A few people have asked why they can't change the background color of their posts. The simple answer was that YaBB didn't code a tag to do it. But I've coded two new YaBBC style tags that will now allow you to use multiple background colors. They're:

[backcolor=(color name)] TEXT, IMAGES, SMILEYS... [/backcolor]

and

[overcolor=(color name)] TEXT, IMAGES, SMILEYS... [/overcolor]
The "backcolor" tags should be used to change the background color of an entire post. The "overcolor" tags will only change the background color of whatever you choose to put between them and it can be used between the "backcolor" tags. However, you can't use "overcolor" tags between other "overcolor tags. For example, this would be correct:

[backcolor=maroon] ... [overcolor=crimson] ... [/overcolor] ... [overcolor=firebrick] ... [/overcolor] ... [/backcolor]
This would not:

[backcolor=maroon] ... [overcolor=crimson] ... [overcolor=firebrick] ... [/overcolor] ... [/overcolor] ... [/backcolor]
The following post is an example of correct usage, and was written like this:

[backcolor=blue]Chieftain replaces the Commander range, which [overcolor=black]will remain[/overcolor] on [overcolor=maroon]the price list[/overcolor] until [overcolor=green]further notice[/overcolor].[/backcolor]

After having experienced a MAJOR computer crisis because my electricy went off an hour and a half ago and REALLY screwed everything up, I happy to say that the chat room is now open for anyone who might still want to chat.

Sorry about the delay - but I can't prevent unforeseen disasters.

Shutting down guest access last month was a start in our efforts to curb the forum's bandwidth usage. And, thankfully, our host didn't warn us this month that the forum's server CPU usage went past its allotted 10%. However, not shutting down registrations sooner than we did seems to have contributed to more bandwidth usage because our August total increased by more than 9% over what it had been in July! So, in an effort to further curb bandwidth usage, I've installed some new YaBB modifications that should hopefully keep the forum's host from shutting us down again like they did back in July.

First off, you'll notice that the YaBBC buttons and Smileys no longer appear when you make a new post or edit an old one. This can be reversed by going into your profiles and unchecking the "Disable showing of YaBBC Buttons?" and "Disable showing of Smiley Buttons?" boxes in the new "Fastload Options" section. However, I would ask you to please not do this - or at least that you do it only for short periods while there's some YaBBC feature that you might like to try on the forum that you haven't already. Otherwise, the best thing to do would be to familiarize yourselves with the YaBBC and Smileys codes in the forum's Help section so that you'll be able to type them into your posts yourselves rather than relying on the buttons.

Second, I've installed the collapsible BoardIndex feature. This feature is pretty much self-explanatory, so I'll let you all experiment with it on your own. However, I would encourage you to at least collapse the "General Discussions Archive" and "Why Register?" categories. (Cousins who have access to the Members' Archive are also encouraged to collapse the "Members' Gateway" as well.) When new posts are made in these categories, the "New Posts" icon will appear in front of the category to alert you, so you won't be missing anything by collapsing them - but you will be helping to save bandwidth.

And third, you may notice that the forum's pages are downloading faster. That's because I've installed a compression utility which should significantly cut the forum's server CPU and bandwidth usage. However, if you're using a version of IE prior to 5.5, this utility may cause you some problems. I say "may" because it seems that only a handful of people using older versions of IE have reported problems to YaBB. IE 5.5 and 6.0 both work fine, so if you do experience problems, upgrading your browser would be your best bet. There have been no problems reported with Netscape 6.0 and later.

The Search for New Postings feature has been installed, and I think you're going to like it.

Search criteria can be set for all unread posts or within a certain time frame. And best of all (I thought of you, Ringo, the minute I noticed this), when you click on an unread post in an individual topic, you'll be brought directly to that post in the topic! No having to scroll through posts on the page that you've already read.

Enjoy!

Before you look at the color table below, I should explain what RGB codes are and how to interpret them.

In the world of computers, we presently have 16,777,216 different colors to work with, and all of them are defined in terms of their Red, Green and Blue values - RGB for short. Each of those three colors can have any one of 256 values, ranging from 0 to 255, and in combination with the 256 possible values of the other two, they make up all 16,777,216 colors (256³ or 256 X 256 X 256 = 16,777,216  And some of you probably thought nothing you ever learned in Math class would ever have any practical value? Well just wait - it gets worse! )

HTML relies most often on the hexadecimal representation of 0-255 to code all 16,777,216 colors. (See - I told you it would get worse. ) Now, I'm sure you all remember that hexadecimal notation uses the digits 0 through 9 as well as the letters A through F. So, the numbers 0 through 255 are represented in the following manner in the table below when converted from decimal (Base 10, which is what we use nearly every day of our lives) into hexadecimal (Base 16, which people like me, who program computers and/or do advanced work on the Web use nearly every day of our lives because so many aspects of programming revolve around multiples of 16 in one way or another.)


