Welcome to THE LOOP's Guide to Navigating Our Website!

Think of THE LOOP as a magazine that arrives in your e-mail box. The cover page of the magazine is our newsletter, but we also have several sections in our magazine for you to peruse. We hope this tutorial will help you turn the pages through all sections so that you can get the most out of our site as well as other Internet sites.

Wherever you see bright blue underlined words, those are hot links. They take you directly to another place on the same page or to another page altogether, either on this web site or another web site. A hot link is a technique that allows you to either navigate quickly around a single page or immediately reference material related to the story you are reading.

Notice when you place your cursor over the bright blue underlined words your cursor changes from a pointer to a hand. The hand means you are on a hot link, and when you click with your mouse you will go directly to that linked item.

Look for the hand as you take your cursor over to the advertisement boxes on the top of our newsletter, on the left-hand side or in the New Arrivals column on the right. When you click on those ads or logos, you will go directly to that company's or association's own Web site, or a page with special information about the company or its products (the term for this page is "jump page").

For all hot links that open a new page, we have engineered our site so that a new window opens on top of your existing window instead of changing the page in your current window. When you are through viewing that new page, just close the window by clicking on the tiny box at the top-left corner of the frame and THE LOOP still will be open at the page you left it.

THE LOOP is designed so that all pages have the same format. The top left-hand corner lists the eight main sections of our Website, plus three sites hosted at the domain of our partner, Amusement Today. By clicking on one of these buttons, you will go directly to the page listed.

The eight sections of our Website are:

Home — THE LOOP home page provides links to the entire Website and hot links to the trade associations THE LOOP belongs to.

THE LOOP — The current issue of THE LOOP newsletter. When a new issue is posted (we post the second and fourth Fridays of every month), it will replace the previous issue, which will remain archived on the site and accessible through the LOOP Index.

THE LOOP Index — The index page for every one of THE LOOP newsletters we have published, complete with a list of individual stories in each LOOP. Click on a date to go to that issue of THE LOOP. We archive all newsletters on our site for at least one year.

Reading Room — A collection of original articles for and about the amusement industry. This link takes you to an index of all the articles we have posted on our site. Click on the article title to go to that story.

Connections — Hot links to LOOP advertisers, manufacturers, industry associations, amusement facilities of all types and sizes, and other web sites of industry interest.

Staff (also known as "Masthead" on some LOOP newsletters) — A list of our staff and how to reach us, our mission statement, and other information about THE LOOP and Minton Enterprises LLC.

Advertising — All the information about advertising in THE LOOP and lists current specials. It also allows you to make direct e-mail contact with Lynne Mosman, our advertising manager.

Help — This page.

The other three buttons link you to our Amusement Today partners:

Amusement Today — This button takes you to www.amusementtoday.com, a join effort of THE LOOP and Amusement Today, the leading monthly newspaper for the amusement trady. At that web site you will find a synopsis of key articles in the current issue of Amusement Today plus advertising, subscription and customer service information.

Splash —This takes you to www.splashmagazine.com, a web site for the leading water leisure publication that is now a special monthly section of Amusement Today. This web site is being developed to offer even more news and services for waterpark operators, developers and suppliers.

Extra! Extra! — An exclusive feature of THE LOOP and Amusement Today, a constantly updated page of breaking news in the amusement industry. This page is housed on www.amusementtoday.com.

We hope this helps you enjoy our site and THE LOOP even more. If you need more help, or have any comments about the newsletter or our site, just click here, and an e-mail window will appear with my address in it for you to send me a message.

Thank you for reading THE LOOP!

Eric Minton
Editor-in-Chief
THE LOOP
www.gettheloop.com