Solving technology problems, one at a time
Probably something to do with IE’s wrong interpretation of the box model, but if you style a list as: <li class="bodytext">Text</li> <li class="bodytext">More text</li> You get the bullets not lining up with the top of
Continue readingThere is an intermittent problem with the OS X Help Center or Help Viewer application, where the links in the navbar stop working. Turns out the fix is to Quit Help Center, then throw out
Continue readingI realized at home I could not see .htaccess files or any files beginning with “.” when using Fetch 4.0.3 for OSX, although using the same version at work I could. Haven’t solved the “why”
Continue readingI’ve discovered a new use for twisty-ties: keeping the “precision engineered” clamshell halves of my Dell Precision workstation together. I have to say, I am not impressed with the fit and finish on this machine.
Continue readingSynching Sami files using MS Producer:
I received the MS Producer resources disk in the mail, and it contained one example of a template that has a captioning window below the video area.
To use it, you need to create a “SAMI” file, which is a text file with HTML-style tags to describe the captioning styles and timing for each line of caption text.
Lacking anything better at the moment, I use Producer to do the synching: Play your video in Producer for the length of one phrase, stop it, note the timing, and use “control-tab” to switch to a text editor where the SAMI file is being edited.
I found this procedure a bit slow, and had some problems with getting the exact timing right, but it does work. Complete instructions for captioning with Producer are available as a (Windows-only .exe file !) download HERE
A non .exe resource for understanding SAMI files is HERE
Continue readingA tip from a friend that was too good not to pass along: __________________________ “Just passing on some info in case someone else (like me) doesn’t know about Microsoft Remote Desktop. I just got my
Continue readingI found this interesting.
Australia has one of the most active research groups in the world in this area, since the Australian environment suffers from many pest animals that were introduced and have no natural predators.
New Scientist reports that Australian researchers have created a highly infectious rabbit virus (myxoma) that could wipe out the country’s rabbit pests by making them sterile. Infected female rabbits produce antibodies against their own eggs, a process called immunocontraception. The team has already applied for permission to carry out field trials with a similar virus that makes European mice infertile.
Continue readingI had occasion to reinstall Windows2000 the other day and got a chance to see what the rest of the world endures when using anything but the most basic standard peripheral devices.
I have a two monitor setup, one a Dell 17″ flat screen, nothing special. The other is a 19″ Dell UltraSharp.
My reinstall was done from a ghost image, made from the install disk that came with the machine. A stripped, basic reinstall, which only had my network settings and network software added on, so at least I didn’t have to do that again.
So, the reinstall went quickly, but then came the endless trips to Windows update, restarts, and back to Windows update for more. Quite a few of the updates have to be installed separately, then the machine restarted.
Oh, did I forget to mention, after the reinstall, the left monitor, the digital Dell Ultrasharp, was black. I figured it would be OK, once I got around to opening the display control panel and setting it to use both monitors.
Continue readingOne very useful feature of phpMyAdmin is the ability to define simple relations between tables easily, using a GUI interface. The data from a field in one table can populate a field in another table, in a drop-down menu.
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