Web developers often encounter situations in which it is necessary to preview fonts. As technology develops and the restrictions are lifted on how fonts may be used on the web, web developers will be trying new things, which will require more testing.

For English speaking developers who have adhered to the core web fonts for so many years, a fortunate trade-off to that restriction has been the peace of mind that the MS Core Fonts support ISO-8859-1, the standard encoding for language characters of the Western European character set.

Outside of the very short list of serif and sans-serif typefaces commonly used in web design, it is not altogether uncommon that any given font-family might not contain all of the characters of ISO-8859-1, cp1252, or Windows-1252 (each, a recognized encoding of what is, essentially, an identical character set). In the context of ISO-8859-1, and the text sample below, I recall to mind the usual suspects, which include such commonly occurring characters as “brackets”– both square and curly, the “greater-than / less-than” symbols, and the octothorpe. Often it is the fantasy font-family, the highly-styled or derivative type face which we discover supports only the basic, alphanumeric symbols. While fantasy fonts may be best at adding personality in decorative placements, the omission of character glyphs commonly used in regular typed language tends to prohibit fantasy fonts, for instance, from showing up as the property value of a global stylesheet selector.

the Times, they are a Changin’

I created this text block as a quick reference cheat-sheet for identifying what characters may or may not be supported by any particular font family. The concept is simple. Use it, as is, in your own markup where different font-family values may be applied easily for testing basic character support.

  ~!@#$%^&*()_+
  `1234567890-=

  QWERTYUIOP{}|
  qwertyuiop[]\

  ASDFJKL:'
  asdfjkl;"

  ZXCVBNM<>?
  zxcvbnm,./

©2009 NoviceNotes™
©2009 J Sabarese

###########################################################################

Maintaining standards theory, the following is true of the primary text block, above:

• total lines: 11 (eleven)
• total lines containing text characters: 8 (eight)
• total lines without text [CR/LF only]: 3 (three)
• total new lines [CR/LF]: 10 (ten)

Eight Lines Equals Four Rows

Consider the eight rows of text in the sample, instead as 4 double-rows (or row pairs) to more easily correspond with the physical keyboard. Thus, each row pair (or double-row) represents one row of the standard US keyboard, where each member of a pair indicates the same keyboard row, either with or without depressing the <SHIFT> key (e.g. a single keyboard row is typed with <SHIFT> depressed, to represent uppercase characters, and likewise without for lowercase chars).
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Blog: a Noun; a Verb

Depending upon the topic, how technical the details, and the purpose of the text, I recognize that the inspiration behind writing and the discipline of refining it are not necessarily equal means to the same end. As the former is required before the latter can take place, I hope to change my habits as author/ editor, that I might not concern myself to be so studied. At least, I hope to impose less restriction on what I publish– that I might regard the content of NoviceNotes™, less as a reflection of myself (assuming the site might cast into the minds of readers, something of an image of who I am), and more as a collection of notes; to recall my former tendency to share the little discoveries, that I might place more importance on recording what I’ve learned in hopes that others might find something insightful in it.
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Tech Support is You: A Scenario

Suppose, upon arrival at work next morning, you find yourself engaged in the minutia of the illustrious role of Systems Analyst; PC Tech Support; IT dude / IT chick: whatever the term used to summon your attention, your duties are essentially to save-the-day for all you survey, as the one-and-only, all-purpose, resident computer guru.

Sir! Ma’am! Uh, I can’t find the “any” key!

Through the din of finger-snapping atop raised arms waving, you hear pencils and pens, tap-tap-tapping from various cubicles, surrounding you on arrival as if in a tick-tock mockery, these subjects grow impatient with your attempt to assist others, one-by-one.

Regardless of each User’s private Operating System of choice; whether he is a PC, she is a Mac, or the group is Linux, as half are devout Debian, and half are faithful Fedora followers (each of the latter, a contemporary Unix derivation), let us assume this enterprise runs on a basic LAN, where each user is accommodated with his or her own Microsoft Windows XP system, and associated, assigned login ID’s.

One at a time, over the course of the morning, each user on the LAN seeks your assistance with a system problem. With an unusual coincidence of problems, you deduce each individual system on the network is suffering from a malfunction at the primary access point, since the symptoms appeared to propagate throughout the network in a uniform manner.

Go Right to the Source: Ask the Horse!

With productivity impacted, slowed, or even stalled completely, you jump into action, searching the vast Microsoft Knowledge Base for a hint of a solution to the problem. After scanning several redundant, cross-referenced, often cryptic texts (devoid of the concrete solution desired– as to download a hotfix, or other software related resolve for the problem), a bit of sidebar text catches your eye. The details are enough to make one’s jaw drop, yet somehow the revelation comes as no surprise:

The following is an excerpt from one such KB items of my recent perusal. Maybe, in another ten years, I’ll feel 100% confident about how to run a secure [ Win Xp ] system.

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to run the computer in Recovery Console. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may prevent you from completing this procedure.

My question: if my system is connected to a network (which it is, of course), does this mean

1. I may be unable to complete the process of logging in as an Administrator
2. I may be unable to run the computer in Recovery Console

My second question: how do I find an answer to my previous question?

I came across the article while searching for some peace of mind, as I contemplate how I might best handle a problem with my Win XP system in which my user, a member of the Administrator’s group^† remains unable to perform tasks with require administrator privileges.

What then is the Systems Administrator to do, in order to solve the problem, if the system(s) do not recognize the user (and associated actions) as being of the Administrator group? In other words, if the Administrator hasn’t the permission to initiate processes to lead to resolving the problem, what possible alternative might there be?

