Posts by MidiMagic

I walked out on the site before it finished loading. Two minutes and counting. And I have DSL.

You need an alias-smoothing function in your size-changing function. This makes the cogs varying shades of gray, which to the eye looks like a smooth curve.

I have done it with Corel Draw and PhotoImpression 3. Other programs should have this.

One trick which works is:

1. Resample to higher resolution.

2. Change the image size.

3. Resample to desired resolution.

You just caused the whole cube farm to prarie-dog with that music! Thanks a lot! :P

I hate that. When I then move the mouse somewhere else, the image changes. I would rather click it, so the image stays.

You can do it with MSPaint. It's in your Windows folder.

Use Start / Programs / Accessories / Paint.

Save the image you create as a .gif or .jpg file.

I used Corel PhotoPaint to make the image I then shrunk to make my avatar.

Embed is deprecated, and works on very few browsers. It never had wide or uniform support.

use data=URL in the object tag instead.

You also won't see anything unless your ISP supports the type of video file you want to use.

I like Corel Draw. It's great for technical drawing and adjusting photos.

My only complaint is the lack of non-toll support.

Hand coding your HTML (instead of using a wysiwyg program) is definitely an art.

In Corel Photopaint, I can resample an existing image to be larger.

Since the music must be on the user's computer to be played, it must be downloaded.

There is no way to keep a smart user from finding the file the browser saved to their hard drive and copying it to another file.

Better to register your copyright, so if someone else steals your creation, you can sue.

If it's not your music, and it is not in the public domain, you are infringing if you use it in your site, whether they save the file or not.

This may be a trick by a webmaster to keep you from saving images.

Try changing the extension to .gif and then opening the file type dropdown.

Another trick if you can't get to the Save Image As entry is to:

- ctrl-print-xcreen the image.
- open Paint
- paste the clipboard
- cut out the image you want
- open anither copy of Paint
- paste it into the blank Paint page
- save it as you please

Corel Draw

More, because the stupid half-hour restriction kept me from finishing an edit where I had to look stuff up in books:

I myself, with the exception of two pages to show I can code in XHTML strict, code my pages in a reduced transitional set with no doctype statement (so the oldest browsers work). But I use two deprecated items, because the pin-brains at W3C provided no replacements for them.

Most of the W3C people are newspaper publishers, where the text and ads are important, and everything else is decoration. Their other impetus is providing sites which are accessible for impaired people and people who understand foreign languages. So it is quite conceivable that they didn't provide any way to do any of the following in XHTML:

- Center an image (newspapers NEVER do that - they want to keep text together)
- Start a list at a point other than 1 or A (but someone might quote part of a list in a web page)
- Make a list defining several specific numbers
- Align table text on decimal points (ofor accounting and science)
- Make bulleted lists which are not indented
- Set a font or a color for a large part of a document
- Insert images between list elements
- Know whether the col tag is an empty tag (sources disagree with each other and with W3C validator)
- Use as little space as you …

The only people or machines who will be upset are the elitists who want all browsers to cause errors instead of displays on anything but XHTML strict, and the employers who want everything in "the latest code" (not realizing that they lose the customers with older browsers who can't read their pages).

The best choice is to code for maximum compatibility:
- Don't use deprecated tags or attributes.
- Don't use improper nesting.
- Don't nest block tags inside inline tags.
- Close all tags.
- Use self-closing <.... / > for empty tags.
- Be sure to put a space between the / and the > in the self-closing tag.
- Don't require the browser to know style sheets to render the page.
- No javascript unless it's a form. Provide alternates for browsers which can't do script.
- No tricky coding.
- Expect older browsers to render all of the text, but without some of the formatting.
- Use the &code; character codes for the ampersand, angle brackets, and double quote.
- Don't put essential text in images.
- Use only .jpg and .gif images.

I myself, with the exception of two pages to show I can code in XHTML strict, code my pages in a reduced transitional set with no doctype statement (so the oldest browsers work).

CSS and div is a half-baked system of page layout. You have very little control over it. The only way I can think of to do this is nesting some divs, each with different properties and widths.

This is a place where tables are better. The table is not deprecated. They just don't want us to use them to create padding, borders, and margins.

My rule:

1. If you want something fluid, which changes its arrangement when you resize the browser or change screen resolution, use div.

2. If you want a stable structure which keeps its shape, use table.

This is something which can't be done remotely.

If it's a local disk you are working, what you are probably not doing is refreshing the disk directory into your program's list after you make a change.

This is a case where tables are better. And you have even more control when CSS is used with tables.

The main reason to not use tables is to not use them to create margins and borders. Your purpose is a valid use for tables.

