Hey there,
just thought I'd bring this to your attention. I've seen it about on the forum a bit, but just thought it was individuals actually typing like that, but then I was reading through this post and thought Mata wouldn't randomly be using characters, plus I specifically remember not seeing them there the first time I read it. So just to check it wasn't my browser (Safari) I asked Snoo, and she said she saw symbols there too.

So, erm, thats about it.

I suspect it's a case of the database having gone spoony. When I checked in on Sunday morning the whole forum was knackered because the posts table had gone the way of the dodo and needed to be repaired, so some oddness is likely.

That post looks okay to me, but there has been some instability around lately. I suspect foul doings on behalf of my hosting company...

If only I had my own server working... HINT HINT HINT

I get those strange characters as well. I am using XP with IE as my browser.

It's about time you got Firefox then! It really is vastly better than IE in so many ways.

Download it here http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ (it's free)

Then check out here https://update.mozilla.org/extensions/?application=firefox to find all the fun and cool add-ons that you can get for it!

I just switched to Firefox, any plugins that you specifically recommend?

I just switched to Firefox too! Looks like you've started something now, Mata!

I have too downlaoded Fire Fox, cannae see much of a differance yet though. Never was a fan of IE though. Want to see what these plugins do though...

Still seeing the symbols about randomly though

Nah, they still show up for me as well (Firefox 1.0 running on FreeBSD 4.10).

Definitely looks like the mangled database of doom is to blame .

Extenstions:

Adblock is fantastic, right click on things, enter the * to work as a wildcard and you can block partial addresses from advertisers. Hurrah!

IE view is handy for the occasional website that relies on old badly coded script to make things happen that doesn't work with Firefox.

Foxytunes is good too, because you can control your media players through a tiny bar at the bottom of your browser. Cool!

I love 'All-in-one gestures' (in Mouse gestures) Hold the right mouse button and draw on the page to do things, draw up for a new tab is great, I use it constantly!

If you look in the Misc section you can get a 'homeland security threat indicator' to sit at the bottom of your browser window. Hurrah!

I like the 'Translate' extension. It saves me from copying stuff over into Babelfish manually. Perhaps not very useful if everything you see is in English.

Opine-It! 1.1 is a new one, but looks like it'll be great fun...

Oh, there's just loads. TabBrowser Preferendes hasn't been updated yet, but check back on the extenstions site occasionally for new releases. There really is loads of fun stuff in there, so have a browse around and try things out. I never thought that I'd find mouse gestures useful, but I use it constantly these days.

EDIT: IMPORTANT!

To make your life nice and easy, go to Bookmarks>Manage Bookmarks>File>Import to grab all your old bookmarks from IE and put them straight into Firefox. Handy

*looks side ways at Mata*

You people and your multi buttoned mice, ph'char.

The importing of bookmarks thingy is what I was looking for though. Thank you

I never quite got the hang of mouse gestures, it's fine but only once you've learned to use them, until then it's a nightmare of wrong gestures and accidentally buggering things up.

The alternative is pie menus, which are pretty similar but they draw a nice circular menu with pretty icons around the cursor to show you what will happen if you move the mouse in a certain direction. This means you can use the icons (or wait a second for text descriptions to pop up) when you're learning to use it, then when you get the hang of it just ignore the icons and let the commands flow from your cursor</pointless metaphor>.

Radial Context is one rather nifty example of this for Mozilla Firefox and also Classic Mozilla. Sorry Froggy, again it's only for people with multiple mouse buttons .

Also Firefox provides an option to let you open a link in a new tab just by clicking it with the middle mouse button, which is less frustrating than repeatedly mouse gesturing to open lots and lots of links. I use that feature a lot when browsing the forum .

There's another pie mouse gestures extension here

https://update.mozilla.org/extensions/morei...&id=29&vid=1069