Posts by Mushy-pea

Hello everyone. A few weeks ago I finished programming a javascript drop down menu system for my website. When I had ironed out the bugs it worked fine in IE 6. Later I got Opera 9 on my computer and the menus don't work in it. In fact, my pages appear to "freeze" the javascript engine and no scripts on the page run (even ones that were there before I added the menu system). I also tried the pages in an app called Editplus 2. It is a text editor with a built in browser that will give details about Javascript errors on web pages (it found some on Daniweb). But no problem with my pages. I've included the script here:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript">
<!--
function MM_preloadImages() { //v3.0
  var d=document; if(d.images){ if(!d.MM_p) d.MM_p=new Array();
    var i,j=d.MM_p.length,a=MM_preloadImages.arguments; for(i=0; i<a.length; i++)
    if (a[i].indexOf("#")!=0){ d.MM_p[j]=new Image; d.MM_p[j++].src=a[i];}}
}

function MM_swapImgRestore() { //v3.0
  var i,x,a=document.MM_sr; for(i=0;a&&i<a.length&&(x=a[i])&&x.oSrc;i++) x.src=x.oSrc;
}

function MM_findObj(n, d) { //v4.01
  var p,i,x;  if(!d) d=document; if((p=n.indexOf("?"))>0&&parent.frames.length) {
    d=parent.frames[n.substring(p+1)].document; n=n.substring(0,p);}
  if(!(x=d[n])&&d.all) x=d.all[n]; for (i=0;!x&&i<d.forms.length;i++) x=d.forms[i][n];
  for(i=0;!x&&d.layers&&i<d.layers.length;i++) x=MM_findObj(n,d.layers[i].document);
  if(!x && d.getElementById) x=d.getElementById(n); return x;
}

function MM_swapImage() { //v3.0
  var i,j=0,x,a=MM_swapImage.arguments; document.MM_sr=new Array; for(i=0;i<(a.length-2);i+=3)
   if ((x=MM_findObj(a[i]))!=null){document.MM_sr[j++]=x; if(!x.oSrc) x.oSrc=x.src; x.src=a[i+2];}
}
function menu(flag_mouse, which_menu){
if (flag_mouse == 1)
{
	if (which_menu == 0) {
remove_menus();
	}
	else if (which_menu == 1 && flag1 == 1) {a = 1};
	else if (which_menu == 1 && flag1 != 1) {
remove_menus();
flag1 = 1;
document.getElementById("menu1").style.zIndex="3";
document.getElementById("menu1").style.visibility="visible";
	}
	else if (which_menu == 2 && flag2 == …

It's all a matter of taste. C is the language it all started with, though at that time I thought assembly was the coolest.

Forgive me for being pedantic, but wasn't ForTran 66 the first high level language (from which most languages including C inherited most of the simpler commands from)?

Steven.

>>If arbitrary pointer control is not possible in the default language, protected mode addressing is not necessary

That is not true. There are a lot of other things that can cause a system to crash; pointers is only one of them.

Well, it seems I need to get my facts straight.

A kernel is an absolutely essential part of any operating system, if there is no kernel then nothing will run and the kernel needs to be protected from corruption by other programs.

I will gather my countering evidence and return :) .

Steven.

In Sinclair Spectrum 64 K BASIC:

for n = 1 to 10
print n
next n

Hello again. Allow me to describe my opinion on software design:

C and C++ should be abandoned (or substancially modified) as the default languages used for the writing of native executables and operating systems. The reason? Giving the programmer arbitrary control over pointers is un-necessary and leads to many bugs. What should be written in C/C++ is native compilers (or interpreters) for other languages that don't allow arbitrary pointer control (i.e. Python, Perl etc.).

Don't get me wrong, C/C++ has many good points. But I think that in most cases pointer control should be left to the compiler to deal with, leaving the programmer free to deal with what the program actually does (i.e. manipulate variables). I think future operating systems should use a no kernel approach where all processes run in the same memory space. This has already been done to an early development stage with Unununium (http://unununium.org). If arbitrary pointer control is not possible in the default language, protected mode addressing is not necessary and will come to be seen as inefficient and cumbersome.

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Steven.

