Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 February 3

= February 3 =

Infinite Loop with updates
So my dad's Vista laptop became seriously messed up for some reason, so Microcenter helped up reinstall Vista. For a while, it was working great. Then, I ran Windows Updates and it downloaded 106 "critical updates." Now, when I try to boot up, the screen says "Installing updates- Stage 3 of . 0 percent" and then it will shut down. I've ran safe mode and repair mode, but I still can't break this cycle and get it to load completely. Any ideas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.229.194.243 (talk) 02:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It will be time consuming, but you could reinstall Vista, make sure it runs, then do the first update, make sure it runs, etc., until you find the update causing the problem. Then you would reinstall Vista again, and install every update but the trouble maker.  BTW, why can't you reinstall Vista on your own ? StuRat (talk) 03:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Try this and maybe read this. Von Restorff (talk) 03:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I ended up reinstalling vista and getting it to work, but now the hard disk has failed, so it doesn't matter. Thanks anyway.71.229.194.243 (talk) 02:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

help to control TV with ipad2
Hi - OK this is my setup. I have my LCD TV (in another room) hooked up via HDMI to my Windows 7 PC. It works very well to watch videos on the TV, controlled via the PC desktop. So then I thought - why not remote desktop in to the PC so that I don't have to walk up and down from the PC to the TV? So I enabled remote desktop on the PC, and downloaded Remote Desktop Lite for the ipad2. Now this works like a dream on the ipad screen - but unfortunately it 'transfers' the desktop to the ipad and all I see on the PC is the windows password entry box - which reflects on the TV! How do I fix this please? Or are there other ideas to remotely control a PC or TV setup like mine with the ipad2? Sandman30s (talk) 09:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Transfers? 190.60.93.218 (talk) 13:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That's expected behaviour with remote desktop. You can use VNC if you want your PC display to mirror what's on the iPad VNC client. Alternatively there are hackish ways you can allow simultaneous users on Windows non server editions which may violate the EULA, which means you can be logged in on the iPad as an independent user while stil having the other user viewable via the TV, although it doesn't sound like that's what you want. Of course you could also just buy a wireless keyboard and mouse and perhaps remote control an not worry about the iPad or doing funny things like running back to the PC to control the TV. You can also get plenty of tools to use an Android device to remote control the PC (as a remote control rather then simplying mirror the display and acting as a keyboard and mouse), I presume the same exists for the iPad as well. In addition, many decent HTPC apps for Windows like MediaPortal have Android phone and iPhone (so I presume iPad) remote control apps. I'm guessing even the crappy Windows Media Centre has some. Nil Einne (talk) 13:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It seems VNC is $25... do you know if the $5 Splashtop can do the same thing. It's not clear whether VNC or Splashtop blanks the remote screen in order to activate it on the ipad.Sandman30s (talk) 14:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If you are using Windows Media Center to play video, there are several remote applications available to control any media playing as well as doing some navigation. If you aren't, there are also trackpad+keyboard apps you can use assuming the TV is in sight.  Both these would eliminate any risk of blanking or moving into the non-aero mode (usually disrupting playback). 206.131.39.6 (talk) 17:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Jumbo frames in gigabit ethernet switches
My 5? year old 8 port 3Com 3CGSU08 gigabit ethernet switch is dying (first it barely worked with anything fast ethernet, now it often dies and has to be reset/restarted every 10 minutes or so on occasion) so I'm looking for a new unmanaged 8 port gigabit switch. I normally use (9K) jumbo frames and while I've never tested to see how much of a difference it makes, I'd prefer to maintain it if it doesn't cost too much.

A lot of people seem to warn about making sure your gigabit switch supports jumbo frames even nowadays which confuses me, as I'm having trouble working out why some switches don't support jumbo frames (allegedly). For example the Realtek RTL8370 is allegedly used in a lot of ultra cheap Chinese unmanaged 8 port switches. And it seems to be one of their only current 8 port switch chipsets, yet it's supposed to support jumbo frames (although I know you can't always rely on their website for this sort of thing, as there are sometimes variants and older models still widely available or in production which aren't listed). I found at least one switch which I think uses a Realtek 8370 (although it could be an older Realtek) but some sellers say it doesn't support jumbo frames. While I don't know what the Tenda G1008D uses, some representative of the manufacturer has said it doesn't support jumbo frames. (I'm actually not sure what modern gigabit switch chipset doesn't support jumbo frames.) Even this 2007 Smallnetbuilder review with a bunch of cheapish switches didn't have any switch without jumbo frames (although admitedly they actually asked for jumbo frames support).

