h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This page is very hard to read in goo...

Why not use
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/hub/u55226
i.e. without the 360 in it? That cuts off even the 360 graphics which should save some memory, too.

Hi Tube

Sorry about it not being very good in goo

I will get onto that as soon as I can

Thanks for the other link we will try it out


manda

I agree, the different font colours make it illegible, sorry.

I'm not sure how much this is going to work for you manda, because as soon as you click a conversation or a journal, you're going to be back in h2g2 anyway.

hi mina..

as a digibox user i can answer your question i think..

using 360 or dna helps accessing lengthy conversations... it is more an emergency thing than anything else but it has helped some of us for quite a while contribute to conversations which would have been impossible for us to access otherwise...

also. by having other researchers putting a link on their own space that means that we will be able to access even more conversations especially as you pointed out after a while we go back to h2g2...
(a problem which has been identified and mentioned in this entry).

the idea is to make sure that digibox users got a better deal out of h2g2 than they had up to now...

with more access to conversations digibox users will be able to contribute more to h2g2...

i personally would see that as an improvement...

i hope that answers your question...

loup

re: visibility in Goo...

the magenda colour was actually showing as black on the tv screen...

anyway it should now be easier to read in Goo...



loup

Yeah, the green's better.

Say, I've been thinking ... why don't you just change the url from
.../dna/h2g2/[skin]/U...
to
.../dna/hub/U...

each time you follow a link? It just takes a couple of mouse clicks and even less if you put it in the paste buffer and it would work for any h2g2 page...

hi tube...

glad the green colour helped... as i said before the magenda colour registered black on the tv screen so as i had checked both skins and discovered the frustration of trying to make an entry that looks good in all of them... i satisfied myself that if magenda wanted to show as black i was not going to argue...

re: the dna/hub link... yes it does work tho' it's a bit "bare" looking... but it is another alternative for the digibox users and it will be mentioned... and i must admit even so using the 360 short-cut when i want to access conversations has become a second nature i sometimes go through the dna site...
at the same time if it gives the opportunity for the digibox users to have a look at the info available in the dna hub well that's another bonus...

i looked at your last post but unfortunately i can't comment on this one... i haven't got a computer myself yet and unfortunately a digibox has a lot of limitations and cutting & pasting is not one of the activities that can be done with it...

what would be great of course is that all the researchers add one of the digibox friendly short-cuts [360 or dna/hub] on their space but i would settle for as many as possible as long as the very informative ones [help pages, asterics/gurus/aces/clubs/societies/ones etc,] at least got it too...
i know from experience how frustrating it can be when wanting to access conversations in some of these pages and just can't because i found myself back in h2g2... at least if these pages were digibox friendly that would make the h2g2 a bit more accessible to the digibox users... it's bad enough that the "yikes" button doesn't work for us... on top of other facilities which can only be used by PC users... at least being able to access [and contribute to] any conversations we want would be a progress...

it might be a slow process but everytime another researcher make their space digibox friendly it's another step in the right direction...

i have been going on a bit there... hehe... i will finish by confirming that a dna/hub short-cut does work and it will be advertised too...
unfortunately i can't really comment on your last post [being without a PC for a while longer i'm afraid] but hopefully manda will be able to check it out...

thanks for your time...

talk later...

loup

*scratches head*
But doesn't a conversation go back to the site it belongs in, no matter what site you start out in? Or have things changed again when I wasn't looking?

If I'm in 360 and I click an h2g2 conversation, I get it in h2g2.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'd like to help you access h2g2 as much as you can, but I'm wondering if your digiboxes treat dna differently to pcs.

hi mina...

as i said we go back to a h2g2 skin after a while but at least we are able to access the conversations we want to contribute too... if not we would have frozen screens etc...

for example i was using the 360 link right now and was able to read both conversations re: digibox and even reply to one without any problem...

