Toronto Chinese Archway

Toronto's East Chinatown isn't as well known as it's downtown counter-part. Sitting as it does on the opposite side of the Don River forming the western edge of Riverdale, the only visitors (and locals) that discover it do so by happenstance. Or they are going out of their way to locate Chinese culture in the city of Toronto, which there is plenty of. It's a shame really. The downtown - all of it, not just the Chinatown in the city core - presents that walled edifice sort of visual squalor one gets in any large metropolis built before car-culture. This year's boom of construction all over the core made sight-seeing a near impossibility. Condo-rage, expanding infrastucture, and businesses shifting a few blocks away from centre (but not out of it) all to save a few bucks is fueling the rising tide. So the only ones that really get a kick out of it are those that love downtowns and clogged traffic. The rest probably saw all the mayhem and quickly re-boarded whatever transport they came in on. The Toronto Chinese Archway has stood complete for many years now. But at the time it was being built, I had the opportunity to snap off a healthy supply of photos with a camera that now rests in peace.

 

The only difference was that during it's construction, it wasn't causing any mayhem. The parking lot in which it was built operated normally for much of it's construction. Throughout it all, you could get right up close and bend the ear of the crew-members hard at work on it.

 

No spam-covered hoardings, pedestrians forced this way or that, clouds of dust, and so forth. Just an elevated ode a community wrote for itself as it's dressing, and in so doing, letting everyone know that the word Chinatown could apply to practically anywhere in this city, but that this one has it's own bit of home.

 

Here is what it was like soon after it was completed

I haven't posted any of the images, though my Photobucket page has over one hundred of them available for many years now. I was intending to take a final flurry of images and round out the collection with a fourth library set of the archway before doing anything at all with them. But with the camera gone, and none on the way this Christmas either, well... It's about time something was done with them.

If you want to see more, the three libraries start pages are here, here again, and the last here. 

 

GIMP is Slow - And So Are We To Act - Part Two

There is hope for a Windows GIMP user wanting to further reduce the amount of time spent waiting for GIMP to display the application window. Unfortunately, the steps required of you will have a negative affect on your operating system and applications.

I don't recommend you do what I describe here. I only undertake discussing it in Erratalog because I have done it, and I have found that I can live with the results. You, on the other hand, may get quite angry should you do what I tell you not to do.

If you follow the instructions outlined in this blog post, you will lose system and application functionality. Therefore, you should consider these steps as being harmful to your computer.

Again, I do not recommend you follow these instructions. Any harm you cause to you or your system are your doing. This blog post is simply a tool to set that harm in motion, with you being the fool wielding that tool.

The task involves moving a great many and specific system protected True Type Font and True Type Font Collection files out of the Windows system fonts folder. If you installed Windows to the default location of a hard drive whose letter is "C", this folder is situated at C:/Windows/Fonts. All of the moved fonts support foreign language characters and are very much invisible to us if we never require or use them, with a few exceptions.

You will not be using a font manager to move these files since they will be of no help. Even if they display these protected foreign character fonts, they won't remove them from the system fonts folder.

The specific font files moved out of this folder are installed at the time Windows is installed, or subsequently if you ask Windows or other applications to provide or enable language support for foreign languages, or if they require it. These font files are both protected and hidden by the system by default, for the most part. So you may be totally unaware they are there, or you've seen them and shrugged your shoulders wondering what in hell they are doing on your computer.

When you visit a Chinese web site, you see the very same Chinese text the web site developer sees in your uni-lingual English Windows operating system and in browser applications and the like. If you install a Chinese developed Windows application that permits you to switch between an English-language application interface or a Chinese one, you'll also enjoy the benefit of having these font files. They allow you to make your application look just like it does in the screenshots featured on the Chinese developer's native language web site.

If the ReadMe.txt or Help.chm or Help.htm file accompanying this application is Chinese-only, these fonts allow you to view the text as actual Chinese characters. You can cut and paste this text into other files, applications, or into search engine or translator web site input fields.

Other fonts enable your Windows to employ Arabic language text in file names and extensions, such as when you save an Arabic web page whose title is totally Arabic to your hard drive. It exposes and enables you to work in a tremendous number of languages, even if you only work in one language. The system supports it even though you personally don't work on the computer in that language.

