User talk:Athaenara/Archive 0

This is an archive of discussions from October 2006 through April 2008.
Please do not edit the contents of this page.
If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, do so on the current talk page.

← Archive 00   Archive 0   Archive 1 →

Contents 1 WikiWelcome 2 Holiday Greetings 3 Did you know? 3.1 Ernesto de Quesada 3.2 Alfred Schulz-Curtius 3.3 George J. Dufek 3.4 Kiva Koffeehouse 3.5 John Pitre 3.6 Joan Ingpen 3.7 Ben Finney 3.8 Jon Lomberg 3.9 Dorothy Canning Miller 3.10 Romany Marie 3.11 Chryssa Vardea Mavromichali 3.12 Henry W. Jeffers 4 Signature talk 4.1 Complaints 4.2 Gallery 4.3 First Barnstar 4.4 Gallery Guest Book 4.5 Category 4.6 Nice work 4.7 Inspired 4.8 Apropos 4.9 RFA mop 4.10 Nice 5 Computer issues 5.1 Disc/display problems 5.2 Next steps 5.3 Update 5.4 Fonts

WikiWelcome

Welcome message removed for archive economy may still be seen here.

Holiday Greetings

Previous greetings removed for archive economy may still be seen here and here.

Dear Athaenara, I wanted to wish you a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year! Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:42, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Rührfisch, many happy returns! — Athaenara ✉ 04:33, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Did you know?

Ernesto de Quesada

→ (In re: a DYK nom @ 18:06, 8 August 2007 UTC & a @ 05:07, 10 August 2007 UTC. —A.)

→ (Its 15 minutes of fame began @ 07:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC) & ended 10 hours later. —A.)

Hi Athaenara. You are off to such a great start on the article Ernesto de Quesada that it may qualify to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page under the Did you know... section. The Main Page gets about 4,000,000 hits per day and appearing on the Main Page may help bring publicity and assistance to the article. However, there is a five day from article creation window for Did you know... nominations. Before five days pass from the date the article was created and if you haven't already done so, please consider nominating the article to appear on the Main Page by posting a nomination at Did you know suggestions. If you do nominate the article for DYK, please cross out the article name on the "Good" articles proposed by bot list. Also, don't forget to keep checking back at Did you know suggestions for comments regarding your nomination. Again, great job on the article. -- JayHenry 05:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

On 13 August 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ernesto de Quesada, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --DarkFalls talk 08:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Alfred Schulz-Curtius

On 11 November 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Alfred Schulz-Curtius, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --Carabinieri 23:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

George J. Dufek

Thanks for the nomination of George J. Dufek article information for the main page DYK (did it get on there? I've been away for a couple of days...) Also, nice additions to the article itself, specially the footnotes :) I did redo one thing - I don't think Dufek's papers qualify as a reference for the article (unless you've looked at them -- I know I haven't), so the finding aid for them I think does belong under "External links..." --Bookgrrl ^holler/lookee here 16:46, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome! At Template talk:Did you know they're up to articles created the day before. For the Syracuse papers, maybe "Further reading"? — Athaenara ✉ 02:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Did you know? was updated. On 19 November 2007, a fact from the article George J. Dufek, which you recently nominated, was featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. Cheers, Daniel 11:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Kiva Koffeehouse

On 28 November 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Kiva Koffeehouse, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --Royalbroil 05:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

John Pitre

On 15 December 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article John Pitre, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. Cheers, Daniel 04:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Joan Ingpen

On 21 January 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Joan Ingpen, which Scanlan created and you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. Majorly (talk) 15:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Ben Finney

On 8 January 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ben Finney, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --Carabinieri (talk) 05:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Jon Lomberg

On 20 January 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Jon Lomberg, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --BorgQueen (talk) 09:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Dorothy Canning Miller

On 28 January 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Dorothy Canning Miller, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 22:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Romany Marie

On 19 February 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Romany Marie, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --BorgQueen (talk) 12:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Chryssa Vardea Mavromichali

On 4 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Chryssa Vardea Mavromichali, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --BorgQueen (talk) 11:18, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Henry W. Jeffers

On 5 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Henry W. Jeffers, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page. --Daniel Case (talk) 19:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Signature talk

