c4countdown

Sue Sanders wrote:

Phil Reynolds wrote:so you're not using Word 2007

Wonder what I've got then.

What does it announce itself as when it first starts up?

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Sue Sanders wrote:

Phil Reynolds wrote:so you're not using Word 2007

Wonder what I've got then.

What does it announce itself as when it first starts up?

Don't ask me really difficult questions. I'll tell you next time I switch on following a short bout of observation.

Is 'word' the same as 'windows'?

Sue Sanders wrote:Is 'word' the same as 'windows'?

Er, no.

Sue Sanders wrote:

Phil Reynolds wrote:What does it announce itself as when it first starts up?

Don't ask me really difficult questions. I'll tell you next time I switch on following a short bout of observation.

You don't need to wait for programs to restart to see what version you're using. On most programs you can just click on the "Help" menu and then "About . . ." and it pops straight up like MWM at an international twins convention.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Sue Sanders wrote:Is 'word' the same as 'windows'?

Er, no.

So you can see what a difficult place I'm starting from. Total dunderhead! However, there may be many on this forum who won't know how to run up a pair of curtains, darn a pair of socks, fit a carpet, give a prostate massage....

I'm going to the gym. Don't let it all kick off in my absence.

Matt Morrison wrote:If we're introducing separate programs, you're much better off with Lower Case Switcher, which is a free download.

Sue Sanders wrote:I've just downloaded the dENNIS thing. Bloody marvellous. I'm setting off now, Matt to give you a big tonguey kiss. Laters!!!

A pleasure to be of service, as ever.

Derek Hazell wrote:On most programs you can just click on the "Help" menu and then "About . . ." and it pops straight up like MWM at an international twins convention.

A pleasure to be of service, as ever.

Sue Sanders wrote:
I've just downloaded the dENNIS thing. Bloody marvellous. I'm setting off now, Matt to give you a big tonguey kiss. Laters!!!

I love you too, Matt!
And thanks for posting the problem, Sue. I'm not a touch typist, and often type loads in before looking up at the screen. Sooooo frustrating to find you've done capitals by mistake and have to start again!
From the agreement I had to click on, I think there might be a charge after a 30 day trial period, but prob def worth it if it's not too ridiculous.

On the subject of Microsoft Word 2007, when my son Philip and I were choosing his new Windows 7 laptop, we looked at the the student version, which would've been about £55 if we'd bought it the same time as his laptop.

However, we found this site http://www.software4students.co.uk/ and ordered this http://www.software4students.co.uk/Micr ... tails.aspx which was even cheaper at the time (£36.95)

It has all the programs used in his ICT course, including Publisher, so he can work on his courseworks from home if he needs to. Not arrived yet, but should be with us soon, as site says it's despatched.

I was bored, so thought I'd investigate this having caps on thing myself. It seems in open office it just turns caps lock off if you do it*, clever eh?

*(well it actually switches the effect of your caps lock key, but still)

Michael Wallace wrote:I was bored, so thought I'd investigate this having caps on thing myself. It seems in open office it just turns caps lock off if you do it*, clever eh?

*(well it actually switches the effect of your caps lock key, but still)

I'm confused. Typing a whole line of text in capitals is a perfectly valid and understandable thing to want to do, for say a headline or a title or something. Are you saying it won't actually let you type in all caps?

Matt Morrison wrote:I'm confused. Typing a whole line of text in capitals is a perfectly valid and understandable thing to want to do, for say a headline or a title or something. Are you saying it won't actually let you type in all caps?

If it's like the similar Autocorrect option in Word, I assume it spots sentences in upper case but beginning with a lower case letter, and assumes you pressed Caps Lock by mistake.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:I'm confused. Typing a whole line of text in capitals is a perfectly valid and understandable thing to want to do, for say a headline or a title or something. Are you saying it won't actually let you type in all caps?

If it's like the similar Autocorrect option in Word, I assume it spots sentences in upper case but beginning with a lower case letter, and assumes you pressed Caps Lock by mistake.