If you use the div method with css, be prepared to have the format fall apart if the browser window is not full sized, or if the screen is a different resolution than you designed it for.

I would use 3 tables and one div here. The three tables would be:
1. The buttons
2. The main columns
3. The two columns of services on that page.
I would use the div to center the image, since center is a depricated tag:

.cenimg {text-align: center;
         margin-top: 0px;
         margin-bottom: 0px;
         padding: 0px;}

.imgcen {clear: both;}

....

<div class="cenimg">
<img src=..... class="imgcen">

I can't access your stylesheet, so I don't know what is in it. You may have a cascade error.

You do have some errors in case.

CSS is case sensitive. If you put "Clam" as the class, but use "clam" in the tag calling it, it won't work.... almost. IE ignores case, in violation of the CSS standard.

Your case differences between html tags can also cause trouble, as the newest standard requires all lowercase tags, and the second newest standard requires the closing tag to have the same case as the opening tag.

Try poofreading it. It seems that both do the same thing.

You might try telling us what you WANT it to do.

No. It is still going to load the entire page. Code changes won't speed up data transfer.

The only thing I can think of is to break it into several loads, and display the first one before loading the others.

Your scripts go in the head, not the body.

Put it in a frame or iframe.

Lynx? It won't view much, because it's text based.

There are sites which deliberately close you if you have an old browser. There are others which do it if you are using a browser they don't like.

My stuff requires just geocities.com. The prefix just tells which of many server mirrors to address.

I uninstalled and reinstalled Netscape, and the same thing happened.

I can't do the system restore without losing a paid download.

Maybe you have to be registered or logged in to their service to be allowed to play the file.

Also, for a MIDI file, the soundcard must have a sounder included. The sounder driver must be installed and enabled, and the browser must be told which driver to use. If any of these are missing, you won't hear anything.

Be aware that each computer will play the MIDI file differently, using the sound samples that came with the soundcard. So what sounds good on one computer can sound quite awful on another. Note that not all soundcards can download samples.

I ran into this problem when I composed a piece using the synth drum sound. One of my soundcards has a 12-note-per-octave (chromatic) scale of synth drum sounds, and the song sounded good. The other one has a 24-note-per-octave (quaretertone) scale for the synth drums, and it sounds awful. I had to change it to steel drums to get it to play universally.

It could also be that that particular site is having problems, or is trying to circumvent security with tricks.

Your ISP may be having problems.

Borders cause a lot of problems.

There could be a very serious problem, because different countries have different frequency allocations for various radio services. Thus, the wireless transceiver must be able to handle the frequencies used by the countries you visit. There also may be completely different communications protocols (handshaking between equipment).

More important than that, your equipment must not "ping" for the wireless service on frequencies which are not authorized in that country. Such activity could get you jailed and your equipment confiscated. So your equipment must be told where it is located BEFORE you use it.

You may have to buy different wireless transcievers and open different accounts in each country, since each service is handled under different law and licensing procedures.

Cell phones have the same problem. They don't automatically work when you travel, and they may produce illegal transmissions in some countries. Each country has its own frequencies, laws, companies, and licensing procedures.

Just run your protection software again. It should detect Firefox.

Meany! :D

If you are the system administrator, you can set up a different user account for each user, each with its own password (and also a password for yourself). You can then set the firewall settings (security) on IE and the computer, and lock them so the users can't change them. You can even have different settings for each user.

On the file stored on the computer, the most likely cause is that the AOL program got disconnected from the file. This could happen if you moved folders around, renamed some files, or if a power failure interrupted writing the file.

There are then two tasks:

1. Reconnecting the file with AOL. This is usually a setting. AOL's local program needs to know the path to the file and the filename.

CAUTION: If you have been using it since then, the new emails will be lost if you reconnect the old mail file, unless you export them first.

2. If the file is damaged, it must somehow be repaired. I don't know if the software can do this or not.

It might be easier to extract the text of the old emails from the file by opening the file with a text editor and separating the emails (I have done this before). Just edit out the codes between the text. You might have to rename the file as a .txt extension to do this.

DANGER:

Attempting to recover access to "lost" files stored on a remote computer or file server can actually cause those files to be lost. I have seen it hundreds of times. Here's how it happens:

1. The service (AOL, eBay, or any other ISP which stores user files for you) has a hard disk problem ,and has to reformat and restore from the backup disks.

2. As a result, the files are temporarily unavailable to the user, often without any explanation.

3. While the file restore from the backups is going on, you discover that your materials are gone.

4. You panic, and either create a new folder to replaced the lost one, or save something else to the "empty" folder.

5. The ISP's OS detects that the folder is "newly changed" since the restore process started. So it thinks you wanted it that way. Thus, it does not place the backed up files back into the folder during the restore operation.

