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October 13

(beginner questions) PHP, MySQL, and multiple checkboxes // also, Smarty templates

I'm learning PHP & MySQL via Robin Nixon's O'Reilly book and seem to have been left out on a limb of sorts. The book describes how to use multiple checkboxes for a given value and pass the data for all of them by setting the value as an array like name="ingredient[]" -- ok, but I'm confused when it comes to how this data returned from a form would be placed into a database and the book moves on without explaining it. Would the table be named ingredient and each row a recipe, each column thereby being a possible checkbox value?

My second question is more general - the book advocates the use of Smarty templates to separate code from design. I understand the wisdom of the principle, but was wondering if Smarty itself offers functionality that Dreamweaver CS4 does not? Has anyone here used it?

Thank you! 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

On the first one: Well, I don't know about ingredients and recipes. But you'd get back data that looked like this:

ingredient[0] = "checked";
ingredient[2] = "checked";
ingredient[5] = "checked";

Which isn't necessarily useful, unless you know that "0" means "Apples" or "2" means "Sugar" or whatever. And note that it won't return empty values—only checked ones. If I remember correctly.

If you had a large, fixed list of ingredients, and every row was a recipe that included these ingredients, then yes, each column could be an ingredient, each row a recipe. It would be a weird table design, in my opinion, unless the total number of ingredients was for some reason both small and totally fixed (not changing). This is more of a database design question than a specific PHP/MySQL question. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for trying to help. Let me try and clarify with a limited example:

I would like to know how to structure a form & dbase where I've got 5 recipes, and each recipe requires from one to five ingredients. With my limited understanding I though that checkboxes would be the best way to query that data: by checking 3 of 5 ingredients I could extract all the recipes that could be made with the materials at hand. From the way the book presents the checkbox information, I thought using arrays as mentioned above would be the way to do it. But now I'm starting to think that a single checkbox for each ingredient (need / notneed = essentially TRUE/FALSE) would be enough, along with a WHERE ___ AND ___ AND etc. query on a table with each recipe as a row and every possible ingredient as a column. (seems like a nightmare for a large list of possible ingredients though... :-/)

Am I on the right track? I've only been learning all this for about a week! 218.25.32.210 (talk) 02:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's how I would set it up: have one table for ingredients, have another table for recipes, and another table called ingredients_recipes_join.

They'd look something like this:

Ingredients id name 0 Thyme 1 Rosemary 3 Sage 4 Carrots 5 Apples

Recipes id name 0 Herb soup 1 Apple-Carrot smoothie

ingredients_recipes_join id ingredient_id recipe_id 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 2 0 3 3 0 4 4 1 5 5 1

So every ingredient gets its own row in the ingredients table, and every recipe gets its own row in the recipes table. That way you can always add ingredients or recipes. To correlate the two (that is, to say what of an arbitrary number of ingredients are associated with each recipe), you have a join table that just maintains associations between the two tables (each line in the join table corresponds to associating one ingredient with one recipe).

Then you use SQL and the PHP interface to make this sensible to the user—it would list the total number of ingredients associated with a given recipe by either using a complicated SQL JOIN or by simply interating over the results of a query to the join table (e.g. SELECT * FROM ingredient_recipes_join WHERE recipe_id=0, and then you take the results from that and just grab the names of the ingredients from the ingredients table).

Anyway... see if that makes sense to you. A join table design, like shown above, is very common in database design when you have one-to-many and many-to-many relationships (e.g. you want one recipe to be associated with many possible ingredients), because it is easy to set up and pretty flexible. (I wish our junction table article had a useful diagram—something like this). --Mr.98 (talk) 13:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You should separate the concerns of data storage and access to it. Get your database stuff working and work out your queries to answer whatever you need, and then figure out how to get PHP to generate those queries. Given Mr. 98's tables above (which I agree is the way to go), this query will tell you what recipes you can make given two ingredients:

select name
    from Recipes
EXCEPT -- "minus" in some SQL dialects
select Recipes.name
    from Recipes, ingredients_recipes_join, Ingredients
    where Recipes.id     = recipe_id
      and Ingredients.id = ingredient_id
      and Ingredients.name not in ('Apples', 'Sage')

The query returns all recipes except those including ingredients not in the list of things we have on hand. Perhaps some SQL guru can describe a simpler way of expressing it. --Sean 17:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

WOW! Thank you so much everyone! Seeing the example structure of the join table was when the light bulb clicked on and it all came together. Thank you very much everyone! I'll absolutely be saving this conversation for future reference. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Computer recommendations

I am looking to buy a reliable Desktop PC that will last pretty well (quality). Not much gaming so I don't need crazy graphics capability. I will need room to store many video and music files, but I don't think that's much of a concern anymore is it? My current PC is over four years old and I've strained its memory a bit but the new standard memory is much larger. What I really hate is lagging. I want, when I open up Windows Movie Player or Adobe or Wordperfect/Word or whatever, for the thing to just open up. I also don't want to wait literally 8 minutes for all my programs to boot when I restart. Anyway, I can talk a bit of skin deep jargon but I really know very little about the nitty gritty of computers. I was hoping someone could recommend where I could go in the New York Metropolitan area to buy a computer (or can I get it by mail, like the old Gateway computers gig?) and 1) not get hustled and 2) maybe get a pretty good deal. Can you guys and gals maybe recommend some specific models and suggest where to get them? I have a maximum budget of $1,000 and have all the accoutrements (monitor/printer/speakers etc.). A few people have told me definitely get a Pentium brand chip but I don't think they know much more than me. Looking for a bit of direction here. Thanks. John in Brooklyn.--141.155.144.177 (talk) 02:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S. last week I went to Best Buy and no one knew anything and they only had three models for sale (said everyone's stock is low awaiting Windows 7 bundled) but I could have gone there with 50 models and wouldn't have known what to do and would have been easy prey without any way to know if I'd been had or not.--141.155.144.177 (talk) 02:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have been partial to Hewlett-Packard PCs for the last several years. They have a particularly great Pavilion for about $1200 with an i7 CPU and 8GB RAM. You can probably find a model with fewer goodies (I'd lose the Blu-ray player, for example) for $999. If there is a Costco near you, they should have several models, though those probably all include a monitor. Tempshill (talk) 04:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Even though I know nothing about your computer, I bet that it's slow because of accumulated junk running in the background. Windows XP isn't a resource hog, so you might consider just re-installing Windows. There's also fragmentation, and so on. If you still want faster hardware, then you can save about $500 by upgrading the parts yourself. They'd be higher-quality parts, too. Or, you could get on Craig's List and find a technician who'd make you one. You'd order new parts off of Newegg, and he'd put them together. The cost depends on what parts you can re-use in your computer, and how fast you want the new computer to be. If you have to get a pre-built computer, then keep in mind that Gateways, Dells, HPs, and Compaqs are built from the ground up to save the manufacturer money. They're generally designed to be thrown away after five years. So, they're a pain to upgrade, and if you pick a cheaper model from any of the above manufacturers, you will get what you pay for. For example, you might notice after a week that the cheap LCD screen that came with the computer looks really bad. In the store, you don't notice, but once you get it home, you do.--Drknkn (talk) 06:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Can you give us the specs of your current PC? What speed processor, how much RAM, how big is your hard-drive? Windows XP came out a LONG time ago and was designed for PCs of that era. It is by no means a resource hog. I've got a 2002 PC with 1gig of RAM that runs it perfectly fine. You probably need to get rid of some junk that runs on startup every time you boot. I bet that you only need a MASSIVE hard drive to store your videos (very cheap) and perhaps more RAM if you have less than 1gig (difficult to get if your PC is quite old). Zunaid 08:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Free lightweight bookkeeping software

Resolved

Archive and Google search gave me no answers. In brief: I belong to a small community-based non-profit organisation that issues interest-free loan bursaries for tertiary education. Previously our accounting burden was not much, basically reporting the financials each year to members at our annual general meeting. We just used to keep track of payments and expenses manually in Excel and/or using paper receipts. The applicable legislation (in South Africa) has recently been tightened and we have officially registered as both an NPO and a "public benefit organisation". This means we have to submit tax returns and financial statements to SARS and issue proper invoices to donors and for membership fees etc. Is there a free accounting/bookkeeping package which can do all this? It needs to be able to issue numbered invoices, keep track of each bursar's debt and repayments in their own "accounts", draw up separate income statements per fund-raising event for the year, and finally tie all the above together to produce the annual income statement and balance sheet. I'd appreciate feedback from anyone in a non-profit/small-scale environment that can speak from experience. Windows XP. Thanks for your help. Zunaid 07:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I do not know which of the following will satisfy the specific legal requirements you mention, but a start would be looking at Comparison of accounting software - scroll down to the free section. GnuCash and Grisbi seem to be good choices, but there are other more complicated ones, and more simple ones. If you have a small turnover then rather than trying to learn the complexities of some accounting software you may be far better getting a paper based system designed to be very easy to use for beginning small businesses - unfortunately I cannot remember the name of one of them that I used to use. 92.24.99.195 (talk) 11:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

OpenOffice is a free, free alternative to the Microsoft Office suite. It includes a great spreadsheet utility. It runs on all major platforms. It may not meet the definition of "lightweight" - but it's very useful; it can open and save to standard (i.e. Microsoft) formats like .xls and .xlsx; and it provides nice integration with plotting, charts, spreadsheets, word processing, etc. If budget precludes the purchase of the Microsoft Office suite, you should seriously consider OpenOffice. You can read our article or go directly to the official website for more information. Nimur (talk) 13:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I actually want to move away from an Excel-like solution, I'd like a proper accounting package. Something that can keep track of invoices as well. Perhaps such a thing deosn't exist. I'll have a look at the list of software and chat to my accountant friends as well. Thanks so far, keep the suggestions coming! Zunaid 15:10, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

It's very tempting to think "I can get software for free and so why would I pay for it?". However you really should think about how much effort you need to put into getting it up and running. If your software takes a week of a paid employee to set up (or of a volunteer who might otherwise be doing something else useful) then it isn't really free. There may be reliable, easy-to-use free accounting software packages out there, but finding out which ones they are from that list will be hard, and you might easily waste a week's work trying some bad ones out. Accounting is something I wouldn't mess with. A mistake there can cost you very dearly.

If you were in Canada I would recommend QuickBooks in one of its forms. Easy to use and very popular. However you probably want software that understands the South African system. Talk to a local business, and see what they use. And don't worry about spending a few hundred dollars - the software only has to save you a few hours of an accountant's time to be worth it. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with DJ Clayworth throughout. I would recommend QuickBooks if you were in the US — however, I seem to remember it has no multicurrency solution, so I'd look into that if you need that — and of course I would ask around in South Africa for other South African references to see if it's suitable for your currency. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Funny enough my dad still has a boxed version of QuickBooks 3 with manuals, on the original floppies! Hmmm...I see TurboCash on the list of open source software and surprise surprise, it is a South African developed package. I'll give it a try as well as get some feedback from friends. Just a quick response to some posts: I'm just looking for software to "keep the books" of the organisation, not necessarily compile tax-compliant documentation with it at the end of the financial year. That we still leave to an external accountant to do for us, it is more for keeping track of day-today monies and accounts, issuing of invoices and making sure the books balance at the end of the year when we hand the statements to the accountant for auditing and tax filing. And trust me, we're not gonna spend any money on this. We are a small organisation comprised of only volunteers, doing it in our free time for the love of it. Thanks everyone for their suggestions, marking this as resolved. Zunaid 17:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

SARS has some free software, check "easybooks" on their website. Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 11:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Does warcraft 3 work on vista?

Especially the expansion. --Mudupie (talk) 10:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it does. decltype (talk) 10:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Want to create a paper forms designer - best way to do it?

Paper forms are still very useful. As I cannot find any freeware to do this, I'm interested in creating a stand-alone program myself. Consider the example of a piece of paper with regular vertical and horizontal blue lines on it forming many squares. My idea would be to be able to click on-screen on the sides of the squares so that they change to heavy black lines. And to be able to position text wherever I like (an easier-to-program variant could be one character per cell). The black lines and the text would be saved as a template and printed out. What would be the easiest way of creating the above - I am only familiar with BASIC, but I think some basics designed for making games might perhaps be able to do this, although they may not be orientated to printing. Any suggestions about the best way to do it please? 92.24.99.195 (talk) 12:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

This sounds to me to be a good example of a task where writing a program would be overkill. If you add up the time spent writing and debugging such a program and the time for each user to install it, learn how to use it, upgrade it, and the inevitable inflexibility of any program, these cost would likely outweigh any benefits. I'd just create a Microsoft Word template with the company logo on it, or something like that. That way, if they know how to use Word, they can create any form they want. StuRat (talk) 12:49, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, a program is the only way to make absolutely certain that the blanks for each answer are less than 1/10th as long a they need to be, which, as any forms designer knows, is an absolute necessity. If you disagree, please explain your reasoning here: __.  :-) StuRat (talk) 12:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

That's not enough room to leave a reasonable answer! Nimur (talk) 13:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that in this instance, it's not worth it, but in general, it would be nice if such software was easily available, because Microsoft Word is a horrible form designer and people are constantly using it to make horrible forms because they lack other alternatives. (Or even worse, they use Excel, which is a horrible, horrible idea.) A freeware form designer that could export to PDF (and allow it to be "editable"), or to HTML, would be wonderful. Alas, as StuRat says, it would take a lot of work to get going right. It's not a good one-man project unless you have got a year to kill. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

What is horrible is that people use only the most basic features of Microsoft Office - and the results are unusable forms. In all seriousness, Word or Excel can be used to make excellent forms - for both digital or paper use. But, it requires some technical savvy. Microsoft provides examples you can download and several tutorials for Excel and other Microsoft Office tools. Learn how to do this "right" - learning how to use the existing tools properly would be a better investment of time than writing software from scratch. Nimur (talk) 14:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Except that Excel and Word don't even port well between the same versions on the same computers—much less other versions, or other operating systems (I can't download any of those demos, since they've conveniently wrapped them in EXEs, and I'm on a Mac). (And not all of those examples look like the same kinds of "forms" we are talking about here — they are "forms" in the sense of MS Access data entry user interfaces... not the same thing as what most people want when they want to use Word to design a form!) There are professional form designing tools that let people create straightforward forms; offices use them all the time. Word and Excel are not very good at this, even when used "correctly", in my opinion. I agree that writing software from scratch is not a time-efficient idea. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I am sure it would not take a year to do. The idea with freeware is altruism - other people will find it useful too. All it needs is an array for the edges-of-the-squares, another for the strings, a routine to print this to the screen/window, a routine to change the square-edges according to mouse clicks, a routine to change the strings, and then a routine to compile the two arrays into a bitmap image which if required could be converted into other formats probably by pre-existing freeware. 92.26.174.34 (talk) 18:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it would take a year for one programmer to make something that other people would find useful, something that would be generally useful and not just useful for your specific need. I think you underestimate the difficulty in making something that requires flexibility in the user interface (which a decent form designer would), and the amount of time it would require (assuming you aren't doing this full time), the amount of debugging required, etc. It's easy to imagine a program that would let you easily create elements of a form and adjust them as need be—in practice, juggling form elements is not easy. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Take a year to make something useful? Nonsense! These for example did not take a year: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/ 78.149.255.35 (talk) 22:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

...and none of those have the complexity of what the above program would require. This isn't just providing a window for some standard API call. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

That seems like the philosophy behind Bloatware. I prefer TinyApps. 78.146.56.252 (talk) 15:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

