Mersenne Digest Tuesday, April 18 2000 Volume 01 : Number 720
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 11:01:17 -0400
From: Pierre Abbat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: V20 beta #3
>A question to all you linux users with modems: I assume that the
>/proc/net/route file exists when you are not connected. Let me know
>if this is not the case (I'll need to change the default setting of
>RouteRequired above).
I have a modem and an Ethernet card on one box. The file exists whether I'm on
or off line, but the "ppp0" lines are there only when I'm on line.
To tell when you're on line, look for a gateway in the "Flags" column, which
says 4003 for the gateway and 1 for an Ethernet connection. (I don't know which
bit means gateway.) This will work only if the dialup machine is the one
running mprime. If mprime is behind an IPmasq box, you have to ask the IPmasq
box if it's online.
phma
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 13:46:04
From: Bryon Buck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Facelift
At 11:33 PM 04/16/2000 -0400, George Woltman wrote:
>1) Is this an improvement?
Yes! The left-hand navigational graphics are a big bonus. Being able to
navigate to anywhere from anywhere is a must.
>5) Would you rather I use frames so the menu does not scroll?
Yes. That will make navigation even easier. However, I think that your
navigation frame will still scroll a bit given the size of the graphics.
Take care,
- --buck
- ------------------
Bryon Buck
The Meyhem Project
http://solaris1.mysolution.com/~fwzete
ICQ: 4890668
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 17:41:24 EDT
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Mersenne: New HTML, etc.
Hi, Mr. Woltman. The side buttons on the new page are really quite nifty.
<< 2) Can someone come up with a spiffier banner? >>
I have a bunch of banners you can use. :-)
By the way, Mr. Kurowski, it's been a while since I updated them. Are they
too outdated?
MSIE 5 also reports a problem with the script on that page.
Just a couple more months until I find out how I did on my Extended Essay...
:-D
Stephan "Caltech for me!" Lavavej
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 00:34:15 +0100
From: "Siegmar Szlavik" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS and other distributed projects
On Mon, 17 Apr 2000 15:39:57 -0000, Brian J. Beesley wrote:
>If what you mean is, tap the screensaver API and make prime95 execute
>only if the screensaver is/would be active, then fair enough, I'll
>support that - provided it's an option. (This is rather similar to
>mprime running under linux starting & stopping depending on loadavg)
>
exactly. Such an option would be very useful for systems which are used
only once in a while, but when they are used, no resources should go to
prime95/ntprime.
>[...]
>Basically, what I'm saying is that your systems seem to be getting
>into a state they shouldn't, and I don't think Prime95/NTPrime is
>playing a part in this. You're seeing Prime95/NTPrime taking a big
>slice of CPU time on a system that appears to be choked up, but
>that's because it's about the only thing wnating CPU time left in a
>runnable state, not a result of the system being overwhelmed by its
>demands. In other words, Prime95/NTPrime is being blamed for a
>problem which would exist anyway. The problem needs to be fixed, not
>what is only a symptom of the problem, and very probably an
>incorrectly interpreted symptom at that.
>
I don't say that prime95/ntprime has a problem, just that it can
make (serious) problems on some systems and they don't go away until
it gets uninstalled. I don't think it has to do with a memory leak,
because if it comes to the point where the system is no longer
useable (for example it takes 20-30 seconds to start a program like
the NT explorer) in the majority of the cases the system is already
not useable directly after reboot.
regards,
Siegmar
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 08:24:24 +0100
From: "Tony Gott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: Just curious
I'm just curious really, but how durable are Intel
processors to continuous number crunching, in other words
has anyone been able to keep the same processor running for
2, 3 or even more years, on a 24/7 basis. I do realise that
Windows itself needs to be rebooted from time to time, but
what about other O/S? Anyone care to throw a few stats in?
Tony Gott
Shetland
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 08:25:00 +0100
From: "Tony Gott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: MacGIMPS
>Is anyone actually working on the SPARC/Solaris client?
I've seen it
>under "coming soon" ever since I joined the effort.
Speaking as someone
>with a bunch of SPARC CPU's sitting around doing (almost)
nothing, I'm
>kind of interested in seeing this port...