The best thing to do if your files are missing is to LOG OFF IMMEDIATELY without changing or moving any files. Wait several hours before trying again. Then, check if the files are there before doing anything. If they are still gone, don't do anything.

Contact the ISP system administratiors to find out what is going on, preferably without using the service having the missing files to do so.

It would be nice if these ISPs notified you not …

You could have animation turned off, either at the browser level (motion bugs some people) or at the Windows level. This is a setting in the properties or options selection, usually in the tools or view menu.

Note that disabling animation in IE can also disable it in other browsers.

Also note that some .gif files are not animated. I have a page containing both at:

http://geocities.com/midimagic@sbcglobal.net/lagparts.htm

Some ISPs block known sources of malware (spam, viruses, and spyware).

It's also possible that those sites are blocking your ISP because it has been a past source of malware.

The real problem is that some other source of malware has phaked the return address of your ISP, or of any of the other ISPs. The blocking software can't seem to tell that the address on the received malware is phake.

Another possibility is that the ISP is sleazy, and blocks any service which the ISP also sells.

Another possibility is that changing ISP settings on your browser reset your security settings, possibly to the strictest settings.

The last possibility is that something was down at the ISP.

- IE may be set to the wrong internet access device (e.g. dial up, when you have dsl).

- The IE security settings may be set so strict that you can't log in.

- The ISP may be down, or its DNS server is down.

- If you are not the superuser for your computer, the superuser may have blocked you from using for some reason (too much goofing off at work).

Check the following:

- Volume control settings (and check to see if the audio type is checked in Options / Properties).

- Some other device (such as sound events) may be grabbing the soundcard or driver.

Right click on the file, and choose Properties.

Then you can uncheck read only.

After that, you can right click it and delete it.

You never have to mess with the filename that way.

XP has command prompt.

It's under Start / Programs / Accessories.

Wow! HDTV is actually useful for something.

I thought it was just a government ploy to make everyone buy a new TV.

It's more likely that Windows was not aware that you had taken one CD out of the drive and put in another one. It still had a previous CD's disk's directory in memory.

Alternatively, you had since put a different CD in the drive, and My Computer was still displaying the disk you took out. It couldn't play the track you clicked, because that disk wasn't there anymore.

To fix this, go to My Computer, and open the folder for the CD you just inserted. If the directory does not show the contents of the CD that is actually in the drive, open View and click Refresh.

You may have to do this this each time you change CDs.

Some CD drives tell Windows when the disk is changed. Others do not.

Open volume control.

If the single slider shows, the advanced button opens the mixer panel.

Then choose Options / Properties.

The check boxes for the various devices are in there.

MS has been having network trouble.

Also, if you have Magix MIDI Studio software, it "steals" the file type of the .msp extension for its own use. That extension is intended for Microsoft updates.

There should be an easier way.

If only one drive is installed, whether it is jumpered as master or slave, the BIOS calls it C:. So it is appearing. Now you just need to add the boot sector (which is what that command is). I believe it is a menu item called "Make disk bootable".

Or you could just reinstall Windows on the new C: drive, which will add the missing boot sector.

This sounds like bad ram or a damaged install.

It could also be because you have a bootable disk in a removable drive which is not a Windows disk.

You can have as many OS installations as you have partitions.

Maybe he wants ME because he has some software with quirks in it which were put there to make it work iwth ME.

I still have Win 3.1 because I have some software I need that for.

First check the BIOS settings to see if they agree with the contents of the computer. If they are weird, the backup battery is suspect (if present).

Try disconnecting all of the following. Then reconnect them one at a time (with power off) in the following order:

0. Try all disconnected first. You will get either the message above (motherboard or video is bad) or a message saying the hard disk or keyboard can't be found.

1. The keyboard (you should get a no hard drive error).

2. The hard disk (you should get a different error if the hard disk is removed than if it has failed).

3. Accessory cards in the computer. Insert them one at a time.

4. External accessories. Put them back one at a time.

The problem is the assignment of drive letters. All hard drives belong together.

If the new hard disk shows up in letter sequence after the CD drive, the computer thinks it is removable.

Check the BIOS to see if it says only one hard disk.

It's probably a hardware error. It could be any of the following:

- Loose connection: card/motherboard socket, disk drive cable, or RAM stick.

- A card or device failed. Don't overlook the keyboard and mouse.

- That USB pen is not correctly installed.

- The hard disk format is corrupted (copy off and reformat).

- Power supply trouble.

- It might be a virus or spyware.