If you insist on making it yourself, then python and the gnome libraries, especially gtk and cairo are worth of taking a look at. But you'll quickly find it's good only from an educational point of view (not that bad, it is the 21st century, after all) and that you're just duplicating some previous work documented on <editor here> manual page ???. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 19:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Really, the problem with this as an open-source project is that while it's certainly true that one person working for a year can make a form designer - but when it's "out there" people will complain that it doesn't support 12 different languages including the ones that run right-to-left - that it doesn't support the right paper sizes, that it doesn't have a spelling corrector or a grammar corrector and that it can't output in 43 different file formats or do it in color...and on and on and on. And for all those reasons, they'll carry on using Word or OpenOffice because, despite the few specific limitations they have for making forms - they are both better text entry and formatting machines than a one-man-year project is ever likely to be. Also, most OpenSource projects come about because the person doing the work actually needs the program for his/her own use. A rational human being would look at the man-year of effort and realise that never, in their entire lives, are they going to spend an entire year making forms...and they'll go off and work on something more interesting. What is much more likely is that someone might make some new functions as a 'plugin' to an existing OpenSource project (OpenOffice would be a good candidate) to extend it to make producing forms easier. That's something that could maybe be done in a couple of weeks by someone who understood OpenOffice's structure already. SteveBaker (talk) 00:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

A year is a gross overestimate. A fancy all-singing all-dancing piece of bloatware is not what I have in mind. You earn your living by freelance programming, that is what I'd expect you to say. 78.146.199.239 (talk) 14:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

By this logic it sounds gpaint would be ideal for you. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

A paint program would be too much, but this tinyapp called Eve here http://www.goosee.com/ looks like it could make forms quite easily. 78.151.92.101 (talk) 23:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I've just discovered the Rebol language, which looks like it may be suitable for writing this in, and seems easier to learn and more powerful (more done in less code) than Python. For anyonme interested see the absolute beginners tutorial http://www.musiclessonz.com/rebol_tutorial.html including the kids tutorial. Unfortunately the Wikipedia Rebol article is just a dry technical description that makes Rebol seem a completely uninteresting langusge. 78.146.204.147 (talk) 15:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Special characters missing on Firefox

Following this discussion about Gothic characters, I was advised to turn to the reference desk for my question. Despite me using Firefox the HTML-Gothic characters are still just shown as squares, what do I need to do to be able to have those characters display correctly? (I am using Windows XP, and I gather that it might be a Windows setting that could be the culprit, instead of the browser, but other than that I haven't got a clue how to fix it). --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Do I understand correctly that you've already installed a unicode font containing the Gothic character set as recommended on the helpdesk? Nil Einne (talk) 15:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I must admit that I have not noticed any mention of downloading fonts. Do I have to manually download a font each time I encounter the square thingy? --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

First, the character that you inputted is U+1D583 (𝖃), the mathematical bold Fraktur captital x. The Gothic letter that you are most likely looking for is U+10347 (𐍇)

Secondly, the newness of your system is fairly irrelevant. The issue is that you do not have an appropriate font to display either character. Take a look at here and here to locate applicable fonts. Regards, Bendono (talk) 15:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have downloaded the Code2001 font from the link you provided. But I am at an loss at how to install it. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:45, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at this. Please note that what you downloaded is a ZIP file. You will first need to decompress it before installing the font. Bendono (talk) 16:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I had to find the XP How-to, but other than that it went smoothly, and I can now see the Gothic characters shown on the help desk. Thanks a lot for your excellent guidance. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Our senor prank idea

Do you think it would be possible to hack into our security cameras, if so how?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 16:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

They are probably controlled by a computer on your network, so you need to gain access to that machine, but how difficult this will be depends on how good your security is, and how good a hacker you are! In many countries, hacking is now illegal. Dbfirs 17:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I hope you're under 18, because if you're not a minor, you could go to jail for a very long time. Just joking, man. You won't be able to hack into those cameras. If you did, then you could go to jail, but this isn't the 1990s, when teenagers could do that kind of stuff. Your best bet is probably a wireless exploit. There are books just on wireless hacking that you might want to read before asking any questions in a forum. Wi-Foo: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking is one. Nowadays, most hackers work for organized-crime syndicates in Russia and have years of experience. It takes them days of non-stop testing to break into that kind of stuff, today. I'm not even going to try to answer your question here. It's not like we can just give you a password or something. That's not how it works.--Drknkn (talk) 17:17, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Depending on the system they have in place it may or may not be controlled by computer. Also many systems are encrypted by default, so you will have an extra layer of security to get through before you can even view the feed. If your prank involves changing what the security cameras are seeing by "hijacking" the video feed and changing it, then there's some bad news... it's not as simple as the movies make it look, but it is certainly possible with somewhat expensive equipment and an extensive level of knowlege in the specific system being used. That said, any tampering with the security system at your school could be considered a very severe violation, and the consequences of doing so are not negated because you're leaving soon. I reccomend you stick to something simple and lighthearted that both doesn't cost the school money to fix and is creative enough that people will remember what you did 206.131.39.6 (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no way to answer this question, because we don't know what "your security cameras" are; and you don't define what "hacking into the camera" means. Nimur (talk) 19:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend against messing with school security systems... If you are caught in the attempt, you would be arrested, and the penalties would be quite severe, as you would be creating a security vulnerability for the school and students. Think about getting your GED in jail. Senior pranks sound like a lot of fun, and if you do them right, I'm sure they can be, but college/getting out into the real world is just as fun if you didn't do a senior prank in high school. Try going for something a that is mildly disruptive but not at all harmful or risky. I can think of two, and I did mention them, but decided that Wikipedia probably isn't a good place to advocate specific school pranks. Falconus^{p t c} 20:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You don't say what you're trying to do. Are you trying to disable the cameras? (A power failure might do it.) Are you trying to replace the camera's feed with a previously recorded video? Or are you trying to get access to the footage yourself?

If you're trying to get access to the footage yourself, there's a (very small) chance that the system is wireless and unencrypted, and this could be done with a video scanner, but I wouldn't bet on it. Most security cameras are wired and closed circuit, which means that you won't be able to see the feed, or modify the feed without physically patching in to the cables and plugging in a VCR or something.

If you're just trying to get a copy of the feed, consider the low-tech approach of pointing a camera in the window of the security office. APL (talk) 21:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

PowerPoint 2007 and ignoring mouse clicks

I'm creating a PowerPoint 2007 presentation, and I want nothing to occur in slideshow mode when I click. How do I do this? (Currently I am creating various invisible, hyperlinked rectangles on each slide for navigation. I can create an invisible rectangle in back of all objects on the slide with a hyperlink that points to itself, but this is tedious because I have to change the hyperlink on each slide to point to that slide; although the hyperlinks dialog box has built-in convenient hyperlinks like "Previous Page" and "Next Page", there is no convenient "This Page" link, so currently I have to go to slide 127 and point the hyperlink to 127.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Answered my own question. The "Animation" tab has an easy-to-find checkbox in the ribbon called "Advance on mouse click". Unchecking the checkbox does what I want. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Trying to find CORBA service in implementation shipped with Sun JDK 1.6

Does the ORB that comes with Sun Java 1.6 implement Persistent State Service (PSS)? Any code examples on the web? Thanks. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 19:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes; and take a look at the CORBA documentation and the CORBA book, Chapter 11 (and keep in mind that there may be changes since 1.4.0). Also, are you using J2SE or J2EE? Nimur (talk) 19:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! J2SE 20.137.18.50 (talk) 11:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Research on a company

How do I find out about a company named IAG (www.infoadvisory.com) on Wikipedia? Nothing seems listed.74.202.65.116 (talk) 20:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

After glancing at their website, I am guessing the company does not meet Wikipedia's minimum threshold for notability, and therefore has no article (and will not have one unless and until it meets that threshold). WP:CORP is the policy page outlining notability for corporations and companies. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Networking/file sharing question

My landlord has an open/unsecure internet connection through the house. I connect my PC wirelessly to the network/internet. 1) She would like to know if there is way where she can only allow residents of the building to have access and 2) Is there a way I can allow the users to access my music files - not being able to delete or add or alter them in any way, but a way I can let them listen to my music? I trust all of my neighbors, but I know mistakes happen. I realize more info may be needed to answer this question, so I will answer the questions the best I can. Thank you all in advance. --67.85.117.190 (talk) 21:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Everything you want is doable with passwords and access rights. It's best if read it yourself: https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/serverguide/C/samba-fileserver.html. I can't find microsoft's documentation as google gives me random trash, but I'm sure it exists. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 21:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC) There it is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304040. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 22:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You could enable WEP or WPA encryption in the router. You'd log into the router using your web browser. Linksys is http://192.168.1.1 (password: admin), Belkins are http://192.168.2.1, and D-Links are http://192.168.0.1 (username: Admin). You then create either a WEP or WPA key that residents have to enter before connecting to the network. Once they're connected, Windows will remember the key, so they'll only need to enter it once. As for file-sharing, you disable simple-file sharing in the folder options inside the control panel, then right-click on the folder or drive you want to share and select the "Sharing" tab. The person who wants to access the folder needs your IP address, which you can find by going to the command prompt and typing ipconfig. If you shared your C drive, and your IP address were 192.168.0.1, then the address would be \\192.168.0.1\C$.--Drknkn (talk) 00:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

WPA encryption on the router, and she gives everyone the password (which with WPA can be some easy to remember phrase, not a long string of hex values). Easy-peasy. As for sharing music, iTunes allows you to do that pretty easily, if you're interested in using that. It won't let anybody copy the music or modify it, but they can listen to it just fine if you enable them to. It's a bit easier than setting up file sharing, and if they use iTunes, it's super easy for them to browse your collection (I haven't used it in awhile, but it's easy to see who is sharing on your local network). --Mr.98 (talk) 02:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

October 14

Long email

I can only see 768k of an email (no attachments). Is there a way to load it in Word? Clarityfiend (talk) 02:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

What e-mail program are you using? What happens when you choose "Save As" in your e-mail program and then open the resulting file with Word? Tempshill (talk) 04:15, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It's hotmail. When I try to print to file, it says I can't save it for some reason, but oddly enough, it then displays the entire message in a new window, so that's fine. Go figure. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Portable web design software with tag suggestion ability?

One thing I love about Dreamweaver is how it automatically brings up a list of possible values for each tag you create. I'd never be able to remember all of those otherwise.

I'm looking at portable (run from USB) software to use when I'm away from home (& my Dreamweaver) but am having trouble finding any that offers this feature. Programmer's Notepad seems awfully nice, but I'll be seriously hamstrung if I don't have that helpful recommendation feature...

I realize this is somewhat of an IO (idiot operator) problem, but hopefully there's a sympathetic sort out there who is equally reliant on those context-sensitive recommendations when they code who can help me find the right app!

Thank you, 218.25.32.210 (talk) 03:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

You can use VMWare's ThinApp to create your own portable version of Dreamweaver. The last time I used it, ThinApp was freely downloadable as a free trial. Like most VMWare products, it is very easy to use. Many people have already made portable versions of Dreamweaver. Just Google it, and you'll see what I mean.--Drknkn (talk) 03:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Any quick way to download the text from a series of html pages?

I want to download the text from these pages http://algoma.concat.ca/opac/extras/opensearch/1.1/-/html-full?searchTerms=Office+management&searchClass=subject and save it in one text file, so that I can study it at my leisure. Is there any quick way to do it please, rather than manually downloading and copying all 21 pages? 78.146.56.252 (talk) 15:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Both wget and cURL are available for many standard computing platforms. They can help automate your task. If you prefer a browser plugin instead of a standalone software tool, you can look at DownThemAll! for Firefox. Many other tools exist. To merge all the files to a single file, you might want to use the cat (Unix) tool, or its equivalent on Windows (TYPE (DOS command)). (e.g. the command line "cat *.html > merged.html" will merge the files.) Merging HTML files might cause weird rendering artifacts depending on how you choose to view the file. Nimur (talk) 18:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The text I added to this seems to have disappeared. What I wrote was that wget just downloads every link (and every book record has several links), despite restricting it to down-the-tree only. Is there any way to get it or cURL to just follow the "next page" only please? 92.29.57.166 (talk) 00:01, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

A good back-up Wikipedia edit counter

This one is perfect except that it sometimes goes down for days at a time: [1]

Is there a comparable one that anyone knows about? I've Googled to no avail. Vranak (talk) 15:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

How about WikiChecker? It's a bit slow and the English is...interesting, but at least it always works. Xenon54 / talk / 15:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. Vranak (talk) 16:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Changing File Extension Changes File Type?

My friend changed a file extension from .png to .jpg by renaming the file and actually by doing so managed to change the file type from .png to .jpg. She showed me the screenshot of the 'properties' box and indeed the file type had been changed, however I was unable to do it even after repeating the exact same procedure that she had performed. We are both on Vista but can't work out why she can do it but I can't (to be honest, I never ever thought it was possible anyway, and this is why I asked her to show me the screenshot mentioned above). Can anyone work out what I am doing wrong? I think I should mention that my file ended up being called 'XXXX.jpg.png'. (Also, there are plenty of other ways to do this, many of which I am aware of, I am just asking this question to see if and how our systems are different). --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 18:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

A file name does not necessarily match the actual file type. Changing the extension (which is just a special case of renaming the file) categorically does not change the file's contents on any operating system (including Windows Vista). It is remotely possible that your friend has installed some custom, third-party shell extension that does a file-type conversion when it detects a file rename, but this is very unlikely.

This being said, it is also important to know that the "reported" file type also does not necessarily match the actual file contents. (So when you click on a file and it "claims" to be a PNG file - that may be an incorrect claim. It depends on what method is used to verify the file type). Some simple programs simply check the file extension (so they are easily fooled). Certain Windows components also rely exclusively on this method. In that case, changing the extension will cause the reported file type to show up differently (though the actual file type has not changed). Further, because both PNG and JPG are images, Windows Vista handles them similarly - typically passing them to an image viewing program when they are double-clicked (for example). That image-viewer program probably does a more thorough file-type check - ignoring the mismatch between file extension and actually reading the binary contents to determine the correct way to display the image. So, an incorrectly named JPEG image file which is named as if it were a PNG might claim (to the Windows Explorer shell) to be a PNG - and when you click it, it may open up and display properly - but it is still a JPEG image. If you want to verify, you can open the file with a hex editor and see if it contains the JFIF header; or take the MD5 hash of the file (which takes no notice of the file name or "extension") to see if the renaming actually made any change to the file contents. Nimur (talk) 18:50, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The "type of file" displayed in the File Properties window is determined by the extension. For example, I just changed a file 26av500u.pdf and renamed it to 26av500u.jpg and Windows now thinks it's a JPEG file. That doesn't mean it can be opened by Windows Photo Gallery, or anything else expecting an actual JPEG file. I also experimented with a PNG and was able to open the JPEG version, however that just mean that Photo Gallery is smart enough to read the file header instead of relying on the extension. --LarryMac | Talk 18:53, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

This is why for many years the convention on Unix was to avoid "file extensions" altogether - and rely exclusively on correct parsing of the file to verify that it was a valid, properly-formed member of whatever type. However, this has given way to the file extension convention, which is very convenient for both human and machine "first-pass" file type detection. Nimur (talk) 18:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

On windows, the file extension (the part after the ".") is how Windows identifies file type. If you change the extension, Windows will change the file type. However, that doesn't change the file contents at all. Despite its file type, the file is still a JPG image, though you might encounter some difficulties opening it with some programs.

One thing to consider, perhaps your friend opened the JPG image in an image editor, then resaved it as a PNG image. In that case, the file will really be a PNG image.