Now, why am I trying to confuse you? Honestly, I'm not. Really! I'm just trying to give you a better feel for how colors work on the Web and in computing in general. And I'm also trying to give you a way to translate hexadecimal color codes into something that you can use in some of the software that's probably already on your computer.
For instance, many graphics programs allow you to define custom colors to use for backgrounds, text, borders, etc. And if you like some of the colors that you can use on the forum, with all this stuff as a background, you should be able to add them to your custom colors in whatever program you might like to use them. But before we move on, let's take a look at the colors that are available on the forum (though I should warn that some older browsers - particularly older versions of IE - will not be able to display these colors correctly because they were originally developed for Netscape, but have since been adopted into standard HTML):

 

Color Name	RGB Code	Color Name	RGB Code
----------	----	----------	----
aliceblue	#F0F8FF	lightsalmon	#FFA07A
antiquewhite	#FAEBD7	lightseagreen	#20B2AA
aqua	#00FFFF	lightskyblue	#87CEFA
aquamarine	#7FFFD4	lightslategray	#778899
azure	#F0FFFF	lightsteelblue	#B0C4DE
beige	#F5F5DC	lightyellow	#FFFFE0
bisque	#FFE4C4	lime	#00FF00
black	#000000	limegreen	#32CD32
blanchedalmond	#FFEBCD	linen	#FAF0E6
blue	#0000FF	magenta	#FF00FF
blueviolet	#8A2BE2	maroon	#800000
brown	#A52A2A	mediumaquamarine	#66CDAA
burlywood	#DEB887	mediumblue	#0000CD
cadetblue	#5F9EA0	mediumorchid	#BA55D3
chartreuse	#7FFF00	mediumpurple	#9370DB
chocolate	#D2691E	mediumseagreen	#3CB371
coral	#FF7F50	mediumslateblue	#7B68EE
cornflowerblue	#6495ED	mediumspringgreen	#00FA9A
cornsilk	#FFF8DC	mediumturquoise	#48D1CC
crimson	#DC143C	mediumvioletred	#C71585
cyan	#00FFFF	midnightblue	#191970
darkblue	#00008B	mintcream	#F5FFFA
darkcyan	#008B8B	mistyrose	#FFE4E1
darkgoldenrod	#B8860B	moccasin	#FFE4B5
darkgray	#A9A9A9	navajowhite	#FFDEAD
darkgreen	#006400	navy	#000080
darkkhaki	#BDB76B	oldlace	#FDF5E6
darkmagenta	#8B008B	olive	#808000
darkolivegreen	#556B2F	olivedrab	#6B8E23
darkorange	#FF8C00	orange	#FFA500
darkorchid	#9932CC	orangered	#FF4500
darkred	#8B0000	orchid	#DA70D6
darksalmon	#E9967A	palegoldenrod	#EEE8AA
darkseagreen	#8FBC8F	palegreen	#98FB98
darkslateblue	#483D8B	paleturquoise	#AFEEEE
darkslategray	#2F4F4F	palevioletred	#DB7093
darkturquoise	#00CED1	papayawhip	#FFEFD5
darkviolet	#9400D3	peachpuff	#FFDAB9
deeppink	#FF1493	peru	#CD853F
deepskyblue	#00BFFF	pink	#FFC0CB
dimgray	#696969	plum	#DDA0DD
dodgerblue	#1E90FF	powderblue	#B0E0E6
firebrick	#B22222	purple	#800080
floralwhite	#FFFAF0	red	#FF0000
forestgreen	[font=Courier  New]#228B22[/font]	rosybrown	#BC8F8F
fuchsia	#FF00FF	royalblue	#4169E1
gainsboro	#DCDCDC	saddlebrown	#8B4513
ghostwhite	#F8F8FF	salmon	#FA8072
gold	#FFD700	sandybrown	#F4A460
goldenrod	#DAA520	seagreen	#2E8B57
gray	#808080	seashell	#FFF5EE
green	#008000	sienna	#A0522D
greenyellow	#ADFF2F	silver	#C0C0C0
honeydew	#F0FFF0	skyblue	#87CEEB
hotpink	#FF69B4	slateblue	#6A5ACD
indianred	#CD5C5C	slategray	#708090
indigo	#4B0082	snow	#FFFAFA
ivory	#FFFFF0	springgreen	#00FF7F
khaki	#F0E68C	steelblue	#4682B4
lavender	#E6E6FA	tan	#D2B48C
lavenderblush	#FFF0F5	teal	#008080
lawngreen	#7CFC00	thistle	#D8BFD8
lemonchiffon	#FFFACD	tomato	#FF6347
lightblue	#ADD8E6	turquoise	#40E0D0
lightcoral	#F08080	violet	#EE82EE
lightcyan	#E0FFFF	wheat	#F5DEB3
lightgoldenrodyellow	#FAFAD2	white	#FFFFFF
lightgreen	#90EE90	whitesmoke	#F5F5F5
lightgrey	#D3D3D3	yellow	#FFFF00
lightpink	#FFB6C1	yellowgreen	#9ACD32

