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July 26

using a mobile Phone as a modem

Using Motorola Phone Tools in vmware Fusion, I managed to use a motorola 3G phone as a modem. As you might expect, it only works in Windows, not Mac OSX. I would have set it up System Prefs, but it asks for: telephone number, account name, password, APN and CID numbers. I don't have any of these things, and Motorola Phone Tools only needed to be paired with the phone. Is there any way you can learn from the setup in Phone Tools, and apply the same stuff to Mac OSX natively? I have tried myself, there is nothing technical on the surface of Phone Tools, and nor is there Motorola Phone Tools for Mac. It's Windows only. Are all of the above (account name, etc.) in fact relevant?78.148.164.133 (talk) 01:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm in Scotland on the O2 network, and it's a Motorola v6 Maxx. Bluetooth Setup Assistant shows the model name as "Bitsurfer 56k."78.148.164.133 (talk) 02:00, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you need Motorola software to do this. If you use Bluetooth, then there's no need for special drivers, and if your Mac shows the phone as a modem, then try creating a normal dialup connection (use *99# as a phone number). --grawity 14:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually it works now. Thanks in part to you (for the phone number), the motorola stuff (which I ran in Windows, and borrowed some technical stuff from, when I looked further), more surfing, and trying it in USB before Bluetooth. (Trying in Bluetooth would be a bad idea, you don't know where your problems lie - with the modem connection, or with the bluetooth?) And then comes the letters from O2 telling me off. Do they even know that I have it connected to a laptop?89.240.129.112 (talk) 00:30, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Quad-core question

Does Windows XP Home use multiple cores for its own purposes? Does Vista? It is rumored that it assigns separate tasks to separate cores when multitasking, but does it actually? Basically, my question is whether a quad-core CPU is good for anything but high-end games and CADs and the like. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Any version of Windows that supports quad-core CPUs will schedule processes on all four cores. But it's uncommon for two processes to need the CPU at the same time on a typical single-user machine, and very uncommon for three or more, so most of the time you won't notice any benefit from this. -- BenRG (talk) 02:53, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

i got an hp quadcare (their multimedia baby) with vista and you can set up task manager to watch each core independently. i haven't thoroughly researched it, but just my curious watching shows it firing up two processors fairly frequently, but hardly ever more than that. this with no games and no multimedia either, so far, just pretty much dumb Internet Exploring and vista's internal housekeeping. Gzuckier (talk) 06:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

office productivity tool

íÉ≥ĵŲḶcan you pls.help me in my ass. about basic editing,how to use the keyboard & mouse,inserting & deleting text,overwriting 7 using the undo & redo command..thank you,,hoping for quick answers,. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.2.117.188 (talk) 02:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

........wut? --75.150.174.233 (talk) 04:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I'll decline to "help you in your ass". However, I can help with basic editing. The following applies to most, but not all, Windows editors:

1) Use the arrow keys on the keyboard or use the mouse (and then left-click on it) to move to the area you want to edit.

2) To toggle between insert and replace/overstrike modes: Hit the Insert key (usually above the arrow keys on the keyboard).

3) To delete the character after the flashing text cursor: Hit the Delete key (usually above the arrow keys on the keyboard).

4) To delete the character before the flashing text cursor: Hit the Backspace key (usually above the Enter key on the keyboard).

5) To delete multiple words or lines: Highlight the text first by putting the mouse on one side of it, holding down the left mouse button, dragging the mouse to the other side, then releasing the mouse button. Once highlighted you can delete it all by hitting either the Delete or Backspace buttons.

6) To delete everything, hold down the Control key (the very leftmost, lower key on most keyboards), and hit A. This should select all. Then hit the delete or backspace button.

7) To undo an edit, hold down the Control key (the very leftmost, lower key on most keyboards), and hit Z.

8) To redo an undone edit, hold down the Control key (the very leftmost, lower key on most keyboards), and hit Y.

9) To move to the top of the page, hit the Home key (usually above the arrow keys on the keyboard).