Complaints

Hi, per WP:SIG, sigs with text larger than the default size are not reccomended [sic]. Please could you change your sig? 80.41.217.63 (contribs) 11:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• After fruitlessly testing this with successively smaller font sizes, I removed the sup/sup markup for my talk link. It was the talk link, superscripted as many wikipedians also choose to place theirs (cf. Kf4bdy's on my Archive 1 subpage), which was making my signature appear to be significantly larger than default size.
• I am treating your complaint as seriously as I would that of a registered user. I do recommend that you register.
• I don't, of course, include the talk link in my sig for messages on my talk page (this one). Athænara 01:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't help but notice your signature—you've set it in a very large type size. I appreciate that many users like to spruce up their signatures to make them unique, but such modifications are usually limited to adding colour and symbols. Using such a large font is very distracting, as it makes your signature seem much more important than the surrounding text, and also breaks up line spacing. I hope you'll take this observation under advisement and consider changing your signature to something a little less outstanding. —Psychonaut 12:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Psychonaut: I relocated your post on my talk page to the pre-existing Signature section there. Thanks for your comment; remove this note from your talk page if you like. Athænara 22:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC) [This is a copy: original posted to Psychonaut's talk page.]

→ (I eventually [+ half-]figured out how my sig looked to users with different skins and and different default font sizes and reduced the font size to 12/14 point.)

→ But after I was unexpectedly stuck with different OS and browser versions, and a skin I had never seen before and had no idea how to find and change, I found I had yet more to learn about how awful an Edwardian Script ITC signature can look when it's not properly displayed. Athaenara ✉ 03:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Gallery

→ Note: A Wikipedian Signature Art Gallery relocated 9 January 2007 UTC. — Athaenara ✉

First Barnstar

Absolutely beautiful! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.247.220.9 (talk • contribs) 23:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

    Thank you! Athaenara

Gallery Guest Book

Thanks Athaenara, for signing my autograph book. I'd like to add my sig to yours, but I'm not sure where... | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 23:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome—I'll add yours to the Wikipedian Signature Art Gallery if it's ok with you. Athaenara 23:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think a Guest book qualifies to be on the list; as long as you can sign there, it's fine. If you don't want it to be there, it's fine, but I still think it should. And thanks for adding my sig to your collection too. :-) | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 19:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you add my signature there? I don't know exactly where to put it though. Thanks. —¡Randfan! 20:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

As curator, I added it to the Infinite Variety section (an earlier form [23:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC) in the history], not the one you used here) nearly a week ago. Athaenara 23:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

A most extravagant version now in Extreme section. Athaenara 07:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Extreme section removed at 08:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC). — A.
• Location as of September 2007: User:Athaenara/Gallery/Beyond. — A.

Thanks for signing my signature book. Current signee #21!!! --¿Why1991 ^{ESP. | Sign Here} 02:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome (I updated your sig in the Infinite Variety section). Athaenara 23:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Category

You might want to put Category:Wikipedians who collect signatures of other Wikipedians on your user page. —sd31415 (sign here) 16:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I considered that, but I couldn't find the syntax which would show only the Gallery Guest Book section in that category. Athaenara 03:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

→ Update: Category deleted 18:00, 6 February 2007 (UTC).

Nice work

Greetings Athaenara, I see you maintaining WP:BLP/N and just wanted to say that it is good to see someone like yourself taking care of business there. Thanks for that. Also, I caught sight of your sig gallery and I must say that with the formatting and layout it is a pleasure to look at. Take it easy. (→Netscott) 00:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, thank you for the encouragement (BLP/N)! If you don't mind, I'll put your comments about the gallery in the Gallery Guest Book section there, unless you would like to add your comments yourself—let me know. Athaenara 00:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Autograph books are a bit contentious right now... I suppose I wouldn't mind if you transfer my comments there though. Cheers. (→Netscott) 00:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It is not an autograph book (cf. my comments on the gallery talk page about that very thing) but a curated collection. Thank you for your kind permission to add your comments to the guestbook. Athaenara 00:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Inspired

Hi, I feel inspired by your signature and a number of those in your gallery to render my own in an artistic fashion. I know how to do the art but is there a way to make it appear like that everytime I use the four tides or do I need to copy and paste all the time? - Sentinel 13:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Signatures#Customizing your signature: you can change the signature field in Special:Preferences. Athaenara 14:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I see you followed through—thanks for signing the guest book. Athaenara 07:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Apropos