Moving the fonts out of the Windows system folder breaks all this unique functionality in your system, and much more. The above paragraphs provide a small sampling of what can or may be lost to you and your system. You won't see foreign language characters. Instead, you'll see garbage characters replacing them since the system no longer has character data with which to place on your screen - so it throws up whatever is handy, and usually, it's quite ugly to look at. Lots of little square boxes with numbers in them, all perfectly uniform in appearance, and all positively useless.

This specific  thread  is where I discovered the method discussed here. The reply by "support-ing" on February 11, 2010 is the specific entry where the method is described. You should visit his web site and get the most up-to-date version of the 2manyfonts batch file he created and the very necessary instructions you need to follow in order to make it work correctly. Save the instructions to a file. Write them down. Memorize them. You know what works best for you.

These instructions are solely for those whose Windows install supports US-English, UK-English, or any uni-lingual English variant that is nearly identical, and whose user only requires support for this language and it's characters alone. Those whose systems support creoles/krios, pidgins, or other variants whose roots are English and/or other languages should not follow these instructions. ie: If your mother or father use the system and require krio support, even if you don't, these instructions will harm their use of the computer.

You need to have administrative priviledges on the system in order to use the batch file. If the computer isn't yours, or you are not the administrator, I highly advise you to get permission from the administrator or owner of the system you are using. Most system administrators, if not all, will recommend that you do NOT do this to your system, for very good reasons. They certainly won't like the idea of you doing it to a company or shared computer. If you are uncomfortable doing it, get the administrator to do it for you. Once you see the admin do it, you'll see how easy it is.

The batch file references over one hundred True Type Font and True Type font Collection (TTF and TTC) font files, and moves them all out of the Windows font folder. All of the font files it references are fonts that are protected by Windows in certain Windows installations. Many of them will exist in your Windows fonts folder. Those that do not will exist in other Windows computers. The commonality is that they all have the system protecting and/or hiding them.

Here's why I used the 2manyfonts batch file.

Each time a change is detected in your collection of active font files by GIMP, it is forced to interrogate all of the font files in the system when GIMP is starting up. Many of these foreign character font files protected by the system are very large, occupying many megabytes of storage, and add a significant amount of time to GIMP start-ups. By moving them out of the Windows font folder, you'll notice a significant reduction in font interrogation time whenever GIMP interrogates fonts. Any other applications that have this font interrogation behaviour benefit in the same manner.

Less files to interrogate means less time and CPU spent interrogating. GIMP loads faster. You get to use GIMP faster. You are more productive because you aren't leaving the office to have a beer or cigarette or coffee while GIMP loads.

Here are all the TTF/TTC fonts that resided in my Windows font folder before I ran the 2manyfonts batch file procedure on my system. I had already removed a great many fonts using the MainType font manager, some two hundred plus. The files marked with !!! after the modification date/time were moved by 2manyfonts. Note the file sizes of what gets moved, and what stays.