10) To move to the bottom of the page, hit the End key (usually above the arrow keys on the keyboard). StuRat (talk) 05:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

We have an article on keyboard shortcut and a nice table of keyboard shortcuts for various operating systems. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Seeking data compression code for short strings

I'm looking for a data compression library (callable from C or Python) suitable for compressing short English strings, i.e. the algorithm should be pre-initialized with the statistics of English (such as by loading in a big static text file at the beginning) so that it can compress a 30-100 byte input down to some small fraction of its original size (the decompressor would work by first loading the same static file). Using something like gzip or lzo the normal way doesn't give much compression for such small inputs, since they start with no statistical knowledge and have to build it up as they go. I guess I could hack up gzip or lzo in the obvious way but thought I'd ask here first if anyone knew of anything already available. Thanks. 207.241.238.217 (talk) 06:04, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Why would you possibly want to compress strings of that size? If you lots of little strings you want to compress, you could string them together (pun not intended) and compress that using the standard methods. Otherwise, I can't imagine a situation in any modern computer - or even an embedded system - where it would be practical to compress strings of less than 100 bytes. Especially if you are using Python as your programming language... « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 07:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Our algorithm on the LZW algorithm includes Python code. The article says it achieves compression ratios of around 50% on large blocks of text, but I doubt you will get anything close to this on 100 bytes of input. You could create a pre-built optimised coding for single letters and common bigrams in English text, but I think this will have to be a bespoke design - standard compression algorithms do not use built-in statistical assumptions, because they are deliberately not language specific (or even specific to ASCII text input). Gandalf61 (talk) 09:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

You could try Huffman coding with a pre-calculated and pre-shared tree. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:51, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually most compression algorithms can be tuned for English text pretty easily, since most of them (bzip2 is a notable exception) read the input from the beginning, spitting out compressed data and building a model as they go. If you feed them canned text followed by the string you want to compress, the output will start with the compressed canned text (always the same) followed by the compressed string of interest (which will benefit from the model built up at that point). Then you can strip off the invariant prefix. This is slow, of course, but it's just a proof of concept. zlib supports the same thing in a more direct way with the *flateSetDictionary functions. Coming up with optimal training data might be hard, but as a starting point you might make a histogram of words from your training set and let the dictionary be the most common ones separated by spaces. This is probably the easiest way to get decent compression, and it's future-proof since zlib is ubiquitous (as long as you don't forget the dictionary!). You could probably get better compression from something in the PAQ series, either training it as above or using one of the variants that ships with a dictionary, but PAQ is very slow (both compression and decompression) and uses a lot of RAM (on the order of a gigabyte). Huffman would also work well, but it would probably take more work than the zlib approach. -- BenRG (talk) 11:08, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

You could save yourself some work and just index all of the strings you intend to use in an array or hashtable. During transmission, you only need to send the index (presumably, if you know you will never need more than 256 possible text-strings, you can index them as a single byte; etc). This method trades storage space for compute time, but it is not a true general-purpose compression algorithm (it cannot compress a string you didn't index!). Nimur (talk) 15:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all. BenRG's approach of using *flateSetDictionary is promising and I'll check into it but I'm concerned about the overhead of copying so many dictionaries around. To Aaron Rotenberg et al: the application requires storing 100's of millions of these short strings and they have to be randomly accessible (i.e. I have to be able to quickly lookup the 23,456,789th string), so concatenating them all together and compressing in one lump won't do it. It's ok if the compression stats aren't optimal--I expect doing something simple like the *flateSetDictionary calls will be plenty close enough (if they get 3x compression instead of 3.5x, it's fine). I expect any type of LZ coding to work much better than Huffman coding. I hadn't heard of PAQ and will read about it. Zlib is the most attractive since it is very standard. I just have to do some benchmarks on the *flateSetDictionary calls and see if they're fast enough. 207.241.238.217 (talk) 21:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Relating to game development, what is a ‘.CCZ’ file?

Can anyone help me with this question please? All I know from a forum is that its a smaller version of a .cc file and I dont know what a .cc file is either. Thanks. 88.106.59.56 (talk) 13:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess .ccz means it's a .cc compressed with gzip (.tar.gz -> .tgz and .svg.gz -> .svgz). FILExt lists many uses for .cc, and this says it's often used for C++ source code, but gzipping it would be a little unusual... --grawity 14:08, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course, file name extensions are usually more of an "optional" convention; it's quite possible that this file is something else that has been intentionally obfuscated to slow down reverse-engineering efforts. A file's name and its contents are not necessarily meaningfully related. Nimur (talk) 15:14, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Relating to game development, what is a ‘.CCZ’ file?