Note that you can also get some odd behavoir if you have "Hide extensions for known filetypes" ticked in your folder options. If you were to rename the JPG image "example" to "example.png", then that would not change the file type at all (what you would actually have done is renamed "example.jpg" to "example.png.jpg"). Windows only takes notice of the last extension when determining the file type. Astronaut (talk) 19:15, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I remember that misfeature being the source of a security hole a while back where you would get an email containing the evil program "agent-scully-naked.gif.exe", but Windows tells you it's a GIF, and clicky clicky. --Sean 19:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thnaks a lot, but just to clarify, we both used Jing to make the file, and the default output of Jing is .png. She changed her file to .jpg simply by right-clicking and renaming it. In her properties box, it then said the file was a .jpg. I did exactly the same things as her (using the same software) and got the result above. I guessed it may be because of the 'file extension displayed/not displayed' thingy, but have not so far worked out how to get them displayed in order to test that theory. Can anyone point the way for me there? --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 19:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

From Control Panel, open Folder Options. On the View tab there is a check box for "Hide extensions for known file types". Clear this box, then Click OK. --LarryMac | Talk 19:38, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you! Plus, it worked. The file I just tried it on is now a .jpg rather than a .png, as it was previously. Thank you. This answers my query perfectly. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 20:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. If you have used your image creation software to make a PNG and then renamed the file to use the extension .jpg, the file will still be a PNG. Windows will tell you it's a JPEG, since it only uses the extension to determine the file type. Leaving a PNG file with a .jpg extension isn't a terribly good idea, since there will be programs that understand the JPEG format but not PNG and these will try, but fail, to open the file. You can prove this by renaming the file to something like .txt and seeing what happens. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:57, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You cannot actually change the file data by changing the filename extension. It just will not occur. A PNG and a JPEG do not have identical bits. A image with an incorrect extension may still open—if the program opening it is both intelligent about how it determines file types (not relying on the extension) and can open the actual type in question. But renaming files is NOT a way to convert them between types AT ALL and should really NOT be done—it is a horrible practice. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:57, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

impotance of newtwork

what is the importance and application of network? what are the research area for the network? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aqdusnoor (talk • contribs) 18:46, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The reference desk will not do your homework for you. Take a look at the network disambiguation page and pick the type of network your question is about. Come back here if you have a specific area of difficulty and can show that you have at least tried to do your own homework. Astronaut (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

wikt:Network may also be of limited use in giving you a broad brush definition. Otherwise, I concur with Astronaut, can you be a bit more specific? - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 19:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Intel i7 vs Core 2's in MacBooks

Generalizing, are the new Intel i7 based laptops faster than MacBook Pros running on Core 2's? Is it safe to assume that the next generation of MacBooks will have i7 processors? Acceptable (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Intel's intention is, eventually, to replace all core2 architecture products with a core-i7 (Nehalem) product, although they'll degrade and downbrand some as i3 and i5. If the i7 product rollout goes like core and core2 did, there will be a considerable (maybe 12 or 18 month) period of overlap, where they make a core2 and a Nehalem chip in much the same space, and manufacturers will typically push Nehalem down the product line. Apple evidently like to keep an offering near the top end of the performance line; whether the very next iteration of a given Apple product will have i7 depends on how they feel about what Intel's offering is at that time, and the price and volume deals they can get from Intel. Manufacturers are loath to leave a large gap between iterations, waiting for a supplier (Intel in this case) to ship in volume before they can; so they'll be very tempted to put out product with the latest incremental improvement of core2 in the meantime. So, generalizing, I think not (or not all). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:32, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It's also a function of the new chip's thermal properties; if the new chip dissipates the same heat, and through the same interface, as the core2 equivalent, then it's much easier to fit it into a variant of an existing chassis. If the new thing (and its associated chipset and any voltage-regulation circuitry it needs nearby) dissipates significantly more heat, or in different places, then they'd need a new design, FloTHERM it, and retool for the modified chassis - if it's a big job, they might miss a schedule and have to ship a core2 in the interim. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Template for struct array

I have a shuffle function in C++ that takes an array of Card structs. It is just "void shuffle(Card cards[], int size);" The size is the size of the array. This function works fine. I wanted to template it so I could shuffle any array. So, I wrote:

template <class T>
void shuffle(T items[], int size);

When I try to compile, it fails. I have "shuffle(cards, 52);" which worked before. Now the compiler says there is no match for shuffle<Cards>(Cards *[52], int). What am I doing wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.43.242.174 (talk) 22:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

While you wait for a C++ expert to come along, check out Wikipedia:Reference desk/How to ask a software question. Also, I think you'll find that declaring it as shuffle(T *items, int size) will work, though I'm not sure that that's your problem since I can't see your code. Also, see here for the STL-ish way to shuffle an array. --Sean 23:38, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know T items[] is legal and equivalent to T* items even when T is a template parameter, but try T* items to see if it makes your compiler happier. Template functions need to be defined (not just declared) in every compilation unit where they're used, so if you really just have a prototype like the one you wrote above, you need to change that to a definition. -- BenRG (talk) 23:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The following C++ code compiles without warning or error. Perhaps this is what you are trying to do:

struct Card
{
  int value;
  char suit;
};
template <typename T>
void shuffle(T c[], int s)
{
  // Just show usage to avoid warnings.
  c[0] = c[1];
  s++;
}
int main()
{
  Card c[52];
  shuffle(c, 52);
  return 0;
}

-- kainaw™ 01:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

That works, but not when I put shuffle in shuffle.cpp and main in main.cpp. I get "main.cpp:(.text+0x1c): undefined reference to `void shuffle<Card>(Card*, int)'". I have main.h with the struct definition, main.cpp with the main function, shuffle.h with the template prototype, and shuffle.cpp with the shuffle function. 67.43.242.174 (talk) 01:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Template functions will throw linker errors if they are not in the same logical file as the file that uses them. So, you have a couple choices: Put the entire definition of shuffle in shuffle.h or have main.h include shuffle.cpp directly. -- kainaw™ 02:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Or add one or more explicit instantiation directives to shuffle.cpp. But see below. decltype (talk) 06:27, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

First of all, there is no need to pass the size as a parameter, because it is known to the compiler. Second, per BenRG, declaring a function parameter of type "array of T" is equivalent to "pointer to T". In fact,

void f(int arr[]);
void f(int * ptr) { }
int main() { int n; f(&n); }

is well-formed. What you actually want is to pass the array by reference. Since the size of the array is known by the compiler, it can be deduced. This leaves us with:

#include <algorithm>
template<typename T, unsigned N>
void shuffle( T(&arr)[N])
{
  std::random_shuffle(arr, arr+N);
}

Since the C++ Standard Library provides an excellent shuffle implementation, this function is just a convenience wrapper around that. You may want to consider dropping the function in favor of simply using random_shuffle directly:

#include <algorithm>
int main() 
{ 
  typedef int Card; // for convenience
  const int Size = 52;
  Card arr[Size] = {};
  std::random_shuffle( arr, arr + Size); 
}

Regards, decltype (talk) 06:27, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Using wget and cURL for Windows - what folder do they download things into???

I've put wget into the c:\windows folder as suggested. It has downloaded some pages. But I've got absolutely no idea where on my computer they have been downloaded to, as the manual is perplexingly silent on this. They are not at c:\windows nor are they at c:\. I also need to ask the same question for cUrl, as the documentation for that does not tell you where things are downloaded to either. Why is this obviously needed information missed out? 92.29.57.166 (talk) 23:38, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I have only used wget for Linux... However, you might try searching the entire system for one or more of the filenames that you downloaded. If they are there, a search should turn them up and tell you where they are.

I have no idea what the filenames are. 92.29.57.166 (talk) 00:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Normally the files end up in the current directory. That might be c:\Documents and Settings\your user name (XP) or c:\Users\your user name (Vista). In the future you should probably open a command prompt and cd to the directory you want before running wget. -- BenRG (talk) 00:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

If you run it with the -O switch, you can specify the filename to use. All the options are displayed if you use --help. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:48, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

October 15

Length of address

Is there a technical limitation to the length of an email address or URL? Dismas|^(talk) 00:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Per RFC 3986, "should limit these names to no more than 255 characters in length." [2] I don't know what would happen if you had more than 255 characters. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

That's referring to the DNS machine name. I don't think there's any defined limit on URL length. An HTML form with method GET works by appending all of the form data to the URL, which can make extremely long URLs. Various browsers and servers impose randomly-chosen limits, though (possibly outdated list here). RFC 5321 limits the local part of an email address (before the @) to 64 octets and the domain part (after the @) to 255 octets. -- BenRG (talk) 10:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Flash

Is there a way to view the text file of Flash files? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 01:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking about the source code? Most flash source files are in the .fla format, which isn't text, but binary (zeros and ones). You need a flash decompiler to get those files. Some people use Flex, which is plain-text XML that you compile into Flash. But most of the time, you work on .fla files and sometimes .as files (which are plain text, but don't work without a .fla file). You need Adobe Flash Professional to open .fla files, by the way.--Drknkn (talk) 01:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

What happened to the doppler loop radar gadgets on igoogle?

I've had a doppler loop radar gadget (or widget, if the term is preferable) on my igoogle page for months until today,centered on my hometown. Suddenly, it no longer worked as of today. As a result, I went searching for another one and either a) The gadget has been disabled and is no longer available or b) It is not a true loop radar display that shows the progression of rain etc. but rather a static display that updates perhaps every hour if I hit "refresh." Anyone else having this problem? Any explanations? Any solutions other than the NWS site? I loved having that gadget on my igoogle page!--Myersdtm (talk) 03:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Online translators for long documents?

Does anyone know where I can find Online translators for long documents? Google and babelfish only translate a certain portion of long websites. --Gary123 (talk) 03:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Google developed its own translator, but Yahoo apparently licensed Systran software, which offers paid home versions; maybe those would work with longer web pages. A clumsy workaround could be that you could view the source of the web page and split it up yourself into 3 (or 5, or 100) equal parts, and then post those pages yourself on your own website, perhaps hosted by sites.google.com, for your own personal use. View with the translator websites that you already know about, then delete them after you've viewed the translated pages. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to navigate NYT.com without registering?

This is a deceptively difficult question --

You know how when you access NYT.com articles through news.google.com, you aren't asked for your password; but when you access the same article through the NYT.com site, you're asked for your password?

I'm not a techie, but I assume this is because news.google.com generates a special hyperlink which NYT.com recognizes and so grants access without a password.

If this is true, it must be possible to write a Firefox extension or greasemonkey script that permits the following: you browse the NYT.com site directly, and when you click on the link to the article, it replaces the link with the news.google.com version of the link, and then you can get in without registering.

And if it POSSIBLE, then it must have been done.

My question is, Where do I find it? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 03:34, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

It appears that it's checking the HTTP Referer: header to see if it comes from news.google.com. You could install the RefControl extension and tell it to send http://news.google.com/news/search to www.nytimes.com. -- BenRG (talk) 10:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Another option is to use http://bugmenot.com. --Sean 13:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Powerpoint runs, but can't find my monitor. Seriously.

Yesterday I developed this bizarre new problem: Powerpoint (2003) runs, but appears to be running in some other display space. Keyboard commands work, but I can't see anything. I can switch between applications, bring Powerpoint into focus, and even pull down menus... but I can't see the Powerpoint window other than those menus. The slideshow mode works fine, however. On starting Powerpoint, the splash screen flashes on for a fraction of a second, and then vanishes off into its mystery display space.

A picture illustrates the problem. Here's Powerpoint running and in focus (note that it is highlighted on the taskbar) As you see, I can pull down menus by using the appropriate key combinations; note that all menus start at the top left of the screen (ordinarily the menu shown here would be docked to the top menu bar somewhere in the top middle of the screen): [3]

I have in the last week or so been using an external monitor (attached to my Thinkpad laptop) with the Windows desktop extended onto it. That has always worked fine. It is not connected now, and the Display settings show it not to be connected. I have rebooted a number of times since then. I do not have this problem with any other application (Word and Excel are perfectly fine).

I'm on Win XP SP2, Office 2003. Unfortunately, I bought this computer over 5 years ago and have moved a number of times since; I no longer have an Office installation CD.

Any comments or hints would be very welcome! thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.45.43 (talk) 03:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like it just got moved off your screen. There is a Windows keyboard shortcut to force the active window to slide into the main viewable screen. I don't know what it is (since I haven't used Windows in about 15 years). If you Google for that shortcut (or someone here knows it), I think it will make your window appear where you expect it to be. -- kainaw™ 03:57, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Press Alt+Space, then select Move. Press an arrow key on the keyboard to attach the window to the mouse pointer. Move the mouse (or use the arrow keys) to position the window, then click the mouse (or press Enter) to drop the window where you want it. --Bavi H (talk) 04:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice. That was it exactly, but I couldn't for the life of me find it. Thank you both! 24.0.45.43 (talk) 04:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Google for an application called "Pitaschio". It has many nifty features (including making your desktop icons appear as a list). One of the features it has is "place window only on screen" which doesn't allow any edge of any window to leave the boundaries of the screen. (It's annoying with multiple monitors though, it won't let a window straddle the two monitors. Zunaid 19:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

How can I record a landline phone call using my PC?

It is legal to record certain phone calls where I live. So. Is there software or a device I can use to record calls made to or from my landline using my PC? 207.216.177.88 (talk) 06:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you can do that with a Voice Modem and the appropriate software. Other hardware will also let you do it (again with call recording software. If you're looking for a commercial product designed to do exactly what you want, they exist. I found this one by searching Google for phone conversation recorders (I know nothing about this product, it's just the first one I found). Many of the results don't involve your PC, but some do. –RHolton≡– 11:27, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I have something very small and simple (no batteries etc) that plugs between the phone line and the telephone, with a small 'jack' that can plug into a tape recorder or the audio socket of a computer. Cost about £1. 92.29.118.227 (talk) 11:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Online game lagging

Is there any way ISP's can fix this by providing more bandwidth?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 13:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

"Lag" can be caused by many things, including network latency, game server compute-overload, your CPU or graphics card overload, etc. If network latency (specifically, between your system and the server) is the bottleneck, then increasing the bandwidth from your ISP might reduce the lag that you experience. Whether this is possible depends on the technical and economic situation of your ISP in your area. Nimur (talk) 13:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You can't always reduce latency by increasing bandwidth. If a network link is congested (too busy), then increasing bandwidth will reduce latency. But if you're just trying to communicate with a server on the other side of the planet, all the bandwidth in the world will not bring your latency down -- the speed of light is your foe, not congestion. --FOo (talk) 17:02, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

"Lag" is a kinda fuzzy term - "Bandwidth" and "Latency" are better precisely because their meanings don't overlap. Consider, for example, if you want to send a LOT of data to a friend on the other side of town. You could send it over the Internet - or you could write it onto a bunch of memory cards, put them into the back of your car - and drive over to your friends house. Now - the amount of data you can cram into the back of your car in micro-xD memory cards is spectacular - a petabyte maybe. The amount of time it would take to send a petabyte over the Internet would be measured in years! So the bandwidth of your car is vastly better than the Internet. But the latency of your car is awful - it takes half an hour to get across town even if you only need to send one byte! So if you want to send a 10 line email - then, because the latency, the Internet is a better choice. (See: Sneakernet and a real-world experiment to prove that a carrier pidgeon with a memory stick strapped to it's leg had better bandwidth than the Telkom ISP!)

The amount of "Lag" in the system is composed in part by a lack of bandwidth and in part by too much latency. When you are waiting for (say) a movie to download - then certainly a lack of bandwidth is the most likely reason it's lagging your expectations. But if you clicked on a link to a small page on a (mostly) text-only web site like the one you're reading now - then any lag is most likely due to a latency - and increasing the available bandwidth probably wouldn't help much...just as carrying that 10 line email across town isn't going to go any quicker if you drive it there in your car - or in an 18 wheel truck - because while the truck has much better bandwidth than your car - it's irrelevent because they both have the same horrible latency.

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." —Tanenbaum

SteveBaker (talk) 14:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

What to do with a Toshiba Satellite 105CS?

I've recently been given a Toshiba Satellite 105CS. This is a very old laptop: Pentium 75Mhz, 16Kb cache, 500 Mb hard drive, no CD, 1 3.5" floppy drive, and only 8 MB of RAM (not a typo; 8192 kilobytes!). There's also no OS installed. There is a dual PC card slot, and I received with it a 28.8 kbps FAX/modem card.

I'm scratching my head about what to do with this beast without spending money. Yes, I could trash/recycle it, but I'd rather try to do something useful or fun. I'd love to learn to work with a flavor of Linux (I worked with MS-DOS and lived through Win3.1, Win95, Win98, Win2K, WinXP. Before DOS I worked with RT-11 and even CP/M). However, I have available a floppy-based install for MS-DOS 6.22, and a CD for Win2K that I'm not currently using. I may even have an old Win98 installation. And I have the (increasing rare) PC with a 3.5 floppy, so I can write to those. And, of course, access to the Internet.