Filename.............................File Size.....Modification Date

batang.ttc                          16,264,732    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
gulim.ttc                           13,524,972    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
meiryo.ttc                           9,533,888    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
meiryob.ttc                          9,749,256    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
mingliu.ttc                         32,217,124    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
mingliub.ttc                        33,805,700    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
msgothic.ttc                         9,176,636    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
msmincho.ttc                        10,057,108    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
simsun.ttc                          15,323,200    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
arial.ttf                              778,552    10/05/2011 6:38 PM
arialbd.ttf                            749,004    16/01/2011 7:35 PM
arialbi.ttf                            561,924    16/01/2011 7:35 PM
ariali.ttf                             555,884    16/01/2011 7:35 PM
cour.ttf                               709,600    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
courbd.ttf                             710,192    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
courbi.ttf                             530,336    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
couri.ttf                              618,240    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
ebrima.ttf                             304,428    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
ebrimabd.ttf                           298,952    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
estre.ttf                              110,436    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
euphemia.ttf                           172,656    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
gautami.ttf                            256,384    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
gautamib.ttf                           221,268    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
himalaya.ttf                           610,104    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
iskpota.ttf                            548,036    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
iskpotab.ttf                           368,924    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
kalinga.ttf                            212,356    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
kalingab.ttf                           205,636    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
kartika.ttf                            131,264    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
kartikab.ttf                           126,460    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
KhmerUI.ttf                            330,464    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
KhmerUIb.ttf                           263,864    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
LaoUI.ttf                               97,516    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
LaoUIb.ttf                              88,700    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
latha.ttf                              120,848    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
lathab.ttf                             119,848    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
lucon.ttf                              115,016    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
malgun.ttf                           4,337,296    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
malgunbd.ttf                         4,515,044    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
mangal.ttf                             206,260    04/11/2010 9:59 PM!!!
mangalb.ttf                            191,892    04/11/2010 9:59 PM!!!
marlett.ttf                             26,672    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
micross.ttf                            652,664    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
monbaiti.ttf                           356,576    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
msjh.ttf                            21,663,376    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
msjhbd.ttf                          14,512,072    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
msyh.ttf                            21,767,952    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
msyhbd.ttf                          14,602,860    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
msyi.ttf                               342,124    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
mvboli.ttf                              84,940    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
ntailu.ttf                              82,864    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
ntailub.ttf                             75,552    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
nyala.ttf                              438,016    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
phagspa.ttf                            146,496    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
phagspab.ttf                           150,228    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
plantc.ttf                             118,824    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
raavi.ttf                               94,300    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
raavib.ttf                              93,800    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
segoeui.ttf                            516,560    16/01/2011 7:34 PM
segoeuib.ttf                           497,372    16/01/2011 7:34 PM
segoeuii.ttf                           385,560    16/01/2011 7:34 PM
segoeuil.ttf                           330,908    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
segoeuiz.ttf                           398,148    16/01/2011 7:34 PM
seguisb.ttf                            406,192    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
seguisym.ttf                           842,104   04/07/2012 11:13 AM
shruti.ttf                             270,172    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
shrutib.ttf                            235,340    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
simsunb.ttf                         15,406,288    10/06/2009 5:25 PM!!!
sylfaen.ttf                            228,348    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
tahoma.ttf                             700,180    10/05/2011 6:38 PM
tahomabd.ttf                           648,008    16/01/2011 7:35 PM
taile.ttf                               72,008    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
taileb.ttf                              63,364    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
times.ttf                              834,240   04/11/2010 10:00 PM
timesbd.ttf                            840,736   04/11/2010 10:00 PM
timesbi.ttf                            619,972   04/11/2010 10:00 PM
timesi.ttf                             661,244   04/11/2010 10:00 PM
tunga.ttf                              188,908    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
tungab.ttf                             174,896    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
verdana.ttf                            191,344   25/08/2011 10:59 PM
vrinda.ttf                             259,520    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!
vrindab.ttf                            257,672    10/06/2009 5:26 PM!!!


Here is what remained after running 2manyfonts.

Filename..........................File Size.....Modification Date

arial.ttf                           778,552    10/05/2011 6:38 PM
arialbd.ttf                         749,004    16/01/2011 7:35 PM
arialbi.ttf                         561,924    16/01/2011 7:35 PM
ariali.ttf                          555,884    16/01/2011 7:35 PM
cour.ttf                            709,600    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
courbd.ttf                          710,192    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
courbi.ttf                          530,336    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
couri.ttf                           618,240    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
lucon.ttf                           115,016    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
marlett.ttf                          26,672    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
micross.ttf                         652,664    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
segoeui.ttf                         516,560    16/01/2011 7:34 PM
segoeuib.ttf                        497,372    16/01/2011 7:34 PM
segoeuii.ttf                        385,560    16/01/2011 7:34 PM
segoeuil.ttf                        330,908    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
segoeuiz.ttf                        398,148    16/01/2011 7:34 PM
seguisb.ttf                         406,192    10/06/2009 5:26 PM
seguisym.ttf                        842,104   04/07/2012 11:13 AM
tahoma.ttf                          700,180    10/05/2011 6:38 PM
tahomabd.ttf                        648,008    16/01/2011 7:35 PM
times.ttf                           834,240   04/11/2010 10:00 PM
timesbd.ttf                         840,736   04/11/2010 10:00 PM
timesbi.ttf                         619,972   04/11/2010 10:00 PM
timesi.ttf                          661,244   04/11/2010 10:00 PM
verdana.ttf                         191,344   25/08/2011 10:59 PM


