Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with beta

Disable "Inline Search" in Safari 4 Beta for Mac

Leech — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 13:19:19 -0800

Is possible to disable "find in page" on Safari 4 Beta? Hi,

I hate that the "find in page" is activated by just typing anything in the page instead of Cmd+F and then search.

On some pages that requires some keystrokes to do some actions it's annoying.

Do you know if it can be disabled to use only the Cmd+F and search box instead?

(Also I'm worried if it's a plugin I've installed functionality, so please confirm me if you're experiencing the same thing or it's only me)

Can proton decay cause tranmutation?

nathancaswell — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:35:08 -0800

Could proton decay combined with matter/antimatter annihilation and radioactive decay cause transmutation? Assuming proton decay exists, if you were to witness a very heavy atom like lead losing protons in super fast motion, is there a possibility that via some combination of proton decay / subsequent electron-positron annihilation / other types of radioactive decay you could see it "flicker" from one element to the next? Or would something like electron shell configuration absolutely prevent this?

Please forgive a question which is Google-able... I'm approaching this from an art perspective and I simply don't have a base level of education necessary to understand the results I get when I try.

Remove Windows 7 Beta

Alabaster — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:44:24 -0800

How can I uninstall/remove the Windows 7 Beta (dual boot on secondary partition) without formatting the partition? I installed the Windows 7 Beta on my D drive (really a partition of my primary drive).

Being a Beta, I naively assumed there would be some kind of uninstall option, but I can't find one and Google isn't giving me much hope.

There are hundreds of GB of audio sample data on my D drive which would be a huge hassle to back up (I don't have enough external storage and can't afford to buy a new drive at the moment despite reasonably low prices). Reinstalling it all from the DVDs would take days.

Is there any way to cleanly remove the Windows 7 Beta from my D drive while leaving the rest of the data intact?

If not, is there a *not-so-clean* way to do it which won't be completely disruptive to my system (for example: removing it from the boot list in MSConfig and then simply deleting the Windows/Program Files/etc. folders from the D drive) (If the latter option, will I run into file access issues?)

In case it makes a difference, my primary OS (on C:) is Vista 64.

Will my plant kill my fish?

bobdylanforever — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 08:36:57 -0800

If I put a philodendron in a fish tank with a Beta, will Clint Eastwood Survive? The fish is named Clint Eastwood. The philodendron is a piece of a larger plant that we're putting in water to get it to grow roots (I'm not even sure if this will work). Will this kill my fish?

Help me point this thing at teh intarwebs

littlerobothead — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:04:35 -0800

Built a little website, and now would like the world to see it. How best to do this? I've built a web app that I'd like to spread around, but after 10 years in this industry I still haven't picked up any good tips on the best ways/people to break this site with/to. Without begging for direct contacts (which certainly is not what I want to do in this particular forum, fair MeFites) can anyone give me a few good ideas about how I might generate some interest?

I've done all the obvious things, but even great meta content and good links can't do everything for me. I also want to avoid the "get your buddies to Digg your site 8,907 times" route. I'd like to build a stable group of users who like this idea as much as I did—and keep them happy and around for a long time—rather than having a rush of six million people over four days and then nothing.

Should I write a press release and take my lumps with TechCrunch, or is there a better route? For what it's worth, the site is sort of in "beta" just now, but still very useable and fun. Be gentle, it's my first time (other than my blog, and I could put state secrets on it and no one would ever know.)

Who will help me bake this site?

soma lkzx — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:49:47 -0800

Where can I find beta testers for a niche-ish recipe site? So, I'm making a recipe site (again), and to prevent Ultimate Disappointment I need to find some beta testers to volunteer to run around on it. The magic part about the site is that it's multilingual and does some neat things with translation; the optimal tester would not only be into cooking, but also know a language beyond English (or be dictionary-capable). Places to find 'em:

Mefi Jobs?: Posted.
Forums?: Swooping in and dropping a "HI COME VISIT MY SITE" is never appreciated on forums, and if I'm going to invest some time in a few before I ask I need to know where to go. This post has some good ideas for cooking forums, but groups of people interested in translation or linguistics are also good targets. Site-specific advice on how to stop in is also welcome.
Bloggers?: I think inviting bloggers is more of a marketing beta thing than a technical beta thing. If they're going to chat the site up, I'd like to have their first impression be good! Horribly misinformed idea?

And if it helps, I'll totally call it beta tasting.

How do I restore iPhone 1.2/2.0 to 1.1.4?

geoff. — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:44:02 -0800

I sloppily upgraded my 1.1.4 iPhone to 1.2 (2.0 Beta). The phone is locked and I cannot restore through iTunes. I only have a Windows machine at the moment. Can I get it back without going to the AT&T/Apple Store? I didn't realize this was an illegal, bad thing to do. Nor did I realize you couldn't at least reset to the earlier firmware (which I have as an IPSW file). Is there anyway I can set it so that I can just get it back to the original out-of-the-box (1.1.4) state? Apparently I can unlock it via Pwnage with a Mac, will this work through VMWare Workstation and Tiger? Is USB 2.0 support good enough for that? Is there anyway I can do it on Windows Vista or XP?

Also if I bring it back to the store do they just reset it there? Is it a big deal?

iPhone Enterprise Beta Acceptances?

hihowareyou — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:53:59 -0800

Has anyone been accepted yet to the iPhone Enterprise Beta yet? I know that last week people began getting acceptances to the Developer Beta program but I haven't heard anything about the Enterprise Program. A quick google mostly just found references to the program existing and/or old reports of the enterprise announcement. My IT manager submitted within the first couple days it was available (maybe the first day? I forget) and hasn't heard anything back yet.