Yeah, this. And obviously if you don't want its 'correction' you can just hit undo and it undoes it.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Phil Reynolds wrote:If it's like the similar Autocorrect option in Word, I assume it spots sentences in upper case but beginning with a lower case letter, and assumes you pressed Caps Lock by mistake.

Yeah, this. And obviously if you don't want its 'correction' you can just hit undo and it undoes it.

Righto, gotcha now. Yes this makes sense. When you said:

Michael Wallace wrote:it actually switches the effect of your caps lock key

did you actually mean SHIFT? I think that's what confused me.
Incidentally, if you did genuinely mean caps lock, then let's stop right here. My brain clearly isn't working.

Matt Morrison wrote:When you said:

Michael Wallace wrote:it actually switches the effect of your caps lock key

did you actually mean SHIFT? I think that's what confused me.
Incidentally, if you did genuinely mean caps lock, then let's stop right here. My brain clearly isn't working.

Good question. If I turn caps lock on, and then type "rACCOONS " then this gets turned into Raccoons and now if I type as normal (without shift), but with caps lock still on, I get lower case letters. Amusingly this seems to carry across programs, so if I do this in open office and don't hit undo, then switch to c4c and tried to write "matt morrison thinks raccoons are awesome" it would come out as "MATT MORRISON THINKS RACCOONS ARE AWESOME". I wonder how many people have found themselves completely baffled by this, I think it would have easily confused me if I wasn't paying attention.

"MATT MORRISON THINKS RACCOONS ARE AWESOME". I wonder how many people have found themselves completely baffled by this.

Is that a new poll you're trying to start, Michael?

Michael Wallace wrote:If I turn caps lock on, and then type "rACCOONS " then this gets turned into Raccoons and now if I type as normal (without shift), but with caps lock still on, I get lower case letters. Amusingly this seems to carry across programs, so if I do this in open office and don't hit undo, then switch to c4c and tried to write "matt morrison thinks raccoons are awesome" it would come out as "MATT MORRISON THINKS RACCOONS ARE AWESOME".

Is this simply because the Caps Lock is still on? If I try this in Word, the first whitespace character after rACCOONS causes the text to be corrected and the Caps Lock light to go out, after which everything reverts to normal (in other programs as well as Word).

Phil Reynolds wrote:Is this simply because the Caps Lock is still on? If I try this in Word, the first whitespace character after rACCOONS causes the text to be corrected and the Caps Lock light to go out, after which everything reverts to normal (in other programs as well as Word).

Nope - I don't know whether it's to do with open office or Linux in general, but it doesn't turn my caps lock off (and if I go on to turn caps lock off myself it then acts as it is on - this is why I reckon it is changing the effect of the caps lock key).

Michael Wallace wrote:Nope - I don't know whether it's to do with open office or Linux in general, but it doesn't turn my caps lock off

Now I'm (slightly) confused. If OpenOffice doesn't turn off Caps Lock, then typing unshifted characters into c4c and having them appear as upper case is exactly what I would expect to happen - it's surely nothing to do with the auto-correction effect "carrying across programs".

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:Nope - I don't know whether it's to do with open office or Linux in general, but it doesn't turn my caps lock off

Now I'm (slightly) confused. If OpenOffice doesn't turn off Caps Lock, then typing unshifted characters into c4c and having them appear as upper case is exactly what I would expect to happen - it's surely nothing to do with the auto-correction effect "carrying across programs".

Yeah, I think I've cocked up my explanation. I just went into office, turned on caps lock, typed Hello (but obviously with the case wrong), it corrected it to the correct case, but my caps lock remains on. Now with caps lock on my typing is the correct case. What I omitted to mention in my explanation above was that if I switched to c4c and then turned off caps lock, it would all come out as caps, even though it's ostensibly something open office has done.

I don't think I'm very good at this explaining business. Bodes well for my first teaching session tomorrow...

Michael Wallace wrote:What I omitted to mention in my explanation above was that if I switched to c4c and then turned off caps lock, it would all come out as caps, even though it's ostensibly something open office has done.

Ooh. That's just not what you want at all is it. So Microsoft have actually got something right for once - who'd have thunk it.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:What I omitted to mention in my explanation above was that if I switched to c4c and then turned off caps lock, it would all come out as caps, even though it's ostensibly something open office has done.