The real gain, for me, is in moving out two hundred and forty-two megabytes of TTF/TTC font data, leaving behind a paltry eighteen megabytes. Your mileage may differ. It is not uncommon to have over three hundred megabytes of these foreign fonts. On my netbook computer with an anemic first generation Atom CPU that always struggles to fire up GIMP, or anything for that matter, a several minute wait while GIMP interrogated fonts was reduced to less than twenty seconds interrogating fonts. You can imagine how much I hated firing up GIMP on that P.O.S. system (No, it's not used as a point of sale device).

The 2manyfonts batch file does not address the numerous FON files on a system. These files are also problematic with respect to moving them out of the Windows font folder. A number of FON-type files are system critical, and Windows may not boot without them. The FON-type font files don't affect GIMP font interrogation nearly as much since they are all very small. But they do clutter up the Text tool in GIMP if you have over a hundred of them as I do on my box.

I didn't add these 100+ FON files to Windows. They're there as part of the Windows install and/or in support of specific hardware/devices and driver software associated with them. So I suspect many others out there have the same issue.

I'll leave discussion about FON-type files for another day.

Disabling the é key is legal in Canada

The upshot of being a Canadian Windows user is that your keyboard layout supports the selected number of French keystrokes available - if you do not opt to go with the US English keyboard/language when you install Windows. The latter is often chosen by English-speaking Canadians. None of them furrin' letters will appear when you type, and that's what most people are after. All those extra color coded characters on their keys are quickly forgotten.

I understand the sentiments and the time savings. But having at those extra keys without need of remembering their key code can be handy. It gives you ample opportunity to demonstrate the meandering road words have traveled into English when you use Québec, café, latté and the like. If it causes angst for the few that actually are bothered by it, well, c'est la vie. We're English speaking persons from Canadia, and we have an excuse.

The switch that causes Canadian keyboards to flip between those French characters and their English ones is the key combination of CTRL-Shift. Other locales with similar keyboards and language support in Windows suffer from the same issues. On a full sized keyboard with an adept typist at the helm, this combination rarely occurs. But if you are forced to switch between different keyboards, jumping from laptops to desktops and other devices, it may occur much more frequently.

The Windows Control Panel's Region and Language object is where you can change the system's language setting and change keyboard settings. These functions can be added to the taskbar which permit you to always have a means to switch languages and/or keyboard. For many households, this function is the only way everyone can use the same system and feel at home.

GIMP is Slow - And So Are We To Act

There are numerous posts on the Internet from people whinging about how long it takes for GIMP to start. Long, tedious wait times are a standard we must accept from all things out of our hands. Read the responses to their queries and discover for yourself. It is part of the development cycle, and ingrained into the fabric of compute environments everywhere.

You can find an appreciable barge-load of similar load-time problems with Adobe Photoshop, Virus Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc. So I am not singling out GIMP here for any unkindness. But I found myself making the same queries about GIMP as were made by others.

Invariably, no matter what the hell I do, GIMP will do the following whether I want it to or not.

1) Query all plug-in files and regenerate the pluginrc file. I can fire up GIMP and close it. If I fire it up again, all plug-ins are queried.

2) Query all font files any time GIMP is executed after a cold start of the machine.

These are both necessary processes for GIMP yet thorny to many users. Most Windows owners have little or no control over their machine's collective of system installed fonts, and none with respect to GIMP's plug-ins. So when GIMP takes it sweet time starting, and any other editors like it, you bite your tongue or head down to the cafe for a latté.

GIMP plug-ins are a necessity. Without them, all file actions involving anything other than the native GIMP XCF file format becomes impossible, and any other functions tied to a plug-in are lost. You might be able to reduce their number to a degree, but each plug-in you remove from the plug-in folder becomes one less available function or file type. Losing tools from your toolbox is not a good idea. Proceed with caution!

