Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 September 7

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September 7

Domain name pricing

Someone has made an offer for a domain name that I own and I'm trying to guess a fair price. I haven't found much useful online. Okay, it's interesting that sex.com was sold for $13M, but I'm not in that ballpark. More like soccerballs.com or thursday.com. Any suggestions? Charles Horse (talk) 01:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Do not trust sites like buydomains.com, they are crazy, they list AAdIThyAaTravels.com for $280. My advice would be to try and figure out how much they depend on this particular domainname to make their dreams come true. Some people write a whole businessplan about their brand before discovering that the domain was taken by someone else. Other people are more flexible. In order to determine how much it is worth to them you should try and figure out what they would use it for, and how much it would make if that was done correctly. But if it is any good, why sell it now? Selling a domain without a website is pretty stupid. By building even the most basic website you can inflate the price and sell them something they don't need at the same time. Artificially inflating the visitor stats is childsplay, and of course you present the facts as favorable as possible. Forget the fact there is a difference between hits and unique visitors. Invite all scrapers/spiders to your site. Tell them that 15.000 people visited the website last month, but don't mention the fact you hired a xrumer service. If the URL contains a productname or productcategory and you want to make the domain even more expensive you can consider becoming a "competitor" to them by having a site that looks like it offers the same product/service. They (talk) 02:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC) p.s. Calling their competitors and asking them if they would like to own the domain and, if so, how much they would be willing to spend on it may also get you valuable data.

Offering to sell a domain to a specific party can also get you sued for extortion, I've heard; it's much safer to put it up for auction. —Tamfang (talk) 03:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you joking? Please read the articles extortion and coercion. I don't know where you've heard that, but it sounds like nonsense. Are you aware we are not allowed (and not able) to give legal advice? They (talk) 10:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I think Tamfang is referring to cybersquatting. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 10:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

More precisely, to accusations of domain squatting. You say to Company, "I have this domain that I'm not using; you seem the most likely to have a use for it, so do you want it for $X?" Company goes to court alleging that you registered the domain for the purpose of getting money out of Company, and the proof is your offer. Court transfers your domain to Company without compensation. I have no idea whether this has happened often .... —Tamfang (talk) 21:31, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

A fair price for a domain is how much you spent on it and nothing more. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely WRONG. A fair price is what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller when neither is forced into the transaction. Reiso's position is best summarized as "there's no such thing as value added."

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

You've confused a price that you can legally get away with and a fair price. Selling something for the maximum you can get for it is rarely fair. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

How about buying something for the minimum you can get away with? —Tamfang (talk) 07:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

That would usually be the cost of obtaining it in the first place (plus some kind of profit, typically [however minimal]). Someone selling something at a loss is (essentially) no one's fault but their own. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:53, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Whereas if someone buys at an "unfairly" high price, it's always someone else's fault? —Tamfang (talk) 00:58, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

@Reiso: Are you joking? Its hard to tell over the internet. They (talk) 10:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Nope. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

OK. The difficult thing with the word 'fair' is that it is a matter of opinion. A long time ago I made up a brandname that I liked. I never used it, because I never needed it, but I did register the domains. In my POV it is fair to reward me for having the bright idea to register those domains before someone else did. I do dislike domainsquatters and typosquatters, but I think it can be fair to ask a higher price than the amount you spent registering the domain (a couple of bucks). They (talk) 21:39, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a matter of opinion, but there is broad consensus. :p While realistically asking a couple of bucks more than what you paid on a domain, for example, is not really going to piss anyone off, as a percentage a couple of bucks is a massive profit from what you originally paid (what, $10, conservatively?). And no, you don't deserve a reward for buying and monopolizing something you never used. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:56, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I think Reiso has a good point to make. When I was looking for a domain name that I liked and reflected my interests, pretty much every name I could think of was already taken - not by an organisation of that name, not by someone with a personal website, but someone who had registered domains in their thousands and was willing to sell me the name, with or without hosting, for prices well in excess of the registration cost. And these weren't even close to the names or well known brands/celebrities that cybersquatters might snap up hoping to turn a huge profit. To the OP; if you do sell, I implore you, try to sell to someone who actually wants to use the domain rather then simply park a page saying this "domain is for sale". Astronaut (talk) 13:03, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

