Updated the GIMPS page. I've completed testing a couple of exponents. One of them was factored in stage 1. Thus I've now found factors on two occasions out of 8 tests which is a pretty good hit rate considering that the estimated probability of finding a factor is below 5%. My next test is on 23355523. This is an interesting number, it has only 2's, 3's and 5's in its decimal expansion.
Well, well, well! It seems that the deprecated start attribute of the ol element has No Alternative In CSS For Deprecated Start Attribute (broken link removed). Here's another link. Thank you, W3C! Why the hell did you deprecate it then? Amazingly enough, some of us actually want to start our numbering in ordered lists from somewhere other than 1. Yet another reason not to go to HTML 4.01 Strict. This is very disappointing.
If W3C wonders why so many sites can't be tossed going to their recommended standards, perhaps they need to be reminded that by reducing the current functionality through cavalier deprecation is not the way to go. You must offer a viable alternative or people won't adopt the new standards. There is absolutely nothing wrong or ambiguous with specifying where to start the numbering in a list. There was nothing wrong with the attribute, it is supported by many browsers. Why was it removed again?
Removed a few more deprecated tags in the slow move to HTML 4.01 strict. This has resulted in shoving more into the style sheet.
There seems to be no decent way to remove the target="_top" attribute from the a tag. The target attribute is deprecated in HTML 4.01. Unfortunately if you use frames then there is no nice alternative to use. I'm not prepared to use JavaScript for the purpose - what an ugly waste that would be. I don't want to lock users to a frame when clicking an external link on my site - that just isn't right. Opening up external links in a new browser window would be a sickening abuse and I won't stoop that low. As far as I can see, you can't use stylesheets to set this option.
There is much discussion on the Internet explaining what is wrong with the use of frames. Here is one view. I agree with everything they say. So, what's the alternative? None, right! I want a fixed portion of my site to display my site menu. I want it to always be there, always at the top, never moving. How do I do this without using frames? Answer: you can't.
There is more discussion on whether navigation is useful or not. Here is a reasoned discussion on the matter. It states that users look straight at the content and ignore the navigation areas. I maintain this is crap. I'm a user. I look at the navigation when I go to a site. I like to know where I am in the context of the site. Yes, the content is more important than the navigation. If the content is irrelevant then I will move on. I do agree that navigation on many sites is overdone though.
Until a decent, simple alternative comes along to target="_top" I won't be going to HTML strict for all pages. My site currently uses the following document type definitions over 75 documents:
- 1 HTML 4.01 Frameset (index.html)
- 62 HTML 4.01 Strict
- 12 HTML 4.01 Transitional (only because of the target="_top" fiasco).
Bubble Bobble now completed. The first cycle of HTML 4.01 is now complete. I have:
- Successfully validated all the pages as being HTML 4.01 Transitional compliant.
- Checked that there are no broken links - using an uber freeware tool called Xenu's Link Sleuth.
- Added a site map to my banner page above.
R-Type, Splatterhouse, Star Force and Zero Wing have all been completed. This means that only Bubble Bobble remains. It's a fairly big page with a lot of tables - ugh!
Tomorrow should finish the bulk of the HTML 4.01 Transitional upgrade. Then I can concentrate more on content. The site is looking a bit dated. I'll see what I can come up with.
The emulation page has proved to be another tough nut to crack in the HTML stakes. I think I've broken its back though as I've completed the two largest sections, MAME Info and the Starforce Map Project.
In the next couple of days I should be able to wrap up the current cycle of HTML updates - Bubble Bobble, R-Type, Splatterhouse, Star Force and Zero Wing. All but Bubble Bobble and Star Force are fairly small pages.
Another good day in HTML corner. I've completed the HTML upgrade of all of the mathematics pages. Now only the Emulation Page remains. This really has taken a big effort.
In a mammoth marathon of methodical manipulation I managed to massage the remaining Tomb Raider pages to HTML 4.01. I updated 13 of them - quite appropriate on this wonderful Friday the 13th. Here's some marvellous facts due to the Gregorian Calendar:
- Friday the 13th falls on a friday more often than on any other day of the week. Friday occurs 688 whereas Thursday and Saturday occur only 684 times. This is due to the perturbation caused by leap years.