Any suggestions? –RHolton≡– 13:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

NetBSD[4] should run on that processor/memory setup[5]; it will boot from a floppy, though the laptop hardware may not be supported. The low memory looks like being a problem for most other Unix-like OSes: FreeBSD[6], DSL[7], Gentoo[8] and Devil[9] seem to need more RAM. I'm sure other people know more, though. --Nigelpackham (talk) 14:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

First, I would try it with the DOS 6.22. That should let you check the components still work. Alternatively, you could try some Linux installs but you would need to get them copied to a floppy disk somehow. How about looking for CP/M stuff on eBay? Astronaut (talk) 09:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I do not know if MenuetOS would work, but it is incredibly small at 61kb. See http://www.goosee.com/menuetos/index.html and the MenuetOS article. See also the Floppy Disk Distributions listed at Mini Linux; and also BasicLinux

. 78.147.27.136 (talk) 13:08, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Once you've got an OS on it, laptops make great photoframes, especially one with 500Meg HDD. Josh Parris 20:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all for your suggestions. And please keep them coming! –RHolton≡– 00:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Web bots

How hard is it to lean how to make one?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 13:42, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You typically need to know a programming language - preferably one that has convenient standard libraries for working with web-based data (such as perl, or Java, but many others are also suitable). You need to know something about the technical structure of HTML (and often XML); and you should know something about the technical structure of HTTP and the way that web server software handles requests. If you have no specific task in mind yet, these articles will probably be the best places to start. Nimur (talk) 13:55, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, what language should I begin? Ie, what is the easiest to learn?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 14:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

It depends on what you want to do, but a scripting language like perl or python or PHP are all easily adaptable to making web bots without a huge amount of programming knowledge. They also have libraries that make certain tasks easier (e.g. PHP has Snoopy which lets you really easily simulate browser activity without having to really get into the nitty-gritty of forming your own HTTP headers from scratch). --Mr.98 (talk) 14:53, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Rebol seems able to do web-based things very easily and concisely. The Wikipedia article is far too abstract but the tutorial for Absolute Beginners is good. 78.151.83.175 (talk) 00:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Modern War Simulator

Is there any Modern War Simulator wich allows the player to control veichles, infarny and jet-planes, and has a campaign map like in Imperial Glory? --81.227.64.69 (talk) 15:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots is a few years old but still fun in multiplayer or solo mode. Nimur (talk) 16:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

World In Conflict is an Real-time strategy modern war simulation where you can control vehicles, infantry, helicopters, and artillery (as well as a number of off-map units such as longer range artillery and planes (and the odd nuke!)), but I don't know how it compares to Imperial Glory in terms of similarity. It's one of my current favourite games, anyway (as will probably have been noticed by regular readers here!). --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 16:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

(EDIT) What I can say is that there is no campaign map per se, and the player basically just follows a series of scenarios to make up a story. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 16:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The open source Warzone 2100 is fun, even if it's aging and the pathfinding AI is a bit thick. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 17:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I highly, highly, highly recommend Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. Honestly, no joke, it is my favorite game of all time. If you have access to a DS, you must play this game. 198.188.150.115 (talk) 06:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Who owns ErdUndoCache?

Resolved

This directory, C:\ErdUndoCache (on a windows system, obviously) hold a lot of "stuff" on my system, which I'd like to clean up, and I can't figure out which application owns & operates it. Google searches for ErdUndoCache bury me in pages of HiJackThis logs, which make no sense.

My feeling is that it's one of the spyware scanner vaults, but I can't determine which one. SuperAntiSpyware, for example, has a Manage Quarantines feature, but deleting old quarantines doesn't seem to affect ErdUndoCache. Malwarebyte's product doesn't seem to have a quarantine manager or management feature. I'm pretty sure it's not AVG's vault, because a couple of lines above ErdUndoCache in windows explorer, there's a $AVG8.VAULT$.

So, who knows more than I do about this? --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 21:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

ERDUNDOCACHE is apparently created when you make an Emergency Repair Diskette in Windows and is a bunch of settings of a previous version of your computer (created at some point in the past). It doesn't have any active role though, so if you want, you can get rid of it. So says this page (which I found by Google ERDUNDO by itself). --Mr.98 (talk) 00:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Good job on that. Take a break, get a fresh cup of coffee -- you earned it! --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

October 16

Cheapest pocket 'computer'

What would be the cheapest pocket-sized or less self-contained computing device? Some constraints: it must 1) have some kind of alpha-numeric keyboard - a touch-screen keyboard might do. 2) have a display that can at least show text and numbers. 3) have some high level programming language 4) be able to save data or programs 5) be able to trabsfer data and programs to and from a computer. Thanks. (As paper LCDs are now possible, I hope that one day soon it will soon be possible to buy a pocket computer for a few pounds or dollars.) 78.151.92.101 (talk) 00:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Off the shelf - a used PDA would probably fit the bill. A high-end graphing calculator. An Android-based cellphone maybe. SteveBaker (talk) 01:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'm still waiting for my OpenPandora. Graphing calculators like the TI-92 sell used for under $40 on ebay. They've got a weird form factor, though. You might go for an older PalmOS machine. They don't come native with built-in programming tools, but you can get C compilers and stuff. APL (talk) 23:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

wget and cURL - can the links they follow be specified?

I would like to use one of the these to download a series of pages connected by "next page" links only, and not to follow any other of the links on the pages. Is there any way of getting them to do this please? 78.151.92.101 (talk) 00:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Looking to build a budget gaming computer, are these parts OK?

I'm OK with software, but I know nothing at all about hardware, so when I decided to build a computer I was forced to turn to the Internet. Off a suggested parts list for a budget gaming computer, I got most of the following parts, although a few were no longer available so I had to try to find an alternative. Again, I freely admit that I know very little about the finer points of hardware (although I'm trying to pick up a few things!), so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 RC-534-KKRK-GP Black Aluminum & Mesh bezel / SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 460W Power Supply - Retail

Motherboard: Foxconn A7DA-S AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Processor: AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition Kuma 2.8GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

Memory: Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model PDC24G6400ELK - Retail

Video card: EVGA 01G-P3-N959-TR GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Optical drive: SAMSUNG SH-S223Q LIGHTSCRIBE DVD±RW DVD-MULTI 22x S-ATA

If I've missed anything vital (I already have speakers, a mouse, keyboard, etc.), please mention it as well, as this is the first computer I've ever seriously considered building. Any advice or explanation about the building process would also be appreciated. Also, I'm planning on getting Windows 7 when it comes out- what version of it will I need to get? Oh, and the budget I was trying to stay within was about $700, although I could stretch farther if absolutely necessary. Thanks for the help! 24.247.163.175 (talk) 01:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Parts look OK, except that you should get a minimum of a 9600GT for a 'gaming' computer. This will need a slightly better power supply - about 600W should be OK. Memory is fine (4G) and I can't comment on the AMD components as I prefer Intel... but they should be fine (dual core). Sandman30s (talk) 09:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

A good 460W power supply would give more then enough headroom for that computer, even with the 9600GT. [10] [11] [12] Nil Einne (talk) 11:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(this is the OP, just on a different computer now!) So if I were to switch out that card for this one, it should be good? 204.38.47.171 (talk) 17:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Perfectly fine. Also, make sure you motherboard supports PCI Express v2.0 (not version 1) so that you can get full benefit out of that card. I have a similar setup and all modern games right perfectly well on 1280x1024 resolution. Of course a 9800GT is better but that could blow your budget! Sandman30s (talk) 19:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

TI Basic vs. Python

I'm translating a TI-89 Basic program into Python, and I'm wondering... is there a Python equivalent of TI-Basic's "cycle" command? --Lucas Brown 42 03:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas Brown 42 (talk • contribs)

"continue" Rckrone (talk) 04:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Consequences of opening a port

Hello, tech-savvy Wikipedians! I wanted to open a port through my laptop's firewall so that the parents' computer in another city can establish a connection over the Internet to my laptop and send data back and forth. However, I am not aware of the security risks of opening a port. So my questions are 1. How does opening a port affect the security of my system? and 2. What steps can I take to let my parents' computer in while keeping the "bad guys" out? Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It depends entirely on (1) what port you're talking about, (2) what program will listen on the port, and (3) the settings for the program.--Drknkn (talk) 07:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I will make a Java program that listens on the port. Does that mean I can explicitly control what computers can establish a connection with mine by using a password, for instance, or a long that holds an identification value in the program? Then, does that mean as long as my Java program isn't running, the port is essentially "closed" and won't permit a connection because there's no program listening on it? Also, I didn't know the port number mattered. I had a look at the List of TCP and UDP port numbers article and thought I could pick any of the private ports between 49152–65535. Is that a bad idea?--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I did just take a look at my netstat and will make sure to pick a private port that isn't already being used by internal processes on my system.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Specific ports are not inherently "more risky" - but if you pick a port which is commonly used to host another widespread software service, you might find statistically more random "probes" by random drive-by portscanners. Your Java program can verify the IP of who is connecting - so you can use specific-host-only connections (if you trust a specific IP, e.g. your parents' PC); the IP connecting to you can not be spoofed (unless your parents' PC is a "man in the middle" proxying somebody else's attack). You can use a Secure Socket in Java, and you can implement any of a variety of custom authorization verification handshaking protocols. It's very unlikely that an automated port scanner would guess a particular long authentication byte sequence "password" - which you could send in plain-text, or hash against the current UTC time and host IP, to make it more secure. Nimur (talk) 20:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Home-brewing your own network protocol generally isn't necessary, and may open up security problems you haven't considered. I'd generally recommend running a secure-shell server like OpenSSH (on a non-standard port, so you don't have to look at so much port-knocking noise in the logs). With that you can tunnel anything you want, from windows and unix networking protocols to remote screen protocols link VNC; and if you really need to write your own protocol, it's probably easier to write a non-secured version of it, and tunnel that through SSH too. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:13, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

In Java, wrapping the protocol in SSL would be possible using Security, e.g. the SSLSocket (with SSL implemented by Sun, not by OpenSSH). (Or you could tunnel through an OpenSSH session). I was under the impression that el Aprel specifically wanted to write his/her own network protocol; but as Finlay rightly points out, much can be accomplished with standard tools like scp. Nimur (talk) 21:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone! Yes, my original intention was to construct it all by myself using Java, but I was reluctant because I didn't understand the security factors involved. Your responses really helped clear it up for me. Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

3-Sat

I was wondering, are the complexity classes of algorithms used to solve the 3-Sat descion problem determined based upon the number of actual variables or the number of expressions? For example, would the input size of (a + !a + b) AND (b + !b + a) AND (a + a + a) be 2 since {a,b} has 2 elements or 3 since 3 expressions are being conjuncted? (Obvbiously, this example can be very easily reduced down to fewer expressions, etc.) 66.202.66.78 (talk) 07:37, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I would say it is 9, the number of literals you have to write to write out the expression. --Spoon! (talk) 07:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

So, essentially, it is the number of expressions since this is just 3 times the number of literals? In short, input size is related to the number of literals, not the number of variables used in those literals? Thanks:) 66.202.66.78 (talk) 07:45, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It's NP complete in either case. Because worst case behaivor will occur when the number of different literals are within a polynomial factor of the size of the expression. Taemyr (talk) 08:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Final Fantasy Tactics

- While I'm here, I have another question. I always liked the battle system in FFT and was wondering if there was a program that would let you set up the characters, conditions, and terrains and have a multiplayer battle in a similair fashion; namely, could one get something like the FFT battle engine, but set it up so that it is two players without computer controlled characters? If this is not possible, how hard would it be to program something like this? What would be a good language to do it in? (I've often tossed around the idea of making my own, I just don't have that much experience with game programming; though I do have experience with other areas. Note: I really don't care about the quality of the graphics, just the system.) Actually, while here, I would like to ask the same question, only with regards to FF7 Chocobo racing portion from the Golden Saucer. (Again, this doesn't need to be an exact duplicate, just something related that I could customize and, possibly, mess around with the actual code) Thanks:) 66.202.66.78 (talk) 07:45, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I searched for existing implementations; I don't know what "SuperTact" is unless it's the C64 game. I also found FFT Realm; I don't know how close it is to what you want.

As for implementing it yourself, it shouldn't be very hard if you're willing to forego (sophisticated) graphics and network play (so all players must be at the same computer). The rules are well-known. However, expect that reimplementing every character class and spell from FFT to take as long as to write that guide (at least).

If you already know any general-purpose programming languages (you said you "do have experience with other areas"), you'll probably be most effective with what you know. Otherwise, I'd suggest Java or Python, because they're well supported, widely used, have extensive standard libraries for graphics and (if you try it) networking, and are said to be easy to learn. (I'm afraid I don't know anything about Chocobo racing.) --Tardis (talk) 01:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Choice of Motherboard

There is two mobo of Gigabyte in my choice

• GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R

• GIGABYTE GA-EP45T-UD3R

Which one i should choose? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.30.36.51 (talk) 11:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The big difference between these two motherboards is one supports DDR3 and the other DDR2. As DDR2 is still significantly cheaper then DDR3 I would recommend you stick with it. You're unlikely to see any performance difference in the vast majority of real world applications e.g. [13] [14] so the only real benefit would be being able to use the RAM in a future DDR3 computer but given the price that's not likely to be a big advantage and the advantage is the ability to upgrade the RAM in the future for a reasonable price (since DDR3 will eventually overtake DDR2 in price and then will get cheaper) but again if you get 4GB now (and given the price there's little reason not to) there's not likely to be any real reason to upgrade in the future I would expect. Nil Einne (talk) 11:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

DDR3 2GB modules are now at price parity with DDR2, and DDR2 prices appear to be going UP not down. DDR3 4gb modules are still much more expensive than ddr2 though. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 21:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I guess this depends where you live. It's not the case here in New Zealand where DDR3 is at least 25% more. Obviously I'm only considering 2x2gb, anything else isn't worth considering unless the OP has specific needs IMHO. If DDR3 is at price parity then I would agree DDR3 is probably the better bet. Nil Einne (talk) 11:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Even in cases where DDR3 are a little more expensive, it's worth something to future-proof. If it were me and the two boards were priced the same I would get the DDR3 version. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

It depends on your budget but I would regard 25% (actually probably more then that from what I've seen) as significantly more expensive that you have to ask yourself what for? In this case, a big question is future proof against what? As I've mentioned, given the current price of RAM, the advantage of being able to use your RAM in a future computer is IMHO pretty much worthless (particularly since in most places you could easily sell your DDR2 RAM for a fair amount if it comes down to that). So the only real advantage which I also mentioned would be being able to upgrade RAM in the future (any decent RAM should have a lifetime warranty so having to replace broken RAM is not an issue) at a more decent price and with larger sticks (since it is unlikely we will see 4gb DDR2 sticks but I would expect 4gb DDR3 sticks to eventually take hold and become a recent price). If you are a gamer, simulatenous edit very large photos, do CAD or 3D work, edit HDTV, run a database or otherwise may really need such a large amount of RAM in the future then it may be worth considering. But in reality, the average user doesn't really need even 4gb nowadays, the only reason I recommend it is because it's the only sensible option (well unless you're looking at triple channel) given the pricing unless on a very, very tight budget (which is unlikely given the motherboards being considered). I'm usually a big fan of and there are clearly cases when future proofing clearly makes sense. For example, if in 2005 you were choosing between an AGP or PCI-express motherboard, you'd likely be rather miffed if you choose the AGP particularly if you are a gamer and in other cases like if you want a card for hte h264 etc bitstreaming. It's perhaps worth remembering we're talking about a dying platform. The socket 775 platform is being phased out. If you are considering a dual core now you may want to upgrade to a quad core in 2 years or less if you're likely to need it. Beyond that, it's likely to make less sense since even if socket 775 processors are still available, there's a good chance they'll be rather expensive for what you get particularly for the quad cores (as someone with a socket 939 processor I know this). You'll never see more then a quadcore. And, there are only going to be very few circumstances where you're likely to want 8gb with a dual core processor. So unless you're seriously considering a quad core now or in the future, another reason to ask yourself if you really need it? It's also worth considering it in an all round sense. The money may not be much, but it's still something. Where else could you spend the money? In fact if you think there's a slight possibility you may want to upgrade to 8gb you should consider some sort of cost/benefit. History with DDR and SDRAM would suggest the price for DDR2 ram is probably not going to get super expensive. RAM prices fluctate quite a lot but it's resonable to expect in 2 to 3 years time DDR2 ram will be a similar relative price then as it is now. DDR3 will have come down a lot so that it will seem expensive, however even so the amount you save now may mean the price difference you're paying isn't actually as big as it seems. You will be stuck using 4 sticks (whereas with DDR3 you can sell or do something else with your RAM and probably use 2x4gb if you want albeit this will add cost and your 2x2gb sticks DDR3 won't be worth much unlike your DDR2 sticks) and have little chance of using 16gb. Maybe even saving it and upgrading sooner may make sense. Incidentally, as someone who's used Windows x64 (first XP now Vista) for 3 years+ I can say the number of Windows x64 applications is still rather low. Many professional apps are finally coming around to this but unless you use them, there's a good chance most of your applications will be x32. This is a key point since if your apps are x32 they themselves are never going to be able to use more then 4gb so you'll only gain an advantage with multitasking of extensively memory hungry apps. I'm pretty sure quite a few aren't even large bit aware so can't even use more then 2gb. I used to think people skimped way to much on RAM. But as I've said, it seems to me we're starting to reach a level where the demands have slowed* so even 4gb is not really necessary even if IMHO the only sensible option. Even most Vista users don't really need 4gb and Windows 7 and netbooks have seemingly improved the situation. If this switch to cloud computing really happens well there will be even less need. I'm sure in 3-5 years there will be quite a few more people that need more that need more then 4gb but I also think you have to ask yourself whether it's resonable you'll be one of them and if not what you're futureproofing against? *It isn't just RAM of course, many people have argued the same thing with processors. Nil Einne (talk) 11:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Visual Studio 6 & Crystal Report 2008

I have installed Visual Basic 6 and Crystal Report 2008 in my computer. But I cannot run Crystal Report from within Visual Basic as the Report Designer option is not shown in the Add-Ins Menu . What I should do to solve this problem. Please help me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.161.97.110 (talk) 15:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Excel question

This is such a simple question but I have a problem that's driving me BONKERS.