If you put it up for auction, you can assume that the buyer will be someone who actually wants to use the domain, if there is such a someone. Squatters won't bid more than they think any user will pay! —Tamfang (talk) 01:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Computer keyboards with brightly colored keys used for video editing

I've seen computer keyboards with brightly colored keys that are used for video editing. The keyboards look like they have regular qwerty-layout. Do these keyboards have a specific name? (I can't find any images of them in either Computer keyboard or Linear video editing nor on Commons so if anyone has an image they'd be willing to upload, that would be appreciated.) --Bensin (talk) 01:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I usually call them video editing keyboards or audio editing keyboards. You can simply convert your regular boring keyboard to a video editing keyboard by using stickers. There are different stickersets for different programs: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 - Final Cut Pro 7. Some of those things with brightly colored keys are more than just a regular keyboard (see pictures). The habit of making certain keys brightly colored in order to more easily remember shortcuts is very old, and not restricted to audio/video editing, for example stockbrokers and gamers do it too. They (talk) 02:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC) p.s. Do not click here.

images
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
CMX-IMG 9559 Stockbrokers use 'em too, read Bloomberg Terminal Stockbroker in action Old hardware More old hardware

Thanks They! I also found this image. --Bensin (talk) 12:38, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Some of the primary schools that I work in use these sim computers 2/280-7472471-6129949 --TrogWoolley (talk) 13:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Parsing guides.

I want to know how it's possible to parse something, If I search for 'parsing tutorials' I usually get non-useful results. I'm talking about parsing Starts and ends. when they're stacked. I think the best way for parsing them is getting them into arrays. So for example if I have.

Start content content content Start content start start end start end end end start end

Or something similar, if I want them to get into arrays, how/what should I do?

Your example contains 6 "start"s and only 5 "end"s. You should explain what you are trying to do with that example. Do you want nested loops ? StuRat (talk) 03:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you want to create a nested data structure? I don't understand how you want to parse them given your example.

However you want to split up a flat list though (this would be like taking any delimited file) you probably can do it fastest using some regular expression to split where you need to. Shadowjams (talk) 06:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The question is not very clear, but one way or another, parsing something like that should give you a tree structure -- arrays won't work. The specific algorithm you use will depend on what sort of tree-representation you want, but any useful algorithm is going to be recursive. Looie496 (talk) 17:24, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Arrays certainly aren't the optimal way to store a tree structure, but, if you aren't concerned about efficiency, they could be used:

US President   US Vice-President
------------   -----------------
Washington     Adams
Adams          Jefferson
Jefferson      Burr
Jefferson      Clinton
Madison        Clinton
Madison        (vacant)
Madison        Gerry
Madison        (vacant)

The deeper the tree structure and the more items added at each level, the less efficient this approach will be. StuRat (talk) 17:54, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

But to answer the general question: You need to understand your language, probably describing it by a formal grammar and design data structures that can represent your data. Then you need a parser that can translate the text into the data structures. The format you seem to describe is a quite simple context-free language that can be parsed by e.g. a recursive descent parser into either a tree or nested lists. Typically, a practical parser has different layers, the most important ones being lexical analysis and syntactic analysis. I think its useful and fun to write your own parser, but there also are plenty of tools. Flex can generate the lexical analyser, Bison the syntactic parse. Parsing has an overview. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Most comfortable NC headphones

Apologies if this question has been asked before, but I'm in the market for the most comfortable noise cancelling headphones. Comfort is the primary attribute because after about 30 minutes or so, my ears start to hurt. I'm not sure why this is, but I've had this problem all my life. Ideally, I would like to be able to wear them for more than an hour without worrying about comfort. I'll be using them for listening to academic lectures and podcasts (iTunes university, news, etc.), jazz, classical music, and for apps like GarageBand, etc. If possible, I would like to be able to use them on both my desktop and my iPhone/iPod, but primarily for my mobile devices. Viriditas (talk) 03:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