Answer:

When using Sony´s CD/DVD Generator, *.CCZ is the file format for creating a Master Disc or Master Copy.

safety of phone line wiring

Hi, I've been having problems with my phone line, so I tried to fix it by tampering with the phone jack, then I rang Telstra (the phone company in Australia) and asked them whether this was in fact safe. They told me no, the lines were classified as dangerous. This struck me as strange, because I always thought phone lines were so low voltage there was nothing to fear. Can anyone tell me what the voltage/ current are in Australia, and how dangerous it is playing around with the lines? Could you get a shock from them? thanks in advance, 203.221.127.38 (talk) 17:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

See Tip and ring. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:34, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

regular phoneline voltage is around 40? 50? which is pretty safe under normal working conditions, but if your skin is wet or if you jab the wires into yourself to reach the nice saline interior, can deliver a decent current, which in the right place or to the right person can have unfortunate cardiac effects. the ring votage is like 100 which will give you quite a buzz, and likewise for the danger. but i find that most people, including myself, don't disconnect it before working on it. if i had a pacemaker or some such, i probably would. Gzuckier (talk) 06:19, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help folks, 202.89.166.179 (talk) 16:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Virus Issue

I have Windows XP and what I've heard from my university's IT people is a really good school-distributed version of McAfee antivirus. But lately it's been doing something weird. Every time I try to explore my C drive (which is my laptop's only local disk) I get a popup "VirusScan Alert!" from my antivirus program telling me that in the temp folder in local settings (C:\Documents and Settings\(my name)\Local Settings\Temp) it has detected a Trojan ("dtkcsly.dll") and deleted it. After I get this message, I have no trouble exploring the C drive, with the notable exception that Local Settings appears to no longer exist (and it isn't just hidden; I made made sure that hidden folders were visible.) To see what was up, I did start, run, and entered the address (or whatever you call it, I forget the name) of the problem folder that seemed to no longer exist: C:\Documents and Settings\(my name)\Local Settings\Temp. Run opened it up. No problem. I didn't even get one of those virus alert messages. And an in-folder search of all files didn't turn up the dtkcsly.dll file I was warned about. The other thing is, if I get McAfee to do an on-demand full-computer virus scan, it doesn't report anything. Only when I open C. And every time I open C. With the exact same problem. (And every time, it says that the file has been deleted, giving the time of deletion as that instant.) I'm confused. Any idea what the problem could be? The solution? Thanks a lot for any help. 41.249.20.34 (talk) 17:37, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm., obviously a serious problem. But don't worry friend, just uninstall the antivirus software and install it again. If this does not solve the problem, then proceed as follows:- 1.From the control Panel, open User Accounts. 2.With the guest account turned off, create a new administrator account. 3.Switch to the new account and after transferring your personal settings and documents, delete your previous account. 4.Install the software again.I think it will obviously work properly. Thank you for asking questions. Best Wishes.117.201.96.242 (talk) 20:16, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

You could have a bad install of McAfee, but it is not necessary to create a new user to install it properly. Just uninstall McAfee and install it again.

However, a quick google for "dtkcsly.dll" suggests it really is malware. When I have a virus/malware detected by McAfee, then it mysteriously returns and then I can't find it using Explorer, I start to suspect I have a rootkit which is hiding a lot more than that one file. Astronaut (talk) 09:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. But what's your suggestion, then, Astronaut? Just reinstall? Or can I try to delete it manually? Or...? Thanks, 41.249.10.71 (talk) 18:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC) So I've got some additional weirdnesses for those of you interested in helping me to contemplate. a) I just downloaded some free fancy schmanzy rootkit finding program called Gmer. And searched. And nothing was found. b) while nothing has been found or deleted since I last posted, for some reason, when I open C, the popup no longer appears. c) it would appear that the Local Settings folder is indeed hidden, as I got to it through Run again, and the folder details on the left say it's hidden, and also as every time I go into the Documents and Settings\(my name) folder options to select "Show hidden files and folders," and then press "apply", nothing changes, and when I go back into the folder options, "Do not show hidden files and folders" is selected again. And at no point in between is the Local Settings folder visible. So I'm confused. Is there some rootkit/virus there that nothing can find that keeps instantaneously changing the folder options to keep local settings hidden? (And why?) And what's to stop me from just deleting the entire contents of the Temp folder. Is there anything really useful in there? It's taking up 1.3+ gigs of my hard drive and seems to be harboring something nasty. Thanks again, 41.249.72.25 (talk) 00:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Owner of ImageShack image