When I am using excel, very frequently when I click on a cell or a line, it will select 2, 3, or 4 cells/lines below it. I can't get it to stop doing this. It seems to happen at random and has nothing to do with the doc itself, the formatting, previous actions, or anything else. It will keep happening for 2-3 minutes and then suddenly it will stop and I can select 1 cell/line again. My colleagues report this issue all the time and no one has a clue why it happens or how to stop it.

I'm sure there is a MS Office savvy person who knows exactly why this happens and how to fix it. Please advise! Gohome00 (talk) 16:23, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

There must be some error that occured during installation. Has this always happened? if yes, buy and reinstall it. if not, Your computer must have some sort of bug...Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 16:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"Your computer must have some sort of bug"? Please do not guess. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, does this happen on multiple computers when working only with a particular Excel doc, or is it any Excel doc? What version of Excel? I'm wondering if you have one particular doc in which a bunch of cells have been merged, so the behavior when clicking on one of the merged cells is not what you'd expect not knowing they had been merged. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It happens with any and all docs, including those created by other sources and other offices. It happens on multiple computers. Definitely has nothing to do with merges. I could create a document right now thats just a list of my friend's names, and it might happen. Or it might not. No clear pattern. It seems that many of my colleagues just deal with it and treat it like "one of those things". Excel is always trying to "help" you by doing frustrating things automatically, such as creating formulas where you don't want them. I am assuming that's what's happening here.

We use whatever the newest version of MS office is. It has happened to me before on other computers in other jobs - I've just never had to work so much with excel, so now it's driving me crazy. Gohome00 (talk) 17:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to take a screenshot of the screen (Print Scrn key, then open Accessories>Paint, then Paste, then save as a jpeg) immediately upon its occurrence, and post it (to a photobucket or Flickr account perhaps) and post a link to it? I have used Excel for many years and I don't recognize the symptom you're describing. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• Gohome00, I would bet that this has something to do with your typing or clicking habits. If you are holding down SHIFT or CTRL when you click it will select more then one cell at a time. SHIFT selects every sell between the initial cell and the finial cell in a square shape, CTRL selects the initial cell and the clicked cell. If the mouse is moving when you click it's possible to select two or more cells at a time. If you dial down the mouse sensitivity (speed) it might prevent this. I hope that helps, -----J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Blender physical objects

I know that there is some company that you can send Blender files to, and then they will somehow "print" these, so a (plastic?) physical model is created, and then they send back the model to the customer. But I seem to have forgotten the name (and website URL) of the company. Any ideas? --81.227.64.69 (talk) 19:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

We have an article on 3D printing - there are a lot of companies that can do this. I think we sent .dwg files to our 3D printer when we prototyped things - there are probably hundred of companies that can contract small 3D print jobs these days. A web search for 3D Printing turns up many contract shops you can choose from to match your price and technical needs. Nimur (talk) 20:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

These services certainly exist - but are really expensive. For a one-off, they are the cheapest (and only) route. But if you need to do this a lot, you might also like to look at the "RepRap" project and also things like the MakerBot. These small machines can be built for relatively low cost ($750 in kit-form - about $400 if you make it yourself from scratch) and it will do exactly what you're asking. The RepRap machine can even make all of the plastic parts you need to make another RepRap machine! The business end looks like a hot-melt glue gun (although it's hotter and a little more sophisticated) and a pair of motors drives that around in two axes to 'draw' a thin layer of plastic representing a cross-section of your object. A third motor moves the plastic depositor up and down vertically so that the model can be built up layer by layer. It's slow - it could take an hour or more to make even a pretty small object - and there are rather severe restrictions on the size of objects that you can make with it - but compared to the commercial services, it would probably pay for itself after making maybe just a dozen objects.

Alternatively if your objects don't have under-cuts - and if you're at all good with tools, you could do as I did and build a three Axis milling machine for about $200. I built mine over several weekends using MDF for the major structural parts, aluminium channels and roller-blade bearings as the guide-rails and three stepper motors with long lead-screws to drive a 2hp router motor in the X, Y and Z directions. I used a couple of Arduino computers to control it using instructions written to an SD memory card - so it doesn't tie up my PC for hours at time. Mine will carve wood and some sorts of plastic pretty efficiently at sizes up to 4'x3'x9" - and with precision of about a millimeter or so. It can also cut metal - but you have to go very slowly and lubricate the cutting surface - which is a major pain. You can drive it from all sorts of 3D file formats from existing OpenSourced software. It doesn't have the versatility of the plastic deposition machines like RepRap - but it's cheap to make and can produce much larger and more robust work-pieces than those plastic deposition machines. My longer term plan is to use the CNC milling machine to make the parts for my own design of 3D printer...and to make a smaller five-axis CNC machine with a Dremel as the cutting tool. That machine would be able to make under-cuts and such like.

SteveBaker (talk) 04:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

slow file copying speed

I have a Thinkpad T61 laptop running Ubuntu 8.04. The laptop has an internal SATA hard drive and also a plug-in bay with a second hard drive (you can put an optical drive there instead if you want). The second HD is also SATA but I'm pretty sure the plug-in bay has a SATA-PATA bridge inside. Both drives have ext3 file systems. Anyway, I tried copying a 4gb .iso file from the internal drive to the plug-in drive and after a while, the transfer slowed to around 5MB/sec, which just seems pathetic. Copying from the internal drive to an external USB drive gets around 5x that speed (though much more cpu load). It's not the speed of the PATA bus either. I unmounted and remounted the plug-in drive, then catted the copied file to /dev/null and got about 60MB/sec transfer. So why was the original copying so slow? It was slow whether I used cp, dd, or rsync. The computer has tons of ram and was not heavily loaded at the time of the tests. Any ideas? 66.127.54.181 (talk) 21:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Those rates (5MB/sec and 60 MB/sec) very closely match the transfer speeds for USB 1.1 and 2.0. Probably, for whatever reason, the plug-in drive was originally only recognized as a USB 1.x compliant device; on reconnecting, the correct driver was detected and loaded, and the device functioned with full USB 2.0 speed. Nimur (talk) 21:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Erm, now I'm confused - which drive was the slow one - the bay drive (which should not have been a USB device); or the external drive? Nimur (talk) 21:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I got it - it was slow between the internal SATA drive and the bay-drive - probably because these devices share the same southbridge/peripheral controller; but the data can not go directly from disk-drive-1 to disk-drive-2 (it must go to main memory, at least - and may have to actually use the CPU). Thus the memory-northbridge-southbridge bandwidth is split in half. The case of an external USB drive does not share the PCI bus - so this bandwidth is not bottlenecked, and the full USB transfer speed is possible. There are still a few curious issues with the numbers; you could benchmark a lot more to really narrow down where the real worst-case performance happens to locate what the bottleneck is (but it may not be worthwhile, depending on how often you need high performance data transfer). Nimur (talk) 21:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Whoa, something weird is going on, catting the file from the INTERNAL drive to /dev/null just took 16 minutes (4 MB/sec). I wonder if something is wrong with the internal drive. I'm trying another copy with a different large file. Just last night I backed up the drive to an external USB 2.0 drive and got 20+ MB/sec transfer. But I see no error messages in "dmesg" or syslog. Anyway, there are 3 drives: 1) internal SATA, should be directly on PCI bus and fast. 2) Plug-in bay drive, on SATA-PATA bridge that should be on the bus; 3) external USB 2.0 drive. There is also a 4th possibility, which is that I have an ExpressCard eSATA adapter (plugs into internal PCIe if I understand properly) that I can connect an external drive to, but I haven't tried that yet. Right now, something seems flat-out wrong with the internal drive, like maybe it has gotten in some weird DMA mode. I wonder how to diagnose this. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 21:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me, I have a lot of browser tabs and other windows open though quiet, and the system is not thrashing, but it's sort of possible that some javascript or something is doing steady disk i/o causing head contention on the main drive. I will reboot the computer and try repeating the copy with nothing else running. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 22:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I haven't rebooted, but found that copying other files from the internal SATA drive goes fairly fast, like 30MB/sec. It's only THESE PARTICULAR FILES (two .iso's that I downloaded last night) that transfer slowly, including cp or cat'ing them to /dev/null. This is weird. File system fragmentation? Bad spots on the disk? I don't see any syslog messages. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 22:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Rebol v Python - which is better?

I've only programmed with basic and logo previously, and I want to learn a more up to date language that will allow me to interact with the web and with Windows or Linux. Although the Wikipedia article about Rebol is a very dry formal description (*) that does not do the language justice and makes it appear totally unsuitable for the casual user or beginner, the tutorials here http://www.musiclessonz.com/rebol_tutorial.html make the language very alluring. (* Its as if the Motorcycle article was like this: "A /motorcycle/ is an electro-mechanical device which transforms the chemical energy of hydrocarbons into kinetic energy....").

Can anyone put the case for Python and say why I should learn Python rather than Rebol? I am only going to learn to use one language. Speed of learning and quick programming (not program speed) are what is important to me. It would only be for ocassional casual use. It looks like Rebol can do things in a single line of code (see http://www.rebol.com/oneliners.html for example) that would take pages in other languages, and also that I can do web things with it that would be too complicated for me to attempt in other languages. Thanks 78.149.130.188 (talk) 21:33, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Rebol is far less common, so you will have a harder time tracking down references, resources, and fellow humans who can help you with conceptual and technical issues. Python has an enormous user-base. Nimur (talk) 21:37, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

With great user base come great many quality libraries. From 3d game engines to symbolic math to interfaces for most databases in existence, and this is only scratching the surface. In strict contrast to rebol, python can do everything. However, many languages exist because a single one cannot fit all tasks, right tool for the right problem, and other hippie stories apply. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 23:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies but sorry I think that is less than convincing evidence for the superiority of Python. Python may have a big-user base prescence on the web because getting it to do some things are difficult/complicated, while with Rebol these same thing may only require one or two command words. Some of the appeal of Rebol to me is that it has some of the features of Forth, a language whose simplicity of structure appeals to me. Gosh, I think I'm falling in love. 78.147.27.136 (talk) 10:41, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems you have already made your decision, but I can't resist saying python isn't difficult. Below is a python program that brings up a quit button that does what it says. It's quite readable even if you don't know python and the details can be learnt in less than a day from a pygtk tutorial.

pygtk sample

#!/usr/bin/python
import gtk

w = gtk.Window (gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL)
b = gtk.Button ('QUIT')
b.connect ('pressed', gtk.main_quit)
w.connect ('delete-event', gtk.main_quit)
w.add (b)
w.show_all ()

gtk.main ()

A simple command line movie player using the gstreamer framework

gstreamer sample

#!/usr/bin/python
import sys
import gobject
import gst

loop = gobject.MainLoop ()
player = gst.element_factory_make ('playbin2', 'player')
player.set_property ('uri', sys.argv[1])

bus = player.get_bus ()
bus.add_signal_watch ()
bus.connect ('message::eos', lambda dummy, d2: loop.quit ())

player.set_state (gst.STATE_PLAYING)
loop.run ()

player.set_state (gst.STATE_NULL)

Finally a simple web browser with webkit, without an address bar because I'm feeling lazy

webkit sample

#!/usr/bin/python
import gobject
import gtk
import webkit

gobject.threads_init ()

window = gtk.Window (gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL)

scrolled = gtk.ScrolledWindow (None)
scrolled.set_policy (gtk.POLICY_AUTOMATIC, gtk.POLICY_AUTOMATIC)

webview = webkit.WebView ()
frame = webview.get_main_frame ()
frame.load_uri ('http://www.google.com/')

scrolled.add (webview)
window.add (scrolled)

window.connect ('delete-event', gtk.main_quit)
window.show_all ()

gtk.main ()

These are best taken as examples of not so good programming practise, but hopefully they show python isn't "difficult". --194.197.235.240 (talk) 17:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry again I'm less than convinced. This is a complete Rebol program for a GUI to send an email:

view layout [e: field "Email" s: field "Subject" m: area "Body" btn "Send"[send/subject to-email e/text m/text s/text alert "ok"]]

A web site editor:

view layout[f: field btn"Edit"[editor to-url f/text]]

Taken from the 'one liners' link above. The program examples previously given by 194.197 may only require a few words in Rebol. The Python script for a button seems very elaborate: in Rebol I think it would just be two or three words. Could any Python programmer have a look at the one-liners link above, and the Cookbook external link at the Rebol article, and tell me if things with equal conciseness can be done with Python? 78.151.108.233 (talk) 10:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Conciseness is not the only goal, readability is important too. People think slower than they type. As for the button example, any larger program would use a gui designer which would cut down the source lines a lot and make future layout changes easier. It looks to me that rebol has a lot of complex built-in functionality bind to short commands, but it should also be considered how much control you are given over the details. For example in sh it's trivial to make an multi-featured image manipulation program, you just type gimp<enter>. Below is a python program that creates a window with a bunch of chinese characters spinning in it and terminates when the window is closed. I don't know if rebol can do the same.

chinese chars

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import gobject
import gtk

def spin_cb (label):
    label.set_angle (label.get_angle () + 5)
    return True

w = gtk.Window (gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL)
l = gtk.Label ('中國')
w.add (l)
gobject.timeout_add (50, spin_cb, l)
w.connect ('delete-event', gtk.main_quit)
w.show_all ()

gtk.main ()

quicksort in python (normally you would just the .sort method of course), not quite as short as rebol's but short enough

quicksort

q = lambda l: l if l == [] else q ([x for x in l[1:] if x < l[0]]) + [l[0]] + q ([x for x in l[1:] if x >= l[0]])

this one returns all primes less than n

primes

s = lambda n: [p for p in range (2, n) if all ([p % x != 0 for x in range (2, p)])]

--194.197.235.240 (talk) 14:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

How to install cURL?