Hi A, just wanted to say your curated signature collection inspired me to try being creative with my own. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful fish, love the bubbles! — Athaenara 09:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 11:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

RFA mop

Thanks for your kind words on my RfA - since my signature fish is a resident in your curated collection, I thought you might like to see what it is up to now - it is a bit silly, but thought you might like it. Take care. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sweet! Thanks for the update :-) — Athaenara ✉ 02:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Nice

Where'd you get the envelope symbol in your sig? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't remember now where I found it, but it was somewhere on Wikipedia in late 2006. — Athaenara ✉ 01:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I tracked it down—this 01:11, 21 November 2006 (UTC) edit of the Save the Sig section, which was the tiny beginning of what became A Wikipedian Signature Art Gallery, shows a signature which used the symbol and may have been the first use of it I had seen. — Athaenara ✉ 06:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Computer issues

Disc/display problems

Hope your hard disk recovers soon. Your absence is noted. There are in fact some new people helping out at the COI/N. Perhaps we could have an 'educational program', or something. However, the ones who arrive seem to know what to do immediately. EdJohnston 20:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It's very odd. There are background colours on browser pages where formerly there were none, and of more than seventy font examples on the long Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting Text#List of Fonts fewer than ten display properly. (Maybe I was given a reconditioned rather than new HD and someone else's browser customisation is still in it?) — Athænara ✉ 22:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Have you done the usual banal things like change browsers (IE<->Firefox, or Safari<->Firefox)? EdJohnston 23:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Safari only, on a basic MacBook (OS X 10.4.6), "Version 2.0.3 (417.9.2)" and I don't know what version I was using before. — Athænara ✉ 00:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Firefox works well on a Mac. I have it installed in case of sites that don't work with Safari. Send WP email if you think I might know anything that would help. You don't have a fancy monobook.css, do you? EdJohnston 00:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

If I do, I didn't put it wherever it is. — A. ✉ 01:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

You could have a permissions problem, have you run Disk Utility to "repair permissions"? You should also run Disk Utility's "Verify Disk" function. That will tell you if your disk catalog has a problem. You can't repair that from your startup disk, but you can test it. If you find a problem, let me know and I'll give you some ideas on how to fix it.

Also, with Fonts, you can have all sorts of strange behavior if you have fonts with the same names in multiple font folders. You should only have one copy of each font to avoid confusion. (Instead of deleting the extras, you can move them to other non-font folders in case you need to go get them again later). There are font folders in the Library folders of the top level, in the System's folder, and in each User's Library. Here are some links to articles that discuss this:

• article - apple docs info
• garbled font fix corrupt font cache - creative techs
• blog wave studio - mac homepage
• garbled fonts troubleshooting guide - creative techs

In addition, the apple support site has more info on fonts corruption if you do a search within the OS X section of their knowledge base, and also in their discussions forums.

This is the glitch that happened to me with fonts and how it was able to be fixed: Fonts are kept in a cache that can become corrupted. If that happens, you might need to clear your "font cache." That's a maintenance operation that requires a third-party program. I use one called Yasu ("Yet Another System Utility"), available as shareware here: mac os x version tracker or here: yasu info

It's not a full application, just a graphical interface that runs unix scripts that are built-in to OS X but otherwise would require using commands in the terminal to run.

If you use it, you might want to read this too:

• system cache clean effects - the x lab

By the way, is there a reason you're still using 10.4.6? OS X is up to 10.4.9 now. That could be part of your problem too. If you decide to upgrade, instead of using the software update application, it's safer to download the combo updater from the Apple OS X support site downloads page.