And what noise are you trying to cancel ? Also, have you tried traditional (noise damping rather than noise cancelling) headphones ? (Those are the big headphones that enclose your ears.) If so, why are they unsatisfactory ? StuRat (talk) 03:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Outside noise. Cars, trucks, and of course, use on airplanes. I've worn them so I know how big they are. The unsatisfactory part comes from the shape of my ears, possibly due to their anatomical structure. I need a pair that are known primarily for their comfort. Viriditas (talk) 03:51, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I've always used Bose headphones and can wear them for an entire evening (quality comes at a price). Don't know about NC with that brand but their simulation of ambient sound is amazing. Anything else makes my ears hurt after a few minutes. Sandman30s (talk) 10:37, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Mmm. I use Bose QuietComfort 15 NC headphones; the ear pads grip the skull around the ear rather than compress the ear; I find them comfortable enough to wear all day & night. Suffice to say I'm on my second pair, my last ones having disintegrated after years of harsh use. (And when that happens, the Bose people let you buy a new pair at about 30% of the normal price :). --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that is pretty much my only choice, isn't it? Viriditas (talk) 01:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

For the penultimate in noise reduction and comfort, you have to shell out for the Bose A20 aviation noise-cancellation headset]. It combines the active electronics available on the stereo headsets, with extra passive noise-reducing padding; it has per-ear volume controls, and a main volume control, and a noise squelch control; and is among the most comfortable and rugged headsets I've ever used. The fit is snug but adjustable. It's a little bit pricey, and it you plan to connect it to a computer or stereo, you'll need at least one (possibly two) adapter cables to convert from aviation-jack to quarter-inch, and then to 3.5mm standard audio connector. But, the request was for most comfortable, not most reasonable choice. Nimur (talk) 15:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Those are nice, but I'm going to be using them for mobile devices, and that means running and jogging. Viriditas (talk) 01:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

When you say your ears hurt, are you talking about the area around the ears where the headphones rest, or are you talking about pain in the ear canal? I know that active noise-canceling headphones cause ear canal pain for some people (I'm one). If that's your problem you might consider passive noise-attenuating headphones instead. I have Sennheiser HD-280 PRO headphones and I like them a lot: they block a surprising amount of noise and I can wear them for over an hour without pain (but they definitely do press around the ears, so your mileage may vary). Another possibility is in-ear monitors, which are basically earplugs with speakers in them. For a few hundred dollars you can even get them custom-molded from an impression of your ear canal. -- BenRG (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, I guess this isn't your problem... -- BenRG (talk) 19:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

From their description of the problem above, it sounds like they just have big ears or they stick out, so they really need a rather large set of earphones that won't pinch them, whether they use active electronic noise reduction or simply passive sound insulation. I suppose some ear plugs/ear buds might solve the problem, too, although I've never found them acceptable. They seem unsanitary and uncomfortable, to me, although they do prevent another problem with full-sized headphones ... sweaty ears. StuRat (talk) 19:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I need a large set of earphones that allow the ears to sit comfortably within. Which reminds me, has anyone made earphones that look like your ears, but just slightly larger so that you ears fit inside them? I would buy those in a minute. Viriditas (talk) 01:12, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I think an air gap is desirable, or else you can get anaerobic bacteria growth and contact dermatitis. Reducing the area of contact lessens both of these effects. StuRat (talk) 01:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Something that also occurs to me is, how come there is no way to tell if you are listening to music at a safe volume? Would that entail installing sound meters in the headphones? Viriditas (talk) 01:15, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