Anyway my main question is, am I right that most every modern switch, even the cheap crap ones probably support jumbo frames? I.E. The idea many modern ultracheap SOHO gigabit switches don't support it is largely a myth perhaps born out of fairly old history (if it was ever true). Probably combined with the fact many SOHO or home routers don't support jumbo frames on the router portion (the switch usually does from what I can tell). And some manufacturers either can't be bothered to spec their devices for jumbo frames (in case it has problems or whatever) or just ill-informed sales staff.

Or is there something other then switch chipset support, like buffer memory size that prevents jumbo frame support? From what I can tell the only thing it should do is reduce throughput in some cases due to the need to resend packets if the memory gets full, well unless your memory is so small you can't even fit one measly jumbo frame I guess.

P.S. I understand there is more to chipset then jumbo frame support and much more to design then chipset.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

HTML + JS + CSS
How did these three standards become so prevalent in web development? Were historically other alternatives? Are there other alternatives at the present to work without them and produce descent result? Besides putting a complete Flash presentation instead of a HTML page). How many browsers can deal with them?WKB52 (talk) 13:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * see HTML, JS and CSS. (Btw See here)190.60.93.218 (talk) 14:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * These articles don't explain the history, how many browsers. I don't just want to know about hmtl, js and css, but how they interact and became prevalent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WKB52 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Flash is not an alternative for a HTML page! Please use Flash only for small animations. Websites made in Flash generally suck, and no one likes visiting them. At present there are no real alternatives that produce decent results with similar functionality. They became so prevalent because it is quite logical to go from plain text to text with markup to text with markup and style and a bit of programming; it evolved. All browsers that are still used today can deal with HTML, even text-based web browsers who ignore graphic content, e.g. Lynx (web browser). Von Restorff (talk) 14:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC) p.s. This guy tried to make an alternative to HTML.


 * That's not true. Flash is superior to HTML because it renders text more sharply and renders content identically across browsers. The plugin is the same for each browser. Flash content is also easier to create. I have created Flash websites for several years now, and you obviously have not done much work with it at all. All you really have to do is search Google to find some excellent web sites made completely in Flash: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/best-flash-sites. Flash also has a rich 3D API and natively supports formats like JPEG-XR. Contrast this with the world of CSS, where things like rounded corners (via border-radius) and embedded fonts are considered to be bleeding edge, with spotty and inconsistent browser support. Flash has supported most CSS 3 and HTML 5 features since the 1990s.&mdash;Best Dog Ever (talk) 10:19, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is possible for me to convince you; if you want to understand why Flash sucks ask your local star wars fan. Von Restorff (talk) 13:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * One thought is to realize that it wasn't like everyone was using the same HTML, JS, or CSS standards all the time. (Ergo the browser wars.) Each of those standards has historically been a mash of competing implementations. As for alternatives, JScript was never quite the same thing exactly as Javascript, and Dart is a new attempt by Google to create an alternative to Javascript. We'll see if it takes off. A key thing to remember here is that all of these client-side standards need to be interpreted by the web browsers. So the key question is whether the browsers have ever supported other standards, not whether other standards have existed. You can definitely embed alternative media into pages as long as there are browser plugins to support them — Flash, Java, SilverLight, whatever. The popularity of these have waxed and waned. In the late 1990s people were talking about how Flash would replace HTML, but it didn't happen, in part because designing coherent Flash interfaces is hard, and because there are lots of performance issues. But you could do it. Again, the question is what the browsers support. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * In the context of the web, HTML has been there from day one - there was never any competition there. CSS is more of an evolution of HTML (splitting off the formatting) than a real parallel development, and hasn't seen any real alternatives either. As for scripting, JavaScript grew out of the competition between Netscape and Internet Explorer (the Browser wars), with Microsoft first calling their JavaScript variant JScript, and also offering VBScript as an alternative client-side scripting language. Unilynx (talk) 19:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I had forgot about VBScript; it serves as a full-fledged alternative to Javascript... but is only usable with Internet Explorer. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There aren't any alternatives at the same level, because standardization is hard enough as it is. Multiple competing languages being standardized by multiple competing organizations would be a nightmare. (See W3C and Ecma International for the organizations that mediate the process.) With a single language per purpose, and a desire on the part of browser vendors to be seen as standards-compliant, it's possible to make Web applications and websites that will work for anyone.


