Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 November 3

= November 3 =

Checking for user fonts
I want to construct a web-page that displays text if the user has a specific font installed, and an image of that text if they do not. This way I can make sure it always displays the way I want it to (yes, this is important). Is this possible? If so, how so? I heard that javascript might do the trick. Deshi no Shi (talk) 01:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Some googling turned up this nice little article explaining how to do it, and this page shows that it actually works quite well. Good luck! Belisarius (talk) 01:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Since that uses JavaScript, it is dependent on the end-user having JavaScript enabled. Since it is so easy to disable (and disabling JavaScript is becoming more and more popular), making your website require JavaScript to provide basic functionality will turn away users instead of attract them.  You may as well do away with the trouble of looking for fonts and just page your page a big JPG image so you can control exactly how it appears. --  k a i n a w &trade; 02:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure disabling javascript is really all that popular. It's certainly a bit silly — javascript is a major component of Web 2.0 and people who disable it do so at their own peril. Anyway, if you use a solution where text is written in a default font and then the javascript checks if it is in the right font and if not turns it into an image... non-javascript people will just see it in the default font. Which might not be pretty but it's not worth bending over backwards for people who go to extremes of disabling all javascript, in my opinion. If you disable basic functionality you are probably used to seeing things not as designers intended. A designer's obligation in my mind is that things fail in a still-usable fashion. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That was my point ... designers should be obligated to ensure that failure to meet all of their design still renders something useful. Consider a blind person trying to use the site using a text-only reader (no graphics, no javascript, no special fonts...).  Most designers feel that the public is obligated to install Windows with the latest version of IE and the latest version of flash just to view their special creation.  As for disabling JavaScript... disabling it doesn't mean you disable ALL scripts.  I commonly go to pages where I have the page's scripts enabled and Google Analycts junk disabled.  What is being disabled is annoyances, not functionality.  A page that demands that I run a script just to see content in a specific font is an annoyance. --  k a i n a w &trade; 03:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I am upfront about using Google Analytics on my website and actually inform my visitors that they have an option to disable it, if they choose to. (I publicize Mozilla Firefox in the process, but that should not be immoral.) Being on a mac most of the time, I understand the annoyance when a website does not work on Mozilla Firefox or even worse, shows a pop-up saying "Please upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer." Kushal (talk) 12:01, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * For a long while, I used a 10-year old PC that was simply incapable of running the latest and greatest Internet Explorer and Flash versions. A large number of pages (many from major corporations) either displayed various amounts of garbage or refused to work at all.  My pet annoyance was to have web mail freeze for 15 minutes or more while trying to display a Flash advertisment.  I found that uninstalling the Flash plugin and disabling Javascript gave a much more usable internet, especially when visiting those sites that actually bothered to implement the &lt;alt> or &lt;noscript> html tags.  Astronaut (talk) 12:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Again—all I think the developer needs to do is make sure things fail in a usable fashion. On all the sites I produce, if you show up without the ability to see flashy things, you won't see flashy things. But you can still use the site. (And what's up with the Analytics hate? It's far more anonymized information than most server logs—you can't, for example, follow an individual users' habits, which is quite trivial to do with server logs.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Speaker blip blip blip buzz blip blip buzz noize
You're probably heard this noise even if you don't realize it, because it's rather hard to describe, but I often hear it from electronic speakers at random times regardless of whether they're playing something or not, they tend to make this blip blip blip buzz noise and I haven't been able to uncover any information on what causes it on the internet. It appears to be the same pattern of sound from speaker to speaker and I am really curious to find out what the cause of it is. For the any of you who know of this specific sound that I am talking about, do you know what causes this strange sound? Yakeyglee (talk) 03:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That may be interference coming from a cell phone signal, be it an incoming call or a text message. My professor likes to claim that it is an advanced Russian detection system.  Go ahead and try standing next to some speaker wires and send/receive text messages and phone calls. --omnipotence407 (talk) 03:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Depending on shielding for the speakers and the signal cables, a lot of weird noises can be picked up from all the electromagnetic radio wave activity in the air. I had to toss out a set of speakers that my wife had because they were especially susceptible to the shrimp boat radios.  I got tired of listening to the shrimp boaters jabber back and forth all day and all night. --  k a i n a w &trade; 12:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * My speaker chord was too close to my land line telephone. When I moved the chord a few centimetres away from the receiver, the speaker stopped making those odd noises. Sandman30s (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing you have DSL - in that case, you probably need to buy a $5 filter to put between the wall socket and the phone. If you do have DSL and you don't already have the filter - then you should definitely do this in order to avoid killing your network error rate every time someone picks up the phone. SteveBaker (talk) 21:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Cannot associate files
OK, so I have Winamp on my PC, and whenever I try to associate MP3s to it, it does nothing, although I can do so in my other account in XP. Any thoughts on this? Blake Gripling (talk) 10:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Could you tell us what mp3 files are associated with at the moment? Kushal (talk) 11:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * If Winamp is not doing it directly (Winamp->Options->Preferences->Setup->File types->select all (or just mp3) then close) then you can use these steps: My Computer->Tools->Folder options->File types->mp3->Change->Select Winamp. To follow up Kushal one's question, if they are constantly associated with another media player then that player may be constantly changing the associations do you'd need to fiddle with its options to make it stop.--droptone (talk) 12:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * @Kushal: Nothing, although they bear the WMP icon. Whenever I double-click on them, nothing happens. Blake Gripling (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay, Blake. If you are sure nothing happens, please move on to the steps that Droptone suggested. HTH, Kushal (talk) 18:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