In my experience Windows 98 is one of the most stable OSs I have used. Here you can see it running over 20 user applications:

http://www.rochfest.co.uk/windows98_rules.jpg

Note the inclusion of the whole Office 97 suite. Even after this happened

http://www.rochfest.co.uk/oh_dear.jpg

the system was able to recover fairly quickly. I should also point out that this machine has been on Broadband for about 6 months with no firewall or virus scanner (and before that on dial-up with no protection for over a year). Conclusion: WINDOWS 98 RULES!

Steven.

Result:

"Yes, of course. Sarah, Ben, please serve our guest.". Two adjacent people in the circle get up and start preparing the tea. "I almost forgot that we interupted your tea break before in the excitement.". Now that your eyes are getting used to the dim lighting you can make out more details of the room. The stone walls and ceiling are covered with an intricate mosaic that includes a bewilderingly complex circular pattern directly above you. There are dark, open arches providing an exit in all four directions.

"Where am I?" you enquire. "You are in hell, young one.". Your blood runs cold....HELL!?! "But it CAN'T BE! Heaven and hell are just states of mind you can experience on earth! I've always believed that!". "Thats what they all say. But don't worry, its not as bad as you think. Hell isn't about horrific suffering for all eternity. Its just somwhere people can go to....experience the dark side for a while shall we say.". You gather your thoughts enough to ask, "So why am I here?". "You are the traveller. The one who can go wherever he wishes." "But I didn't wish to go to hell!", you protest. "Ahhh, but you did. Somwhere inside you the morbid curiosity was there. Kicking that door in simply opened a path for you.".

You are handed a cup of tea (its delicious :p ). When you have finished the circle of people spread out to the edges of the room. …

Maybe if you post some sample data and what you want to do with that data it will help to clarify your original question.

Here is the file I'm currently using for testing purposes:

<header>
<type>Perl BB version 1.00 post database file</type>
<id>6F43 89AF 15DD 18AB</id>
<title>Post log database file for rochfest.co.uk public forum</title>
</header>
 
<database records=5>
<record>
<record length>0383</record length>
<links></links>
<post_id>000001_00</post_id>
<subject>Welcome to the general off-topic area!</subject>
<author>Steven Tinsley</author>
<date+time>Sunday 8th October, 12:30 AM</date+time>
<content>Hello and welcome to the general off-topic area.  Feel free to post about any subject (within the rules) in here.</content>
</record>
<record>
<record length>0339</record length>
<links></links>
<post_id>000002_00</post_id>
<subject>This is the second post.</subject>
<author>Steven Tinsley (again)</author>
~<data+time>Sunday 8th October, 5:23 PM</data+time>
<content>This is the second post in the database, not to be confused with the first!</content>
</record>
<record>
<record length>0289</record length>
<links></links>
<post_id>000003_00</post_id>
<subject>Now the post count is up to three.</subject>
<author>Mushy-pea</author>
<date+time>Recently.</date+time>#
<content>This record might help me to debug the script.</content>
</record>
<record>
<record length>0270</record length>
<links></links>
<post_id>000004_00</post_id>
<subject>Wow! Four posts!</subject>
<author>Mushy-peeeeeeeea!</author>
<date+time>VERY SOON!</date+time>
<content>Some girls are bigger than others....</content>
</record>
<record>
<record length>0297</record length>
<links></links>
<post_id>000005_00</post_id>
<subject>Five posts and still going strong....</subject>
<author>S.T.</author>
<date+time>Wednesday 11th October, 9:40 PM</date+time>
<content>Can the system handle five records?</content>
</record>
<record><record length>##158/record length><post_id></post_id><subject>null</subject><author></author><date+time>date</date+time><content>l</content></record></database>

As you can see it roughly adheres to the principle of XML (as I understand it). The program is able to find and retrieve fields from the first five records using <post_id> as the primary key (then prepare a HTML page based on these …

It sounds to me like you are trying to do something the hard way.

That is pretty much true, but I have my reasons. Part of the challenge in this project is to write a single script that provides the features of existing "script + database app" solutions. Inter process communication is slow, so if this script is implemented well enough it will out perform all existing forum software solutions.

Steven.