I'm also interested to know how development is coming on
MacGIMPS as well. I am actually running version G3-750 1.05b
at the moment, but with the way that they have utilised the
Velocity Engine enhancement of the G4 at www.distributed.net
it would be a shame not to have the opportunity to do the
same for GIMPS.
Anyone got any comments?
Tony Gott
Shetland
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 09:57:21 -0000
From: "Brian J. Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS and other distributed projects
On 18 Apr 00, at 0:34, Siegmar Szlavik wrote:
> I don't say that prime95/ntprime has a problem, just that it can
> make (serious) problems on some systems and they don't go away until
> it gets uninstalled. I don't think it has to do with a memory leak,
> because if it comes to the point where the system is no longer
> useable (for example it takes 20-30 seconds to start a program like
> the NT explorer) in the majority of the cases the system is already
> not useable directly after reboot.
Ah, this _is_ a bit different.
I take it you're running Win NT WS 4.0 SP 4+ (as I said before, you
really _should_ be running SP 6a, but anything previous to SP 4 is
definitely going to leave you open to numerous problems).
Did you try disabling NTPrime (Control Panel/Services/Startup) so
that it doesn't start automatically at boot time? Does this cure the
problem? Does the problem reappear if you then manually start NTPrime
with the system running "normally"? If the answer to _either_ of the
last two questions is "no", then NTPrime isn't the problem.
Does the incidence of the problem coincide with a great deal of disk
activity, which doesn't die away after at most one minute but
continues indefinitely? If so, this is a clear indication that the
problem is being caused by a shortage of memory.
How much memory is there in your system? If you're running NTPrime,
the P-1 memory allocation isn't a factor since NTPrime v20 isn't yet
released. However, if you're running LL tests on _big_ exponents,
memory shortage could be crucial. NTPrime is going to use somewhere
between 16 and 20 megabytes of _physical_ memory to run LL tests on
"10 million digit" exponents. I wouldn't try to run LL tests on
exponents much bigger than about 10 million on a system running NT
with 64 MB (or less) of memory, unless there really was only a very
occasional need for the system to run anything else. If you're tight
on memory, you may find that switching to double-checking assignments
cures your problem.
I take it that you're not trying to do anything daft like running
more instances of NTPrime/Prime95 (in total) than you have processors
on the system. Running like this causes inefficiencies due to excess
task switching and also consumes memory to no good purpose.
Also I still think it's worth checking for unwanted intrusions
(BackOrifice seems fashionable at the moment) and also removing any
services like FindFast which appear to have very little value -
certainly FindFast can cause so much disk activity that things pretty
well grind to a halt for a while - _except_ CPU soak programs like
Prime95/NTPrime which can use the cycles which would otherwise be
wasted since the other, higher-priority processes are all waiting for
disk activity to finish. This is a _big_ price to pay for something
which _might_ (if you're exceptionally fortunate) help you to open a
MS Office document a split second faster.
BTW it's perfectly normal for the first instance of opening e.g.
Windows Explorer to be slower than usual (though 20 seconds certainly
sounds excessive!), since none of the various DLLs etc. required will
be already in memory. On my system, during the first 5 minutes or so
following a system boot, everything is unusually slow due to the
activity of an anti-virus scanner. I'm prepared to live with this for
the extra security it offers.
Defragmenting the disk can make a major improvement to the speed at
which applications open - you really need to use a quality
defragmenter like Diskeeper (Executive Software) since you want to
get the swap/page file and the index (directory) files (plus the MFT
on a NTFS volume) properly organized, as well making the data files
contiguous. I also find that it helps to fix the page/swap file size
(Control Panel/System/Performance) so that the minimum & maximum
sizes are the same; the maximum of 128 MB and twice the system memory
seems to be a sensible value to start with, if your system really
needs more it will let you know! The idea is to prevent the page/swap
file becoming excessively fragmented by cumulative allocation of
extra chunks.
Hope this is of some use to you!
Regards
Brian Beesley
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 07:43:22 -0400
From: "Louis Towles" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Just curious
I've got four computers that have passed the 3 year mark and they run 24/7
(at 100% cpu)
By the way - none of the computers I've retired over the years ,that have
been running like this, have failed due to cpu or memory issues.