I noticed that many pictures posted on various forums are hosted by imageshack. Often, the poster is not the person who owns the imageshack account for the image. So, when I see an image I like and I want to see more of those images, is it possible to somehow backtrack through imageshack to find the owner? The urls are similar to img49.exs.cx/img48/18203/some_image.jpg. I can tell that the "img49" is random. The "18203" is not shared by a single user. I find multiple, very different, images under the image directories. The image name tends to appear to be the name the user uploaded. None of that appears to be related to the actual user's account. -- kainaw™ 18:53, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Membership is optional on imageshack. You can upload images without having to create an account. So the only ways to track users are cookies and IP, but they can be deleted or changed respectively. I believe imageshack does not create anything you can call a 'user album' for the unregistered users. -Abhishek (talk) 13:54, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Java

How can I insert a previously compiled Java program into any electronic device such as DVD Player?117.201.96.242 (talk) 20:08, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Uh, I don't think you can. I mean, you could certainly put the program on a DVD, but the DVD player doesn't know how to execute it. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 21:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Blueray players can run Java, and so can many Digital TVs. If there is such a thing as device-independent deployment, it might be associated with the Globally Executable MHP effort. This discussion however indicates that installing Java software on home electronics may be too much to ask for, and the only option may be to embed the software on discs or TV broadcasts. 84.239.160.166 (talk) 18:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you getting at the cross platform nature of Java? You can read about it in the Java (software platform) article. But a simple version of the "how?" is: your "previously compiled Java program" was compiled to be run by a Java Virtual Machine (which is itself a program) and not by any particular electronic device. This means that so as long as your electronic device has a JVM then it can run the Java program. And JVMs have been written for all sorts of things - nearly all major computer architectures and operating systems and stuff like mobile phones too. Note, if it's not clear from the above, that a JVM is written in some language or other but then compiled into device-specific code.

If you knew all this already and you're asking exactly how then I should think it depends on the device and is a right pain for an end user to figure out or do (since you wouldn't want people to be able to break their mobiles / DVD players / toasters easily or by accident - rather you'd want software installed in a factory and a backdoor available for updates). --78.86.164.115 (talk) 22:56, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

July 27

PDF files

Is there anyway to turn PDF files into something more like a book? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyler123459 (talk • contribs) 00:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is a device that was invented for this purpose. It is called called printer. --Juliano (T) 00:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe most PDF viewers have the option to display a PDF in book format. That is, with two pages shown at once, and you flip the pages two at a time. However, be advised that you would need to have quite a small number of lines on each page or a rather large, high resolution screen, to be able to read it at that scale. For a typical PDF file and screen resolution, you could only read it if about half a page is shown at a time. StuRat (talk) 04:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I occasionally export PDF files to png files, then read them with Mangariini. I find that a pretty pleasant way to read on my tablet. APL (talk) 13:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It is possible you are looking for optical character recognition. This will convert a PDF into text form, and you may then be able to use a word-processor to reformat the text in whatever way you like. Nimur (talk) 15:21, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Challenge

Is there a Wikipedia article on a website which has a higher Google ranking than that website for a search of the websites name? Skomorokh 04:09, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean Googlefight or Google Trends or Alexa Internet ? 87.102.86.73 (talk) 11:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I just meant came higher when one did a Google.com search for the website's name. But, if you want to get technical, let's make it the "I'm feeling lucky" result. Think you got one? Skomorokh 11:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

For google the page to read is PageRank - that's what they use to put the search results in order..87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:15, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not looking to read anything, I'm looking for empirical evidence of a link to a wikipedia article on website x appearing higher in a Google search for "website x" than websitex.com. Comprende? Skomorokh 12:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

So you want for example

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Msn

to have a higher page rank than

http://www.msn.com/

?

