FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 182 (14/10/99)

TRICKY PIXELS

Can someone please explain to me the convoluted arithmetic that is used by advertisers of digital cameras? In the ads it says 2.1 megapixels in big letters, and then the small print underneath will say 1600 x 1200 maximum resolution. It does not take a genius to work out that 1600 x 1200 comes to just over 1.9 Million not 2.1. How is this so, and should the ASA or Trading Standards be interested in how they achieve these results?
John R. Wainwright, Tingley, Wakefield

A

There are a few other things they don't always tell you about digital cameras, like the fact that they eat batteries and prints made on inkjet printer can fade in a matter of months, but we digress. The reason the sums do not add up is because not all of the light-sensitive picture elements or 'pixels' on the imaging chip inside the camera are used to generate the picture. Individual pixels only record colour information, so there has to be some way for the camera to judge the brightness of the scene, to set the correct exposure, and that's the job of those 'missing' pixels, which are normally in the border around the image area on the chip. Clearly it would be more helpful if manufacturers and advertisers gave more prominence to maximum resolution, rather than the number of pixels.

A QUESTION OF COLOUR

One in every twenty men has defective colour vision with difficulty distinguishing shades of greens to reds, blues to greys and so on. There appears to be almost no attention paid to this difficulty in any colour application, despite the obvious size of the problem. A few basic colours are named in Freehand (crayon), I don't need subtle shades named, but if I've used green or red, I need something, which says so. I'm running a Mac, and working in Freehand, Illustrator etc., is there any program available which will show the name of a colour as I click on it?
N. Pagett

A

It would seem from our investigations that if you were colour blind it is better to own a PC, rather than a MAC… We came across several Windows utilities that provide detailed information about colours displayed on the screen, but we could find nothing for Mac users. Something like Eyedropper for Windows 95/98/NT PCs sounds like just what you are looking for. For the record it's freeware and can be downloaded from: http://www.inetia.com/eyedropperEng.asp

Doubtless something similar exists for the Mac, but we couldn't find it. If anyone knows of such a program please let us know.

In the meantime you could try comparing colours on screen against a reference, we found a set of named colour swatches at:

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Lindsay/swatch0.html

On a more general note you will find some interesting information about colour blindness along with DIY tests and links to related sites links at:

http://www.cimmerii.demon.co.uk/

colourblind/index.html

MINE BOAST

In reply to the letter in F!F!F! (September 30), my current Minesweeper record for the expert level is 92 seconds and this was witnessed. In addition I managed 27 seconds on the intermediate level and 6 seconds for the beginner level. I am absolutely confident that I can beat 140 seconds every time I finish and 120 seconds half of the time. Beat that!

Andy Ben

Reading of the chap's skill with the game Minesweeper in F!F!F! a couple of weeks ago prompted me to ask how am I doing with FreeCell? I don't sleep too well these days in my retirement so have some time on my hands to indulge my addiction for this particular game. Your advice on making a screen grab came in useful as you can see from my 'Statistics' file.

Dennis Coote

A
According to Dennis's screen grab to date he has won 2678 games and lost 643, his longest winning streak is 47 games. If anyone managed to better that score we are sure Dennis will be very pleased to hear from you.

RUNAWAY WORD

An annoying feature of Word 97 is that when selecting text for formatting that covers more than one page, the text rushes upwards so fast that it is impossible to control with the mouse. Is there a means of overcoming this?
Mike Temple

A

There are several keyboard shortcuts that will give you greater control over selecting text in a long document. Shift + Up/Down Arrow highlights one line at a time, Ctrl + Shift + Up/Down arrow selects one paragraph at a time and Shift + Page Up/Down highlights a page at a time. We have also found that 'wheel' mice work well giving you very precise control over scrolling speed.

FAT CHANCE?

The recent Boot Camp article on installing a second hard disc drive explained that converting to the FAT 32 disc filing system was a worthwhile exercise.  My current 2.1Gb drive is filling up, however my PC maker's technical support line advised that I would loose all my data if I converted. Is this correct?  I have everything backed up and the original software CD's. Will I be able to transfer data from the backup onto the revised FAT 32 drive?

Jonathan Hay

A

The programs and data on your hard disc should come to no harm during the conversion process. That said, keeping a backup of irreplaceable files is a sensible precaution. You didn't say what type of media they were stored on but assuming they're on floppies, CD-R/RW, Zip discs etc. your PC shouldn’t have any trouble reading them after conversion. If your hard disc drive is very full you may find that the FAT 32 utility doesn't have enough room to work, in any case it's a good idea to have a spring clean, before you begin, remove any unused applications and files and then run Scandisk and Defrag. Don't forget to empty the Recycle Bin (but wait a day or two, to make sure everything is okay). However, don't expect FAT 32 to work miracles, it should free up some space but it's only a stopgap measure and you really should consider upgrading your hard disc drive.

BORDER DISPUTE

I can put a screensaver image onto the Clipboard and thence insert it into a Word document. Unfortunately a wide black frame surrounds most of these images. How can I remove the border so as to be able to size and manipulate only the central (or even an off-centred selection) of the image?

Tim Healey

A

Use the cropping tool to trim the edges of the picture. Make sure the image is highlighted (i.e. the sizing handles are shown on the corners and sides), now display the Picture toolbar (right-click into an empty area next to the toolbars at the top of the screen and select Picture from the drop-down menu). The cropping tool looks like a slanted double 'x', click on it and then click on a sizing handle and you'll be able to remove as much as you like from the edge or edges of the picture.