When I download cURL for Windows XP, I get a zip file. In the zip file are curl.exe, some dills, and some text files. When I click on curl.exe a black window openms up and then immediately closes. How should I install cURL? Its irritating that the information that people would obviously need is completely omitted from the instructions, similarly with wget. Thanks. 78.149.130.188 (talk) 21:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Extract all the files in the .ZIP into a folder you've made (say c:/Program Files/curl). cURL is a command-line program, so you need to open the windows command line (run->cmd.exe), cd into the folder you made for cURL, and run curl.exe with options that make it do what you want. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Further, wget is also a command line program. That "black box" is the console. I don't know why Windows makes it die instantly. If it stayed open, you'd see some console output. To use either curl or wget, you need to type (ignore the mouse). If you want a click and view program that shows web pages, there are many: IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome... -- kainaw™ 21:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Would it be sensible to copy the contents of the zip file into c:\ or c:\windows, so that I do not have to change directories after opening the console window? What I would like to do with either of them is to download the text from a series of pages by only following the "next page" links and not following any other link. Anyone got any idea how I could do that please? 78.149.130.188 (talk) 22:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

You can put those files on your Path (variable) by either adding them to a system directory (c:\windows\system32, for example); or placing them somewhere and adding that directory to your path. Or, you can put them in a folder somewhere, and manually type the full location of that program from any other current working directory; eg. "c:\programs\wget\wget.exe (arguments)" . Nimur (talk) 22:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

When I was using Windows I'd put command programs in a single directory (e.g. e:\utils) and put that directory in the path. Command-line programs are very useful and the great majority of them have few files that are really needed, so it's easy for a dozen or more programs to coexist in the same directory. Wget (which I happen to make great use of outside Windows) is a particularly excellent (if limited) program but do read the instructions about recursive downloading carefully before use, or else you may have one or other kind of surprise. Sorry I don't know the answer to your specific question but I imagine that these "next page" links have an easily identifiable set of filenames, and if you can't easily get wget to get these filenames and little more, then simply get the whole of the relevant section of the site and then delete the stuff that's of no interest to you. -- Hoary (talk) 02:19, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just realised I could do what I want, regarding following the "next page" link only, by combining lines 6 and 42 from the Rebol language one-line programs here http://www.rebol.com/oneliners.html 78.151.108.233 (talk) 11:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Converting WAV to MIDI

I have several WAV sound files that I need to convert into MIDI format. What's a free program that will do this? Mediaconverter.org doesn't convert to or from MIDIs for some reason. --75.10.49.150 (talk) 22:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

A WAV file contains samples of the sound wave, several thousands per second. Consequently, any sound may be represented as a WAV data file. A MIDI file, however, is merely a sequence of instrument names, notes, and velocities, and thus only (relatively) simple music may be represented as a MIDI file. Among other things, song and general sound effects cannot be represented as a sequence of notes. In fact, you can compare WAV files to bitmap images, and MIDI files to vector images. A bitmap image contains the colour value at each pixel (millions of them per image), and a vector image file contains only a list of objects (circle, line, etc.) and their attributes (colour, line width, etc.). Thus it is easy to convert a MIDI file to a WAV file, and a vector image to a bitmap image, but it is extremely difficult to do it in the other direction. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Then is there any way to play a WAV file in JAVA without freezing the rest of the program? The only method I could find for playing WAV files in JAVA froze the program until the sound file was done playing. --75.10.49.150 (talk) 22:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you might want to consider learning about Asynchronous I/O for some background theory, and creating a separate thread for the audio I/O. Java Threads are basically built into the language, and are fairly straightforward - you will need to instantiate a thread and and provide it with a run() function that performs the audio playback. If you are using the newest Sampled Sound in javax.sound.sampled, then the default start() and stop() methods are already asynchronous (threaded), so you don't have to do this manually. Depending what your audio needs are, this may be the best audio package. Nimur (talk) 22:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

WAV to MIDI is essentially impossible. WAV is like the recording of an orchestra playing - MIDI is like the printed score sheets that the musicians were reading from at the time. There is software (and hardware) that can extract note information from the pitch of the music - but it's really patchy and doesn't work for anything but simplest single-instrument recordings. SteveBaker (talk) 03:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

There is some software that does this, although its a long time since I last considered it. I recall there was some pay-for software, not sure if there were any free versions. Update: A simple search for wav midi in Google produces several results regarding conversion. http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&newwindow=1&q=wav+midi&meta= 78.147.27.136 (talk) 10:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Internet trouble

• I have windows xp professional.
• I am using a lynksys wireless usb adapter to access my wireless connection
• I have at&t u verse as my isp
• My internet is really slow, and it frequently disconnects
• This has been happening for a while now.
• If you need any more info, ask.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 22:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The obvious first thing to try is to connect to your router with an ethernet cable; this will tell you whether the problem is a local wireless problem, or a problem with the internet connection as a whole. Diagnosis and fixes for these two kinds of error are often very difficultedit: different. In the meantime, stop all peer-to-peer programs like Bittorrent; in my experience consumer DSL routers can inexplicably exhaust some internal resource, and become fatally horked when confronted with the torrent (sic) of traffic such programs throw at them. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) Thanks for providing a useful amount of information. If the problem turns out to be with the WiFi, there are several fixes you can try. Obviously, you need to be within range for it to work. What is the signal strength as reported by Windows? A recently purchased wireless router should have the strength to cover a two- or three-storey house. Piggybacking on the neighbour's WiFi does not usually get the speed or stability that you want. Do you know the brand and model number of your router? Other quick fixes: if there are many other wireless networks in the area, then you might want to change the broadcast channel. Most routers default to channel 6 - try changing to channel 1 or 11. Some cordless phones and microwaves also emit the same frequency (~2.4 GHz). For me, changing to channel 11 solved an interference problem with a neighbour's router. It's all trial-and-error. If possible, you can move your router to a better location, away from the computer and in the centre of the range of which you wish to connect to the network. Xenon54 / talk / 22:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Another thing to look at is possible over-heating of your router. I recall having a similar problem a while back. - Akamad (talk) 23:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I used that AT&T service on my wife's machine for a while - it was awful. As you say - poor bandwidth, patchy connections, generally a total disaster. I carefully documented the problems - worked with them patiently for a month while they tried to fix it, making all sorts of ridiculous claims that it was my computer (I used three different one - they couldn't all be at fault) - they claimed that "Windows needs to be rebooted once a day to keep the networking reliable" (possibly reasonable advice - but I was using Linux!), etc, etc. Then I demanded (and got) all of my money back for the whole 60 days I'd been using it and the refunded the price of my network adapter too. I switched to RoadRunner - things have been working just fine since then. So I don't think you should blame XP or the wireless adapter until you've hassled the AT&T helpline a bunch of times. It's very likely to be the AT&T service. SteveBaker (talk) 03:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

One diagnostic thing you might try out is to see how the connection works when "wired" (you should probably be able to connect to your wireless router with an ethernet cable). Is it faster? More stable? The same? This can at least let you rule out that wireless has anything to do with it. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:13, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Using Outlook on 2 Computers

I have Outlook 2007 installed on two computers. They are set up the exact same way (same account). However the mail only appears on the first computer I installed it on. Is there anyway i can get around this or do I need to delete it form the first machine I installed it from? 66.133.196.152 (talk) 23:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll guess that your are accessing your email account using the POP3 protocol (it's in the account settings screen in Outlook). Very often people's POP3 clients (that's Outlook in your case) are configured to download emails and remove them from the mail server. You can configure the client to download and not remove the mail server's copy. That way Both machines can see it (I don't have outlook to hand so I don't know the precise option you'll use). A downside of this is that mail will then build up in your mail server, so you may need to be more diligent about tidying it up yourself (so you don't exceed any quota your ISP may apply). As an alternative to POP3, you may be able to use the IMAP protocol instead, which is better suited for sharing one email account between multiple machines (you can, for example, create subfolders on the mail server and then file mail as appropriate - and all the email clients see the change almost instantly). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if our OP could configure his main machine to download and delete his messages, and configure his secondary machine to only download them — and keep them marked "un-downloaded" so that when he logs in on his main machine, they'll be downloaded to that machine (for the first time on that machine, and for the 2nd time total) and deleted from the POP3 server. One downside to this juggling act is that the secondary computer won't have access to any e-mails the first computer has downloaded. One alternative, OP, is to set up Windows Remote Desktop or VNC so your 2nd computer merely logs into the 1st computer and sees whatever you'd see on the screen of the first computer. Tempshill (talk) 01:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The least complex way of sharing mail between two computers may be using a webmail interface like what Gmail provides. Gmail will also work with some local mail clients via IMAP but it is less intuitive to keep things synchronized that way. (Is that a new mail that I see, where did I save the sent mail, and so forth). EdJohnston (talk) 21:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Make use of IMAP as suggested - or if this is for business purposes, get an microsoft exchange account and charge it as an expense. --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:21, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggest choosing IMAP over Exchange, as IMAP is more widely supported. (In fact, I don't know any mail client other than Outlook with Exchange support.) --grawity 19:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Evolution (software) does, kinda, but it does it by webscraping OWA rather than talking the Exchange protocol. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:51, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

October 17

Computer/HD video

What processing speed (in GHZ), what amount of RAM (in MB), and what sort of video output mechanism would be required to view a film on a computer at the following specifications: Format:MKV Subtitles stream:SSA encoding Audio stream:DTS encoding, 6 channels, sampling rate in 48000 HZ Video stream:1920x1080, frame rate 976215 Duration:1 hour, 40 minutes, 58 seconds Operating system used:Windows XP Size on disk of the file:7.87 GB I am considering the purchase of a new computer and want to ensure that it is capable of running this film. I am also somewhat limited in my budget and want to minimize the cost of this computer, while still viewing the aforementioned film without the player lagging and therefore rendering the film unwatchable.

97.125.80.88 (talk) 02:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

First off, the requirements are:

• A DVD viewing software
• A DVD drive, CD drives won't work
• A pretty fast computer.

At least a 1.4 GHZ processor and about 1 GB of RAM are the requirements I personally would go with. And if you wanna go Blu-Ray, then you're gonna need a Sony Vaio for that. As long as you are playing it back via a DVD drive, it will not affect hard drive space. Hope this helps. ConCompS (talk) 04:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

No, the OP isn't asking about viewing video off a DVD disc, it's pretty clear. Tempshill (talk) 05:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

You didn't mention the key point, what video codec is the video? For 1080 this would commonly be h264 but doesn't have to be. Also you didn't mention what your current specs are in particular the current processor and motherboard (or at least whether it has a PCIe16 slot available). Most dual core processors, should be able to handle even fairly complicated h264 especially with an efficient codec like h264. However if you already have a decent processor and your computer has a PCIe16 slot available then simply getting a modern ATI or Nvidia card which supports full h264 (and preferably VC-1) bitstreaming would be enough for most files (although a few aren't supported but most nowadays are 'DXVA compatible') and likely to be cheaper, however getting it to work on Windows XP may be a little more difficult then Windows Vista. mHz is an exceptionally poor measure, see mHz myth. If you are set on getting a new computer, I would suggest a decent dual core (say an E5200/5300 or any Athlon II X2 or Athlon X2 7xxx) and a GPU supporting bitstreaming would sufficiently cover whatever you need Nil Einne (talk) 11:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Sun javaws on Fedora without SELinux

I have Sun (not openjre) javaws on Fedora 11 without SELinux enabled. When I run a jnlp app, my keyboard is disabled on the app. Googling hasn't turned up anything useful. I assume it is a pathetic security issue and I have to jump through hoops to enable the keyboard. I don't mind if they hoops are easy to see. Anyone know where Sun has hidden these? -- kainaw™ 04:23, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I can only say that Sun JavaWS on Ubuntu 9.04 properly opens and displays JNLP apps and delivers keyboard events to them normally. It doesn't make sense for a security property to allow AWT/Swing objects to appear on screen, but to not deliver keyboard events to them, so I really doubt there's a security property that is so granular. If I were to guess, I'd hazard that it's a bad interaction between the window manager and the toplevel window, in that somehow the java app doesn't get focus properly, or doesn't think it does. Try, as a first instance, running the SwingSet2 demo from Sun's demo page and changing the Look-and-feel (that really shouldn't matter, but clearly something is wrong). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but it is a non-issue now. The one time in the last 3 or 4 years that I needed to run Java and it failed. I borrowed a Windows laptop and did the job. Now, I'm trying to figure out how to completely remove Java from my system. It is time for another fdisk-format-reinstall, so I might go that path. -- kainaw™ 15:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

iPhone v Thomson router

Has anyone had problems in making the iPhone recognise the router please, if so how did you resolve the matter? Thanks in anticipation.--85.210.90.215 (talk) 08:29, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

What's the actual model of the router and what's the actual problem you're having please? i.e. Can your iPhone see the wireless access point at all or but it's unable to connect, or does it see it, but it can't access the Internet? ZX81 ^talk 10:17, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest; the router is a Thomson TG585 v7. The iPhone can 'see' the router but does not recognise my password nor the WPA code, which my supplier, Tiscali, say that I should input as the password. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.90.215 (talk) 20:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is the manual for that model of router. Section 4 talks about how to set up the WiFi, I think section 4.2 might be the specific information your after. The paragraph titled "Forgot your wireless settings?" will give you the instructions on how to get your SSID, encryption key and security type. -----J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all this, unfortunately you are dealing with a non-technophobe and I don't understand the manual's language, but I will persist.--85.210.90.215 (talk) 07:54, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

PUK code for samsung E-250

Hey! I forgot my PUK code and now I'm getting error ' PIN blocked'.I've left with 6 more attempts otherwise I think I'll have to buy a new SIM. How could I resolve this problem?Any suggestions please.Cheers.--59.103.11.55 (talk) 09:51, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Just ring up your service provider and tell them you need a PUK code and after their verification checks they'll give it to you (most likely without charge). Don't keep guessing, because you are right and after 10 times the SIM card will be permanently locked/need replacing (at cost). ZX81 ^talk 10:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft excel cells non negative?

My aim is to have some cells never be negative. I have a function where, e.g. cell A = cell B - 100. If A < 0, I'd like the final value to be 0 instead of the actual negative value. Is there a way to do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.163.243.51 (talk) 11:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Check out the MAX worksheet function. –RHolton≡– 11:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, and I also figured out another way just now, after looking around. I used A = (B-100)*IF(B-100<0,0). I had no idea I could use if statement in a cell like this. 128.163.243.51 (talk) 11:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, there are all sorts of logical arguments for excel. -----J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

OpenOffice string functions?

