c4countdown

Sorry if I've missed the topic on this, I didn't look very hard really. I'm so delighted with the new look, well done to all involved.

Ian Dent wrote:Sorry if I've missed the topic on this, I didn't look very hard really. I'm so delighted with the new look, well done to all involved.

Chamone to that

Yes, I agree it is brilliant, well done Matt and Charlie!

It's looking better and better. The site is still begging for a sweet logo though. I liked Jono's ant with googly eyes.

Ben Hunter wrote:It's looking better and better. The site is still begging for a sweet logo though. I liked Jono's ant with googly eyes.

The first time I read that, I thought you were talking about Jono's aunt! (where did I put my specs?)

Well done Matt on the new look.

My question is, though, why does everybody's name in the right-hand sidebar have a very small E next to it?

Andrew Feist wrote: My question is, though, why does everybody's name in the right-hand sidebar have a very small E next to it?

Fixed.

Cheers all. It's a real buzz to hear positive comments, so honestly - thanks.

There are going to be a myriad* little changes and fixes coming in over the next few days too, so keep an eye out for things getting right sexy.

* I'm not afraid to admit I find 'myriad' fucking hard to use, so please correct me if I did so wrongly.

Matt Morrison wrote:Cheers all. It's a real buzz to hear positive comments, so honestly - thanks.

There are going to be a myriad* little changes and fixes coming in over the next few days too, so keep an eye out for things getting right sexy.

* I'm not afraid to admit I find 'myriad' fucking hard to use, so please correct me if I did so wrongly.

Just "myriad" rather than "a myriad". I wouldn't normally have mentioned it, but you did ask and as Phil's on a break just now, someone had to do it.

Well done all involved. It rocks!

JimBentley wrote: Just "myriad" rather than "a myriad". I wouldn't normally have mentioned it, but you did ask and as Phil's on a break just now, someone had to do it.

Either is fine. But if you want to use "myriad" rather than "a myriad" then it functions as an adjective like "much", so just think how you'd phrase the sentence using "much" and it works out the same.

Charlie Reams wrote:

JimBentley wrote: Just "myriad" rather than "a myriad". I wouldn't normally have mentioned it, but you did ask and as Phil's on a break just now, someone had to do it.

Either is fine. But if you want to use "myriad" rather than "a myriad" then it functions as an adjective like "much", so just think how you'd phrase the sentence using "much" and it works out the same.

Isn't it more like 'many'? "There were myriad .." vs "There was myriad ..".

Alec Rivers wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

JimBentley wrote: Just "myriad" rather than "a myriad". I wouldn't normally have mentioned it, but you did ask and as Phil's on a break just now, someone had to do it.

Either is fine. But if you want to use "myriad" rather than "a myriad" then it functions as an adjective like "much", so just think how you'd phrase the sentence using "much" and it works out the same.

Isn't it more like 'many'? "There were myriad .." vs "There was myriad ..".

Uh, yeah. I was thinking many and I have no idea why I typed much, since it obviously doesn't work.

Hello
My first post on here, so, Hello to one and all.
Well! everybody is going on about the new look site, for some reason I have not been able to access new or old for 2 days.
Question..... do you connect through the same linky thingy ie, apterous.org. ?

Keith Williams wrote:Hello
My first post on here, so, Hello to one and all.
Well! everybody is going on about the new look site, for some reason I have not been able to access new or old for 2 days.
Question..... do you connect through the same linky thingy ie, apterous.org. ?

Yes. Exactly the same....if you're remembered your password and username.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Keith Williams wrote:Hello
My first post on here, so, Hello to one and all.
Well! everybody is going on about the new look site, for some reason I have not been able to access new or old for 2 days.
Question..... do you connect through the same linky thingy ie, apterous.org. ?

Yes. Exactly the same....if you're remembered your password and username.

Sorry, I did not made myself clear, I cannot get on to apterous.org for some reason.
I keep getting this message.............
Cannot comunicate with apterous.org(217.36.210.230.)

Keith Williams wrote:Sorry, I did not made myself clear, I cannot get on to apterous.org for some reason.
I keep getting this message.............
Cannot comunicate with apterous.org(217.36.210.230.)

Did you try both http://apterous.org/ and http://www.apterous.org/?

Alec Rivers wrote:

Keith Williams wrote:Sorry, I did not made myself clear, I cannot get on to apterous.org for some reason.
I keep getting this message.............
Cannot comunicate with apterous.org(217.36.210.230.)

Did you try both http://apterous.org/ and http://www.apterous.org/?

Hi Alex, thanks for the link neither of them work for me.

For what it's worth Keith, the new design is superficial, it doesn't affect the working of the site one little bit; that includes making the site appear, logging in, playing, etc.

If you are having problems something must have happened to your end a couple of days ago. (fnee fnar)

Thanks Matt, my son has just been on the phone, he reckons it could be my ISP doing some work, If it doesn't get resolved he will have a look later.

At the risk of seeming an ignaramus, I would always have said "A myriad of changes..."; is that not correct?

Adam Dexter wrote:I would always have said "A myriad of changes..."; is that not correct?

No, Adam, it's not. "Myriad" has two alternative uses: as an adjective meaning innumerable or many, and as a noun meaning some undefined large number. So "there are myriad changes" and "there are a myriad changes" are both correct, but "(a) myriad of..." never is.

Edit: in the noun sense, it's pluralisable, in which case you might correctly say, "there were myriads of changes". In other words, you use it exactly like you would use a specific number such as a million - e.g. it's "a million changes" but "millions of changes".

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Adam Dexter wrote:I would always have said "A myriad of changes..."; is that not correct?