Good luck! --Parzival418 _Hello 03:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's a lot of information! I'll see what I can use. The reason for that OS X version: my hard disk stopped working Friday night; what's there now was installed Monday night at the Apple Genius Bar. — Athænara ✉ 03:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Even aside from my Edwardian Script ITC signature markup issues, it's extremely annoying that the left page margins of Wikipedia pages (and the background in standard things such as Tables of Contents) are pink while the main page space is ice blue. — Athaenara 03:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The fonts could be a Mac OS X issue, but the strange browser colors you describe don't sound like a Mac OS X issue. How does Safari look with other websites? Does it look normal on Google, Yahoo, various blogs, etc? How does it look on other MediaWiki sites - ie, Wiktionary, or the main mediaWiki site (click the powered-by icon in the lower right corner of every page)? If you zero in on which sites cause the issue, you can discover if it's the MediaWiki software or something on your computer. If it's MediaWiki, you could probably find the answer by posting your question here: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)... Good luck! --Parzival418 _Hello 04:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Really good call, Parzival. I checked MediaWiki and found new pink and blue background shadings over there, too. Non-Wiki webpages display normally, including pages which discuss and display the Edwardian Script ITC font. — Athaenara 06:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Question: When you look at Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting Text#List of Fonts, how many of the formatted examples display the examples in the fonts they're intended to illustrate? I see only about ten of the fonts displaying properly. I did look at the formatting behind the scenes which as far as I can tell is as it should be. (BTW, I posted on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) as you suggested.) — Athaenara 07:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Those are wrong on my system too. I checked them on Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer 5.2 (mac). They look the same on all three browsers - around 12 to 15 look like they may be OK, but that's only around a third of them. The rest are all split between two fonts - one san serif and one serif, but definately not the named fonts in the table. Hopefully one of the tech wizards at the Village Pump will know the proper magical incantation! Parzival418 _Hello 07:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

My pages aren't pink and blue though! Just basic Wikipedia white... Parzival418 _Hello 07:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Could you post your corroboration of the font issue on the pump page? It's in the "Wiki skin change?" section. — Athaenara 07:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure... note posted. Parzival418 _Hello 08:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Next steps

OK, after the investigations at Village Pump/tech, plus the tests we've both done, here's what we know:

• the fonts issue is not related to the color issues you are experiencing. We know this because my colors are normal, but I see similar font problems you do. They might not be problems with all the same fonts, but so far it seems like a Mac-specific issue. To figure this out further, we need to ask some more Windows Wiki users to view that page and learn if any of them have the same problem. If not, then we know we need to address it as a Mac OS debugging issue. Mac OS does have some font issues, as I noted above, however, so far I am not sure this is a Mac thing. It seems like you're pretty active in parts of the Wiki community, could you ask some of your contacts to view the fonts page and find out if they are seeing them correctly, and also if they are using Mac or Windows?

• the colors issue with your browser - that's just plain strange, since you said you have not changed anything about your monobook file. Did the colors change right after you did the disk reformatting at the Apple store? You know, they call it the "genius bar," but they can't be geniuses if they restored your system to an outdated version of the Mac OS. I recommend you update your OS to the current version which is 10.4.9, and also get a copy of the shareware program Yasu - or one of the other scripts that does a similar function - so you can clear your font and system caches. I have no idea if that will help the colors problem, but it will certainly help the health of your system.

• you could try downloading the free Firefox browser and see if that one looks better on your system: mozilla firefox

• There are also issues about fonts that can mess up the system, even if they seem to display properly. I recommend that you go through the various font folders on your Mac and make sure you don't have duplicates of the same fonts in multiple folders. There are certain fonts that must be in the Fonts folder in System/Library/Fonts (those are listed in the Apple articles above). Other fonts can be in your user folder, or in the hard drive top level Library/Fonts folder. If you find duplicates and you want to be completely sure not to lose the fonts, instead of deleting them you can just move them to a folder on your desktop for temporary storage, call it something like "Fonts (disabled)". That way you can restore them if you need to. After you confirm you don't need them you can trash them.

• Here's are a couple more articles worth checking out - regarding problems with fonts in OS X:

bad fonts - apple page

how to - creative pro

May 2005 article - Mac World

• Do you have an external disk drive for backing up your system? That may be an overly obvious question, but I've seen a lot of disks lose all their data. Since you already know you have some kind of system or disk issue, that makes backups even more important. I highly recommend you get one or two external disk drives and duplicate your whole system, especially your personal and work data that can't be replaced if it's lost. I receommend the program "Retrospect" retro for macintosh - it's cross-platform and widely used. It costs $150 or so, so if that's too much, you can find alternatives for less. Whatever application you use, it should be able to make a bootable clone of your system drive so you can startup from the external disk if you need to do maintenance on your main drive. I also recommend you get a copy of Techtool Pro, to fix your directory in case of damage.