None I can find - have you tried looking for yourself?87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:47, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Aye, that's it. Skomorokh 13:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

There are lots of them if you use generic nouns. For example, Soda is higher than soda.com. Also, the occasion long-disbanded classic rock band words too (Sweet (band) vs. thesweet.com). As far as products and companies go, probably not. —Akrabbim^talk 13:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks Akrabbim. If we were to narrow the criteria again such that the website name had to have as it's most common use that entity, could you find any? Skomorokh 13:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I think they meant "wikipedia article on a website that is 'more notable' than the website itself"?87.102.86.73 (talk) 13:08, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

More notable in Google terms, not Wikipedia's, of course. Skomorokh 13:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Was there any specific topic area you where thinking of?87.102.86.73 (talk) 13:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

No, I was just curious if it happened at all. Skomorokh 13:57, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't happen very often - because wikipedia does not establish notability in itself any site that might fulfill your criteria would probably we deleted as non-notable..

Two possibilities exist 1. Sites that no longer exist 2. Sites that no-one wants to visit but people have heard off eg http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=goatse&meta= change the search term to 'goatse.cz' and the situation is reversed.87.102.86.73 (talk) 13:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Insightful, I hadn't considered those angles, thanks. Skomorokh 13:57, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

(Sorry about the initial misunderstanding - I've become so used to incoherent questions I didn't notice that yours made sense - and interpreted it incorrectly...)87.102.86.73 (talk) 14:06, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

De nada, thanks for all your help and effort. I help out at the ref desks occasionally so I now how it can get. Mahalo, Skomorokh 14:12, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Bash script

Is it possible to write a script which will create directories and subdirectories based on information in a spreadsheet? Specifically, i want it to begin on the A1 of the spreadsheet and create a directory in the "home" directory using the data in A1 as a name. Then for every cell to the right of A1 (A2,A3,A4...) which isn't empty create a subdirectory in the directory created again using the data in the cell as a name. Repeat for A2, A3, A4 etc until it comes to an empty cell. Is this possible? --212.120.246.239 (talk) 13:36, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Many spreadsheet programs have a macro language built-in. TBH I don't know for sure, but I would assume that a sufficently sophisticated macro language would be able to call system functions to do things like create file or directories. It would however very much depend on which OS and spreadsheet program you are using. Astronaut (talk) 14:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the bsh script could execute a command to export data from the spreadsheet into a flat file, possibly using a macro to format it, then read that data and go from there. If not, you would need to manually export the data from the spreadsheet before firing off the bsh script. StuRat (talk) 15:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Some spreadsheet programs save the sheet as XML anyway (or have this as an option). So, if you're prepared to change gear from Bash to something like Python / Perl / Ruby then you can just grab an XML parser, and do whatever you like with the data. --78.86.164.115 (talk) 23:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

PS I don't mean to say that this will be impossible in Bash but possible in Python / Perl / Ruby, just that it'll be like a million times easier. --78.86.164.115 (talk) 23:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Perl or similar is more appropriate for this kind of thing, but the following will work if you save your spreadsheet as comma-separated values and your data isn't too weird:

cat mysheet.csv | while read ; do mkdir -p "${REPLY//,//}"; done

--Sean 14:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Reading a BMP file

I am trying to read a BMP file. First, of course, I read the BitmapFileHeader and BitmapInfoHeader structures. I define the integer

PaddingBytes := (bmpInfoHeader.biSizeImage - (bmpInfoHeader.biWidth * bmpInfoHeader.biHeight * bmpInfoHeader.biBitCount div 8)) div bmpInfoHeader.biHeight;

Then, if biBitCount is less than 24, I try to read the palette. For every integer i in [0, biClrUsed - 1], I read bytes blue, green, red, and flag and store those in palPalEntry[i] of a new LogPalette structure. Finally, I read the pixel data, from the last to the first line. The length of each line, I have experimentally found to equal

linewidth := (bmpInfoHeader.biWidth * bmpInfoHeader.biBitCount) div 8 + PaddingBytes;