Hello again. I am writing a bulletin board script at the moment (Perl BB sound good :p )? While writing some code to update a text file I encountered this situation. I need to open the file, append data to the end, then set the write offset to a particular point in the file and write new data over old data. The required offset will already have been found somwhere else in the program during a read-only open of the same file.

The appropriate way to open the file here therefore seems to be:

open(file1, ">>post_log.db");

I thought I could then use "seek" to change the offset and "print" to write the new data in. But, will the offset jump back to the EOF when I use "print" because of the ">>" mode? If so will I need to use "syswrite" to solve the problem? Any answers appriciated.

Steven.

Hello again. I got a fancy prancy new mobile phone recently with video capture :p . I want to transfer a video I made on it (of me playing the guitar, badly) to GoogleTube, but the file is too big to put in an MMS message. I have a Yahoo mailbox so I was wondering if its possible to transfer files to your Yahoo folders through their WAP portal. I would "just try it" except I don't want to waste credit buying the connection time if it won't work. Any answers appriciated.

Steven.

Hello. Hopefully your MP3 player will have come with a USB lead and a CD with driver software on it. Assuming you're using Windows, insert the driver CD and install the driver on it for the connection. Then plug in the player and you should get a "New hardware found" window. The player will probably appear as "removeable drive F:" in Explorer. Just copy the music files to this as if it were any other folder.

Steven.

Result:

You sit down again and try to relax. This can't be happening can it? Unfortunetley for you it is. The flies start to grab hold of your cloths with their....teeth? Yes, the flies have miniature human mouths and teeth and they're using them to drag you off the couch, noticably avoiding biting your skin. "HELP!?! OH GOD, PLEASE?!?" you scream. Within half a minute you've been dragged to the edge of the hole, the little critters are too strong to resist. Then you're being dragged through the hole into the darkness and the wood is splintering around you to make way. Your fear is indescribable.

At some point you must have passed out but you're not sure why, save for paralysing terror. When you awake you are sitting down in a dimmly lit room in the middle of a circle of people similarly seated, alternately male and female. There is not much light and they are wearing hoods so you can barely see their faces. Then a man with no face strides into view and starts talking to you. Despite having no mouth his voice appears to be coming from where his mouth should be (the effect is quite disturbing).

"Ahhh, young human. Be welcome among us. Pray tell me, how can we make you feel at home today (chuckle)?" How do you answer?

A: A cup of tea would be nice.
B: Why have you got no face?
C: I want to …

Hello and welcome to the community. Having briefly checked out your forum it seems that you have to register to view the content. If new visitors can't see what is being discussed they won't be enticed to get involved. You need to allow guests (i.e. anonymous users) to view the forums. If these guests think the place looks interesting they might well register. You'll have noticed thats how its done on Daniweb. Hope this helps.

Steven.

Result:

You walk into the kitchen and bring the kettle back to the boil. Just after sitting down in the lounge with the tea you notice a slight buzzing noise coming from the direction of the hole. You try to ignore it. This is probably just....err, oh alright then you'll have a look! You can't resist it. What you see is giant flies coming out of the dark opening and the flow rate is increasing. Within seconds they're filling up the air around you. What do you do next?

A: Use your lighter and a can of deodourent as a flame thrower to burn the beasts!
B: Head for the back door quick and escape.
C: Just relax and have that cup of tea. You're probably hallucinating anyway.

First answer decides. A: Kick your own door in.

Result:

You walk up to your door and aim a hard kick at it. Being a strong lad (like the author) the door flies open leaving a nasty dent in the wood. However, once you have gone inside and closed the door you notice somthing strange. It looks as though the kick knocked a hole right through the door, contrary to how it looked from the other side. But when you look through the football sized hole it appears to lead into a dark place. WHAT?!? Are you tripping or somthing, it's light outside isn't it? What do you do next?

A: Put your hand through the hole.
B: Say "Hello" through the hole.
C: Back away and make that cup of tea to help you calm down and think this through.

First answer decides.