 * However, you don't have to write in those languages directly. CoffeeScript, for example, is a language designed to compile to JavaScript, and dozens of existing-language-to-JS compilers are sprouting up these days. Similarly, you can write code to emit HTML or CSS in your favorite language. Paul (Stansifer) 23:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly, html and css as it exists today was simply intelligently designed. This was done as an ALTERNATIVE to the mess that was evolving! (dhtml of a bygone era). 79.122.90.56 (talk) 20:59, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I find the "it was natural" comments to be kind of silly. There have been lots of changes to HTML because it wasn't so natural (poor BLINK tag, you will be missed, but more seriously, the fact that HTML by itself was really lousy for complicated layouts and has a lot of opportunities for blurring the lines between structure and appearance), and there are lots of issues with CSS making certain types of layouts difficult for no good reason (column layouts are still a huge pain in CSS, despite their prevalence on the web). Neither are "natural" or necessarily the smartest solutions out there. One can imagine lots of different data schemes that would be better for the web. Just because we're used to something doesn't mean it's the only way things had to be. Someday (probably pretty soon) people will be looking back at these standards as arbitrary and primitive. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think we're going to be stuck with them for decades at least at this point, awful though they are. It's a frozen accident like the x86 architecture, English as an international language, the shape of the continents and the pattern of the constellations, probably some aspects of the laws of physics, etc.


 * Historically, the WWW (based on HTML) took off first for reasons I've still not entirely grasped (though we were lucky it happened, since it saved us from a future dominated by AOL or AT&T, in which there would have been no Wikipedia). Once web browsers were widely deployed, people started using them for client-server applications, not because they were good for that (they weren't) but because they were widely deployed and nothing else was. Because this experience was so painful people started bolting on various stuff to make it less painful, with no overall vision of what the result should be. The result is more or less as if all Windows applications ran on top of Microsoft Word, using Word's macro language and Word's page layout capabilities. What should have happened instead is that an open system designed for client-server computing should have been deployed alongside the browser. -- BenRG (talk) 18:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "An open system designed for client-server computing..." ... perhaps, one such as POSIX and the X Window System, or perhaps the free and open-source software implementations of these standards that we call GNU/Linux?  Or, to be fair, how about all the commercial Linux- and Unix-like systems (I'll throw Mac OS X into this sub-list) that provide value-add, while maintaining system compatibility with the various POSIX standards?  This would be too easy!  A standardized, open, free-as-in-speech-and-as-in-beer computing platform already exists, and people choose not to use it.  I have concluded that most computer users do not prioritize standardization and compatibility.  Instead, they hop on to whatever fad is touted as the Next Big Thing by the major corporate sponsors of the Internet.  Nimur (talk) 16:58, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It will be interesting to see how the web standards evolve as more and more access to web happens not through dedicated materials but through mobile devices. What I personally like about the HTML + CSS + JS triad is that they each have very low bars for entry. You can learn the basics of HTML and CSS in an afternoon and Javascript has a nice combination of simplicity and power that, when combined with the fact that you don't need to do much to make interfaces, really allows you to make real-world web applications a lot easier and faster than in any comparable language I've seen. The result is that you don't have to have a computer science or graphic design degree to put up content and muck around a bit. Once you start talking about gigantic server-side platforms with millions of users and etc., then having the CS degree helps a bit, but I like the fact that the barrier for entry is very, very low. Sure, the result is a lot of ugly "entry" level pages, but I go for that. The internet would be less rich if everybody had to really understand computers, or work through existing portals (e.g. Facebook or Wikipedia or whatever) to do their thing. I would vigorously oppose a scheme where you need to know Java or C or even VB.NET to add to the web. There's something wonderful in this particular combination, but let's not pretend it was fated or written in stone or perfect or natural... --Mr.98 (talk) 02:41, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Private use Area (unicode)
When designing a font, you can put whatever you want?? (ON private use area of course) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.60.93.218 (talk) 14:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * If it's meant to be useful no. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WKB52 (talk • contribs) 14:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * lol --190.60.93.218 (talk) 14:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

When designing a font you can put anything you want anywhere. ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * For one font I designed that had quite a few special characters, I actually split into two fonts, both mapping to the standard Unicode character set. One of them contained standard characters where they belonged, while the second font had the special symbols (similar to the Wingdings font. (For example, in my second font, if I type "b", you see a little baseball instead. I use that instead of a bullet in lists when I write sports-related papers.)   → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ 22:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Can someone recommend a good text editor with on-the-fly spelling checking?
I hate Word (because it's way too bloated) and have been using TextPad for years. TextPad is nice, but what I'd really love is a text editor that does Word-like spell checking on the fly with those red squiggely lines. Does such a thing exist? I prefer freeware. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * gedit will (check tools->autoCheckSpelling). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * emacs will (with the flyspell mode); that's already installed on my system so I just needed to to M-x flyspell-mode to enable it. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, GNU emacs will; I've not texted other emacsen like Xemacs -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * kate will (tools->automaticSpellChecking). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * EditPad from JGSoft is what I use. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 16:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * If you hate downloading http://www.google.com/search?q=online+spell+check --190.60.93.218 (talk) 18:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Apple TextEdit. —Tamfang (talk) 23:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