No, Adam, it's not. "Myriad" has two alternative uses: as an adjective meaning innumerable or many, and as a noun meaning some undefined large number. So "there are myriad changes" and "there are a myriad changes" are both correct, but "(a) myriad of..." never is.

Edit: in the noun sense, it's pluralisable, in which case you might correctly say, "there were myriads of changes". In other words, you use it exactly like you would use a specific number such as a million - e.g. it's "a million changes" but "millions of changes".

IAWTP

Correct or not, I'm not sure I've heard the word "myriad" used without being sandwiched twixt 'a' and 'of'. Perhaps I keep the wrong company.

Jon Corby wrote:Correct or not, I'm not sure I've heard the word "myriad" used without being sandwiched twixt 'a' and 'of'. Perhaps I keep the wrong company.

In fairness mate, there are likely to be quite a few words in a 2000-page dictionary that you don't remember hearing.

Jon Corby wrote:sandwiched twixt

Well, I've never heard of a twix sandwich, but if the Scots can deep fry mars bars then maybe that's not as crazy as it sounds either.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:Correct or not, I'm not sure I've heard the word "myriad" used without being sandwiched twixt 'a' and 'of'. Perhaps I keep the wrong company.

In fairness mate, there are likely to be quite a few words in a 2000-page dictionary that you don't remember hearing.

I've read that five times and I don't understand.

Jon Corby wrote:I've read that five times and I don't understand.

I think my point was that saying "I've not heard the word 'myriad' used like that" is analogous to saying "I've not heard the word AGOUTIS/SEALPOINT/AEGROTATS/whatever", which is not very surprising.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:I've read that five times and I don't understand.

I think my point was that saying "I've not heard the word 'myriad' used like that" is analogous to saying "I've not heard the word AGOUTIS/SEALPOINT/AEGROTATS/whatever", which is not very surprising.

Ah okay. In that case: I've probably not heard/encountered those words at all (other than in Countdown), but I've heard "myriad" a... er... myriad of times, and it's always been used like wot Adam said.

Derek Hazell wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:sandwiched twixt

Well, I've never heard of a twix sandwich, but if the Scots can deep fry mars bars then maybe that's not as crazy as it sounds either.

Try it. It's Bounty be OK

Can we please get back to complimenting me and Charlie on the website? There's a good bunch.

No, seriously, a bit of font usefulness here:
If you DON'T have the Calibri font and you DO use Windows - install the Powerpoint Viewer 2007 from the Microsoft site.
Calibri is a brilliant font in itself for all sorts of uses, and it genuinely does make the website look so gorgeous.

Matt Morrison wrote:Can we please get back to complimenting me and Charlie on the website? There's a good bunch.

No, seriously, a bit of font usefulness here:
If you DON'T have the Calibri font and you DO use Windows - install the Powerpoint Viewer 2007 from the Microsoft site.
Calibri is a brilliant font in itself for all sorts of uses, and it genuinely does make the website look so gorgeous.

I can get IE to behave -- and it does look a lot better there; my God, but does it look better there -- but not Firefox. Even though Calibri is ... well, somewhere, it wants to use "Nimbus Sans L" instead. Do you happen to know off the top of your head where Firefox looks for fonts? I've not found an answer yet, but I haven't really been looking very hard yet either.

UPDATE: I turned ClearFace on system-wide via control panel -- and that appears to have been the magic bullet. (Firefox still reports the font as Nimbus, but it looks the same as IE now.)

Calibri is rubbish! Arial Rounded MT Bold is the way to go.

I always liked Chicago font on the mac. Don't know of a similar one on Windows though. Any font buffs point (no pun intended) me in the right direction? And Jon, thanks for the backup.

Adam Dexter wrote:I always liked Chicago font on the mac. Don't know of a similar one on Windows though. Any font buffs point (no pun intended) me in the right direction?

You could have a look at this free font site.

Andrew Feist wrote:I can get IE to behave -- and it does look a lot better there; my God, but does it look better there -- but not Firefox. Even though Calibri is ... well, somewhere, it wants to use "Nimbus Sans L" instead. Do you happen to know off the top of your head where Firefox looks for fonts? I've not found an answer yet, but I haven't really been looking very hard yet either.

UPDATE: I turned ClearFace on system-wide via control panel -- and that appears to have been the magic bullet. (Firefox still reports the font as Nimbus, but it looks the same as IE now.)

Thanks for your help Andy - yes, turning on ClearType (did you mean Face, are you on Windows?) is KEY these days, not just for apterous, and not just for web browsing at that.

I have asked Charlie to remove the references to Nimbus altogether, so we can, for now, revert to a "Calibri or not" situation whilst I'm sorting it out.
Calibri is by far the more commonplace font, as I think these days it should be installed on all Vista and 7 systems, and all XP systems where any part of MS Office is installed (such as the free Powerpoint Viewer linked above).
Nimbus Sans L on the other hand, seems only to be installed with OpenOffice.

Any chance you could provide screenshots for IE and FF for me? Here or by e-mail... thanks again.

Am I the only one who find its really hard to distinguish between maxes and none maxes in the new game reports:


Sorry If I have been a tit, and the new site is meant to be like that, or if Matt's suggestion of downloading the font thing would solve my problem.

Jack.

It looks like you have Calibri installed already - the shape of the font looks fine. You probably have ClearType turned off. Turn it on:
Control Panel > Display > Appearance > Effects... > Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts: > ClearType

That should sort it for you. Please let me know.
But really, don't worry about fonts any more (that's a message to everyone) - like I say I promise I'll sort things next week. Promise.

Jack: That's what mine looked like too, so ClearType (not ClearFace, that's a font) is the way to go. Control Panel -> Displays -> Effects, if I remember right. I guess I was just misreading what FF was telling me about fonts, then.