OK, you probably agree, that's enough for now... Whatever is going on with your browser might be related to system issues or might not be. The most recent Mac OS X is the most stable - definitely recommended. Clearing caches with Yasu also recommended. Aside from all that, you know your internal drive has had troubles before, so preventative maintenance and backups are really important. --Parzival418 _Hello 03:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm so fed up with this thing I might donate it to a nonprofit organisation and go get a VAIO. My last one served me well for six years before it died (of old age, I guess) and I really, really, really, really wish I had not chosen a MacBook after that (June 2006). — Athaenara 05:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what else you experienced with your Macbook - maybe you got a lemon. But just to give you an alternate perspective, I've used Macs since 1994 in my business, several at time, never had to get one serviced,... and I've never been to the genius bar! Other than the fonts conflicts I described above, I've never had to dig into the depths of the system, and I've never seen anything like a "Windows registry". I've never used an anti-virus program and none of Macs have ever had a virus or spyware program. I have needed to use utilities to fix disk drive catalogs now and then, but that's pretty much the same on Windows (ie, Symantec/Norton, etc). I'm not a Mac evangelist by any means, and there's lots about Apple that I don't like (including the stock options back-dating scandal and the way they'd rather be a phone company than support their professional computer customers). But I really don't think what you've experienced lately is par for the course with Macs. Once this issue is resolved and you get comfortable with the Macbook, you might change your mind.

One thing about Windows that I'll never understand: To turn off a Windows computer, you have to use the "Start" button! --Parzival418 _Hello 05:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Until late last week, I was comfortable with the MacBook—I had adjusted to it within the first week last June—but on top of the browser hassles since the HD failed and they gave me a new one, telling me to install from the 2 discs which came with it originally, it's now started to turn itself off without warning. Truly, only a backbone of steel and a stiff upper lip are keeping me out of whining territory.

The thought of throwing the thing through the front door of the Apple store had momentary, albeit insane, appeal, and after reading Apple forums through figuratively less rose-coloured glasses I'm thinking I did not get a lemon but something nearer the norm. It's an experience I definitely do not want to repeat. — Athaenara 08:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Well I certainly can understand how upsetting that's been. If after your disk was replaced it's now turning itself off, it really is possible you got a lemon. The combination of bad disk with what now seems to be a power supply or logicboard issue, if I were experiencing that with Apple I would contact their customer relations department and demand a replacement unit - the whole computer, not just a repair. They would try to avoid that aof course, but if you escalate the issue, they might eventually agree. They might have a policy on this.

Their "Genius Bar" service was clearly substandard to install an out of date operating system. They should have updated that to the most recent version before you left the store. Apple's tech support and customer care has been less than stellar lately. I used to have very positive experiences with Apple tech support and customer service, but lately they are clearly less invested in those areas unfortuately, but it is possible to find a person within the organization to advocate for you and you might be able to get a replacement. The turn-off issue could be very disruptiv; I would not let that go for long, and I would not accept a "fix" that is not explained to my satisfaction. It simply should not behappening.

On the other hand the negative comments on the Apple support forum are not representative. I've noticed that forums make it seem pretty bad, and a lot of those people are pretty angry. But the vast majority of users have no trouble at all, or Apple would not be growing their market share as they are. With Apple is that the computer and software are made by the same company so there is a place to complain, and people do. But where do you complain about a Windows problem when sometimes it's hard to tell if it's Microsoft or the hardware manufacturer? Well, to wrap this up, as I said I'm not evangelizing for Apple. I've lost a lot of respect for them since they moved their main focus to the the iPod and iPhone, though I still like their computers and their OS better than Windows machines for various reasons... and I do think you may have gotten a lemon that may need to be replaced, or at least its power supply and/or logic board. --Parzival418 _Hello 18:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Parzival, you have been extremely generous with your time and expertise, and I deeply appreciate it. For me, applying the information you've provided is kind of like trying to get from kindergarten to sixth grade in one week. I will archive these computer sections soon, not because I'm going to ignore the information but because for now I've switched to the Simple skin and will just try to cope quietly, knowing I can retrieve the information any time I'm ready for more homework. — Athaenara 12:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I was glad to help. I thought the font issue seemed familiar, but now I wonder about that being a Mac issue When you get back to thinking about it, I recommend surveying Windows users and finding out what they see on that page. There might be issues in your fonts folders, but mine have been optimized, yet that font chart displays wrong on my computer too (though your prior signature with the fancy font still displays fine on my Mac in your older posts). So while you may need to optimize your fonts in your system, I think that is a separate issue from the Wiki font display situation. And the skin situation, that's just plain strange - I don't have a clue on that. That should be cross-platform and cross-browser across all systems, even Unix/Linux, not just Mac and Windows. Probably it's a MediaWiki bug, maybe it would be a good idea to mention it to the programmers over there: mediawiki project help. Even if you don't think about the rest of it, considering doing the free update to OS X 10.4.9, that's the most recent Mac OS and the most stable.