tracing ip addresses?
would it be possible to trace what ip addresses access a website? Heck froze over (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * how much money do you have and/or are you a government or tech company, or do you at least work in the IT field either as an individual with sensitive access (or potential to nab it)? On the other hand, every web site more or less gets to see what IP's access it.  If you can 'root' a web site (poor security) as an outsider, or in fact operate the web site yourself (owner) then you could see the IP's.  If you have no money, are not a government or tech company, are not an IT worker, have no hacking skills, and are not the owner or know them, then no: you can't see what IP's access a web site.  Unless you subpoena it!  :) --79.122.90.56 (talk) 20:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * An even easier way on many sites is to inline some kind of IMG tag that links to something on your own server, and then just look at your own stats. You'll be able to see the IP of anyone who views the images on whatever page you get that posted on. Not too hard for web forums and things like that. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * ＷＯＷ Very clever I must say... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.158.184.192 (talk) 22:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * How did you get those big W's and O's? Even on edit mode in a plain text field it looks bigger than a normal capital W next to it.  Is it some Unicode characters involved in surprise, or is the whole alphabet available? 94.27.229.238 (talk) 23:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah it is ((ＱＷＥＲＴＹＵＩＯＰＡＳＤＦＧＨＪＫＬＺＸＣＶＢＮＭｑｗｅｒｔｙｕｉｏｐａｓｄｆｇｈｊｋｌｚｘｃｖｂｎｍ１２３４５６７８９０－＝～！＠＃＄％＾＆＊（）｛｝｜：”＞？／＜））　It's only "basic latin" It is somewhere the blocks of Japanese and hans characters, it's called alphanumeric. google it. --190.158.184.192 (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Very good point. It even works in email!  (which is why gmail disables loading remote images until authorized).  Web bugs they call it -- and they can be completely undetectalbe, for example varying the order of path names that really don't exist but just uniquely encode your email (to see who opened it). 94.27.229.238 (talk) 23:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If it's your own website, it's really easy. If it's someone else's website, it requires you getting access to their server logs or server variables, which is not as easy. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Replacing LEDs with normal diodes
I have a question I'm hoping someone can help me with. I'm trying to create from scratch a smaller version of a battery charger I have (creating a new PCB and mounting its original components on it), for the purpose of embedding it in a pair of USB powered speakers. The charger has two rows of three resistors. At one end, the three resistors of each group are connected together. On the other end they are connected as follows: resistor, LED, resistor, LED, resistor

Given that LEDs are diodes and share the same characteristics, can I replace the LEDs in those arrays with normal diodes?

Basic outline of that part of the schematic is as follows:

LED LED ->|- ->|-         |    |    |         .-.  .-.  .-.         | |  | |  | |         | |  | |  | |         '-'  '-'  '-'          |    |    |              — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.116.4.73 (talk) 21:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I did not understand the schematic (Looks like they don't have independent control), but LEds usually have larger voltage drop across them (>1.2V for LED versus 0.8V for ordinary diodes). So you may need to put slightly larger resistors to maintain the same current through them. If the LEDs are merely for power ON/OFF indication and you no longer need them, you need not connect them (LEDs and resistors) at all. Cplusplusboy (talk) 06:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Restart after installation
Why do you have to restart your computer sometimes after installing a program? Does it happen in both Linux and Windows? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.70.5 (talk) 22:06, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * They add programs that only execute at start-up, perhaps to do things like check for updates. They could run them immediately after install, too, but having two ways to run things makes it more complicated and prone to error, so they prefer to just have you reboot to run them. StuRat (talk) 22:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Because sometimes the files they want to change are in use by the operating system. On Linux it happens too, but it is very rare, on Windows it happens much more frequently. Von Restorff (talk) 23:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * 1. Ok, let's say that the program has to change a DLL that's in use. Wouldn't that be too risky for the working of other programs? Why not have a new version of this DLL? 2. In Linux I have only found OS upgrades and such to be in need of a re-boot. (where the reason is more evident). 88.8.70.5 (talk) 00:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * 1: We even have an article about that kind of stuff; DLL Hell. Macintosh has a different (read: better) system. 2: Exactly. But in many cases that Windows software asks for a full reboot it is actually not really necessary to do it, sometimes ignoring it is OK and sometimes restarting explorer.exe is enough. Von Restorff (talk) 02:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * In MS-Windows, when a file is open by a program, or a program's executable-file (or DLLs) is open by Windows, it is temporarily delete protected. In UNIX derived OSes (Linux and BSD), an open file can be deleted - it is removed from the directory, but is only removed from the disc when the last program using it stops using it. Thus if a low-level file used by the OS itself, or by many programs is replaced, in MS-Windows the replacement is delayed until the next opportunity, which is normally the next reboot. 62.56.57.120 (talk) 12:48, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * That's hardly relevant. What you're describing is a particular way of hacking the replacement, at the filesystem layer. The filesystem is just a database (a pretty bad one, with limited atomic operations and no transaction support). Microsoft controls the DLL loader and could make it find DLLs through a different database if it chose. The problem is that processes wouldn't pick up the new versions until they restarted, and some processes never or rarely restart. In particular, the kernel is much like a process, and lots of DLLs are loaded into it (they have the extension .sys instead of .dll, but it's the same file format). Replacing those files isn't going to do any good. You have to unload the old version and load the new one. But some of them control things like, I dunno, the primary hard drive, and many of them are written by third parties. And DLLs are not inert binary lumps; they allocate memory and put private data structures in it. Does the new version of the DLL use exactly the same data structures? How is it going to get access to whatever was left behind by the old version? At the user level you have the same problem, and the additional problem of third-party apps that load system DLLs.