Louis Towles
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
404-589-1228
Photobooks Inc
Suite A012
280 Elizabeth St
Atlanta Ga 30307
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Gott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 3:24 AM
Subject: Mersenne: Just curious
> I'm just curious really, but how durable are Intel
> processors to continuous number crunching, in other words
> has anyone been able to keep the same processor running for
> 2, 3 or even more years, on a 24/7 basis. I do realise that
> Windows itself needs to be rebooted from time to time, but
> what about other O/S? Anyone care to throw a few stats in?
>
> Tony Gott
> Shetland
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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>
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 10:32:49 -0400
From: Jeff Woods <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Just curious
Very durable. I have Original P-II/233's two years old still going, have
been 24x7 since day one. I have P-166's that have been going for 3 or 4
years nonstop on either crunching primes or crunching DES. I even have a
handful of P-100's, among the first original Pentiums, still going on
double-checking, quite happily. I've never had a machine die that I could
attribute to CPU failure. It's always been hard drive, motherboard, or
just a plain inability to keep up with the assigned task, which eventually
gets the machine replaced or upgraded.
At 08:24 AM 4/18/00 +0100, you wrote:
>I'm just curious really, but how durable are Intel
>processors to continuous number crunching, in other words
>has anyone been able to keep the same processor running for
>2, 3 or even more years, on a 24/7 basis. I do realise that
>Windows itself needs to be rebooted from time to time, but
>what about other O/S? Anyone care to throw a few stats in?
>
>Tony Gott
>Shetland
>
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 10:55:34 -0400
From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: Facelift (round 2)
- --=====================_1111098218==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Hi again,
Summarizing the feedback from the first round:
5 votes for liking the new look, 2 votes against.
2 votes for frames, 7 votes against.
4 votes for too slow.
Here's what's new this round.
1) I dumped the mouse rollover and replaced the 44 different menu
gifs with one navbar gif. This should help our European friends
suffering from slow load times due to downloading separate gif files.
2) The text now wraps around the navbar. Some found the white space
below the navbar ugly. I'm not convinced this is any better.
3) The status table should display OK in netscape.
4) The MSIE improperly terminated string bug is not fixed. I actually
think its a bug in MSIE.
5) I added alt tags to all <IMG> entries.
6) The icons at the bottom of prime.htm are in a neat little row - thanks
to someone that suggested putting them in a table.
Here are the big open issues. I've not decided how to resolve them.
1) I really wanted the menu to stay fixed in a frame (I like being able
to navigate anywhere in the site with one click and no scrolling), but
sentiment against frames is quite strong. Also the current navbar doesn't
fit in all screens (its 623 pixels high). I could offer a frames, non-frames,
and text-only versions without too much trouble.
2) The status and benchmark pages - the most difficult to convert to the
new style - now have trouble fitting in the browser window. I can try smaller
fonts or add enough text above the tables so that they appear below the
navbar.
3) A redesigned banner at the top of every page. Many others have
remarked how they too are poor graphic artists!
4) And, of course, organizing the content! Along with displaying it
in pleasing fonts and colors on a compatible background.
The latest incarnations can be viewed at:
http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm
and
http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/status.htm
and
http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.htm
More comments are of course welcome!