Documentation I've seen (for both Excel and OpenOffice) suggests there's a str(A1) function one can call to convert a number to a string. But it doesn't seem to work; it prints "#NAME?" in the cell instead. (OpenOffice version 2.4.0 on a Mac, if it matters.). Am I missing some step necessary to load or enable the string functions, or something? —Steve Summit (talk) 14:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no STR() function for cells in Excel (there is in VBA, but that's different). You use T() instead. (Or TEXT() if you want it to be formatted in a particular way.) --Mr.98 (talk) 14:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! T() doesn't seem to do anything, and TEXT() doesn't seem to work in OpenOffice, but it's just the trick for Excel, which'll be fine in this case. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Switching Off A Process

Is it possible to switch off a process (without rebooting) and without using the Task Manager on Vista? I have Firefox still running even though I closed it earlier on (by clicking the 'x' on top-right) and am now unable to re-open Firefox as the machine tells me Firefox is already open and has to be closed. Task Manager shows the process as running (250+K) but doesn't do anything to close it when I click 'End Process'. Is there another way to close it so I can reopen it again (without rebooting)? TIA! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 15:04, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

There are rather more sophisticated task-manager-like programs, like Process Explorer, but they kill processes in fundamentally the same way that Task Manager does (and so really shouldn't do anything better). The only thing I can suggest is that you're actually killing a subprocess of firefox, and leaving the parent intact. If that's the case, Process Explorer is better, because it shows processes in a tree structure, so you know you're killing the whole family and not just a single child. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:12, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Depending on your version of Windows you may have the utilities taskkill and tasklist which can be used to kill and list running processes from the command prompt. They will give help information on the command line parameters. --82.41.11.134 (talk) 16:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. However, I don't feel comfortable with cmd.exe, so I will leave that alone. Process Explorer had the same effect as Task Manager, too, so I just rebooted. However, one reason I asked this question is because it has happened before on numerous occasions - primarily with Firefox. A Google search came up with a number of results of the same (or similar) question/problem that other users have had. A quick look through gave me no helpful information, though, as a number of the answerers were proposing uninstalling certain extensions or whatever - an action which basically needs Firefox to be open and running more or less smoothly. Thanks anyway. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 16:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I find that Firefox.exe often takes a long time to actually terminate even if the browser window has closed. I presume it's doing things like saving profile data or clearing the cache, so it doesn't seem wise to force it to close early. —Preceding unsigned comment added by .isika (talk • contribs) 19:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I've never needed it, but you might consider SuperF4. I recommend turning off their update checking though, they nag about tiny updates. Indeterminate (talk) 11:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Cheers, I've looked at that, but it says it kills the foreground process. Firefox is not in the foreground, just locked up in my system processes box. It has happened three times since I sent the original post, so I have looked on Google, and there seem to be a number of people who believe that this is a problem with a FF extension conflicting with ZoneAlarm (which I recently downloaded). I don't know if this is the case, as I have experienced the problem even without ZoneAlarm installed, but it does seem to be happening more now. Apparently the only way to find out which extension is causing this problem (if indeed that is what the cause is) is by rebooting the machine and restarting Firefox with all addons disabled, then switching them on one by one and waiting to see which one causes the problem, which is, to say the least, quite an improbable way of finding the cause. I've tried logging out, which kills all other programs, but when I log back in again and try to run Firefox, I am informed that it is still running (actually, it's not even showing up in Task Manager now). --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 13:08, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

And, in fact, just for reference, here is some information about it from Mozillazine. Apparently, Firefox+ZoneAlarm+Vista is not a very good combination. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 14:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Start Menu and Icons missing

My start menu and desktop icons are completely missing. Looking through the C:/Windows folder reveals that my explorer.exe was deleted during a computer update. Any ideas on how I can resolve this? Thanks.--Giants27(c|s) 15:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, my computer runs on Windows 2003, if that helps.--Giants27(c|s) 15:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Why on earth would explorer.exe get deleted during an update? It sounds like the actions of malware to me. Also, do you mean Windows Server 2003, or some other version of Windows for the consumer market? Astronaut (talk) 16:23, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I have an XP. And not sure but my computer recently installed 10 updates during shut down and this morning I turn on my computer and it starts deleting corrupted things. Explorer.exe being one of them.--Giants27(c|s) 16:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused, you said your computer was Windows 2003, now it's Windows XP?

Maybe the OP is confusing it with Office 2003, a very common mistake. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 20:04, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It is a Windows XP, didn't realize Windows 2003 and the XP were different.--Giants27(c|s) 20:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

explorer.exe should never be deleted during a (valid) computer update. (Please also note that the directory separator character is "\" in Windows, not "/" as on the Internet for instance.) You could try to repair your Windows installation, by booting from the installation DVD. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:41, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It was deleted as "corrupted", not sure if I have the DVD. I'll have to look around for it. Cheers,--Giants27(c|s) 20:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Windows XP comes on a CD, not a DVD. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 22:30, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Might be if it's a wierd OEM version of XP. Yes, do as Andreas Rejbrand said... run the repair. Either that, or pay a professional to take a look. -----J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec) It seems that the OP is not very certain what operating system he/she is running. (Note the ambiguity between "Windows 2003", "Windows Server 2003," and "I have an XP"). I think the OP has since clarified that it is Windows XP, but he/she should really carefully and correctly verify - they can check against List of Microsoft Windows versions to be absolutely certain. It will help the rest of us diagnose this issue if there is zero ambiguity about the Windows version. Nimur (talk) 00:38, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of the OS version, the fix is to re-install the file. Funny OEM versions of XP aside, I think all modern versions of Windows (2000, XP, 2003, 2008, Vista, 7) have a repair installation option of some kind. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

It's 100% an XP (not being that knowledgeable about computers I thought Windows 2003 and the XP are the same thing, clearly I'm mistaken) but due to a virus in my computer about a year ago, a professional recovered my system and now for some reason the original CD doesn't work anymore. Is there any way to avoid calling a professional at this point?--Giants27(c|s) 02:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you have found your XP install CD, pop it in the drive and start your PC. It should show a blue screen offering the chance to "Install Windows XP" or "Repair your installation". Choose the repair option. This link shows the steps in better detail. Unless the CD is physically damaged, I can think of no reason why this would not work. Astronaut (talk) 05:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Considering this was, as you say, caused by an update removing corrupted files, why not perform a system restore? Make the system go back to its state previous to the update. If you are able to look in your c:\windows folder then I presume you will still be able to run the System Restore program. The details of how to do so from the Command box are here. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 11:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Python

In the Python interpreter, is it possible to edit a specific line of a function if that function has already been defined? If so, how? --Lucas Brown 42 21:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas Brown 42 (talk • contribs)

I think it isn't possible but I'm not sure. It is better to have the functions in a file, and then import them. A proper editor will let you run an inferior python shell inside an editor buffer and directly load python functions to it from other buffers, eg emacs does this with C-M-x. Emacs or any other decent editor would also give you syntax highlighting and autoindenting and more. (Please forgive the clutter if you already knew this.) --194.197.235.240 (talk) 22:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

There is also a tool called "ipython" which makes the interactive mode much richer for doing things like editing and reimporting files. --FOo (talk) 04:29, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Are Blu Ray players compatible with DVDs and/or CDs?

I know DVD players can play CDs, but what about Blu Ray? Can Blu Ray play DVDs or CDs, or is it entirely different? PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 22:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

See Blu-ray Backward compatibility. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I looked in the article a few minutes ago, but apparently not closely enough. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 22:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

October 18

Making a binary file from hex data in the command line...

If I have a binary file that I want to print it out as hex data in a terminal, you can just use the "od -h" command. Is there any way you can do the reverse, that is, have a bunch of hex data and assemble it into a binary file? 83.250.228.169 (talk) 00:44, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

xxd can do hexdumps and reverse. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 00:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Just echo -e '\x##\x##' >file should work, if it's not a problem to put the data on the command line in that format. If you'd rather, perl -e 'while(read STDIN,$_,2) {print chr hex;}' will read a solid block of hex from stdin (no spaces or newlines) and write the corresponding data on stdout. Variations could easily be made to handle different input formats. --Tardis (talk) 01:08, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Similarly in Python, strings have .encode and .decode methods for translating them into specific encodings, one of which is hex. So "foo".encode("hex") returns "666f6f", and "666f6f".decode("hex") returns "foo". --FOo (talk) 04:28, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

ref tag in html?

Is there such a thing similar to the ref tag in wikipedia? I know that you can use an anchor to duplicate it, but when you add an anchor link in between two others, you have to change the ones after it and if you have like 100 references, you have to do a ton of work. So does anyone know if there is a way similar to the ref tag in wikipedia in html or something else (cascading style sheets etc). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Renassault (talk • contribs) 04:05, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

We have this - Template:Anchor. Nimur (talk) 04:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

sorry, I don't understand what that says (I think it talks about how to do it on a template). Is it saying you can't do it with <a name="x">? (also, sorry, I dont know how to sign my name). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Renassault (talk • contribs) 04:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Here you go. I just made one up for you:

<html>
	<head>
		<script type='text/javascript'>
			function setRefs()
			{
				for (i=0; i < document.getElementsByTagName("span").length; i++)
				{
					document.getElementsByTagName("span")[i].innerHTML = '<sup><a href="#references">' + (i+1) + '</a></sup>';
				}
			}
		</script>
	</head>
	<body onload="setRefs()">
		Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,<span></span> consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et 
		dolore magna aliqua.<span></span> Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex
		ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat
		nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim
		id est laborum
	</body>
</html>

Once the page is loaded, the "setRefs" JavaScript function runs. All of the generated links point to a section called 'references'. Feel free to rename either the function or the section name. You could also do it using the document.getElementsByName method, if you wanted to. The body above is just boilerplate text. You add a span tag wherever you want a citation. I don't know how Wikipedia does it, but I like to keep my code as simple as possible.--Drknkn (talk) 06:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Google search has changed

I just noticed, when I go to use Google to search for something, the "search" and "I feel lucky" buttons have disappeared. Is it just me, or has Google made their front page like this for everyone? Astronaut (talk) 05:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

They're there, no doubt about it. Wanna screenshot? --Ouro (blah blah) 06:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I believe you. Does Google now have a fade-in effect? Astronaut (talk) 06:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a feature they've been testing out. Indeterminate (talk) 08:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Looking around, I came across this forum page and I agree with many others - the fade effect and missing buttons is something that Google should ditch (or at least make it a selectable option in their preferences page). Astronaut (talk) 10:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Either Google's experiment has finished, or my deleting all cookies has fixed it. Google's now back to how it was, with both buttons and no annoying fade effect. Astronaut (talk) 04:24, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

hdmi monitor

Hello there. I have an hp 15.4" laptop to which i would like to connect an LCD monitor. It's gonna be a 22-23 inches one with an hdmi input and my lap too has an hdmi output, so I thought would there be no problem trying to hook it up throu hdmi to a monitor that has that input? I just supposed that an hdmi output on laps is usually used for projecting the signal to a big HD tv or something similar , do you think itd be okay if i do that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.35.46.140 (talk) 14:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

For your purposes, there really isn't a difference between a modern LCD TV and a modern LCD monitor, so I don't believe you'll have any problems. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The only consideration is whether the graphics card on your laptop can handle your monitor's native resolution. Any other resolution could look fuzzy if either your monitor or laptop doesn't come with auto-correcting software. Sandman30s (talk) 19:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Sandman30s is correct. (I would go further and forget about auto-correcting software; you must get a graphics card that can support the native resolution of the monitor.) See our article native resolution for details. Tempshill (talk) 20:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Based on my experience, you should not have big problems - if your laptop manufacturer fitted a HDMI port, I would be very surprised if the laptop's graphics card didn't support it at a range of resolutions to suit your new monitor. All the same, I wouldn't invest many $ in a HDMI cable until you are sure it works well.

That said, my TV has a feature which crops the image by some pixels all round, so I don't see odd things flickering at the screen edge such as Teletext, closed captioning etc. I can switch this feature off on my TV and get all 1920x1080 pixels displayed, but I'm unsure about other TVs (eg. I don't think my sister's Philips TV can switch off this feature). A few pixels is not important with TV, but when I tested it at my sister's house I could only see the top half of Vista's start button and with maximised program windows the "Window close" button had almost disappeared. Astronaut (talk) 01:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Error message @ 6pm every day

Hi! Every evening, at 6pm precisely (by my Windows XP computer clock), I get this error-message. I once installed a trial version of that program, and then uninstalled it very soon afterwards, and the folder listed (Pareto.....) doesn't exist. Does anybody know what I can do about this? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►sheriff─╢ 17:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I would guess that the software set up a Windows Scheduled Task to run at 6pm every day, and it didn't bother tidying up that loose end in the uninstallation process. There are instructions here for removing it which might be helpful to get rid of it. --Kateshortforbob _talk 17:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The trial program may have installed a task-schedule event (to run some routine task, like updating itself) at 6pm. Its uninstaller should have removed that too, but it maybe it hasn't. The program to manage these tasks is called "Scheduled Tasks" - on XP it's in start->accessories->system tools; I think it's in the control panel on Vista. It shows a list of tasks and when they run; I think you'll find a 6pm listing that tries to do something with Pareto; if you delete that, it should fix your problem. But be careful in there deleting stuff you don't recognise, as some important (if routine) system functions may be listed too. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant. Thank-you very much indeed! ╟─TreasuryTag►Captain-Regent─╢ 17:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Hard disk problem?

I've just installed a new graphics card (Sapphire Radeon HD4670), motherboard (ECS GeForce 6100pm-m2) and processor (AMD Athlon II x4 620) on a 3 year-old computer. The hard drives (SATA, one with Vista installed, one for data) remained the same. When starting up, I'm getting a STOP 0x0000007b (0x80399BB0, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) every time I switch on, either after a few seconds of the progress bar (when I start Windows normally), or after loading a couple of screens of drivers (in safe mode). Running startup repair from the DVD reports all tests completed successfully, and suggests an unidentified change to the system configuration (!). System restore doesn't make a difference. I suspect the problem could be driver-related or possibly disk corruption, as the machine kept shutting itself off before I put in the new parts. Is it worthwhile re-installing Vista, or is there another option I'm missing here (very possibly)? I've already tried chkdsk. Something slightly odd, which may be unrelated: the BIOS, American Trends (which seems a little quirky) shows my hard drives as 3rd and 4th master when booting, instead of 1st and 2nd, as I would expect. Of course, possibly that's completely normal. --Kateshortforbob _talk 17:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Making a change of this magnitude normally means that Windows will no longer run - it won't have the drivers for the motherboard, the processor or the graphics card. Unless anyone else can suggest a magic cure, installing Vista from scratch may be the best option.--Phil Holmes (talk) 18:20, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Phil Holmes. I thought that might be the case, but I was hoping I would get away with it! I should have curbed my amibiton and stopped with the graphics card. Of course, the really annoying part is that if I'd been patient and waited a week, I'd have had Windows 7 and a new HDD, and would have avoided this whole problem :-/ --Kateshortforbob _talk 20:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

It has been my experience that unless you are installing the EXACT same make & model of motherboard, you will always need to reinstall Windows. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 05:40, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

How do I install Rebol/view on Win XP?

The website for Rebol says that installing it is very easy, but does not actually tell you how to do it. I've downloaded it, run the program, filled in some details, clicked the Console icon and got a Rebol window to appear. But when I close this window, Rebol appears to disapear completely - in other words it has not been installed. What is the proceedure to follow to get a Rebol shortcut on the Programs menu and hopefully an icon on the desktop as well please? I'm also wondering where the user programs would be stored - I thought it was supposed to ask me where I wanted them, but has not done so. By bitter experience I know that its a point of honour among language creators to Never Never Never tell the public the most obviously needed information, but could someone break the code of silence please? 78.151.108.233 (talk) 17:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you followed the quick start instructions from their website? -- kainaw™ 20:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I feel that it is appropriate to restate my earlier comment about this (since this appears to be a question by the same OP). "Rebol is far less common (than python), so you will have a harder time tracking down references, resources, and fellow humans who can help you with conceptual and technical issues. Python has an enormous user-base." You might want to keep this in mind as you begin to invest time learning the language. It looks like the official Rebol Documentation is available online, but in my opinion it looks like there's a few orders of magnitude less information available than other common languages. ~ 70,000 Rebol Tutorial web hits vs. ~ ~ 5 Million Python tutorials vs. ~ 70 million C tutorials. By sheer statistical likelihood, your best bet of finding help with a specific problem goes up if you use a more common language. Nimur (talk) 00:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I had not seen the Quick Start page linked to above, but it still does not say anything about getting Rebol on your start/programs menu. I shall run though it when I have more time.

If with Rebol I can program more quickly and (as a beginner/casual user/dilletante) do more things than with Python because they are not too difficult for me, then I'm for Rebol. That is all that matters. If everyone stuck with programs having the largest amount of users then we'd still all be using GWBasic, or assembler. 78.151.114.229 (talk) 09:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I feel you are underestimating yourself with the "too difficult for me". Scripting (with python) isn't black magic in 2009, everything becomes easy once you read the documentation. But of course _the best_ is a matter of opinion. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 11:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The Windows start menu belongs to Windows. It does not belong to Rebol. Therefore, I find it a bit silly to demand Rebol to explain how to use the Windows start menu. That is something that Microsoft should do. And, not surprisingly, it isn't hard to do. -- kainaw™ 12:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

System32 corrupt/missing

The other day I saw this message:

“Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM – You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-ROM. Select "r" at the first screen to start repair."