 * Think of it this way. You don't like having to reboot. But what's so bad about rebooting? Well, it takes a minute or two. But more importantly, it's a hassle because you have to save all your open documents and reopen everything when the system restarts. You lose your undo history, you probably lose your partial Wikipedia edits, you lose any half-downloaded files, etc. Why? Because that's how the software is designed. It didn't have to be designed that way. It could stash your work somewhere and bring it all back automatically after the restart. But it doesn't. That's the problem in a nutshell. To upgrade a software component, you have to stop and start everything that uses it. It's a reboot in everything but name. And most software is not designed to handle it gracefully. It could be, just like all software could be written correctly the first time and not need upgrading at all. But we live in a world of HTML and Javascript and badly written software.


 * In fact Microsoft does have a way of hot patching running software, which they use for security updates for enterprise customers. I don't know why they don't use it more widely. Probably because it's more work for them, and there hasn't been sufficient demand. -- BenRG (talk) 18:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

How to make a generator using HTML
It doesn't have to be html, but the simpler the better. Plus I have to be able to make it for free and people have to be able to access it in-browser.

I want to code a generator that creates characters. The user clicks a button, and a character is generated. It'll have to be able to select from different hair, eye, skin colors, etc.

This seems simple enough, but I have no coding experience. How would I do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.231.8.149 (talk) 23:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * This seems rather complicated for no coding experience. The simplest way I can think of, with a small number of combinations, is to have a page for each question, then a page for each combo.  So, first question is skin color, then depending on what they answer for that you take them to a page showing just that skin color and asking for eye color.  Depending on their answer, that takes them to a page with the skin color and eye color shown, then asks for hair color, etc.  This can all be done with HTML (but, of course, you will need to upload the pictures).  Note that the number of combos can quickly grow out of control, though.  Say you have just 4 attributes (skin color, eye color, hair texture, and hair color), with 3 possibilities in each case, you'd have 3×3×3×3 or 81 combos.  Add gender (hopefully with 2 possibilities) and you have 162 combos.  And in this simple approach, you will need a page for not only each of those 162 combos, but many intermediate steps, too.  The back button on their browser would allow them to undo their previous selections automatically.  Note that some decision trees may be shorter than others.  For example, if the character is bald, there's no point in asking about hair color, and if female, there's hopefully no need to ask about facial hair.


 * Another approach, if you want to skip showing intermediate faces, is to list all the possible combos on one master page. Then, if they click the link for "White, blue-eyed, curly blond female", it takes them directly to the page with that picture.  They may have to scroll through a rather long list to find the one they want, though.  In-page links for the first characteristic asked might reduce the scrolling a bit.  StuRat (talk) 00:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * HTML is a markup language, not a programming language. Though, as StuRat points out, there's a way to do this without programming, this is sort of a complicated task. Web programming has some unfortunate muckery associated with it, so it's not a great place to start learning (though I wouldn't be surprised if this were starting to change).


 * If you want to learn to program, you probably won't be able to do the particular things that you want to do right away. The good news is that there are some cool things along the way to mastery, the same way beginning musicians don't spend all their time practicing scales. The curriculum that my school uses is called How to Design Programs, and the textbook is free online. They also made a point of including graphics stuff in the excercises, so that you don't spend all your time looking at text. (Not that text isn't cool! Some of my best friends are Unicode characters!) Paul (Stansifer) 01:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)