Thanks again,
George
- --=====================_1111098218==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
<html>
Hi again,<br>
<br>
Summarizing the feedback from the first round:<br>
<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>5 votes
for liking the new look, 2 votes against.<br>
<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>2 votes
for frames, 7 votes against.<br>
<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>4 votes
for too slow.<br>
<br>
Here's what's new this round.<br>
<br>
1) I dumped the mouse rollover and replaced the 44 different
menu<br>
gifs with one navbar gif. This should help our European
friends<br>
suffering from slow load times due to downloading separate gif
files.<br>
<br>
2) The text now wraps around the navbar. Some found the white
space<br>
below the navbar ugly. I'm not convinced this is any better.<br>
<br>
3) The status table should display OK in netscape.<br>
<br>
4) The MSIE improperly terminated string bug is not fixed. I
actually<br>
think its a bug in MSIE.<br>
<br>
5) I added alt tags to all <IMG> entries.<br>
<br>
6) The icons at the bottom of prime.htm are in a neat little row -
thanks<br>
to someone that suggested putting them in a table.<br>
<br>
Here are the big open issues. I've not decided how to resolve
them.<br>
<br>
1) I really wanted the menu to stay fixed in a frame (I like being
able<br>
to navigate anywhere in the site with one click and no scrolling),
but<br>
sentiment against frames is quite strong. Also the current navbar
doesn't<br>
fit in all screens (its 623 pixels high). I could offer a frames,
non-frames,<br>
and text-only versions without too much trouble.<br>
<br>
2) The status and benchmark pages - the most difficult to convert
to the<br>
new style - now have trouble fitting in the browser window. I can
try smaller<br>
fonts or add enough text above the tables so that they appear below the
<br>
navbar.<br>
<br>
3) A redesigned banner at the top of every page. Many others
have<br>
remarked how they too are poor graphic artists!<br>
<br>
4) And, of course, organizing the content! Along with
displaying it<br>
in pleasing fonts and colors on a compatible background.<br>
<br>
The latest incarnations can be viewed at:<br>
<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm"
eudora="autourl">http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.</a><a
href="http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm" eudora="autourl">htm<br>
</a></u></font>and<br>
<a href="http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/status.htm"
eudora="autourl">http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/status.</a><a
href="http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/status.htm" eudora="autourl">htm<br>
</a>and<br>
<a href="http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.htm"
eudora="autourl">http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.</a><a
href="http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.htm" eudora="autourl">htm<br>
<br>
</a>More comments are of course welcome!<br>
<br>
Thanks again,<br>
George</html>
- --=====================_1111098218==_.ALT--
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 09:54:08 -0600
From: "Alan Vidmar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Facelift (round 2)
George,
I think you are on the right track. Take a look at this web site
for an example of what can be done without frames but still have a
nice looking side menu on all pages. Tables, Tables, Tables.
http://www.counter-strike.net
PS: Ingore the content.
Alan
<FontFamily><param>Times New Roman</param><bigger>On 18 Apr 2000, at 10:55, George
Woltman wrote:
<FontFamily><param>Fixedsys</param><smaller>Date sent: Tue, 18 Apr 2000
10:55:34 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: George Woltman <<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: Facelift (round 2)
<FontFamily><param>Times New Roman</param><bigger>Hi again,
Summarizing the feedback from the first round:
5 votes for liking the new look, 2 votes against.
2 votes for frames, 7 votes against.
4 votes for too slow.
Here's what's new this round.
1) I dumped the mouse rollover and replaced the 44 different menu
gifs with one navbar gif. This should help our European friends
suffering from slow load times due to downloading separate gif files.
2) The text now wraps around the navbar. Some found the white space
below the navbar ugly. I'm not convinced this is any better.
3) The status table should display OK in netscape.
4) The MSIE improperly terminated string bug is not fixed. I actually
think its a bug in MSIE.
5) I added alt tags to all <<IMG> entries.
6) The icons at the bottom of prime.htm are in a neat little row - thanks
to someone that suggested putting them in a table.
Here are the big open issues. I've not decided how to resolve them.
1) I really wanted the menu to stay fixed in a frame (I like being able
to navigate anywhere in the site with one click and no scrolling), but
sentiment against frames is quite strong. Also the current navbar doesn't
fit in all screens (its 623 pixels high). I could offer a frames, non-frames,
and text-only versions without too much trouble.
2) The status and benchmark pages - the most difficult to convert to the
new style - now have trouble fitting in the browser window. I can try smaller
fonts or add enough text above the tables so that they appear below the
navbar.
3) A redesigned banner at the top of every page. Many others have
remarked how they too are poor graphic artists!
4) And, of course, organizing the content! Along with displaying it
in pleasing fonts and colors on a compatible background.
The latest incarnations can be viewed at:
ersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm" eudora=ersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm"
eudora="autourl"htm
</un<underline><color><param>0000,0000,FF00>href="http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/status.htm"
eudora="autourl"<underline><color><param>0000,0000,FF00</param>htm
</un<underline><color><param>0000,0000,FF0r>href="http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.htm"
eudora="autourl"<underline><color><param>0000,0000,FF00</param>htm
</underline></color>More comments are
Thanks again,
George
<nofill>
"A programmer is a person who turns coffee into software."