I realize that, to imply generalities about Windows is to do little more than jump aboard the same, tired old bandwagon. As well, my text isn’t entirely clear as I cite nothing specific, but this entry is bourne of my own frustration as I believe I’ve reached a dead-end in an attempt to repair my own system; a system which is a part of a simple home network.

• Where are the real answers?
• What solutions might a real Sys Admin employ, if he or she were responsible for the productivity of the entire (small) enterprise?

Artists, rejoice! Now your vision is supported by the Exalead™ images by-color web application for returning queried image search results, based on a unique criteria for advanced searching: the visible color spectrum, as defined by a palette of colours, which are easily selected via the application user interface.

More details are available at ExaLabs, where Exalead Chromatik is a featured project amongst many more interesting experiments coming out of Europe in association with Exalead™, my personal favourite Search Engine, . Before you move on to something else, do check out the impressive Chromatik demo, available at Chromatik.Labs.Exalead.com. If you like what you see there, I recommend you indulge in an extended look at Labs.Exalead.com . I expect you’ll better appreciate my interest in Exalead, in general, after a perusal of their own interests.

As I author this text, I wonder over the relevancy of it: consider Windows XP Scanner and Camera Wizard was released, as intended for the general (likely, unskilled) home computer user, nearly a decade ago. Nevertheless, because of my infrequent use of any Document / Image Scanner, and the time (otherwise spent on more productive tasks) I tend to waste in experimenting with various combinations of the Scanner and Camera Wizard options for brightness and contrast, feeling the need to make note of my most recent session with the software, I believe the information below may be of use to others who might bewilder over any unsuccessful attempts to create a viable image (or document) from an original document with an image scanner device.

Specifics of The Activity

The Hardware Device

Although I am not a professional publisher, because of my professional employment history in entertainment publicity, mass media, professional photography, marketing and advertising, I probably have more experience with the PC device equipment necessary for image and document scanning than the average user. To ensure that the reader understands precisely what process is described here, the following is a list of the equipment I used just before writing this article.

Personal Computer

Mine is a typical PC, albeit built in recent years. I’m using an MSI Mbox 945GM3-F^[1], which I built with an Intel Pentium D processor, and other required basic Intel PC parts obtained through NewEgg.com. The processor is rated at 3.00Ghz, and it’s got 2GB RAM and I’ve got ample Gigabytes of hard-drive storage space wherein I maintain at least 15% free at any given time, the recommended standard for desired performance. At the date of this text, the system is likely rated as approaching obsolescence, with a relative performance rating of medium-fast. Street-lingo would claim, †it’s not a gamer’s box‡

As the title of this article implies, my Operating System is Windows XP SP3. However, this article likely to be relevant to Windows Vista, and Windows 7 users as well.

.

Document / Image Scanner

I’m using an old scanner (I do not know its date of production). Mine is a UMAX Astra 3400, given to me by a friend. Perhaps he didn’t know it’s value, as it seems to perform as well as other scanners I’ve used (i.e. I’m able scan at DPI levels far above my needs, and the bay is large enough to accept US Legal-size original documents).

Of Thumb, Consider These Rules

It’s Not All Digital

Clean That Thing!

Take a good look at the physical surfaces of the Scanner device. What do you see? Dust? We hope there are no considerable scratches, but what about smudges? Have you touched it anytime after indulging in your favourite brand of corn-chips? Do you eat cookies near your workstation, such that a few crumbs might have fallen between the scanner lid, and the glass surface where a document is placed?

Set yourself up for success straight away, by ensuring all surfaces are clean, and free of debris. Use a safe household cleaning agent, and paper towels (to avoid leaving any fabric residue behind). If you have photographic lens cleaner, then use it, but otherwise, the aforementioned supplies should do fine. Do your best to remove anything which might distort the surface of the document or image to be scanned. For example, during this most recent scan job, I found that most of my first few test scans were rendering with a curious distortion in one of the paragraphs of the page text. Disappointed, I examined the original document to find the inconsistency did not exist there.

I had forgotten to do my preliminary cleaning! Sure enough, when I inspected the Scanner device, i found debris in precisely the area where I noticed the distortion in the test scans I’d rendered.

Had I performed the cleaning steps, as recommended above, before rendering the test-scans, I would have been one-step ahead, but instead I had wasted time to recall that cleaning is necessary. It was a case of trial-and-error, and basically extra work for the process because I’d forgotten a simple, but essential preparation. This very incident was the first inspiration for writing this article. As the saying goes: “Hind-sight is 20/20”. As one plans to avoid devastating break-down on an extended road-trip with a discriminate routine maintenance (i.e. vehicle dependability is critical to the success of any extended road trip, so the operator best practice for trouble-free engine performance a well-known, best practice for trouble-free engine performance best practice for trouble-free engine performance when the dependability of the vehicle is critical to the success of a trip, preparing a vehicle for lengthy travel, the road-worthy operator will ensure it passes a set of check-points, such as to confirm motor oil, transmission fluid, and coolant-system fluids are at appropriate levels, and stocks refills for preparedness if any of those levels change, or in the event of a break-down), If I can come back and read this in preparation for some scan job in the future, I will know to clean the device first. It may seem obvious, but any reminder is worthy when dealing with a process which can be time consuming, such as scanning several documents.

[1]Microstar International (MSI™), Barebones MSI Mbox 945GM3-F