TI-84 Plus Silver Edition Screen Problem
There is a column of pixels on the screen that refuse to turn on, even after completely resetting the calculator. What is going on? PS It's not under warranty 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 14:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That's a classic symptom of a broken display. There is nothing you can do - except send it back for repair.  It sucks that it's not under warranty - and the cost of repair could easily exceed the cost of a new machine (esp. if you remember to include postage).  (The newer ones also tend to have more memory...so that might help to swing your decision towards "replace" rather than "repair"). SteveBaker (talk) 14:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Good god...it would cost $150 to send and fix...i just bought a new one. Thanks. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 13:55, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Grabbing that "CNNBC" video
-- and complete with the trimmings.

As you may know, moveon.org has produced a very flash couple of minutes of Flash, which you get at the special-purpose "cnnbcvideo.com".

(If you don't know, well, you go there and you write somebody's first and second names and email address. The website then sends a spammy looking message to that address, and if the recipient's spam filter is any good, the message is trashed. One way to get it is to use a web-based account -- I used yahoo.co.jp -- and flush out its junk folder, have cnnbcvideo.com send the message, and then fish this message out of the junk folder. The message, if you manage to get it, contains a link to a personalized page of cnnbcvideo.com that offers a Flash video that, eerily, is just for you. You can watch it perhaps three times, but thereafter it's no longer available, and with no explanation.)

So, I got the message, I clicked on the link, I gazed dumbstruck at the video, I fished the 5.8MB file out of the Firefox cache and gave it a name ending SWF. VLC plays it just fine. However, what I see is the generic version, with the variables undefined.

Presumably VLC gets the main file and some (flv?) datafile and constructs "your" video in your own 'puter. Extraordinary. Well, however it works when you're connected to cnnbcvideo.com, presumably it would also work when you have the right files with the right names in the right relative positions in your own directory structure. But what are the values for all these variables? Or -- the "teach a man to fish" question -- how, using Firefox, Konqueror, Safari, Opera or even (on a borrowed machine) Explorer would I find out what they are?

I did look in Google for this one, but only found this Mozillazine post, the same question as my own, posed by "Guest" (not me); this hasn't yet been answered. But someone here can do better, I'm sure. -- Hoary (talk) 14:34, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Why would you even want to do this? It sounds like some advertising spam to me that no one would actually want in their inbox.  Like you said yourself: "...sends a spammy looking message..." and "...I gazed dumbstruck at the video...", so it has to be crap.  However, if you must, take a look at the "page source" and pay particular attention to the link to launch the video.  You should be able to fish out the variables used to provide you with your personalised spam.  Astronaut (talk) 16:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I seen that video yesterday and it is cool. The NY Times blog notes that it is "essentially multiple layers of Flash animation". If you find out how to, leave a note here please? F (talk) 03:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the link, O tersely named editor. I'm glad to infer that the video interested you. Yes, if I manage to grab it intact I'll say how I managed to do so. -- Hoary (talk) 05:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, Astronaut, unless the viewer is an unusually solemn supporter of McCain (or Barr, Nader, etc), this is a fascinating video and a good example of how, miracle of miracles, what at first looks spammy both to a human and to SpamAssassin isn't always spammy. (Come to think of it, committed Republicans ought to be particularly interested by the video, wanting to reverse-engineer it and apply its methods the next time around.) But thank you for the technical tips and encouragement. -- Hoary (talk) 05:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a Flash video. It most certainly runs a regular video and then superimposes the name in the right place at the right times. What's clever about it is just that it hasn't been done on that big a scale before, and that it was done quite effectively so that the text really did look integrated with the video feed. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

font size=1
what would replace the deprecated tag ?--Givensuch2 (talk) 18:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You would want to use inline CSS with a div tag. For example:

Hello Or, for pixels: Hi I hope I answered your question! David WS (contribs)  21:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Or maybe a span tag instead, if you want it to be inline, not block. --Kjoonlee 23:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Android Eclipse setup
Hi, I am a neighborhood idiot. I can't get android setup in eclipse. Even following a guide directly from google and how to install their SDK. I wanted to play around with android apps so I wanted to know what I had to do to setup android. The problem I keep having is that it doesn't look right, I'll follow their guide and go to start typing in code and it never registers as it should. 66.216.163.92 (talk) 23:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I found it was very sensitive to the precise versions of Eclipse, JDK, etc, etc. Make sure you have the exact versions that Google describe.   I also had a heck of time getting it to work because some versions of eclipse are broken for 64-bit machines and eat all of RAM before you've even gotten started.  However, on 32 bit hardware and with the versions of everything that they suggest - it "just worked" for me.  (It's kinda cool - you can run their emulation of an Android phone - you can even do stuff like surfing the web using their browser on the simulation of the phone.) SteveBaker (talk) 14:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Div and span attributes
Please go over some basic div and span attributes. Put a on my talk page when awnsered.--Ipatrol (talk) 23:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * HTML or CSS attributes? -- k a i n a w &trade; 00:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * DIV and SPAN at w3schools. If you still have questions then ask away! Otherwise look things up for yourself. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * And we have an article on span and div. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  02:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)