- Over any 400 year cycle there are exactly 100*(365*3+366)-3=146097 days, or 20871 weeks, or 4800 months
- Another way of looking at the calendar is that the period is Period = 400*(365 + 1/4 - 1/100 + 1/400) = 400*365.2425. i.e. a leap year every 4 years is too much, so take off 1 leap year every century, but this takes off too much, so add on a leap year every 400 years. Naturally this is still not exactly correct.
- There are between 1 and 3 Friday the 13th's in any year.
- There are 14 possible calendars in any year - January 1st can occur on any one of the 7 days of the week and then there is the leap year versus the non leap year.
Tomorrow I move on to the Mathematics pages.
Updated HTML for INDIA and NEVADA worlds in TR3 today. Specifically -
- 3. The River Ganges
- 4. The Caves Of Kaliya
- 5. Nevada Desert
- 6. High Security Compound
- 7. Area 51
I'm off to the SOUTH PACIFIC tomorrow!
Several pages are still broken due to the file renames, reorganisation etc. Please be patient, it will be all be up in the near future.
The Tomb Raider pages being are being tackled. The statistics section was horrible - I needed to add some new style elements. I've completed -
- The TR3 Index
- How To Use This Walkthrough
- Statistics
- 0. Lara's Home
- 1. The Jungle
- 2. Temple Ruins
While the pages are starting to look a lot nicer, I admit that I never expected there to be so much work fixing them - this is what you get for using a canned piece of shit like Word 97 to edit your HTML.
The best is HTML editors are vi for Unix and Notepad for Windows!
I need to work on tables and refine the style sheet(s) - all in good time. Continuing from The River Ganges tomorrow.
The Tomb Raider pages is a big job. I've done all the TR3 Viewer pages. The task for tomorrow is the the TR3 Walkthrough. I wonder if anyone still reads it? Hell, I wonder if anyone reads this page.
MAME 0.79u1 source code released - CHD, BIOS, Bad Dump, No Dump Info's all updated.
Old archive pages brought into line with HTML 4.01 Transitional. Tomb Raider pages next on the hit list.
Shiver me timbers and splice me mainbraces! It's been over a year without an update. I decided it was high time to redesign the site and bring it up to W3C standards for 4.01 HTML transitional. I must say it is taking quite a while as my previous pages weren't even up to the previous standards (HTML 3.2) either.
Updating the HTML consisted of introducing style sheets and putting a lot more meta tags in the document head as well as adding the document type declaration to every document. This allowed me to actually use the HTML validators and then I could start fixing all the real problems with my HTML - and there are several deviations from the standards I can tell you. I thought you could shove a tag anywhere, apparantly this is not the case at all!
I've toyed with some javascript to generate a random picture in the left frame. The pictures are from my favourite arcade game Star Force. Each image is only about 50KB so that shouldn't tax to many internet connections. There are 34 images to be seen from 34 slices of the Star Force game map. If you want to see the entire map then head for the Emulation section and enjoy!
Some of the pages have been reordered somewhat and since this week (like every week) is "Microsoft Hate Week", I've renamed all site documents with htm extensions to the proper html extension.
Finally there are a couple of new additions to the site. I've added my GIMPS page since I've been participating in the Great Internet Prime Search in an effort to find the largest known prime number - it keeps my PC busy.
The second set of goodies that has been added to the site are some MAME reports that list
- CHD Info (html version)
- CHD Info (text version)
- BIOS Info
- Bad Dump Info
- No Dump Info
for the current version of MAME. They may useful to some emulation fans. All the information is sourced from "mame -listinfo" and "chdman -info" and is parsed together with a suite of awk scripts I put together one rainy weekend. The programs are handy since I just need to rerun the scripts after every MAME release to automatically generate the new set of reports. I managed to learn a bit about the MAME listinfo file and what many of the fields mean :-)