I don't want the Beta! I want the working stable version!

bartleby — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:34:26 -0800

Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac 2.0 Beta is out. But now I can't find the non-beta version that I know works. Where can I find it? I hate when they do this - release a Beta and remove the stable version.

I just recommended it to someone and got a "you're a life saver". I told them I'd send them either a link or the .dmg file.

But all I can find at the moment is the Beta, which may or may not work.

Any ideas?

Getting invites to private beta websites

JaySunSee — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:27:57 -0800

Streamy is currently in private beta, as is Pownce, and I've been in queue for an invite for quite some time. Any help on getting an account to these websites now would be awesome. Also, any advice on getting invites for beta websites in the future would be warmly appreciated.

What kind of conditions would be good for a betta?

booksandlibretti — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:54:00 -0800

I got, as a Christmas surprise, a betta (Siamese fighting fish) and the accompanying pet-store setup. I'd really like to keep it in conditions that are not just horrible-but-minimally-survivable -- but Wikipedia's standards seem amazingly high. What should I do? I checked the "betta," "beta," "aquarium," and "fish" tags. I've read Is it cruel to keep fish in an aquarium? and What are your personal suggestions for starting a beginner aquarium?, but I'm looking for something much more specific. I also checked out a thread on basic goldfish care, but I know different kinds of fish have very different needs. I did find some stuff on what bettas want to eat.

The betta is reddish-brown and not very big. Its fins have no visible tatters, holes, or grunge. It's been making some bubbles that stay on the surface, which (according to the internet) might hint that it's male. It doesn't have a name.

Right now it's in a five-quart (1.25-gallon) bowl with some glass "pebbles" and a plastic plant. We have well water, which was treated with the appropriate dose of the pet store's water-treater for bettas. I plan to change 100% of the tank weekly. In mid-January, the betta will be moving to Manhattan, and I'm hoping to use tap water there, too. There's no aerator. It has no heater, and is kept at room temperature, which is in the low 60s (at college, probably somewhere in the 70s). Every day, it gets a total of eight betta pellets, separated into two feedings.

Wikipedia says that the above, the pet-store setup, is the equivalent of a POW camp where they aren't all that picky about the Geneva Conventions. But I just can't believe those recommendations are right -- I mean, a ten-gallon tank as the minimum acceptable amount for one small fish? The fish was a gift, a surprise, and not really something I wanted. Should I really buy an aerator, a heater, a twenty-gallon tank...? Go through all kinds of processes to prepare water to be changed so frequently?

I'm a college student -- I don't have too much time in the average week, and my budget doesn't allow for much spending money. But I don't want to keep the fish if its conditions are miserable, torturous, or barely enough to sustain life. What do I need to do to keep the fish reasonably "happy" -- not just alive, but in conditions it would consider pleasant? And if I can't do that, how do I get the fish to someone who can and will?

Please don't tell me I'm anthropomorphizing too much. I don't think it's self-aware or will love me or anything. I just feel obligated to treat it humanely.

Name that fish!

tdreyer1 — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 22:39:15 -0800

Name my new fish! I just got a Blue Beta fish and I'm looking for a funny/crazy name. Any & all suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Lack of rocking out is hurting my feelings

Drunken_munky — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:35:38 -0800

Why won't mp3's play on my laptop with Vista Beta 2? I've been messing around Vista beta 2, and I'm noticing some strange behavior. I don't seem to have the ability to play mp3s. I can hear all the OS sounds, and my soundcard is definitely detected and working fine (as is all other hardware), so that leads me to believe that I'm missing a codec or something.

I know it's beta, but still. For Microsoft to not include the ability to play mp3s, seems a little goofy, yeah? Even for them. These are regular mp3s, coded at 320kbps.

Has anyone else had this problem? Is it worth it to try installing XP codecs? I don't want to break anything.

I wanna play Spore. I don't want to wait.

Kickstart70 — Wed, 17 May 2006 13:53:16 -0800

How can I get a chance to become a free beta tester for Spore? And how much time would I have to commit to it? I'd rather do this than waste my time on playing Babble or Wikipedia's exceptionally annoying editing politics. I'm an insomniac anyway, I might as well do something interesting.

What's the deal with Google video?

tommyc — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 07:37:59 -0800

What's the deal with the Google Video interface? More specifically, how can I grab frames from videos that aren't playable, like this funky site does? I'm curious to know how Google's "ThumbnailServer" works. The url makes it look easy:

http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer?
chan=KNTV
&year=2005
&month=5
&day=13
&hour=14
&minute=13
&second=0
&millisecond=0
&itag=qvga
&urlcreated=1124893747
&sigh=r3JnJpAEO_K_rVPg2pLmJ4kyEDU

Change parameters such as chan, year, month, day etc. to get different frames of video, right? Except when I do that, I get a "Bad Request" error. I've checked the docs but no mention of this. I didn't find anything in the Google Labs Discussion Group either. Is there a hacker in the house? ;-)

When will the Gmail beta end?

The Thnikkaman — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 05:02:41 -0800

I'm a Gmail user, and although I have no real idea... it seems like they have been beta testing for a long time. Is it normal for it to go on this long, and when are they likely to end the beta period?

How long is "beta" supposed to last?

brent — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 14:58:55 -0800

How long is "beta" supposed to last?

Examples of technically superior products that lost out to worse, more popular products

mojohand — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:38:59 -0800

For an e-mail to management, I need some quick examples of technically superior products that lost out in the marketplace to inferior competition, much as Beta did to VHS. I'm drawing a blank, and my mad google skilz suq.