The computer was perfectly fine in the morning; there was construction being done in the house during the day, and the power had to be shut off briefly, and when it was turned back on, that's the message that came up on the computer. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but nothing else changed. Why would system32 just suddenly become corrupt? (This is in XP Professional, by the way).

The CD-ROM doesn't do anything, since Windows can't load up in order to read it. Is there another way to fix this? More importantly, is there a way to fix this without losing all the files on the computer? And should I not attempt to do so myself, since I know nothing, but rather have a professional do it? Adam Bishop (talk) 18:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

They want to you to boot with the install CD (rather than the broken windows install); you may need to change the boot-device-order in the BIOS to get this to work. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah...how do I do that? And if I manage to repair the file, what will happen to everything on the computer? Adam Bishop (talk) 18:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

When your computer starts up, there should be a screen that tells you what key to press to access setup (i.e., BIOS) or a boot menu. It's the first screen that appears when your computer starts. The key you press depends entirely on the model of your computer.--Drknkn (talk) 19:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe normally, but the first screen that appears now is this "missing or corrupt" message... Adam Bishop (talk) 15:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Before that screen appears, there should be a quick flash of a blue (or black) screen which gives you the opportunity to go into BIOS setup. (I assume you have already tried switching on with the original CD-ROM in place.) If this screen has been suppressed, you need to try holding down the different possible keys as you switch on. Do you know anyone with the same model of computer? The key to use varies according to manufacturer. It is usually F1, F2, or DEL, but sometimes ESC or F10. Dbfirs 17:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

IE8 tab colours?

Our machines at work have just been upgraded to IE8, and I've noticed that the tabs now change colour - sometimes they're yellow, sometimes they're blue, sometimes they're green, sometimes they're the standard plain grey. This may be an obvious question, but what do the colours mean? There doesn't appear to be any correlation between the colour and the nature of the page being displayed, that I can deduce, at least. Tevildo (talk) 20:05, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Tabs of the same color are in a "group". What can you do with a group? All I know is close all tabs of a group at once. As for individual tabs, you can add them to a group or remove them from a group if you like. -- kainaw™ 20:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I think they just indicate that one page opened the other page. For example, if you click a link on one page and a tab opens, the color indicates this happened.--Drknkn (talk) 20:20, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

See IE8 Tab Grouping from Microsoft's MSDN blogs page. Nimur (talk) 00:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Tevildo (talk) 18:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Screen flicker

I was reading the article Life Story on Firefox when I realized that the Firefox window was flickering. It only flickered when my mouse pointer was in the actual article, not when it was pointing at a tab or the address bar. It also didn't flicker in any other tab. I couldn't reproduce the phenomenon upon closing and reopening Firefox.

What's responsible for this glitch? I realize that I'll probably never know, but I'm asking just in case anybody here experienced something similar. --99.237.234.104 (talk) 20:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like typical Firefox flakiness. If it happens again try turning off Javascript. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 23:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I use Firefox, and I've never had that sort of problem. If this was the only time it has happened, and it never happens again, it's tough (and perhaps unnecessary) to figure out and cause. If it recurs, you might want to think about the add-ons you have installed and enabled. And it always makes sense to use the latest stable release (for Windows, 3.5.3 if I'm not mistaken). By the way, when you post this kind of issue, it's good to mention things like the version you're running, what OS, etc. –RHolton≡– 00:37, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

DNS problems

For some reason I've been having persistent DNS trouble, heavily for the past few days, but intermittently over a much longer period. Basically my existing connections will stay active, but DNS lookups will go very slowly or time out, with the outages lasting for a minute or so at a time. My ISP is AT&T; is this a familiar problem? Is it likely to be a configuration problem at my end? I'm thinking of installing a caching DNS proxy like Pdnsd -- does that sound like a good countermeasure? I'm mostly just web surfing and mostly just a handful of sites. 66.127.54.181 (talk) 23:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The very first thing I'd try is to start using OpenDNS. If you really are having problems with your ISPs DNS server, that should solve it. It's very easy to configure your computer to use it (you don't have to install anything), and their website have very good guides on how to do it. 83.250.228.169 (talk) 00:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I second OpenDNS —Preceding unsigned comment added by .isika (talk • contribs) 14:13, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

October 19

Way to Shorten Load Times (Java)

In a program that I am currently working on, I am loading a lot of data from text files. Is there something I can do in Java so that I do not have to load the data from the text files every time I run the program? Nkot (talk) 04:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Java, but I know how to ask programming questions, and you haven't provided enough information. Please post the actual code used to load the text files, and give us some idea of how big each text file is. If you're loading the Bible it's probably gonna be slow regardless...218.25.32.210 (talk) 07:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

That's really unnecessary in this case. Please don't bite the questioners - and if you don't know the answer - then don't answer. SteveBaker (talk) 12:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Depending on the type of your data you could put it into a caching database, convert it into binary, or compress it. It might also be acceptable to keep it on a memory-based filesystem, eg tmpfs (this is very fast, with obvious drawbacks). --194.197.235.240 (talk) 08:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

One trick is to write an offline program that reads your data and writes it out as Java source code - eg into a pre-initialised array. You run that program just once (or whenever your data changes). Then you take the output of that program and compile it into your final Java program and voila! The data is already loaded when your program starts up. However, this may not save you a lot of time because the data still has to be pulled off disk before your program can start running...but it may save you time in looking up filenames and parsing the data. SteveBaker (talk) 12:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Another thing to consider is whether you need all the data all the time. If you just need chunks of it, it may make sense to put it in a database.--Phil Holmes (talk) 13:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

If the data in the text file were some sort of structured data, I'd create a class with appropriate fields and then read the data into some container of objects of that class. If the objects were related to each other, some container like a tree or linked list might be useful, but if it were unrelated data, an array of some sort would probably do. If the data in the text file was not structured, but rather just like a big paragraph of text that you wanted to search, I'd probably read it into something like a StringBuffer, which is a class that already comes with Java. Good luck!20.137.18.50 (talk) 14:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Make sure you are using Java's BufferedReader to read files from disk - this can save orders of magnitude by allowing the JVM to dynamically buffer (pre-load) the file in the fastest way possible while you use it. The Sun Java Tutorial has a good example of how to do this. Adding the single piece of code to wrap your FileReader with a BufferedReader can easily speed file access times by a factor of 1000x. (See Data buffer for conceptual explanation about why, and Java's IO documentation for details of Java's implementation). If your files are extremely large, consider a Memory Mapped File. I have used this to read binary files up to 9 terabytes; large files require some special buffer management. Nimur (talk) 15:17, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I did something similar in the past. I sped up the process by writing a program that loaded all the data into array structures. Then, I serialized those array structures into strings and saved them to a file. Loading the serialized text back into arrays in the main program was MUCH faster than loading the data from the original data files. -- kainaw™ 17:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

How to search Google Scholar filtering out articles that are subscription blocked?

Is there any keyword-colon-keyword (like filetype:pdf) in Google Scholar to only give result links that are not articles that require any membership or payment to read? I realize that this would filter out a large portion of the results. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 11:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Filetype:pdf seems to give you only things you can access without subscription. It's probably not comprehensive (there are probably things you can access that aren't PDF, and are thus screened out), but it does probably give you a good number of them. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

You might consider searching the databases directly - for example, Elsevier (who publish many many journals and scholarly works) has an advanced product browser and advanced search features. I find that this is much faster than Google if I already know the publication I'm seeking. This will let you categorically exclude journals which are pay-subscription (etc.) Nimur (talk) 15:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

use http://arxiv.org/ 71.161.59.133 (talk) 22:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Yahoo! account

I have a Yahoo! account and I use an e-mail address ending in "@yahoo.com". Here's what I want to ask. How can I change the secret questions I have to answer in case I forget my password? I haven't forgotten the password or how to answer those questions, but I want to select new questions, or at least select new answers to the current ones. Thank you. --88.203.248.162 (talk) 12:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Google google. Though, truth be told, you ought to just fill in the secret question with random characters, or some sort of standard response that is NOT related to the question. The info in them is usually pretty easy for people who know you to find (where you went to elementary school, what town you were born, etc.), and those are often the people you'd rather are NOT going through your e-mail accounts. Take a tip from Sarah Palin on that one! --Mr.98 (talk) 14:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

System freezes at Hardware Test stability (PC Wizard)

Hello there, I have PC Wizard running on my system to check health of my system. But I noticed there's problem with Hardware test compatibility in PC Wizard. Whenever I press Hardware Test Compatibility (both hardware or processor) button, system freezes. I can't move mouse or keyboard. Screen just freezes. But it's not happening all the time. Sometimes there's no freezing during this test (I can move mouse or keyboard). I thought it was software. So I reinstall it but nothing happened. No overheating at all. Why this is happening? My specs are: C2Q 9400, XFX 750i SLI, PSU 750W, Ram ddr2 800MHz 4GB, Samsung Sata HD 320 GB, OS XP SP2. Thank you--119.30.36.42 (talk) 13:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• No answer :(--119.30.36.40 (talk) 18:33, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

It's software with a percentage of low-level code that interrogates your hardware directly. It's entirely possible that it has a bug or did something unexpected that froze your computer. I wouldn't worry about it unless you are getting random freezes in other software all the time - then it's time to do some not-so-fun troubleshooting. Sandman30s (talk) 19:33, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Download WP to cellphone?

I know someone who has the top million(or 10,000 or something) WP articles downloaded onto his phone. What kind of phone do you need for this and how do you do it? Thanks. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 13:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure it is actually "downloaded"? Wikipedia has/had a mobile version so perhaps our friend is using that version with their phone's internet browser? I don't know the mobile version's URL, but perhaps someone familiar with that version knows. Astronaut (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The official English Wikipedia mobile version can be found at http://mobile.wikipedia.org/ - though many phones can just as well display the main wikipedia version. Nimur (talk) 15:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Please help me with some html scripts?

I am trying to impliment some scripts on an html page to make an advanced menu system. However, i'm quite new to these things. I went to a website which describes how to impliment the behavior i want, but my modifications to this scripting seem not to work. Can someone please help me either fix the code i have or help to write new code? it would be much appreciated!

The site where i got the code is: http://www.dhtmlgoodies.com/index.html?whichScript=show_hide_content_slide

With how it operates shown here: http://www.dhtmlgoodies.com/scripts/show-hide-content-slide/show-hide-content-slide.html

My website code, with this script implimented how i THINK it should work is here: http://pastebin.com/m30e59528

Basically what i want is to have it so that when the user clicks "Emote-Icons", the table marked as class "dhtml goodies answer" would show up. In a more advanced fashion, i will have two other tables, and if somehow it could be so that when the user clicks another one of the links in the top table, any other tables shown are hidden and the appropriate one shows up, this would be fantastic!

Thank you all for your time!

137.81.112.223 (talk) 14:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Place it in a html file on your computer, and open it in your web browser. I advise testing it with firefox with Firebug installed, as that has lots of tools to help you debug the page if there's something wrong with the script. Don't use Internet Explorer for that as it's impossible, or at least very hard and annoying. The initShowHideDivs function will be slow as it searches every <div> on the page - it's not an issue for small pages, but complex pages may be slow. You could give the table an id attribute and use getElementById, which would be faster as it will get that one item directly. You might also like JQuery for javascript shineyness. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Outlook drag & drop into Windows Explorer

Outlook enables the user to drag & drop into an email into a Windows Explorer folder, and creates a .MSG file with a filename based on the subject line. Is there anywhere where the rules of this behaviour can be tweaked - for instance, to create a .HTML file instead, or to change the basis of the filenaming? (In my case, Outlook 11 under Vista, apparantly.) thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Fan noise in Xaser VI (Full tower case)

I suddenly noticed, my xaser vi's top exhaust fan is making noise during boot up. It stays for 2 to 3 minutes then everything becomes normal. I checked the fan. No dust or other things that's causing this problem. I also checked system temperature.

No overheating at all.

Why this is happening?

My specs are:

C2D 9400 XFX 750i SLI PSU 750W Ram 4 GB 800 MHz

Thanks in advance--119.30.36.40 (talk) 18:37, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Does it spin faster when everything becomes normal? This is normal behaviour from better quality fans; they auto-adjust their speed depending on heat generated or amount of sustained CPU activity. Sandman30s (talk) 19:37, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

That's right. Normally those smart power-managment features don't kick in immediately (they're mediated by OS/driver services) so many machines boot insanely loud (hello Dell server) and mostly run pretty quietly. But of Sandman30s is getting unusual buzzing sounds, that may be noise from the fan bearing. Blowing out the fan (with a can of compressed gas) may fix it, but often the cheapo bearing is dying and one has to replace the fan (and if it's a PSU fan, that means replacing the whole PSU). This seems to be the only PC component that ever fails for me; perhaps I shed an unusual volume of skin. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Old PDAs

I'm unfamiliar with PDAs, and rather old-fashioned. I do not like rechargeable batteries, and I do not like Wireless. Which old PDA models have the best spec (the most memory, best screen etc) while still having a USB and not a Wireless connection please, and still having replaceable (in other words ordinary) batteries? Note that early PDA models have only serial connectors and not USB - its only USB I want. I am not sure which is the best operating system to try to get, with the idea of using some freeware programs and languages on it. Thanks very much for all help. 78.144.243.47 (talk) 19:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I have an old Palm III that does all that. Pros: It has USB communications through the optional cradle, and runs forever on 2 AAA batteries. Cons: Black & white screen and only 2 MB of memory. It doesn't sound like a high spec, but if all you are doing is storing contacts, diary, appointments and running apps like a calculator and some games like checkers, backgammon it is perfectly adaquate for the job. Astronaut (talk) 22:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Sage Accpac ERP Systems

I am considering taking a position to install and support SAGE ERP systems (CRM etc.)

I was wondering what kind of market share Sage has in this area. Is it a market leader that has stayed on the cutting edge of the technology? Or is it more of a floundering behemoth that stays in business because it's too costly to switch systems.

I ask because I'd like to know how valuable this installation/support experience is going to be. Am I likely to become more employable in the five to ten year time frame because of it?NByz (talk) 20:08, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Searching Google for phrases that have been posted here

I noticed that Google cannot search the current version of Wikipedia's Reference desk, but can search archived versions. For example, there are (as of Oct 19, 2009) no Google hits for a random phrase from the above question here. The exact phrase I searched for was "is it more of a floundering behemoth that stays in business because it's too costly". (I chose such a long combination of words to be sure that it would not appear on other sites.) However, if I search for a phrase taken, say, from here: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 September 12#Producing an optimal route on Google Maps, I get exactly one Google hit - from the very same archived page of the Reference desk. This time the phrase I searched for was "implementations of optimisation algorithms are a lot more expensive and rare than many other applications". Why is that so? That means if I ask something here, initially nobody will be able to find any answers I get, unless they know exactly where to look for, but seven days later everybody will find them by using Google (this may have been a stupid example, sorry for that). Why? 88.203.248.161 (talk) 20:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Google's search index is stored on Google servers and is updated by spidering bots. Depending on the site in question, it doesn't monitor every page on a day-to-day basis. So it probably takes around a week on average for Google to update its index for the Ref Desk, which is pretty much what I would expect for something that is not a "news" site but changes on a pretty regular basis (as Wikipedia does). --98.217.71.237 (talk) 21:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

How to disable AT&T media net

I have voice and text but I don't have data in my plan. The media net key on the LG CU575 like all other phones on Cingular/ATT is the central key that I am bound to push by accident sooner or later. I have to frantically push cancel to make sure no data goes through. Isn't there a way to tell AT&T to disable data completely so that I don't get the "service" of per KB download? Thank you. Kushal (talk) 21:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

AT&T a-list terms: just legalese or should I be worried?

At http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/legal/plan-terms.jsp AT&T mentions that "AT&T reserves the right to block any A-List number and to reduce the amount of telephone numbers that can be used for A-List without notice." Is it standard legalese or should I be worried to not talk on this number too much? Should I ask AT&T if Google Voice numbers are excluded? Or is it just to make sure that the rural networks don't profit out of the new "unlimited" plan? Kushal (talk) 21:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)