Ooh. That's just not what you want at all is it. So Microsoft have actually got something right for once - who'd have thunk it.

I imagine Charlie might be able to give a better explanation of the mechanics, but it does seem a bit odd, maybe I should email them. I should try it on Windows to see if it's just a Linux problem.

For several months, my mum's laptop - which as a bit old now - gets a badly behaved cursor. Whether we've got the touch pad operating in conjuction with the inbuilt keyboard, or her plugged in mouse and separatekeyboard in use (she finds the inbuilt keyboard too small and the touch pad too confusing) the cursor will float up to the top of the screen and puts up a good fight if you try to drag it back down again. It's very random, when it happens and how long it lasts. Any ideas??

You have a ghost in the machine

Marc Meakin wrote:You have a ghost in the machine

Actually, when we first got it second-hand about 4 years ago, for the first week it did do a weird thing where in the middle of what I was typing, it would start ghost typing its own stuff. Sometimes random chains of letters but sometimes bits of dialogue, with quotation marks and stuff - quite conversational. I told the place I bought it from but they were fairly non-plussed. It went away just as it was getting interesting! On this laptop, my 'lag' is now working on a delay of about 30 seconds so I'm doing a lot of blind typing. (Insert insult here[.....] but be impressed that I typed all this without being able to see it!)

Note to Jon Corby - This doesn't mean I think my laptops are haunted.

I've just tried to install Tab Mix Plus, but get an unexpected installation error - is it being blocked by one of my antivirus programs? (I have McAfee & Spyware Doctor).
The error message refers to something called the error console log - where do I find this?

Dear MWM,

My mom has just had Firefox installed by a computer person, but the person disabled add-ons for IE. She has a program-thingy which is only compatible with IE, but because add-ons are disabled she can't.

So what are add-ons and how can you enable them?

Sue Sanders wrote:For several months, my mum's laptop - which as a bit old now - gets a badly behaved cursor. Whether we've got the touch pad operating in conjuction with the inbuilt keyboard, or her plugged in mouse and separatekeyboard in use (she finds the inbuilt keyboard too small and the touch pad too confusing) the cursor will float up to the top of the screen and puts up a good fight if you try to drag it back down again. It's very random, when it happens and how long it lasts. Any ideas??

Do you mean to say it makes no difference whether she's using the touchpad or the mouse? If so, then it seems likely that the touchpad might be messed up, as even whilst you have a mouse plugged in, the touchpad is still active, and so it might be the lowest common denominator here. But I can't imagine touch pads really fuck up that much.

It definitely sounds more like a problem with the mouse - is it wired or wireless? the optical/laser movement receiver on the bottom might be dirty or just fucked. Really hard to say, but I'd start by trying another mouse on the laptop, and also trying the dodgy mouse on a different laptop. Those two tests would be hugely useful pointers.

Peter Mabey wrote:I've just tried to install Tab Mix Plus, but get an unexpected installation error - is it being blocked by one of my antivirus programs? (I have McAfee & Spyware Doctor).
The error message refers to something called the error console log - where do I find this?

Hey Peter. Great choice on Tab Mix Plus.

Have a look at this page on the Tab Mix Plus forum, it seems to be what you are experiencing: http://tmp.garyr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=37994

So are you having trouble with the installation of any other add ons? Sounds like it might be some odd corruption of the Firefox profile system.
Check this page out, it seems to have sorted it for that guy. Good luck!

Kai Laddiman wrote:Dear MWM,

My mom has just had Firefox installed by a computer person, but the person disabled add-ons for IE. She has a program-thingy which is only compatible with IE, but because add-ons are disabled she can't.

So what are add-ons and how can you enable them?

Hike-eye,

If the person has disabled add-ons for IE, that shouldn't affect being able to install add-ons for Firefox.
What is the program-thingy-add-on-something-for-IE in question?

It's also going to depend massively on what version of IE you are using.
If it's the current version, IE8 (which it probably is as add-ons for IE were few and far between prior to IE8), you should be able to go Tools > Manage Add ons.
This will let you disable/enable installed add-ons individually, but I don't see any reference there to enabling or disabling add-ons overall.