THAT compared to before is by itself an improvement... another example one of the conversations on my personal space would be considered too long a few months ago for digibox users... well thanks to the use of the 360 skin and the preferences on frames it's no problem for us at all...

i understand what you mean and the other researchers in the other conversations as well...

but at the moment, until a better solution is found, the 360 or/and dna/hub links are our lifelines...

and with more LDers coming soon because of the changes in LeisureDistrict this tempory measure might make all the difference between them contributing to h2g2 or giving up and not staying...

there is one skin that seems to cause a problem though... i tried 360 while being in brunel [well i had to see by myself] and it was frozen sreens after frozen screens there while trying to access long conversations......

another trick we have been advising when the blue message "out of memory" appears while accessing conversations is to press the blue or yellow key but NOT the ok one... that seems to tame the machine... but of course it only works if on frames and 360/dna...

i suppose for us a little improvement is better than nothing... and, from the number of conversations i have contributed to, you can see that it is quite a noticeable one...

as i said it has to be compared with before... obviously it's great that so many researchers are trying to find a solution to help us enjoy even more h2g2... and we are definitely grateful for that... and once the better solution comes then this 360 link etc. will be part of the past....

i have to do a few things now but will talk soon...

thanks for looking into this issue...

and thanks tube once again for your support...

everyone...

loup

So are you saying that you can see this thread in the 360 skin?

Hi mina, if (like me) you have a sooper computer with a choice of browsers, and umpteen giger bites of memory, then you are ok on H2G2, but if you take away your browser (no tool bar, no address bar, no nothing) then take away your mouse, so the only thing you have got left is the Tab and the Enter buttons, and a screen only 6” high, try working like that, and add to that a memory the size of a calculator, and you see the problem’s that they have on digibox, so if there is only one thing I can do to help them I will,
There has been digibox people about for a long time, but all H2G2 has said is “gosh that is tough” so when me and loup has come a long and said we think this we help us, will you help, the only thing we get of the PTB is, that wont work,
Not, we will help
But if a H2G2 researcher comes along and said, That don’t look right in that skin (or something just as daft) then the whole of H2G2 would be put in to motion to put it right
So all we are asking is don’t shut us down, don’t tell us what wont work as we know it will work, and ask the PTB try to find something that will work for us


manda

hi mina...

yep i can see this thread in 360 like ALL the threads i have been contributing to whatever the size of the conversations...

and i've done that since the last two weeks of AUGUST this year... first it was the long way as explained in "accessing conversations with an out.of.memory digibox" which is mentioned in this entry and a while ago started to use the short-cut/link which made life a bit easier...

using 360 has become a second nature for me when i want to access some conversations [which i do a lot as i also contribute to some from the friends of LeisureDistrict too on top of mine...]... every LDer who has been told of the 360 trick has noticed a drastic improvement in their contributions to conversations...

as i said before it doesn't matter that we go back into a h2g2 skin after a while as long as at least we've been able to access any conversation we want to contribute to... THAT was something impossible before...

and like for the "accessing conversations etc.." entry we would not have produced this entry if we were not sure it worked first...

the ONLY skin i would not trust using the 360 link to access conversations with is brunel...

apart from that, as accessing conversations with the short-cut goes, alabaster and classic goo are fine... [again as long as the preferences are set on frames...]

talk later...

loup

I wasn't trying to say 'that won't work' I was trying to find out what *is* working you WebTV users. Especially when they can access something that pc users can't. Which is h2g2 threads in the skin of another DNA site.

We've had some discussion about this, and we're going to look further into it to see what we can do.

It's not that we don't want to help, but when a site is accessed by a platform that it's not designed for, it's not an easy or quick process to find solutions.

We'll get back to you asap.

In the meantime, how does Brunel work? It's the smallest of the h2g2 skins.

hi mina...

you can imagine my surprise the first time i stumbled onto 360 and noticed that not only i had my space there but i also could access long conversations... after trying for a while it was obvious that there was a pattern there and i started to mention it to the LDers who came with me here... they tried it too and it worked with them too... then of course it became clear that using frames as preferences was helping us reducing the frozen screens even more... and well the rest is history...

brunel?!... i'm in two minds at the mo'... i might have to try it again for a while... if it shows a regular digibox friendly access to conversations i will let you know...

talk later everyone...

loup

Have you tried Brunel yet? If that works is would be great.

hi mina...

brunel somehow doesn't seem to do the trick...

i've tried it a few times but i have found myself with some rather unpleasant frozen screens... [which means having to unplug the machine too many times... too]...
kow tried it as well and he is not pleased either with the results... so brunel doesn't seem to be THE solution...

talk soon...

loup

Thanks for letting me know. We're still looking into it, and we'll let you know asap.

hi mina...

...

i tried brunel again just to make sure... couldn't even access this conversation after THREE frozen screens/unpluggings...

had to get out from brunel to another skin to be able to access it with the 360 link...

i don't know if that might help but it seems that we can post to messages boards on the BBC websites and as far as i know it seems ok with collective too...

i have to go soon, if i notice anything else that seems to improve the ability of a digibox to access long conversations i will let you know too...

talk later...

loup