Mersenne Digest Sunday, August 13 2000 Volume 01 : Number 768 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 20:55:47 EDT From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Mersenne: Spam (bad) and PNG (good!) <<Maybe you know this>> Ew. First spam I've seen on the Mersenne list in a long time. Probably ever. And another, happily non-spam, E-mail: << there are still a LOT of folks using Netscape 3 and other such browsers that don't support PNG. >> I sort of doubt it. The whole GIMPS project is oriented to techie types. Types who like to stay current with the latest technology and would upgrade their browsers frequently. Also add in the fact that Internet Explorer, last I heard, is gaining popularity and that IE4 and IE5 support PNGs (haphazardly, but enough for banner purposes), and that Microsoft practically forces people at gunpoint to upgrade, and so I'm guessing almost all IE users can see PNGs. In addition, newer versions of Netscape can see PNGs. That leaves, like, the Netscape 3 users. I really doubt that there are that many Netscape 3 users out there. (Doesn't it have the most primitive level of Javascript support and whatnot as well? Hopefully that would have annoyed users into upgrading by now. It sure did for me and IE3.) Maybe someone who's a webmaster could check their server logs and see how many non-PNG compliant people are viewing their pages; it'd be rather representative if Mr. Kurowski could do that. I think it'll be a small minority, maybe an order of magnitude higher than the number of people who still use Lynx. I suppose... if it turns out that most people who visit GIMPS sites still haven't seen the light of day and switched to a PNG-supporting browser, I could go back and provide GIF versions of the banners again. Though I don't particularly like the idea; PNG is just way too cool. Stephan "PNG! PNG! PNG!" Lavavej _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 22:13:16 -0400 From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Re: PNG (good!) Hi, At 08:55 PM 8/10/00 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ><< there are still a LOT of folks using Netscape 3 and other such browsers >that don't support PNG. >> From the August statistics collected by Hitbox on visitors to the GIMPS pages: Version Visitors % 1. MSIE 5.x 1,705 53.26 2. Netscape 4.x 1,173 36.63 3. MSIE 4.x 224 7.00 4. MSIE 5.x (AOL) 54 1.69 5. Netscape 3.x 12 0.37 6. MSIE 3.x 10 0.31 7. Netscape 5.x 8 0.25 8. MSIE 4.x (AOL) 5 0.16 9. MSIE 2.x 4 0.12 10. MSIE 3.x (AOL) 4 0.12 11. Opera 3.x 2 0.06 12. Opera 2.x 1 0.03 Total 3,202 100.00% These stats are available for anyone to look at. If you are curious just follow the link after the "Last Updated" line on every GIMPS web page. Regards, George _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 00:30:42 -0400 From: Pierre Abbat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: PNG (good!) >I sort of doubt it. The whole GIMPS project is oriented to techie types. >Types who like to stay current with the latest technology and would upgrade >their browsers frequently. Also add in the fact that Internet Explorer, last >I heard, is gaining popularity and that IE4 and IE5 support PNGs >(haphazardly, but enough for banner purposes), and that Microsoft practically >forces people at gunpoint to upgrade, and so I'm guessing almost all IE users >can see PNGs. In addition, newer versions of Netscape can see PNGs. That >leaves, like, the Netscape 3 users. I really doubt that there are that many >Netscape 3 users out there. (Doesn't it have the most primitive level of >Javascript support and whatnot as well? Hopefully that would have annoyed >users into upgrading by now. It sure did for me and IE3.) Maybe someone >who's a webmaster could check their server logs and see how many non-PNG >compliant people are viewing their pages; it'd be rather representative if >Mr. Kurowski could do that. I think it'll be a small minority, maybe an >order of magnitude higher than the number of people who still use Lynx. Netscape 4.08 supports PNG but ignores the alpha channel. kfm understands the alpha channel, but only on or off - it borderlines it at 7f or 80; and when it prints a page with a PNG in it, the alpha is ignored. I recently had to do layer surgery on a PNG because it didn't print right. phma _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 2000 03:23:50 -0400 From: "Robert Deininger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Spam (bad) and PNG (good!) On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 8:55 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ><< there are still a LOT of folks using Netscape 3 and other such browsers >that > don't support PNG. >> > >I sort of doubt it. The whole GIMPS project is oriented to techie types. >Types who like to stay current with the latest technology and would upgrade >their browsers frequently. What a silly notion. The techie types I know and work with (myself included) have better ways to spend our time. I don't even know what PNG is. I sure as heck won't switch browsers to view the trend-of-the-week. >Also add in the fact that Internet Explorer, last >I heard, is gaining popularity and that IE4 and IE5 support PNGs >(haphazardly, but enough for banner purposes), and that Microsoft practically >forces people at gunpoint to upgrade, Only if you allow their software on your