Meanwhile, your plan to give this stuff a rest and get on with Wikipedia instead of computer wrestling sounds like a good idea. Good luck with everything. --Parzival418 _Hello 18:05, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

...quick closing note - I'll continue watching your page in case you want to comment further, but I am unwatching the Village Pump tech page. Too much action over there, it's distracting. So if you post anything over there that you want me to see, please let me know with a message. --Parzival418 _Hello 18:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Update

Briefly: My second visit to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store had better results.

Blackouts (sudden random "CrashBook" shutdowns which apparently have something to do with a defective temperature sensor) had become much more frequent. After searching online for fixes, I followed a suggestion to check Software Updates, chose one which seemed to apply and followed instructions.

After that, my MacBook started up in Sleep Mode and would do nothing else. Fifty minutes on the Apple Care phone line with a kind person in Texas solved nothing, so back to the store I went, where another kind person diagnosed and fixed it, also updating the OS to the version which last week's receipt had specified but which hadn't in fact been installed.

I may be repeating myself, but what the heck: Thank you, Ed and Parzival, for your interest, your commiseration and your advice. Most fonts still don't display properly (did you get that sorted out on yours, Parzival?) but I can at least use my computer and I'm no longer pricing VAIOs and dreaming of full refunds from Apple. — Athaenara 04:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Fonts

Glad to hear your refund dreams have ceased! I'm still not seeing all the fonts properly, but I don't think it's a mac bug, because it only happens on MediaWiki pages and only with certain fonts, but it does happen with several browsers. I think to figure this out one would need to canvass PC users too, with multiple Windows versions and browsers. I bet some of them would find they have the problem too. Strangely, web pages in general with varieties of fonts all display just fine on my Mac.

I miss your fun script signature though. That font (Edwardian Script ITC) is working fine on my mac and still shows correctly in your signatures on oledr comments, and on your page headings. Does it not show up on your mac correctly? Best of luck with your Macbook! --Parzival418 _Hello 07:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I miss the Edwardian Script ITC too, and not just in the signature markup I used to use. Though there are no such display problems on any of the other off-wiki websites I've checked, I cannot see it anywhere on Wikipedia. Mysterioso. — Athaenara ✉ 14:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I can still see Edwardian Script ITC on your page header and in your older signatures when you were still using it. I've done a bit more checking and determined that when I view the list of fonts page, all of the fonts that are installed in my system are showing up correctly, and only the ones I don't have installed are not displaying properly. There's one exception - MS Gothic, which I have installed but is displaying oddly. That one it turns out is a Windows TrueType font (extension .ttf) - those are supposed to work OK on macs, but apparently there is a problem there.

But you say you can see Edwardian Script ITC on non-wiki pages, is that correct? I've viewed the HTML source of some wiki-rendered pages and they seem just like regular HTML (to my limited knowledge). That you can see it properly on other sites means you must have it installed in some form. Can you post a link here to a non-wiki website that displays that font correctly on your browser? Also, are you still using the older version of OS X or did you do the update to 10.4.9?

If you use Spotlight to search your drive - how many copies of Edwardian Script ITC show up in the search? Are they all identically named or do some of them have the .ttf extension and some do not? If you have more than one copy of the font, what folders are the various copies in? --Parzival418 _Hello 04:15, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Answer to the versions question:

1. As of June 3 2006: Unknown, whatever versions were installed. No issues with fonts or colours.
2. As of April 30 2007: OS X 10.4.6 and Safari 2.0.3 (417.9.2). Severe wiki font and colour issues.
3. As of May 7 2007: OS X 10.4.9 and Safari 2.0.4 (419.3). Wiki font issues remain.

Off-wiki, this example, Font Style Details for ITC Edwardian Script Regular on the MyFonts website, is typical. All is as it should be: I can see every character, no exceptions. I haven't checked thousands of websites, but the results were the same on every site I did check.