I did find a way of enabling/disabling add-on management overall, but it's through the registry (for the uninitiated, read: complicated) so I can't imagine that's what your mum's computer person did.
But let me know if you don't have any luck and then if you need some help I can talk you through the instructions to check this setting (which are here).

Good luck Eye.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, there is a way to RUN IE with all add-ons disabled (as opposed to an actual option in the program) which is probably worth mentioning, but I would have thought you would notice this as you have to load the program from a different icon, i.e. one that says Internet Explorer (No-Add-ons) rather than just plain old Internet Explorer. If you ARE running it like this, you can tell because the Tools > Manage Add ons option will be greyed out and unclickable.

Due to an accident recently involving a cup of coffee, a misplaced pen, a stubbed toe and an operating laptop, I have been unable to play my favourite computer game as the keyboard became rather unpredictable, substituting letters for asterixes, commas, even backspaces seemingly at random.For over a week I have been denied my regular fix of Apterous, (rendering me somewhat bored and sometimes downright irritable),until today, when I hit upon the simple expedient of plugging an old keyboard into said laptop, thus arriving at an awkward-looking, (but oddly more comfortable) solution to my dilemma. My question to you, Matt, and any other forumites of a technical bent, is a simple one:Why did it take me nine fucking days to think of this?

Liam Tiernan wrote:My question to you, Matt, and any other forumites of a technical bent, is a simple one:Why did it take me nine fucking days to think of this?

Because you just couldn't bear to ask me and bow to my superior knowledge. Pride, Liam, will get you nothing (apart from nine days of nonsense typing).

Liam Tiernan wrote:My question to you, Matt, and any other forumites of a technical bent, is a simple one: Why did it take me nine fucking days to think of this?

I think we tend to focus too often on the problem instead of the solution. The desire to continue using your laptop in the usual manner was so strong that you effectively refused to consider the possibility that there might be alternative modi operandi.


Maybe.

Alec Rivers wrote:

Liam Tiernan wrote:My question to you, Matt, and any other forumites of a technical bent, is a simple one: Why did it take me nine fucking days to think of this?

I think we tend to focus too often on the problem instead of the solution. The desire to continue using your laptop in the usual manner was so strong that you effectively refused to consider the possibility that there might be alternative modi operandi.


Maybe.

Also, a laptop keyboard does not appear like something that can be swapped out, what with it built into the case and all. Thus the unlikelihood of realizing its inherent modularity. (I just wanted an excuse to type that last sentence. Thank you.)

Andrew Feist wrote:Thus the unlikelihood of realizing its inherent modularity. (I just wanted an excuse to type that last sentence. Thank you.)

And a fine one it is.

Matt Morrison wrote: Have a look at this page on the Tab Mix Plus forum, it seems to be what you are experiencing: http://tmp.garyr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=37994

So are you having trouble with the installation of any other add ons? Sounds like it might be some odd corruption of the Firefox profile system.
Check this page out, it seems to have sorted it for that guy. Good luck!

Thanks for that - problem sorted: also my Google toolbar, which had gone missing has reappeared

Dear Matt's Computer Corner,

Me again.

I uninstalled Firefox after reading Jack's post about it messing with his spellcheck but it hasn't dealt with my spellcheck problem. It went AWOL about a month ago. When selecting the Abc icon, it says 'word cannot find MSSpell.3.dll or mssp232.dll for English'. After closing that box it then says 'spellcheck complete' but it isn't!



x

Sue Sanders wrote:Dear Matt's Computer Corner,

Me again.