Result:

You take the kettle off the stove and turn off the gas, but while you're doing this the phone stops ringing. "Oh well, maybe it was a wrong number" you think. You go to answer the door but when you open it there is nobody there. You've been expecting an important parcel to arrive soon, so maybe that was the postman about to deliver it? You walk out onto the street to see if you can see him and your door closes behind you, locking you out (as it is a latch and your keys are inside....IDIOT!?!). What do you do next?

A: Kick your own door in.
B: Walk towards town to kill some time before your house mate gets home.
C: Phone your house mate on your mobile to ask what time he gets back.

First answer decides.

Situation:

You are in your house relaxing, just about to have a cup of tea. Then the phone rings, the doorbell rings and the kettle starts to whistle simultaneously. What do you do next?

A: Answer the phone.
B: See who is at the door.
C: Take the kettle off the stove.

First answer decides.

http://www.linuxsucks.org

Hello again. You might remember I posted a question on this forum recently asking if anyone knew of good Perl based forum software. Well, I decided to write my own forum script for my website to find out how such a thing is done. While I was wading through hundreds of lines of Perl code today an idea came to me; what about launching a service specifically to host forums for people, with my new Perl code at the core of it? Sites (like Myspace) already exist that allow people to easily create mini websites for free, but this dosn't extend to having your own forum. So the idea is, register on "Community Web" for free, then setting up a forum is achived by stepping through some easy online forms and control panels. It would also be possible to set up other site features (like audio / video) players, as it is on Myspace. Then I could rake in the money from advertising revenue :p . Does anyone have an opinion on the chance of sucess of this idea? Thanks.

Steven.

House (garages don't have central heating).

Jay or Silent Bob?

Hello again. Thought I could add somthing to the "does this look fake" debate. I'm trying to sell a computer on E-bay at the moment. When some users asked for a picture I pointed them to this artists impression:

http://www.rochfest.co.uk/my_computer.htm

Do you think they'll be able to tell it's not a real photo?

Steven :p .

First you need to associate a variable with the setTimeout() function each time it is called, like this:

t = setTimeout(function(), 10000);

Then you can use the clearTimeout() function to cancel the setTimeout() function, like this:

clearTimeout(t)

Hope this helps.

Steven.

Hello everyone. I've been working hard recently to improve my website, which I'm using to promote a music event (hence the user title). I've decided to add a music themed forum in order to broaden the audience of the site. I'm determined to use a Perl based solution because:

1. My host charges £3 extra per month for PHP support and I'm REALLY tight fisted :mad: .

2. I know more about Perl than PHP, which will make it easier to modify the forum scripts if I decide to.

So, does anyone know what the best Perl based forum systems are (i.e. secure, easy to configure etc.). I've found some possibilities, but most debate on here seems to be about PHP based solutions. I was hoping someone could offer me an opinion about this ;) . Thanks.

Steven.

Hello again from the Pea. Could someone please tell me what lol means since it seems to pop up in various posts all over the place. Lots of Love perhaps? I hope so :p .

Steven.

Thanks for the help. Now it works! It's a good job somone mentioned that "filter: alpha" is IE only or I'd have left a somewhat large glitch on my site.

Steven.

I think you have more than 400 reputation points if my calculations are correct....

What I'm interested to know is how on Earth you managed to reach "Five Green Blocks" status in only four months :p . I joined about the same time as you and I've only got 17 points. That's probably because I'm always asking for help rather than giving it I suppose....

Steven.

Hello everyone. I am trying to write a drop down menu Javascript and have run into a little problem. I need to change the (opacity=0) value inside this custom style:

<style id="menu_style" type="text/css"><!--.menu {z-index: 3; filter: alpha(opacity=0); position: absolute; left: 200px; top: 100px; width: 180px; height: 210px; background-color: #0000FF}

The obvious approach would seem to be:

document.getElementById("menu_style").menu="....

and fill out the contents of the .menu attribute with the changed opacity value. However, when I try this nothing gets changed and my menu remains invisible :mad: . I have read some tutorials on w3schools about this but they don't go into the specifics of changing custom styles with DOM. Any help with this little snag would be appriciated.

Steven.

Oh, I think I might have misunderstood you. Are you referring to a place for support for users of these alternative operating systems who are not developers, themselves?

