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Age Detector Frequently Asked Questions and Comments

The age detector applet was written by Tim Macinta and is copyright 1996 - 2001.

Why can't I see the pictures? I'm over 18!

Believe it or not, I get asked this question at least a couple of times a day. If you are unable to get past the age detector it is probably because your name has been left out of the national age database. A small portion of the national age database was recently wiped out by the "Good Times" virus. I'd be glad to do all the technical and legal work of getting your name re-entered into the national database for the small fee of $800. Afterwards, I've got a really great deal on a bridge I'd like to sell you.

There's a bug in your age detector - I can click on the "Continue" button!

Helllloooooooo McFly, I never said you couldn't. In fact I will say right here and now that I know of at least half a dozen different ways to click on the continue button. The goal of the age detector was not to make the "Continue" button impossible to click, but to be entertaining. People have literally sent me essay length emails explaining why the button can be clicked and why it has to do with the intricacies of the Java VM. Please save your efforts - I know it can be clicked and it's not a bug.

Along the same lines, people have also complained that once the "Continue" button is clicked the reward is anti-climactic (you can judge this for yourself - I don't want to spoil the surprise of what the reward is). Let me just say that when I first wrote my age detector the reward was much more elaborate. Shortly thereafter I discovered that on machines with very little memory it was actually very easy to catch the button because the whole machine would slow down when the web page loaded due to virtual memory swapping. In fact, it was very easy to click on the button before it moved at all so a lot of people would have had a legitimate excuse for not getting the joke if I didn't make the reward less immediate.

Hey, you stole this trick from <some random program>...

A lot of people write me telling me that I have stolen my age detector idea from some random program that they have seen which I have never heard of. The fact of the matter is that my age detector is loosely based on an old "Stupid Mac Trick" (a Mac, or Macintosh as they were called, is an old type of computer that is pretty much extinct now) which was itself based on an older AppleII trick (from what I've heard). There are so many different versions of this trick and I have no idea where the original idea came from - the AppleII version is the oldest one that I know of. My version is the first Java version that I know of.

Can I link to your age detector?

Yes.

Can I use the age detector in my pages?

Yes.

How can I use the age detector in my pages?

You can install the age detector in two different ways (follow the links below for instructions):

Can I have the source code to the age detector?

No.

How can I change the words, URLs, colors, etc...?

If you're interested in changing the text of the age detector because you want to translate it into a different language, send me a copy of the translated text and I'll send you back a copy of the applet with the translated text. The age detection applet has already been translated into quite a few different languages so please check the list of available languages before going through the translation yourself.

If you want to change the color scheme you can do so by using an applet param tag in the following format: 

     <param name="color_name" value="color_value">
There are four different color names you can use: bgcolor for the applet's background color, fgcolor for the applet's foreground color, button_bgcolor for the buttons' background color, and button_fgcolor for the buttons' foreground color. The color values should be specified using the same numerical format that is used to set other colors (such as the page's bgcolor) in HTML. So, as an example, to change the applet's background color to cyan and the text to grey you would use the following HTML: 
     <applet code="explicit.class" width=450 height=300>
     <param name="bgcolor" value="#00FFFF">
     <param name="fgcolor" value="#606060">
     </applet>
Please note that some browsers may not actually change the color of the buttons.

Changing other attributes is not currently supported. (Yes, this means that you can't change the URLs that the buttons go to.)

What languages is the age detector available in besides English?

If you would like a copy of the age detector in a language that is not listed below send me the translation and I will try to make a translated age detector for you (please have patience as this process may take a few weeks). Please note: in order to use characters that aren't in the English language you will need to send me their unicode values since Java uses unicode. HTML encoding will not work - you must send special characters in unicode.

All Pages, Images, and Other Content Copyright © 1997 - 2024 Timothy W Macinta , except where noted. All Rights Reserved. The "Tim Macinta Now" button may be used on web pages that are external to this site to provide a link back to this page. For usage guidelines on KMFMS artwork please see http://www.kmfms.com/usage-guide.html.