Microsoft kills off Money

Started by Rik, Jun 11, 2009, 11:54:02

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Niall

It's generally on webpages containing news stories. I can't really tell you anything less vague than that as I've seen it on the BBC site a few times and a couple of US news sites, along with random sites. Now I think about it, I haven't noticed it for a while so it could be one of the less common things used, like the upside down question mark thing (what ever the hell that is :D)
Flickr Deviant art
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
Leo Tolstoy

Rik

All I can suggest you do is have a look at the page source when you spot it and see what font is being called.
Rik
--------------------

This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.

Niall

I was just thinking (whilst chasing my new kittens all over the damn place!) that it's possible that website weren't downloading correctly as it was happening during the period a week or so ago when people were complaining of issues.

I'll keep an eye out to see if I spot it again.
Flickr Deviant art
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
Leo Tolstoy

Rik

Rik
--------------------

This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.

Simon

Quote from: Niall on Jun 16, 2009, 19:20:40
I uninstalled Money a few weeks ago, and it seems to have taken a font or something with it. I get a strange symbol instead of a letter or icon, and I've no idea what is missing!

I don't suppose it's changed the default Character Encoding, has it, Niall?  Mine is set to Western (ISO 8859-1), and it seems to display everything correctly, but change it, and I start getting silly symbols too.
Simon.
--
This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.

Niall

The icon that appears in place of whatever letter or number, etc is a square box with numbers in it, or symbols (I can't remember off the top of my head).
Flickr Deviant art
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
Leo Tolstoy

Simon

It might not be it, but I'd check the character encoding in your browser.
Simon.
--
This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.

Rik

Is that Firefox, Niall. It displays the hex code for the character if it's missing. On some sites, that's actually hard coded into the page.
Rik
--------------------

This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.

Niall

#33
http://www.wrexham.gov.uk/english/vacancies_en/vacancy.cfm?v_id=CA905D51-9715-08B1-D9C1C2487DBAD201&page=view

Here's an example. Just before the £8.05 per hour there's a little box with FF & FD under it.

Hmm on another page on that site, the ' is showing as that box too. Really weird this, I've never seen it until a few weeks ago.
Flickr Deviant art
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
Leo Tolstoy

Simon

Yup, this is what I see, Niall, and if I change the character encoding in the browser, I get different symbols, but none of them are correct (and I don't, and never have had Money installed).  Don't quite know how this helps, but at least it's not just you.  :)

[attachment deleted by admin]
Simon.
--
This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.

gizmo71

The page source contains the bytes 0xEF 0xBF 0xBD and is encoded as UTF-8; this is Unicode 0xFFFD which is the 'replacement character'. This means that the page was generated from a source in which there where characters for which no suitable Unicode alternative was found - most likely a flaw in the translation process than actual unknown characters!

It's entirely possible - perhaps even likely - that the removal of MS Money and the appearance of these symbols is coincidence and not causation...
SimRacing.org.uk Director General | Team Shark Online Racing - on the podium since 1993
Up the Mariners!

Ray

Quote from: Simon on Jun 18, 2009, 22:55:16
Yup, this is what I see, Niall, and if I change the character encoding in the browser, I get different symbols, but none of them are correct (and I don't, and never have had Money installed).  Don't quite know how this helps, but at least it's not just you.  :)

That's what I'm seeing as well, Simon, and I've still got Money installed so I suspect it's nothing to do with Money being uninstalled.  :)
Ray
--------------------

This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.

gizmo71

In fact I've just noticed two conflicting META tags in the HTML source:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />


So even if the correct characters were in the text (which they aren't) a browser has bugger all chance of actually knowing how to render it! ::)
SimRacing.org.uk Director General | Team Shark Online Racing - on the podium since 1993
Up the Mariners!

Niall

How strange. It's odd that it only recently started happening. Is it possible that a Windows update (possibly on the server side of the web host) has caused some errors on various websites?

I can't think of any other reason that would suddenly cause sites that I've previously had no problems with, displaying these weird things!
Flickr Deviant art
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
Leo Tolstoy

Simon

Is it just a small number of sites, Niall?  I'm just wondering if perhaps it's the sites themselves which have been updated in some way, perhaps to make them IE8 compatible, and now won't display properly?  Sorry, I can't see it mentioned in the thread, which browser are you using?  Have to say, I haven't come across it, apart from on the site you linked to.
Simon.
--
This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.

Niall

I'm using Firefox. I don't come across it very often. I suppose it's possible that it's been this way for a long time, but I'd never spotted it on sites until now.
Flickr Deviant art
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
Leo Tolstoy

Simon

Either that, or some sites have been 'upgraded' for IE8, and it's screwed them for other browsers.  Just a guess, though.  :)
Simon.
--
This post reflects my own views, opinions and experience, not those of IDNet.