A lengthy list, but really quite small when you consider that there are actually 16,777,216 colors available. These are merely the colors that someone decided to name so that people without a Math or Computer Science degree could avoid using hexadecimal codes and use understandable words instead. (And I seriously doubt that anyone will ever sit down and try to name all 16,777,216 available colors! )

So, say you've decided that you like mediumturquoise so much that you want to make it one of your custom colors. However, your software wants you to enter three numbers between 0 and 255 to define a color. As you can see in the chart above, the hexadecimal code for mediumturquoise is #48D1CC. How do you make that information useful? Well, you break it up into its Red, Green, and Blue components, and then with the chart I've provided, you convert the hexadecimal code to its equivelent decimal number between 0 and 255 (0 being its darkest shade, 255 its brightest).
For #48D1CC, the Red component is the first two characters after the number sign, so Red equals 48 hexadecimal. The Green component is the two middle characters, so D1 hexadecimal is the Green component. And the last two characters are the Blue component, which is CC.
Now, going back to refer to the chart I've provided, you'll see that 48 hexadecimal equals 72, D1 hexadecimal equals 209, and CC hexadecimal equals 204. So, to add the color mediumturquoise to your software's custom colors, you'd enter the following values:

Red = 72
Green = 209
Blue = 204

End of today's lesson. But you can be sure that this won't be the last one I'll ever post. And if I've whet your appetite to learn more on this subject, I suggest you check out the following link:

HTML Color Names

where you'll not only be able to get a better idea of what each of the colors looks like, you'll find links to all sorts of HTML related topics.


Have fun posting with all the new colors!

The MB

The envelope please???

Sorry about the delay. Blame those pesky archive problems.

Anyway, as I said, both you and ProfStokes got really close. I was sure someone was going to come up with the right answers - especially after the really big clues I dropped. But then the forum got shut down by our host, and that was the end of that.

But, before I explain the answers, let's recap. The original post included:

Almost three weeks ago, I deliberately did something to three consecutive montages that I've never done before or since. The first "cousin" who can post ... what it was that I did, what episodes were depicted in the three montages, and how what I did to the first of those three montages relates to today's 1000th montage ... Good luck!! (But if you know you're DS episodes, you won't need luck because you already know the answers, and you were probably just too polite to say anything at the time (which worked right into my plans) - but now is certainly your time to speak up! )

Then I added hints:

Unfortunately, no one has even come close to what I'm looking for, so I'm going to emphasize two hints that I gave:

• "what I did to the first of those three montages relates to today's 1000th montage" ...
  
• "you were probably just too polite to say anything at the time"

And I'm going to give you a new one:

• montages include more than just screen captures.

If I say any more than that, I'm going to give the whole thing completely away!

The hints definitely got both Ringo and ProfStokes on the right track:

Ringo asked if I'd used "scenes from just what would have been shown during Aug 1968" and labeled "the montage from Aug AND Sept?" And while that wasn't quite what I did, it's OH SO CLOSE!

ProfStokes picked up that the date on the 1000th montage said "August-September 1968". But she also thought something similar had been done for the July 3rd montage when Sci-Fi had shown episodes which originally aired on ABC on July 31st and August 1st 1968.

That comment prompted me to drop the biggest hint of all when I asked:

Did I?

So, is anyone seeing where this is all heading? If so, I've decided to give everyone a second chance. You all have until 12am ET/9pm PT Tuesday night/Wednesday morning to come up with the missing pieces and answer all three original questions:

• 1) what did i do to the three montages?
  
• 2) what episodes were depicted in them?
  
• 3) how did what I did to the first of those three montages relate to the 1000th montage, which was made up from episodes originally aired in August and September of 1968?

the Academy? Well, noooooo...

I'd like to thank the people who visited the archive today and who were up to no good.    You helped to remind me that I'd forgotten to disable some of the features of the archive's menu. However, you can rest assured that those features have been disabled now, so there'll be no repeat of what you were doing today. But by all means, please feel free to try something else because there might be something that I have actually overlooked, and I'd like nothing better than to be alerted to it.

(I really must find/make a manically evil laughing smiley for posts like this. )