I uninstalled Firefox after reading Jack's post about it messing with his spellcheck but it hasn't dealt with my spellcheck problem. It went AWOL about a month ago. When selecting the Abc icon, it says 'word cannot find MSSpell.3.dll or mssp232.dll for English'. After closing that box it then says 'spellcheck complete' but it isn't!



x

Firefox spellchecking
Jack's post was about the Firefox spell check no longer working. I had to reinstall Firefox recently and this also happened to me.
It can be fixed by first checking the Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Check my spelling as I type is ticked.
If it IS already ticked (like with me, and quite possibly you and Jack too) then your dictionary file has gone missing - I think it was a problem with a recent Firefox update.
All you need to do is go here to install the British English Dictionary, restart Firefox, and spellcheck should be back fine.
An even easier way to check if your dictionary file is ok is to select a word you've written (like in the text box where you write C4C posts) and then right click on it.
If your dictionary has gone missing like mine had, in the middle of the right-click menu you'll see Add Dictionaries... as opposed to spellchecking options.

Microsoft Word spellchecking
But yeah, your error seems to suggest you're talking about the spellcheck function in Microsoft Word?
If so, this would have nothing to do with Firefox's spellcheck, so you can safely reinstsall Firefox first.
It looks like this is your problem - I suggest you go to Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs and find the listing for Microsoft Office 2000, which you should then be able to Repair.

Thank you for that. I just read it in answer to Jack's post and tried the repair thing (on Windows 2000 premium as that is the nearest thing listed) It said the path cannot be found - or something similar and it occurs to me, spellcheck hasn't been on there since my friend reinstalled Windows for me so I 'll throw the problem back at her!

Sue Sanders wrote:Thank you for that. I just read it in answer to Jack's post and tried the repair thing (on Windows 2000 premium as that is the nearest thing listed) It said the path cannot be found - or something similar and it occurs to me, spellcheck hasn't been on there since my friend reinstalled Windows for me so I 'll throw the problem back at her!

Yeah you'll probably need the Office CD you originally installed from.

Matt

Just bought myself a laptop as a treat for giving up smoking 4 months ago - HP HDX 16". It came with Windows Vista installed but I hope to upgrade to Windows 7 in the next month or so. However, when I tried playing Apterous, the game only took up about a third of my screen. The text is so small I can hardly read it. When I try using the zoom button, the size of the windows forming Apterous changes, but the text stays the same size. The same occurs when I open other browser windows. The width of the website does not default to the width of my screen.

When I queried this on Aptochat, Chris Davies suggested it might be the resolution setting. My screen is 1920 x 1080 full HD. When I tried changing this, the image size increased but the quality of the view was crap.

Is there any way I can retain the full 1080 quality without compromising on size? It seems ridiculous having a 16" screen if only 6" is being used.

Philip Jarvis wrote:It seems ridiculous having 16" if only 6" is being used.

I often say the same

Ian Volante wrote:

Philip Jarvis wrote:It seems ridiculous having 16" if only 6" is being used.

I often say the same

Brilliant

Philip Jarvis wrote:Just bought myself a laptop as a treat for giving up smoking 4 months ago - HP HDX 16". It came with Windows Vista installed but I hope to upgrade to Windows 7 in the next month or so. However, when I tried playing Apterous, the game only took up about a third of my screen. The text is so small I can hardly read it. When I try using the zoom button, the size of the windows forming Apterous changes, but the text stays the same size. The same occurs when I open other browser windows. The width of the website does not default to the width of my screen.

When I queried this on Aptochat, Chris Davies suggested it might be the resolution setting. My screen is 1920 x 1080 full HD. When I tried changing this, the image size increased but the quality of the view was crap.

Is there any way I can retain the full 1080 quality without compromising on size? It seems ridiculous having a 16" screen if only 6" is being used.

Good work on giving up smoking Philip. Yes, you want to keep the laptop in 1920 x 1080 - this is the screen's native resolution, the one it's made to be used in and the one it looks best in. Unfortunately, the specifications of the actual apterous game window are fixed, that is to say the game window will be the same number of pixels in width and height regardless of what size screen resolution you are using. This is down to Charlie's design. I think other people in the past have asked about the ability to 'full screen' the game, which would sort your problem, but there are pros and cons of fixed and flexible widths, and Charlie will have to answer for himself whether he ever plans to do anything in this department.