Alan R. Vidmar Assistant Director of IT
Office of Financial Aid University of Colorado
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (303)492-3598
*** This message printed with 100% recycled electrons ***
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 14:17:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chip Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Facelift (round 2)
I'm a bit late, but count my vote for the new page, but without frames.
Very few ofthe hugely populated sites on the web use frames, and there's
bound to be a reason.
A few more comments:
> 1) I dumped the mouse rollover and replaced the 44 different menu
> gifs with one navbar gif. This should help our European friends
> suffering from slow load times due to downloading separate gif files.
Keen. But this makes navigation tough for people who turn off images (or
use lynx)... with separate images, each image's alt tag becomes a link.
With an imagemap, it's customary I think to put a navigation list at the
top or bottom of the page, normally delimited by pipes ("|") of the
options... I don't see anything like that on this page, but I'm not using
a text browser, so I may be confused.
> 2) The text now wraps around the navbar. Some found the white space
> below the navbar ugly. I'm not convinced this is any better.
Count my vote for the old way, but it's not a real strong vote. I guess
we use space better with the wrapping on. Both look acceptable.
> 3) The status table should display OK in netscape.
>
> 4) The MSIE improperly terminated string bug is not fixed. I actually
> think its a bug in MSIE.
Examining the source, there are three offending lines in the source code:
src="http://js1.hitbox.com/js?acct=WQ50041406EA90EN0&m=w147&n=Main+Page
">
x2="<img src='http://hg1.hitbox.com/HG?hc=w147&cd=1&hb=WQ50041406EA90EN0&n=Main+Page
";
<img src="http://hg1.hitbox.com/HG?hc=w147&cd=1&hb=WQ50041406EA90EN0&n=Main+Page
"
Each of these lines has a real line break before the ending quote. This
is what causes the problem in IE. I'm not saying it isn't a bug, but it
is fixable; simply remove the carriage return. I'm sure it's the resutl
of a line-wrap turned carriage-return somewhere.. WordPad and NotePad are
notorious for that, but it happens all over the place.
> 5) I added alt tags to all <IMG> entries.
>
> 6) The icons at the bottom of prime.htm are in a neat little row - thanks
> to someone that suggested putting them in a table.
>
> Here are the big open issues. I've not decided how to resolve them.
>
> 1) I really wanted the menu to stay fixed in a frame (I like being able
> to navigate anywhere in the site with one click and no scrolling), but
> sentiment against frames is quite strong. Also the current navbar doesn't
> fit in all screens (its 623 pixels high). I could offer a frames, non-frames,
> and text-only versions without too much trouble.
Consider making the NAV Bar smaller. Maybe decrease the font on the blue
links by a couple of points. You coul also put Marin's head to the right
of the banners instead of on the left, which would gie you a bit of space.
I agree with the anti-frames sentiment, tho. I have no real objections to
multiple pages, but people generally stick with what they're given unless
compelled not to, and it's a bit more aministration. Still, it's an
option.
> 2) The status and benchmark pages - the most difficult to convert to the
> new style - now have trouble fitting in the browser window. I can try smaller
> fonts or add enough text above the tables so that they appear below the
> navbar.
I'm sure there's a way to force them beneath the NAV bar, but I can't
think of it... used to have this sort of problem all the time. Have you
tried an <HR> or a solid <BREAK> tag? I'm rnning out of time to
experiment myself.
> 3) A redesigned banner at the top of every page. Many others have
> remarked how they too are poor graphic artists!
Can't help you here. I like the colors in the tables, and the look of the
NAV Bar. The Entropia banners look good (which they would, I guess since
the people claiming not to be graphic artists didn't make them!)... what
about putting arin's head on the right side of the GIMPS banner, in the
same way that 2^P-1 is on the left side... that could fix the NAV Bar
height problem, and maybe make the banner more attractive at the same
time.
> 4) And, of course, organizing the content! Along with displaying it
> in pleasing fonts and colors on a compatible background.
Can't help you there at all; knowing where everything is from vieweing it
all the time makes rethinking that kinda tough.
> The latest incarnations can be viewed at:
>
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm
> and
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/status.htm
> and
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.htm
>
> More comments are of course welcome!