(where the "surprise" is the addition of the PaddingBytes constant - actually, what I found experimentally was that tis constant is often non-zero). This approach works very well for most bitmaps where bfType = 19778 ("BM"), biCompression = 0, and biBitCount is 16, 24 or 32, i.e. for almost all modern bitmaps. However, if biBitCount is smaller, the colours get wrong and, even if the incorrect colours are ignored, the drawing appears corrupted, in a way I would blame on an incorrect value of PaddingBytes. What could be wrong? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Your PaddingBytes calculation is confusing to me, first because I don't know how the height could be relevant and second because I don't know what language it is in so I can't be confident about what "div" means. According to BMP file format#Bitmap data, the padding after each row of the image is to make the total number of bytes per row a multiple of 4. So in C it would be calculated as (width*bitsperpixel)%4 ? 4-(width*bitsperpixel)%4 : 0 --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 18:47, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Dammit, that was wrong. I forgot to convert the bit count to a byte count. But I hope you get the idea. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 18:48, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Time for some correct code... it'll be easy (and more educational) if I remove the macho "do it in one big expression" aspect.

bitsperline = bitsperpixel * pixelsperline;
bytesperline = (bitsperline + 7) / 8;
padding = 4 - bytesperline % 4;
if(padding == 4)
  padding = 0;

--tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 19:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your code, though it appears to do the same thing as my first code. Here is how I think: if there were no padding bytes, the size of the pixel data would be equal to the product

bmpInfoHeader.biWidth * bmpInfoHeader.biHeight * bmpInfoHeader.biBitCount div 8

where the "div" operator simply means (integer) division.

But the actual size of the pixel data is stored in the BitmapInfoHeader structure as bmpInfoHeader.biSizeImage, so, the total number of padding bytes must equal the difference

bmpInfoHeader.biSizeImage - (bmpInfoHeader.biWidth * bmpInfoHeader.biHeight * bmpInfoHeader.biBitCount div 8)

Thus, the number of padding bytes per line is given by my expression for PaddingBytes.

--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:57, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know if there is a web site with sample code for reading a BMP file (with any value of biBitCount)? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

If there were no padding bytes, there could still be unused bits at the end of each row, if the number of bits per row is not a multiple of 8. But the whole idea of calculating a "total padding" amount for the whole image and then dividing it among the rows is asking for trouble. Calculate the padding per row by rounding the bpp*width up to a multiple of 32 bits, and ignore the stupid biSizeImage field. Being redundant, the only thing it can add is inconsistency. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:44, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

You might be right; in some cases my code does not work at all. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 23:46, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

But, then again, perhaps not... I have not found a single bitmap where our expressions differ, and your code produces the same error as mine. For instance, on one particular bitmap, both our methods give PaddingBytes = 0, where a "manual override" to PaddingBytes = 1 is needed to make the picture appear as it should. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:51, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It's possible you have an error somewhere else in your code. Or you might have found one of the rarer bmp variants. Could you provide a sample image? I'd like to see the file, just to be sure. You can zero out everything after the header if the image data is private. Or just paste a hex dump of the first 54 bytes. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 18:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The bitmaps that do not work are the 1 and 4 bit BMP images in the archive found at http://pobox.com/~jason1/bmpsuite/. These files look just fine if the padding number is 1, but both our expressions return 0. If I could just find a way to determine when to perform this "manual override", then my program appears to be able to read all (uncompressed) bitmaps. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, that proves you're misinterpreting something. There are definitely no padding bytes in g01bg.bmp, for example. There is a single unused bit in the last byte of each row, but no padding bytes. Your error is elsewhere. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 23:18, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

You are probably right; I need to study the distinction between "ordinary" padding bytes and this unused bit a bit more. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 09:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

best video database

What is the best database solution for storing large amounts of images and videos? I have used rar formats and zip but they become slow at large file sizes and zip only has a 4GB limit. ZigZap (talk) 14:53, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there a problem with using your OS's filesystem? Images and video don't really compress that well anyway.--mboverload@ 20:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

iTunes will help store and index videos for you, if you're using windows or mac. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.31.172.73 (talk) 21:59, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty confused as to what you are really asking for. RARs and ZIPs are compression formats. They are not database systems. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:36, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want to reduce file size, you should probably not rar or zip your video data, you should consider recompressing it with a video codec. FFmpeg is probably available for your platform and can perform this recompression. If you are just looking for a way to index your files, you might want to avoid placing large binary files into a database (it is possible, but it is usually easier to store a URI to the file). Nimur (talk) 15:27, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that compressing it with a codec will probably significantly reduce the quality of the video itself. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:31, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Help writing entry for my business website link to wikpedia