Yes, that is pretty much what I was thinking when I posted. I should have said that really. I agree the "Computer Science and...." forum is already a suitable place for issues of OS design. I take your point though, none of these alternative projects are (as the description suggests) anywhere near popular. Talk later then.

Steven.

Hello everyone. As you may have gathered from some of my previous posts (http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread49024.html), I have an interest in operating system design :p . So I was thinking maybe Daniweb would be enriched by an "Alternative operating systems" forum. There are various interesting alternative OS projects out there, as you can see here http://www.freeos.com/compare. So, what do you think Dani?

Steven.

Thanks Kevin. I'm sure one of those methods will do the job.

Steven.

Hello everyone. I am writing a Perl script that will be installed on a Linux host. I need the script to be able to access the current time / date environment variable somtimes. I've looked through a list of the standard CGI variables that can be accessed through $ENV but time / date isn't one of them. Is it possible to pass commands to the host's shell from within a Perl script and have the result piped back into the script? If so I could just pass:

date

Or maybe there is a simpler way to do this that I'm missing. Any advice would be appriciated.

Steven.

wm2005

Iraq or Afghanistan (where would you rather go on holiday)

Hello everyone. I am planning to write a program, part of which will be able to calculate the value of an irrational number to an unlimited number of places. I will probably use a C++ class to implement a custom array to store these numbers. However, I need to know a couple of things about floating point values first:

1. If you have declared a standard "float" type variable in C and initialised it with a value, how do you know how many bits have been used for the exponent and how many for the modulus?

2. If you store 0.8743 (for example) in a float, are the four decimal digits after the point stored in the modulus in decimal form i.e.:

1000 0111 0100 0011

--8-----7-----4-----3---

Or is some other system used? Any answers would be appriciated.

Steven.

Problem fixed. Thanks Dani.

Steven.

Hello Dani. At present the following two links are still causing an "Access denied" type response:

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/misc.php?action=myblog
http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/misc.php?action=submitentry

I don't know if this is relevant, but recently when I try to log out of Daniweb IE 6 goes all grey and crashes (on a Windows 98 SE machine). So maybe this problem is related to these failed log out attempts.

Steven.

Yes, I have done. But when I click it I get "Mushy-pea, you do not have permission to access this page". It goes to the same link I posted above.

Steven.

Hello people, just thought I'd add a dumb question to this thread. Has the proceedure for adding blog entries changed recently? It was a simple matter to make my first entry, but now I can't find the required button anywhere. If I try this link

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/misc.php?action=myblog

I get told I don't have permission to access the page. Can anyone assist me here? Thanks.

Steven.

Thanks for the advice. I guess this means I wasted my effort with that little subroutine. However, at least you know for sure whats going to happen when you implement the conversion yourself.

Steven.

pierced it's hull.

Hello everyone. I heard on BBC radio 4 recently that some UK pubs will be serving beer, wine and pub meals at 1982 prices for one day soon. That's £0.62 per pint. Why? The 25th birthday of The Good Pub Guide, apparently. The question is; on what date will this occur?

Prize: First correct answer(er) will get me to buy them a pint next time we happen to meet. Or a glass of wine if you're a girl (and you like wine).

Steven.

Hello everyone. I've seen computers crash a few times in my time :p . From what I've read it seems that when a computer "freezes" or stops responding it may be down to the following causes:

1. The operating system kernel has detected a serious problem and has sent the CPU a HALT instruction, which has shut it down.

2. An exception has occured at CPU level for which there is no corresponding exception handler installed, causing the CPU to halt automatically.

However, sometimes an x86 system crashes to a system reset. Is this an automatic response of the CPU to an exception, or does the OS trigger it? Also, does an unhandled exception have to occur on ring 0 to crash an x86 or can exceptions at lower priviledge levels do this? Any answers would be appriciated. Thanks.

Steven.

Hello. You can have it for £60 and I'll add a 300 K webcam to the mix. Just to clarify; this is with no monitor and 256 MB RAM. It would cost me £50 to upgrade the memory, so I think this price is fair. I'm living in mid - Wales (Powys -> Shropshire border) if you're still interested. Send me a mail if you are. Thanks.

Steven.

E-mail: steven-tinsley AT rochfest DOT co DOT uk

Where 'AT' = @, 'DOT' = .