A GIMP user's control over fonts is a necessary evil, but the benefits are substantial and far reaching if you take control of them. By limiting or authorizing which font files GIMP accesses, you are likely to also limit and authorize all fonts installed to the operating system, and thus, all other applications on the system.

System fonts tend to be the biggest contributor to long start times for GIMP on Windows. I suspect it is likewise for any operating system GIMP runs on, but Windows users are often quite unfamiliar with font installation habits in their operating system. Because of this, and their lack of control over the fonts and other behaviors of installed software, they are at the mercy of the machine.

When you install software in Windows, any application that desires to have a specific font or set of fonts installed to the system fonts folder, usually C:/Windows/Fonts/, will place them there. This has always been the way for Windows, and it will not change anytime soon. If an application is reliant upon a specific font file in order to communicate to those using the application, the loss of the font may result in an application with no visual queues as to what the application does, can do, or requires you to do. So the behavior, while sometimes intolerable, is just part of Windows ownership.

If you are in the habit of buying or acquiring font sets or collections and installing them, now you know who the real enemy is.

The easiest method of taking control of fonts is to employ a good font management application. It is also a good idea to make an effort to review the font files installed on your system immediately after the operating system is installed, and before you begin installing applications. If you know which files are absolutely necessary for Windows internal operations, and those that are used by Windows applications (Notepad, Connection Wizard, etc.), your use of the font manager will be much more precise. The last thing you want to be doing is using a font manager without any idea as to what can and cannot be excised from your system.

A good font manager will allow you to categorize and group fonts in any manner you like and add/remove fonts to and from the system fonts folder, or any other, at your leisure. You can do this manually in Windows, or with script files. For most people, that method requires meticulous care and script-writing capabilities, and also requires that you understand how your Fonts folder presents font file information to you.

In Windows 7 and other versions of Windows, you do not see font files individually. Ariel, Ariel Black, Ariel bold and all the other variations are collected into a single entry - Ariel. Removing this single font entry from the system removes all of the font files collected into this entry. Removing one variant of seven when all you see is a single icon doesn't make things easy.

Font managers provide an easy way of keeping all fonts the system could ever use in a separate location on your hard drive, away from the system fonts folder, or off the system entirely. If you store your fonts in a folder or your own creation, you will see each file individually and not presented as a set of files together in one icon. Font files that are not in use by the system and it's applications can be organized in any manner you wish without affecting it. You can prune down a system fonts folder with hundreds or thousands of fonts to reflect the actual fonts you use and need.

The key capability of a font management system is control. By limiting which fonts are exposed to the system, overall font-related performance and access issues are limited in the same way. If you only expose forty fonts to Windows, all applications on the system will deal with a maximum forty Windows system fonts.

For GIMP users, this limiting of fonts results in a Text tool window whose font selection drop down list is drawn much quicker on slower machines. GIMP will have a vastly reduced font selection process. Less scrolling through the list will be required. Less font interrogation when GIMP starts will mean less waiting.

All other applications that poll or interrogate fonts in a similar manner will speed up tremendously when you exercise this sort of control over fonts. So the need to manage fonts on your own carries with it far more than a control over GIMP. You'll have a deeper appreciation for your fonts and application installer activities related fonts.

A good font manager immediately presents you an update of new fonts found in the system. You will often have an idea as to which installers were responsible for them once you begin seeing these additions of fonts occur. You'll learn which applications need/added which fonts, and you can of course take action against any application which makes a mockery of your system fonts folder.

Many free and commercial font management programs are available to the Windows user.

Of the free font managers, NexusFont provides the best features. It's a bit wonky to navigate, but don't let that stop you. Once you get the hang of it, you'll be organized in no time and discover it has all the essentials you need, and plenty of extras.

Of the commercial programs I have used, I enjoyed High-Logic Main Type the most. It's feature set is excellent, and supports a font archive maintained on the hard drive. It enables you to recall fonts whose files you have removed from the system - a life saver if your offline collection of fonts is at home and you are across town or the planet. It has a window alerting you to problematic fonts whose content are not in accordance with the file type's specification. GIMP and many other applications are affected by corrupted or malformed font files, and getting them out of your workflow or reducing their exposure to your system is greatly aided by this function.