On wiki, of the more than seventy fonts on the list of fonts, I can see the same twelve now which I could see when I posted on Village Pump (technical) on May 3 (Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Arial Rounded MT Bold, Brush Script MT, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Georgia, Gill Sans MT, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Webdings).

Spotlight: "No results found" for Edwardian anything. — Athaenara 12:00, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

OK... I think I figured out what's going on. It appears that you can't see those fonts on wiki pages because they are not installed in your system. The reason you can see them on the MyFonts site and other font seller sites is that on those pages, you are seeing graphic images of the font, not text being rendered by your browser. You can tell they are graphics by trying to select the text as if you were going to copy it to the clipboard. If it's text, you can select any series of letters in your browser but if it's a graphic, you'll only be able to select the whole image, for example on the webpage you linked above, each line of fonts is one graphic image.

If you find any webpages that use those fonts in text and not graphics and they display OK on your system, then that would disprove my theory. But unless you can find pages like that, I'm pretty sure this is the answer.

I think what happened is that on your system prior to June 3 2006, you had fonts installed that are not on your current system. When you lost that system and replaced it with the April 30 2007 system, you got problems due to a bad installation, and you only got the standard OS X fonts. Then you updated to you current system and fixed your color issues, but the fonts you used have are still missing - they are just not part of the standarad OS X package of fonts.

If you have a backup of your old disk, you can probably recover the fonts and re-install them, though if they are corrupted that could mess up your new system. Or you can buy new fonts from a variety of suppliers to replace the ones you lost.

I don't know which are the good suppliers of fonts - there are many, so look for ones that have good reviews from other users, or ones that are recommended by software vendors, like Adobe or others. There are various font format standards, make sure to get ones that work on Macs. I know Macs like .dfont, OpenType, and Postscript - there may be others. OS X can use Windows .ttf fonts, but I would use those only if the other types are not available.

Here is the list of fonts installed by Mac OS X. Sometimes applications install fonts too, such as Microsoft Office. It's important to make sure you don't have duplicate copies of fonts inmultiple locations, that can confuse the system. If you have duplicates, you may need to use some of the clean-up methods in the links I provided when we first start looking at this problem. But I bet you won't have that issue since your system is pretty much a new installation now.

Fonts can be installed in any of these locations:

• /Library/Fonts
• /System/Library/Fonts
• (any user folder)/Library/Fonts
• /System Folder/Fonts

-- the last one is only for "Classic" if you don't use Classic, don't use that folder, and remove any duplicate fonts from there. If you do need to use Classic, you'll need to learn about how it handles fonts. It's different because it's left over from the obsolete OS 9. I don't have that info but it's findable on Apple's support discussions pages.

Unless you have a reason to restrict fonts to one user, the best method is to put all of them in the main fonts folder at the top level: /Library/Fonts ... the only exception to that are the main OS X system fonts that need to be in /System/Library/Fonts as noted in the article linked above.

It sounds complicated but it's really not. Just buy the fonts you want and put them in the top level /Library/Fonts folder, and look through your various font folders to make sure there are no duplicates.

To manage fonts - see examples, turn them on or off for various uses - use the OS X Fontbook application and view its help menu to learn how to use it.

If you find any examples of webpages that show those missing fonts as text and not images, let me know, then we might be in a mysterious parallel universe! --Parzival418 _Hello 21:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Quick note: How odd that the list of fonts installed by Mac OS X doesn't have Edwardian on it, yet it was installed on whichever OS X version I was using from June 2006 to April 2007.

After studying several of the websites which offer "free" fonts and following links to "free" download pages, and finding they're generally "free" for $24 or so, I have at least temporarily (sour grapes) lost interest. I like the Chopin font better, but who has that, eh? Thank you again for being so helpful with all of this! — Athaenara ✉ 14:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

At least now you know what the issue is. Why was that font on your system until April? Good question. Do you use Microsoft Office? I think that's where I got Edwardian ITC - it was installed with MS Office 2004 or maybe with MS Office v.X previously. If you install it from there, make sure to remove duplicates it may install (which was the original source of my font problems and the reason I learned so much about fonts.) Oh and that reminds me, there's also a separate font cache for MS Office that sometimes needs to be deleted, info is here: [1]. If you use MS Office, that page may be valuable at some point. Happy editing! --Parzival418 _Hello 18:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I've never used Microsoft Office on any computer. — Athaenara ✉ 19:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a Wikipedia user page. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Athaenara/Archive_0.