Unfortunately, other than using an on-screen zooming feature (Start > Programs > Accessories > Accessibility > Magnifier), there's not much you can do at the moment I don't think. It seems all the rage for laptop screens to be getting smaller (in size) and at the same time bigger (in resolution) which isn't always a combination that works well, as you've discovered. Nevertheless, apterous is just one thing you'll be using your laptop for, and the large screen resolution (by comparison, my 22" main desktop monitor only goes up to 1680 x 1050) will benefit you in plenty of other applications instead.

"The same occurs when I open other browser windows. The width of the website does not default to the width of my screen." is slightly concerning, as the apterous website (just to be clear, we're talking about http://www.apterous.org and NOT playing the game itself) is a flexible width website, so it will always expand to take up the full width of your browser/screen. For example, have a look at the screenshot below, which is the apterous website stretched over both my monitors. You can see that the news items stretch all the way across and the info tables are all the way on the right, utilising the full width of my desktop. Of course, many websites are fixed width, so will only display in a certain pixels worth of width, but if you really are having problems with the apterous website, I'm utterly confused.

Thanks for that Matt

Guess I'll have to get used to the smaller font size - but this isn't easy at my age with my failing eyesight. I guess I can start using that as another excuse when I lose my games!!

Apterous occupies the top left hand corner of my monitor but C4 Countdown does stretch all the way across, as per the image you posted. Re other browsers, the default explorer on the laptop took me to an AOL site. This takes up about one third the width of the screen and is centre justified. Whether it stretches all the way across or not, the main problem from my perspective is the small appearance of font and images.

Dear MWM,

How does one use one's webcam pictures for anything other than MSN?

Kai Laddiman wrote:Dear MWM,

How does one use one's webcam pictures for anything other than MSN?

Whilst it is possible to use a webcam on 'native' drivers alone (i.e. let Windows deal with making it work whenever a program like MSN specifically requests it), you should also be able to get a standalone program from the webcam manufacturer that lets you take pictures and video with the webcam for no purpose other than capturing pictures and video. Just search for "<manufacturer> <model> driver" on Google and I'll be damned if what you're looking for isn't the top result. If you have no luck, let me know the webcam model and I'll find the software for you.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:Dear MWM,

How does one use one's webcam pictures for anything other than MSN?

Whilst it is possible to use a webcam on 'native' drivers alone (i.e. let Windows deal with making it work whenever a program like MSN specifically requests it), you should also be able to get a standalone program from the webcam manufacturer that lets you take pictures and video with the webcam for no purpose other than capturing pictures and video. Just search for "<manufacturer> <model> driver" on Google and I'll be damned if what you're looking for isn't the top result. If you have no luck, let me know the webcam model and I'll find the software for you.

I have a software but I don't understand it. First result for VF1410 driver.

I got an adaptor to plug my old joystick into a USB port but my old game didn't seem to recognise that there was a joystick plugged in. Is there a way round this?

Gavin Chipper wrote:I got an adaptor to plug my old joystick into a USB port but my old game didn't seem to recognise that there was a joystick plugged in. Is there a way round this?

Is it the game or the machine that didn't recognise it? Have a rummage around in Device Manager (probably under human interface devices) - make sure it's not in there with a big yellow query next to it. If it is try to download better drivers for it (probably from the manufacturer's support site). If it's not the in there at all it might be worth trying it in a different port - I assume it's a standard serial connection? There's probably one on the back of your machine to test it. How do you know the joystick works? If your machine can't see it when it's rebooted with the correct drivers it's (almost certainly) faulty. Also check your controller settings within your game, and see what the interface device is set to.

Sorry that's not very specific but they're usually good places to start.

Lesley Hines wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:I got an adaptor to plug my old joystick into a USB port but my old game didn't seem to recognise that there was a joystick plugged in. Is there a way round this?

Is it the game or the machine that didn't recognise it? Have a rummage around in Device Manager (probably under human interface devices) - make sure it's not in there with a big yellow query next to it. If it is try to download better drivers for it (probably from the manufacturer's support site). If it's not the in there at all it might be worth trying it in a different port - I assume it's a standard serial connection? There's probably one on the back of your machine to test it. How do you know the joystick works? If your machine can't see it when it's rebooted with the correct drivers it's (almost certainly) faulty. Also check your controller settings within your game, and see what the interface device is set to.

