choose any of our three currencies to purchase in and when you credit card bill arrives, the price you chose will have been converted into the currency that your card uses.
Here is an example:
A person in Japan chooses to order a Prop-Forward using our US dollars price (because the dollar price is the best of our three prices when converted to Yen). When his credit card bill arrives, the dollar price is shown and the amount in Yen is also shown, which is what he will actually pay and that will be the dollar price converted to Yen on the day that the payment went through on his card. |
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| Q. | Where can I find independent guidelines about how one should sit at a computer? |
| A. | Companies over a certain size should carry out Workstation assessments for the workplace and you should make similar assessments of your working situation at places where there is no controlling requirement, for your own sake. You can find independent information at various places on the Internet (see our related links section) and there is an ISO standard relating to the subject (ISO 9241-5:1999) but it costs £80 per copy…
What you will find, as a consensus, is the following:
- Your screen should be about 20 inches from your face with the top of the screen at approximately eye level
- Your forearms should be approximately horizontal when using the keyboard and mouse
- Your chair should not be putting undue pressure on the backs of your legs, so if that is the case after adjusting your chair for horizontal forearms get yourself a foot rest
- TFT/LCD screens don’t flicker, don’t have a high electric field and are completely flat. Since they now have excellent resolution and a good size they are preferable to a CRT monitor.
- Full size angled keyboards are easier to use for long periods than laptop keyboards and so is a normal mouse compared to laptop pointer devices.
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| Q. | My company has offered me a docking station with a CRT monitor, separate keyboard and mouse to use. Would I be any better off with a Prop-Forward? |
| A. | The docking station solution was a very good solution when laptops didn’t have much in the way of connectivity features and peripherals. A docking station gave you a network connection, a CD drive and maybe other features, like speakers, USB etc. However, nowadays most laptops have everything you need, including a screen that is often better than a CRT that you are likely to be offered as part of a docking station set-up, so plugging the keyboard and mouse into the laptop and using it on a prop-forward will save the company money, save electricity and give you a flicker free flat screen without sacrificing any of the ergonomic benefits of the docking station approach. In fact, you’ll also gain some free space on your desk because the footprint of a prop-forward is considerably less than a monitor and a docking station. |
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| Q. | My company would like to order a reasonable quantity of prop-forwards, but we cannot order more than 3 at once on the site. How can we do this? |
| A. | Because we sell prop-forwards to people all over the world, part of our security is not to have people pay large amounts by credit card. If your company uses the bulk order form (in the B2B area) then we will send out a pro-forma invoice against which they can raise a cheque or international money order. On clearance of the payment, goods will be shipped. |
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