This is actually discussed at Headphones#Dangers and volume solutions. -- BenRG (talk) 01:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I would expect a human to be a better judge than electronics, in most cases, because of the complexity of sounds. For example, a sound with all of the volume at one frequency may be more damaging than one with the volume evenly dispersed across frequencies. On the other hand, if the loud frequencies are ones you can't hear (such as high frequencies we all lose the ability to hear with age), then they aren't a problem. Also, sound which varies dramatically in volume might be more of a problem than sounds at a steady volume. StuRat (talk) 01:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Problems playing a Windows 98 game on a Vista computer

I am attempting to play Impossible Creatures on my Vista computer, and keep getting an error where we can't create a profile, it says "unknown error." We own a very old hard copy, but after this wouldnt work we even tried an online version. Strangely, the demo version available on the official website works perfectly, though it appears to have been a very different game when that demo was made.

We've read the threads on the internet detailing this problem, and we can't figure out what exactly they want us to do with ICconfig. Every other solution has not worked. We have tried disabling anti-virus, editing in all forms the Profiles folder, reinstalling, and running in Compatibility Mode. We'd appreciate any solutions that don't involve ICconfig as well, as ICconfig works in the demo. 174.253.245.104 (talk) 05:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Try right-clicking on the application and choosing to run it as an Administrator. Also, are you using the 32- or 64-bit version of Windows Vista?—Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:37, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You are the best dog ever! Running as Administrator worked! :D 174.253.245.104 (talk) 06:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

What is the oldest web site still in continuous operation but that has not been updated since it started?

What is the oldest web site still in continuous operation but that has not been updated since it started? 15:27, 7 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neptunekh2 (talk • contribs)

This Telegraph article suggests that the title-holder is a page entitled Hypertext Links, written by the high priest of the internet himself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It's reportedly the last remaining unmodified fragment of the birth of the World Wide Web. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Of course, it depends what you mean by "not updated." That website contains very old HTML (even the syntax is archaic); most of the content was updated a very long time ago; but the web server is (reportedly) running Apache 2, released circa 2010. It is quite probable that the original web-server software and hardware is/was so esoteric that it "wouldn't work" - most users would not be able to connect to it unless they had a NeXTcube or a SPARCstation. Bear in mind that the WorldWideWeb originated on NeXT machines, with NeXT text-encoding (NSNEXTSTEPStringEncoding), wacky network byte orders, and draft versions of the HTTP protocol and HTML markup languages. No doubt, the files were stored on disk with a NeXT file-system. Even around here, it's improbable anyone can still load such data from disk, let alone deliver it via the web. It is very probable that the HTML-format page contents were repeatedly copied and hosted on much more modern systems spanning the several generations of computing standards since their creation. Nimur (talk) 17:14, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Favorites in Order

I am planning on transferring my internet favorites over to a new computer soon, but I want to have them arranged in their current order instead of alphabetically. I have favorites on the Internet Explorer browser, the Google Chrome browser, and the Mozilla Firefox browser. Can anyone explain to me how to export the favorite files in a way that keeps their order? Thanks. Rabuve (talk) 15:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Each of the programs listed can export bookmarks to an HTML file, keeping their customised order (I think - I have been able to test this in Chrome and it worked). Here are instructions for Chrome, Firefox and IE. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 17:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Why not try Firefox Sync and you can do much the same from the settings menu on Chrome. Of course you would have to choose how much you trust them with your passwords and I usually don't bother with the open tabs. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 03:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

iMac is generally slow

I have an Apple iMac desktop computer which is several years old. I do realize it needs replacing – I'm waiting for Apple to update the range. In the meantime, though, I'm getting frustrated by how slowly it performs. I'm not talking about network issues, I'm talking about things like firing up applications, fast user switching, putting it to sleep and so on. I get the "spinning beachball" all the time. Everything seems to take a lot longer than it did when the computer was new. What are some possible causes of this? Is the hard drive being almost full one of them? (I have 132gb used and only 16gb free.) Would freeing up some of that space help, and is there anything else I can do to speed the machine up? Thanks. --Viennese Waltz 15:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yup, a hard drive clean up is normally a good place to start. It might not make a massive difference, but it will definitely make things better and not worse. http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Speed_Up_Your_Mac shows other tips which seem sensible, though personally I'd leave upgrading hardware until having tried their other suggestions. You might want to pay particular attention to cleaning your startup items, given the slow boot process you mention.