Hi

is there anyone that can help me write my entry on wiki and assist me link my website www.altogether-mbs.co.uk I have had eye surgery and cant spend hours researching the best way to do this professionally thank you for your time Tim MARTIN —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.124.205 (talk) 14:56, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not appropriate to link to commercial web sites from Wikipedia, unless your site is notable in some way, which seems unlikely for the typical small business. StuRat (talk) 15:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:CORP for what we mean by 'notable' when it comes to businesses. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 15:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Scorched Earth game

Where can I download a version of Scorched Earth (any version 1.0-1.5) that works with Windows XP with minimal fiddling? --The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 16:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

You can get it [Here http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/game/144]. I just tried it in XP. I needed to fiddle with the "mouse speed", and the sound was very quiet. But it was playable. Some of the animations go too fast on a modern PC, though. APL (talk) 17:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, if you're looking for a very good modern re-make, [Charred Dirt http://www.charreddirt.com/] captures a lot of the charm of the old original. APL (talk) 18:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It actually looks great; the quiet sound was an issue, but the animations seem just fine. Thanks for finding it for me. I may check out the re-make as well.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 03:59, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

And, though you specifically asked for the old Scorched Earth, you might be interested in Scorched 3D. Though it's hardly the original version, it is my opinion that they have preserved the spirit of the game. Nimur (talk) 15:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

XP Lang.

I have a Windows XP disc, which has a default language of Spanish, is there any way that i can make it appear English (with all the menu options and everything) after i install it on ma computer? pl. help..cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.252.224.65 (talk) 17:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 17:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

You can get a "MUI" disc for Windows XP. MUI stands for multi user environment and the original idea behind it is to allow users of different languages to use the same computer/Windows installation.

Sadly, MUI discs are only giving out by Microsoft to very big companies, because it's just not the standard feature people need. So unless you are working for such a company, the only way to get your hands on such a disc would be an illegal download, which I in no way recommend hereby. --Natanji (talk) 18:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How do you pronounce API? A-P-I or A-Pie? Eklipse (talk) 17:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

A-P-I. Never heard anything different. After all it's not about eating ;) I find "A-Pie" very amusing, however. ;) --Natanji (talk) 18:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

or appy rhyming with happy. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:16, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Linux distribution for offline use - recommendations

Hi, a friend of mine wants to try Linux. All he will do is read some pdfs, listen to music, watch movies etc. The problem is with installing drivers and proprietary multimedia codecs offline. We can't get internet connection on that machine. So we are looking for an out of the box distro.

Mandriva has drivers installed by default but doesn't have the proprietary multimedia codecs. Linux Mint has codecs but you have to use Envy to install the driver. Envy requires internet connection.

Is there any distro that comes with all these things (drivers+codecs) preinstalled and is free, too? (I don't want to buy Fluendo codecs)

Thanks -Abhishek (talk) 17:52, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu Super Edition already includes codecs and all that stuff, but not more drivers than in ubuntu, since it is not possible to have them all installed.... you can also use APT on CD to get the packages you need (on a PC with internet), and then just copy the local repositories to the other PC that is offline... SF007 (talk) 04:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Javascript works in Firefox but not IE

This Javascript works 100% beautifully in Firefox and Safari but IE chokes on it. As is typical IE is somewhat cryptic in its complaint but it doesn't seem to like the line where I change the innerHTML of the SPAN element. Am I doing something wrong? (Other than trying to make sure my code is compatible with IE. But it's for work, and it's gotta be compatible with the major browsers.)

function tagloader() {
	for (i=0;i<document.getElementsByTagName("p").length;i++) {
		var s = document.getElementsByTagName("p").item(i);
		if(s.className=="tl") { 
			s.getElementsByTagName("span").length;
			for (x=0;x<s.getElementsByTagName("span").length;x++) {
				s.getElementsByTagName("span").item(x).innerHTML = " ";
			}
		}
	}
}

The code just goes through all of the P elements, and then if they are of the right class then it cycles through and modifies all of the SPAN elements. (It's part of a larger bit of code, if you're wondering why.)