>
> Thanks again,
> George
Keep up the good work; Everything really looks great,
- ---Chip
\\ ^ //
(o o)
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| Chip Lynch | Computer Guru |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
| (703) 465-4176 (w) | (202) 362-7978 (h) |
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Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 12:13:51 -0700
From: Will Edgington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: New mersenne.html & MMPstats.txt, DB.nf bug fix
I've just updated my mersenne.html page, mostly by adding a new
section of "quick links" near the top that point to other people's
sites, including a new one for the factoring status of Fermat numbers
maintained by Jocelyn Larouche.
I also updated the data on M(M(p)) factoring progress and added a link
pointing to the new Fermat number page from it as well. The only new
data is from Tony Forbes, I believe.
Lastly, a bug in my update scripts that affected the contents of the
DB.nf file has been fixed. DB.nf lists the trial factoring progress
for all Mersenne numbers with prime exponents that are known to be
composite but for which we have no known factors. The bug caused some
exponents that should have been included to be skipped, including
M(727).
Will
http://www.garlic.com/~wedgingt/mersenne.html Mersenne number info, software
http://www.garlic.com/~wedgingt/MMPstats.txt Data on M(M(p)) factoring
http://www.garlic.com/~wedgingt/mersdata.tgz Data on M(n), tar'd & gzip'd
http://www.garlic.com/~wedgingt/mersdata.zip Same, zip'd
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Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 20:50:10 +0200
From: "Hoogendoorn, Sander" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Mersenne: Facelift (round 2)
>1) I dumped the mouse rollover and replaced the 44 different menu
>gifs with one navbar gif. This should help our European friends
>suffering from slow load times due to downloading separate gif files.
If you use a seperate frame for the menu you only need to download the gifs
once
>2) The text now wraps around the navbar. Some found the white space
>below the navbar ugly. I'm not convinced this is any better.
Don't like the white space either, but this doesn't look better
>3) The status table should display OK in netscape.
Looks ok in IE5, wit text size on smaller or smallest
>4) The MSIE improperly terminated string bug is not fixed. I actually
>think its a bug in MSIE.
Haven't seen any errors
>The latest incarnations can be viewed at:
<http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm>
>http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.
<http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm> htm
<http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.htm>
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Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 15:24:40 -0400
From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Facelift (round 2)
Hi Chip,
At 02:17 PM 4/18/00 -0400, Chip Lynch wrote:
>I'm a bit late,
but helpful.
>Keen. But this makes navigation tough for people who turn off images (or
>use lynx)... with separate images, each image's alt tag becomes a link.
>With an imagemap, it's customary I think to put a navigation list at the
>top or bottom of the page, normally delimited by pipes ("|") of the
>options.
Good point. I'll add it.
> > 2) The text now wraps around the navbar. Some found the white space
> > below the navbar ugly. I'm not convinced this is any better.
>
>Count my vote for the old way, but it's not a real strong vote. I guess
>we use space better with the wrapping on. Both look acceptable.
How about www.microsoft.com which has dropdown menus from the
banner at the top of the page. Or do what www.netflix.com and
www.teletrade.com do put the actual choices in the top banner - although
with 18 different menu choices, I probably have too many and would
need to rethink my site layout.
> > 4) The MSIE improperly terminated string bug is not fixed. I actually
> > think its a bug in MSIE.
>
>Examining the source, there are three offending lines in the source code:
>
>x2="<img
>src='http://hg1.hitbox.com/HG?hc=w147&cd=1&hb=WQ50041406EA90EN0&n=Main+Page
>";
Thanks. I thought the bug was the embedded single quote. However the
bug was in the quick and dirty program I threw together to support #include
in HTML files.
>Consider making the NAV Bar smaller. Maybe decrease the font on the blue
>links by a couple of points.
OK - assuming the horizontal nav bar isn't better.
>I agree with the anti-frames sentiment, tho. I have no real objections to
>multiple pages, but people generally stick with what they're given unless
>compelled not to,
True, the anti-frames folks are more apt to grumble about the frames
than locate and click the "non-frames" button.
>I'm sure there's a way to force them beneath the NAV bar, but I can't
>think of it... used to have this sort of problem all the time. Have you
>tried an <HR> or a solid <BREAK> tag?
I read this somewhere <br clear="all"> or some such.
Thanks,
George
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 21:31:08 +0200
From: Martijn Kruithof <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Facelift (round 2)
Hello,
The new view works ok, I even tested the site-map with lynx, it works!