If this were a PC I would heavily recommend giving the inside of your machine a good clean - removing dust and hairs from the fans can often give a substantial speed boost. However it seems like getting at the gubbins of an iMac is a little tricky. However, if you're handy with a screwdriver a guide can be found here - that's specifically for a 20" model but you can search for others. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You might also take a look with Activity Monitor and see what's going on with the memory. In my experience, Macs start to grind to a halt when their available memory (RAM) is low, and they start swapping stuff in around the hard drive. It becomes a nasty one-two punch with old machines and old hard drives. Sometimes a RAM upgrade can be very cheap and do a world of difference in this respect. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:23, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Agree very much. MacOS-X is, mostly, a UNIX, and the general rule of thumb is to give any UNIX as much RAM as you can afford. Swapping becomes more and more painful as machines become faster. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

MayI ask what OS are you running and please do not say "Mac". I mean the version of the Mac OS. 220.239.37.244 (talk) 01:57, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

List/notification mail reevaluation and filtering

I receive automated notifications and list mail from a lot of individually-infrequent sources in my Gmail account, and I need to reduce the rate in a hurry. Are there any software tools that can assist in the process of finding distinct frequent mail sources/types, identifying those worth keeping, and filtering/unsubscribing the rest? NeonMerlin 17:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Creating a "pretty" ASCII PPM file

I've been able to convert other graphics file formats into PPM ASCII, using ImageMagick, but I don't like how they look. Specifically, let's say I want a 2×2 PPM ASCII file. I want the body to be separated by line, and, ideally by pixel, like so:

R(1,1,R) R(1,1,G) R(1,1,B)   R(1,2,R) R(1,2,G) R(1,2,B)  

R(2,1,R) R(2,1,G) R(2,1,B)   R(2,2,R) R(2,2,G) R(2,2,B)

Or, with actual data:

255   0   0     0   0 255
  0   0   0     0 255   0

What I get is them all run together, which makes it hard to read the file:

255 0 0 0 0 255 0 0 0 0 255 0

I realize that the pretty version will take up considerably more space, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for increased readability. Any suggestions ? If not PPM ASCII, how about other human readable formats ? StuRat (talk) 20:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Insert a tab character after every third number? Insert a line-break after (width x 3) numbers? This task can be implemented via a shell script, or even written in FORTRAN. sed or perl would be well-suited to the task; you can install either of those on your system. Here's Perl 5.16.1 for Windows. Nimur (talk) 20:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, and that's what I'll do if I must, but I was hoping some utility exists which outputs the ASCII PPM file already in the right format. And note that each column is right-justified, which is important for readability, since the number of digits in each column is variable. Also, I'd prefer blanks rather than tabs, as they sometimes cause problems. StuRat (talk) 20:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, while my "bad" example above shows the body all on one line, in reality it does seem to eventually hit the end of some line length limit, and start a new line. Unfortunately, this may be in the middle of an R,G,B set (not sure if it actually is or not). So, fixing it may not only require adding spaces and lines breaks, but removing line breaks that fall mid-R,G,B set. StuRat (talk) 00:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Web animations/games

Hi, what is the technology used to create the interactive animations/games on Google's front page? They do not seem to be Flash, as far as I can tell. 86.128.4.124 (talk) 20:37, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The content featured on Google.com today uses HTML5 and JavaScript, a modern form of dynamic HTML. Google intentionally obfuscates the script source to make it difficult for casual users to analyze, study, or copy the script code. Nimur (talk) 20:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about that, I think they're just into minimization, and their code is pretty ugly already. :p Source? ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. 86.128.4.124 (talk) 22:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Basic webdesign tutorial

I have a website which contains text of varying length which is taken from a database. I would like to arrange these text elements on the page without breaking the layout. So I guess a fairly common problem. Are there any good tutorials or other help available that explain various methods to tackle such problems? bamse (talk) 23:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