computer. >Stephan "PNG! PNG! PNG!" Lavavej Sure, follow the herd if it makes you happy. I, for one, don't like being herded. - --------------------------- Robert Deininger [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 2000 03:26:02 -0400 From: "Robert Deininger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: PNG (good!) On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 10:13 PM, George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Hi, > From the August statistics collected by Hitbox on visitors to the GIMPS pages: > > Version Visitors % >1. MSIE 5.x 1,705 53.26 >2. Netscape 4.x 1,173 36.63 >3. MSIE 4.x 224 7.00 >4. MSIE 5.x (AOL) 54 1.69 >5. Netscape 3.x 12 0.37 >6. MSIE 3.x 10 0.31 >7. Netscape 5.x 8 0.25 >8. MSIE 4.x (AOL) 5 0.16 >9. MSIE 2.x 4 0.12 >10. MSIE 3.x (AOL) 4 0.12 >11. Opera 3.x 2 0.06 >12. Opera 2.x 1 0.03 > > Total 3,202 100.00% Apparently broken statistics, since at least one of the browsers I regularly visit with isn't represented. - --------------------------- Robert Deininger [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 21:01:07 +1200 From: "Halliday, Ian" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Spam (bad) and PNG (good!) At the risk of not being on topic at all, I always thought that PNG is an abbreviation for the nation of Papua New Guinea. I expect page to have images which are jpg or gif. Simply being better doesn't mean it will become either the standard or the most popular. For example, consider VHS v Beta, Explorer v Navigator, SETI v GIMPS... Regards, Ian Robert Deininger wrote: > > I don't even know what PNG is. I sure as heck won't switch browsers to > view the trend-of-the-week. - -- Ian W Halliday, BA Hons, MIMIS, AAIBF Snr, ANZCS, ATMB, CL +64 25 245 6089 P O Box 5472, Wellington, New Zealand http://www.baptism.co.nz _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 07:36:31 -0700 From: "John R Pierce" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Spam (bad) and PNG (good!) > I don't even know what PNG is. I sure as heck won't switch browsers to > view the trend-of-the-week. 'portable network graphics', a new opensource based graphics format which has the best attributes of JPG and GIF without stepping on the dreaded Unisys Lempel-Ziv patents (GIF uses a LZ compression that Unisys claims royalty rights to). - -jrp _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 17:48:04 -0000 From: "Brian J. Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: (OTT) Re: Mersenne: Spam (bad) and PNG (good!) On 10 Aug 00, at 20:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > That leaves, like, the Netscape 3 users. I really doubt > that there are that many Netscape 3 users out there. (Doesn't it have the > most primitive level of Javascript support and whatnot as well? Hopefully > that would have annoyed users into upgrading by now. It sure did for me > and IE3.) Nah, Javascript is a security hazard I'm happier to do without (or at least turn off, except for a very few "trusted" sites). > Maybe someone who's a webmaster could check their server logs > and see how many non-PNG compliant people are viewing their pages; it'd be > rather representative if Mr. Kurowski could do that. I think it'll be a > small minority, maybe an order of magnitude higher than the number of > people who still use Lynx. Won't prove anything. I have my browser working through a _free_ third-party proxy called Junkbuster which changes the browser & OS identities seen by the web site when you contact it. I tend to use Netscape 4.7 on either linux (RH 6.1) or Windows 2000 but identify myself as Netscape 2.0 running on MacOS (and I don't have a Mac!). As well as confusing sites which try to collect irrelevant statistics at the expense of privacy, I also use Junkbuster to delete intensely annoying and bandwidth wasting flashing banner ads, which it can do most efficiently (signalling error 404 directly to the browser without even bothering to try to contact the server). It can selectively munch cookies, too ... In the un*x community, changing the program name and/or version number which a server reports to a client (or vice versa) is a widespread tactic. The information is _not_ needed; open standards compliance _is_ (which is why I try very hard to avoid using IE). The point of masquerading identification info is to trick hostile sites into attempting inappropriate attacks, providing evidence which can be used to identify & tackle "crackers". > > I suppose... if it turns out that most people who visit GIMPS sites still > haven't seen the light of day and switched to a PNG-supporting browser, I > could go back and provide GIF versions of the banners again. Though I > don't particularly like the idea; PNG is just way too cool. Especially since the idea is to use public-domain software instead of relying on GIFs being too widespread for anyone to actually collect the royalties to which they are undoubtedly entitled. BTW Netscape users outside the US should also check out a _free_ program called Fortify which provides US-strength encryption capability for the "international" version. Still nowhere near strong enough, but a good deal better. Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 11:10:05 -0700 From: Michael Gebis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Spam (bad) and PNG (good!) Sorry to lengthen an already off-topic thread, but I can't help myself... >>>>> "Robert" == Robert Deininger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>>> wrote the following on 11 Aug 2000 03:23:50 -0400 Robert> I don't even know what PNG is. I sure as heck won't switch Robert> browsers to view the trend-of-the-week. There's actually a bit of religion (in the "emacs vs. vi", or "Windows vs. Unix" sense of the word relgion) behind PNG. For more information, go to: http://burnallgifs.org/ For a less political and more technical history of PNG, go to: http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/ Please make up your own mind, but my bet is that PNG will be more frequently used and will stay with us for quite a while. We now return you to your regularly scheduled newsgroup. Mike _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 15:15:11 -0400 From: "Willmore, David (VS Central)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Athlons on DDR MBs Hello, all. I'm curious if anyone has any preliminary performance figures for Athlon processors on the new crop of DDR MBs. If noone has any data, I guess I'll have to go out and buy one. :) Cheers, David _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 13:06:11 -0700 From: Stefan Struiker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Athlons on DDR MBs "Willmore, David (VS Central)" wrote: > Hello, all. > > I'm curious if anyone has any preliminary performance figures for Athlon > processors on the new crop of DDR MBs. If noone has any data, I guess I'll > have to go out and buy one. :) > DDR MB memory aside, Athlon T-Bird info, smackdowns and related reviews can be monitored by looking at: http://www.gamepc.com A 1GHz torture-test and OCing review should appear any day now. The T-Bird runs much cooler, and the 700 (see review) has been pushed to nearly 900 without much complaint or special cooling. Regards, Stefanovic _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 04:00:43 -0500 From: "Lucas Wiman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: PNG (good!) >> Version Visitors % >>1. MSIE 5.x 1,705 53.26 >>2. Netscape 4.x 1,173 36.63 >>3. MSIE 4.x 224 7.00 >>4. MSIE 5.x (AOL) 54 1.69 >>5. Netscape 3.x 12 0.37 >>6. MSIE 3.x 10 0.31 >>7. Netscape 5.x 8 0.25 >>8. MSIE 4.x (AOL) 5 0.16 >>9. MSIE 2.x 4 0.12 >>10. MSIE 3.x (AOL) 4 0.12 >>11. Opera 3.x 2 0.06 >>12. Opera 2.x 1 0.03 >> >> Total 3,202 100.00% > >Apparently broken statistics, since at least one of the browsers I >regularly >visit with isn't represented. If you are referring to Lynx, then it may be that Lynx has deceived the webserver. If I recall correctly Lynx (at least of a few versions ago) told webservers that it was netscape to avoid the server not sending the page. Possibly, anyway... - -Lucas Send your favorite photo with any online greeting! http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/redirects/americangreetings.rdct _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 03:00:25 -0700 From: "John R Pierce" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: PNG (good!) > >Apparently broken statistics, since at least one of the browsers I > >regularly > >visit with isn't represented. > > If you are referring to Lynx, then it may be that Lynx has deceived the webserver. If I recall correctly Lynx (at least of a few versions ago) told webservers that it was netscape to avoid the server not sending the page. well, I just tried the default settings of the LYNX that comes with RedHat 6.2 (or thereabouts), it logged itself as... "Lynx/2.8.3dev.18 libwww-FM/2.14" in my /var/log/httpd/access_log - -jrp _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 03:07:22 -0700 From: "John R Pierce" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: PNG (good!) > If you are referring to Lynx, then it may be that Lynx has deceived the webserver. If I recall correctly Lynx (at least of a few versions ago) told webservers that it was netscape to avoid the server not sending the page. oh, and on my personal webpile (along with a few other folks piles I host), out of 470,000 hits in the last 16 weeks, I show a grand total of 24 from Lynx, one of which was the test I just ran. - -jrp _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 17:19:58 +0200 From: Nacho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: GIMPS on Sun Sparc. Hello everyone. Please excuse my english, I'm spanish. I will have a SparcStation at work and I want to put it to do some useful work with GIMPS. I was reading Mersenne pages about software for Solaris and it seems that the best program is MLucas 2.7a. A SparcStation is not a very fast machine and I will have it only for 6 months, so perhaps it will not be very fast to do LL test in new exponents, and perhaps I'll do doublecheck better. I have some questions: Are there binaries for Mfactor for Sparc/Solaris? I found Mlucas binaries but not Mfactor binaries. I don't have a f90 compiler. I suppose that LL results are 100% identical to Prime95 results, so LL test will be accepted by primenet server in manual assignment, right? If I use the manual assignment pages at PrimeNet, will I receive time credits at Primenet status pages? Thanks in advance for your help. Bye! _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.exu.ilstu.edu/mersenne/faq-mers.txt ------------------------------ End of Mersenne Digest V1 #768 ******************************