After doing some reading I've found the answer:

$variable_2 = sprintf("%u", $variable_1);

Where $variable_2 and $variable_1 are of type character and integer, respectively.

Hello Kevin. What I mean is, is there a library function that you can pass:

$variable_1 = 1234 (type: integer)

and it will return:

$variable_2 = "1234" (type: character)

Steven.

Hello everyone. I'm writing a perl script to implement some active content on my website. Does anyone know if there is a source code library to convert an integer variable to an equivalent character string? I've managed to do the reverse, i.e.

sub char_2_int{
for ($c = 0; $c < 4; $c++)
{
$d = 3 - $c;
$e = 10**$d;
if ($data[$c] == 0) {}
elsif ($data[$c] == 1) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (1 * $e)}
elsif ($data[$c] == 2) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (2 * $e)}
elsif ($data[$c] == 3) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (3 * $e)}
elsif ($data[$c] == 4) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (4 * $e)}
elsif ($data[$c] == 5) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (5 * $e)}
elsif ($data[$c] == 6) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (6 * $e)}
elsif ($data[$c] == 7) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (7 * $e)}
elsif ($data[$c] == 8) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (8 * $e)}
elsif ($data[$c] == 9) {$hit_count = $hit_count + (9 * $e)}
}
}

where $data and $hit_count are the character and integer variables respectively. The int_2_char job is proving a bit harder. Any help would be appriciated. Thanks.

Steven.

Hello everyone. I have an AMD system I would like to sell, with the following specifications:

*CPU: AMD Athlon 1.3 GHz (200 MHz FSB).
*Memory: 512 MB (SDRAM, 133 MHz) -> see note.
*Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 graphics card (250 MHz GPU clock, 250 MHz memory clock, 64 MB RAM).
*Hard disk: 60 GB (IDE, Excelstore Technology J360).
*CD-RW 52x / 4x internal drive.
*DVD ROM internal drive.
*Floppy 3.5 inch internal drive.
*12 inch CRT monitor.
*Keyboard and optical mouse.

PRICE: £110 (UK pickup only)

Note: The system currently has 256 MB RAM installed. If anyone is interested I will upgrade it to 512 MB and test for stability. Currently the machine works fine except there's no installed OS, due to a little "accident" while installing ReactOS 0.3. I plan to install the Vista RC1 release after upgrading to test it out. Any interest appriciated.

Steven.

Hello everyone. I have an Nvidea GeForce 4 Ti 4200 card with 64 MB. The core clock is 250 MHz and the memory is at the same frequency, as standard for this model. Does anyone know if it is possible to overclock the GPU and memory? If so, could you give me some clues as to how this is done? Any help would be appriciated. Thanks.

Steven.

Hello everyone. I was trying to compile a Linux kernel module yesterday called vmmon (which you need to make VMware work on Linux) for the 2.6.16.7 kernel. First I installed a GCC package made for my distro, Puppy Linux 2.00. The package turned out to be for a slightly different version of the distro (2.02), so it didn't have the correct header files in it. So, I picked up the appropriate source code from kernel.org and put it in

/lib/modules/linux-2.6.16.7/include

The VMware install script tries to build the module for you, but after I tell it where the kernel header files are it comes up with:

/lib/modules/linux-2.6.16.7 does contain kernel header files, but it does not contain version.h.  This may indicate you have not built the kernel.
 
Unable to build the module.

So I need to know; what is inside this version.h file and how do I create one. Any help would be appriciated.

Steven.

Hello everyone. Nice forum you have here. Here are a few details about me.

Name: Steven Tinsley

Nickname: Mushy-pea

Age: 24

Location: Wales, United Kingdom (leaving for England as soon as possible).

Grew up in: Rochdale (UK).

Education: BSc Physics (Surrey, 2005)

Occupation:

1. Trying to get a "proper" job.
2. Organising a music festival in my home town (Rochfest 2007).

Main reason to use Daniweb: To get advice for building my website, to promote my festival.

Hobbies: Playing the guitar, listening to music, reading, walking.

While I'm here I'd like to ask Dani a question; did you start Daniweb and is it named after you?

Talk later then.

Steven.