Sorry that's not very specific but they're usually good places to start.

Erm. I'll get back to you actually because it was months ago that I tried this.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Lesley Hines wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:I got an adaptor to plug my old joystick into a USB port but my old game didn't seem to recognise that there was a joystick plugged in. Is there a way round this?

....

Erm. I'll get back to you actually because it was months ago that I tried this.

Lol. Hth

OK, in these credit-crunch hit times I've been tasked with writing a website. That I can do (and indeed have done - it's not bad), but I know diddly squat mczip about web hosting, google optimization, and all the other gubbins that goes with it.

Could someone who knows this stuff please advise me? I really need to know:
How to optimise getting a web page onto the first page of google results
Will more metatags slow down returned results?
Are there any legal issues with metatags (e.g. I'd quite like to put travelodge (the business-thieving gypsies) as a metatag but could they then come back and sue my hiney?)
Are search results full-string or could I put something like, say, 'travel' to avoid finding myself in court?

Thanks very much - hope you don't think I've got the cheek of Old Nick

Lesley Hines wrote:How to optimise getting a web page onto the first page of google results

Make sure your HTML is valid (like so) so Google's spider can interpret it correctly. Put sensible keywords in your title, header tags and (most importantly by far) your URL, especially the domain name. And get lots of relevant people to link to you. And don't get involved with any of these "search engine optimisation" scams, most of them don't work and those that do quickly get closed down by Google, who will also "punish" you by assigning a negative score to those caught trying to cheat the system.

Lesley Hines wrote:Will more metatags slow down returned results?

Nope.

Lesley Hines wrote:Are there any legal issues with metatags (e.g. I'd quite like to put travelodge (the business-thieving gypsies) as a metatag but could they then come back and sue my hiney?)

In some countries yes (e.g. Germany) but not this one AFAIK.

Lesley Hines wrote:Are search results full-string or could I put something like, say, 'travel' to avoid finding myself in court?

Depends on the search engine, but I believe Google can search across/inside words.

!!THANKS VERY MUCH!!

#Here we go, here we go, here we go... #

Lesley Hines wrote: !!THANKS VERY MUCH!!

#Here we go, here we go, here we go... #

No!!!!! Am at work at the moment but will try to log on later to expound the nuances of trademark law but it's not wise to use their name in metatags - they'll have you for (bed and) breakfast.

Lucy Gowers wrote:No!!!!! Am at work at the moment but will try to log on later to expound the nuances of trademark law but it's not wise to use their name in metatags - they'll have you for (bed and) breakfast.

Seems you're right, my bad. Obviously this is perfect shit since using a trademark in a metatag is *not* a claim that you are that company, but it's been a while since anyone pretended IP law was meant to be logical.

Meh, there's always plan B...

Cheers me dears!

Gavin Chipper wrote:I got an adaptor to plug my old joystick into a USB port but my old game didn't seem to recognise that there was a joystick plugged in. Is there a way round this?

Sounds like a problem married men have after a while!

What is the best free virus protection thingy?

What is the best free paint software thingy?

Kai Laddiman wrote:What is the best free virus protection thingy?

Microsoft Security Essentials (Microsoft, seriously)

Kai Laddiman wrote:What is the best free paint software thingy?

Paint.NET

Kai Laddiman wrote:What is the best free virus protection thingy?

Education. If you're a sensible netizen (bleurgh) with a firewall then you have nothing to fear. I've never used any kind of AV software in my twelve years of Internetry and have never been struck with a virus. I would recommend Lavasoft's AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy for spyware removal though, because that's much harder to avoid (at least on Windows).

Kai Laddiman wrote:What is the best free paint software thingy?

I use GIMP. The interface is a bit of an acquired taste but it has a good feature set and a huge range of extra plugins you can downloaded. Most of the apterous graphics were done in GIMP, and if that's not an endorsement I don't know what is! Haven't tried anything else for years though, the inconvenience of switching is far too high.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:What is the best free virus protection thingy?

Microsoft Security Essentials (Microsoft, seriously)

Someone on another forum I go on was saying Avast is the best. He said that not only is it free, but it is actually better than the ones you pay for.