I definety like this look. Count me also in on the votes against frames
please. I also do not find the text wrapping around the sitemap very
nice. I like the broad left margin model better.
Kind Regards, Martijn
George Woltman wrote:
>
> Hi again,
>
> Summarizing the feedback from the first round:
>
> 5 votes for liking the new look, 2 votes against.
>
> 2 votes for frames, 7 votes against.
>
> 4 votes for too slow.
>
> Here's what's new this round.
>
> 1) I dumped the mouse rollover and replaced the 44 different menu
> gifs with one navbar gif. This should help our European friends
> suffering from slow load times due to downloading separate gif files.
>
> 2) The text now wraps around the navbar. Some found the white space
> below the navbar ugly. I'm not convinced this is any better.
>
> 3) The status table should display OK in netscape.
>
> 4) The MSIE improperly terminated string bug is not fixed. I
> actually
> think its a bug in MSIE.
>
> 5) I added alt tags to all <IMG> entries.
>
> 6) The icons at the bottom of prime.htm are in a neat little row -
> thanks
> to someone that suggested putting them in a table.
>
> Here are the big open issues. I've not decided how to resolve them.
>
> 1) I really wanted the menu to stay fixed in a frame (I like being
> able
> to navigate anywhere in the site with one click and no scrolling), but
> sentiment against frames is quite strong. Also the current navbar
> doesn't
> fit in all screens (its 623 pixels high). I could offer a frames,
> non-frames,
> and text-only versions without too much trouble.
>
> 2) The status and benchmark pages - the most difficult to convert to
> the
> new style - now have trouble fitting in the browser window. I can try
> smaller
> fonts or add enough text above the tables so that they appear below
> the
> navbar.
>
> 3) A redesigned banner at the top of every page. Many others have
> remarked how they too are poor graphic artists!
>
> 4) And, of course, organizing the content! Along with displaying it
> in pleasing fonts and colors on a compatible background.
>
> The latest incarnations can be viewed at:
>
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm
> and
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/status.htm
> and
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.htm
>
> More comments are of course welcome!
>
> Thanks again,
> George
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 13:00:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: John R Pierce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Facelift (round 2)
> >I'm sure there's a way to force them beneath the NAV bar, but I can't
> >think of it... used to have this sort of problem all the time. Have you
> >tried an <HR> or a solid <BREAK> tag?
>
> I read this somewhere <br clear="all"> or some such.
thats exactly it. that forces the next line to start below the graphic. Note
this next line is still part of the same paragraph.
- -jrp
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Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 20:22:27 +0000
From: "Steinar H. Gunderson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: Re: Facelift (round 2)
On Tue, Apr 18, 2000 at 09:54:08AM -0600, Alan Vidmar wrote:
>I think you are on the right track. Take a look at this web site for
>an example of what can be done without frames but still have a nice
>looking side menu on all pages. Tables, Tables, Tables.
What about CSS? Take a look at http://zicon.cjb.net/ -- no frames, no FONT
tags, no tables, but it still looks great.
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 13:40:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: John R Pierce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: Facelift (round 2)
> What about CSS? Take a look at http://zicon.cjb.net/ -- no frames, no FONT
> tags, no tables, but it still looks great.
unluckily, only MSIE seems to implement CSS properly. Netscape is way behind.
Personally, I like to design my webpages so they work just fine on NS 3.0 or IE4.
I avoid as many bells and whistles as possible, mouseovers etc are just so much
silliness. I also dislike frames, and prefer to use a table based server-side
include based layout... Of course, this makes your page source dependant on the
particular web server, but that at least is something you have control over,
there's no control over what browser the user will have.
- -jrp
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Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 20:56:04 +0000
From: "Steinar H. Gunderson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: Re: Facelift (round 2)
On Tue, Apr 18, 2000 at 02:17:54PM -0400, Chip Lynch wrote:
>I'm sure there's a way to force them beneath the NAV bar, but I can't
>think of it... used to have this sort of problem all the time. Have you
>tried an <HR> or a solid <BREAK> tag? I'm rnning out of time to
>experiment myself.
What about <br clear="both"> or something like that?
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End of Mersenne Digest V1 #720
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