What you likely need is a tutorial in Cascading Style Sheets, which allow you to do quite a lot of manipulation to content without changing the content at all (or doing tricky things with scripts). You might also look into jQuery, which makes the tricky scripting bits (which gives you a lot more power, like sorting lists dynamically) a lot easier. But the short version is, I'm really not sure what it is you're trying to do — a more concrete example of what kind of text you're talking about and what you want to do with it would really help — so I'm just giving you very general suggestions as to what to search for tutorials for. If you want something more specific, be more specific in outlining your problem, so that we can best direct you to the places that would be most useful to you. A truly basic webdesign tutorial likely would not cover the specific sorts of manipulations you're talking about, because dealing with existing data structures that you can't modify (or don't want to) is something of a specific constraint on webdesigning. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You may want to play around with overflow: auto; (combined with a width [and possibly white-space: pre;]). ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I know it's important to you to show the world that you know many things about computers, but telling someone who wants a "basic webdesign tutorial," but doesn't seem to know any of the relevant terminology or technology, that they should "play around with" various CSS selectors is not extremely helpful to the OP, nor does it impress those of us who know CSS, either. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mr.98 ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:08, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. I'll have a look at overflow: auto. I am maybe not an expert, but understand the basics of html and css. So I am not looking for a general css introduction. To give an example of what I want to do: Say, I have three text elements (strings) which are pulled from a database. I don't know their length beforehand but would like to display them in one line (e.g. #1 left aligned, #2 centered, #3 right aligned). The problem I have is that on small resolution screens or for long strings the rendering will likely be broken and I might get a horizontal scroll bar or perhaps a linebreak. So my question is how to make it look good at most screen resolutions and for long string lengths. For instance I could think of automatically cutting the strings adding "..." or perhaps allowing for "good looking" linebreaks somehow or perhaps making some reasonable assumptions on the number of characters of the strings in the database. Also (if possible) I would like to learn whether there is any correspondence between number of characters in a string and the displayed width of that string. The exact layout (wireframe) of the page is not fixed yet, as it will depend on what options there are for cutting/arranging long strings/texts. bamse (talk) 10:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The simplest way to predict length of a string is to use font-family: monospace;. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:08, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. bamse (talk) 09:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Video effect that mimics something being recorded off of a TV screen with a video camera?

Is this actually a thing? I've seen this sort of thing cropping up on YouTube recently - as though the uploaders have intentionally done something to a video to make it look as though it was recorded from TV by someone holding their camera in front of the screen (so the thing sways and wobbles back and forth and pans up and down). It appears far more 'clean' than it would if they'd actually done this for real - and looks absolutely idiotic, IMO. Is this a new 'feature' that's recently been added to a popular video editing software title? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Somewhat related: I've seen hand-held camera work many times, such as in The Blair Witch Project and in some previous US Republican political commercials. In both cases they were trying to fool the audience, in the first case to make it look like an amateur documentary, and in the second case to make it look like a grass roots message, not one from a billionaire contributor. Deception was the goal in both cases. StuRat (talk) 23:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

What's the point, in the first case, of calling it deception? Deception is a part of fiction, fiction is deception. Qpl87 (talk) 12:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, in the case of The Blair Witch Project, they claimed it was a real documentary, not fiction, right down to having fake info on their website. This was the deception. StuRat (talk) 17:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm almost positive this is a post-effect. I remember seeing it last year. Viriditas (talk) 01:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

It’s very easy, for example in Adobe After Effects, you only have to track the motion of the TV’s screen, with something called “perspective corner pin” in the animation menu, don’t remember exactly where but it’s easy to find, and once you finish the tracking, you can apply the perspective transformation to the video and it looks just like it’s right there. If you have A.Effects cs6 then there is a real 3d camera tracker that automatically interprets the scene and lets you to put the video in whatever place you want. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs) 05:35, 8 September 2012 (UTC)