Any clue? I assumed that it had something to do with getElementsByTagName but IE claims to be able to deal with it and in any case it only seems to choke on that particular line. Thoughts? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:27, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It works fine for me in Windows XP/IE7 (more specifically 7.0.5730.11 ). What's the error message? BTW as a matter of good practice you should put var before i and x in the for statement, otherwise they will be treated as global variables, with potentially unpleasant and hard-to-debug consequences (it may even be the cause of the problem here, since you say this is partial code). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:36, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The error message is just something like "object doesn't support this method" or something like that. Hmm. Well I'll play with it a little more. I was unable to get even just this snippet to run correctly outside of the rest of the code in IE7/XP. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Unless you've got a JavaScript library, I don't think item() is a valid function for an array. You can do something like ps=document.getElementsByTagName('p'); and reference an item using ps[i] where i is an integer, rather than ps.item(i). Also, not sure what s.getElementsByTagName("span").length; is supposed to achieve. x42bn6 Talk Mess 19:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Strictly speaking getElementsByTagName returns a NodeList rather than an array, so the item property is valid. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:41, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I played around a little more and I think it was due to those VARs being missing. I added them back in and now it works fine. Thanks! --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

MSCE or A+ certification for helpdesk job?

What is the current most common certification expected from somebody applying for a helpdesk job in a company? I was told that WSCE was replaced by something else? Or would it be A+? etc. --Sonjaaa (talk) 23:13, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

A+ Certification is pretty common. That's the one I hear most about. Useight (talk) 01:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

July 28

Partition

Ok, I am running a LiveCD of Xubuntu 8.04.1 . On my hard drive, I have the Windows XP OS. On my LiveCD, there is an application called Gparted. I would like to install Xubuntu on part of my hard drive and have the rest for Windows. However, I already have alot of stuff on the hard drive that I need to keep. My question is, can I partition from a LiveCD and if I can and do, would it harm Windows? Thank you, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 03:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Try installing and you'll see that you can resize your Windows partition to make space for Linux using a simple slider or do it manually for more complex layouts. Linux is more user friendly than you think. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:18, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I can personally vouch for the greatness of GParted you should always backup your hard drive before doing any parition work. There's the .01% chance that something could go horribly wrong, even though GParted has specific protections against this. --mboverload@ 05:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

A problem with wireless card

I have a wireless internet card that is made by D-Link it is a DWL-G520m. I am running windows XP. Here's the problem, whenever I attempt to open the program that was installed with it I get an error "athcfg11.dll was not found". I know the fix for this is probably a reinstall however I cant seem to find a download that works on my computer. I keep being linked to this page. ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Wireless/dwlg520/Driver/dwlg520_driver_248.zip/ When this page opens nothing happens on my computer. I normally wouldn't care because I can still browse the internet but it sometimes fails to work properly and, when I attempt to run an ICS connection I get a DNS error. any help with this would be appreciated. -Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.168.50.251 (talk) 04:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried uninstalling the drives, removing the card from the computer and then re-inserting the card. wireless internet cards really should work on generic windows pre-installed drivers so it may be that by removing and re-inserting the card it'll re-start the 'plug and play' style install. Or it could be that the card has the software pre-installed on the card-itself (why don't more card/enhancement firms do this??) 194.221.133.226 (talk) 08:01, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

SSH on the ASUS EeePC

Does anyone know if the ASUS Eee PC comes with SSH installed so that one can directly type ssh -X username@example.com to get a connection with graphics forwarding? (Is there even a terminal available?) If it's not installed, is it easy to do, such as through a package manager? —Bromskloss (talk) 10:33, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I googled around, and the Eee PC does indeed come with ssh installed. I haven't tried it or anything, but there should be no reason why X forwarding shouldn't work. ADFSGL (talk) 12:20, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

If not, there are a variety of windows SSH clients, including PuTTY, and X-Forwarding systems, such as Xming. Nimur (talk) 15:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The Eee PC runs GNU/Linux, for which there is of course solid support for SSH and X forwarding. I just wondered if it was preinstalled or easy to install on the particular system that the Eee PC comes with. —Bromskloss (talk) 16:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

do NOT use the ssh preinstalled on the EEE. It has the notorious Debian security vulnerability [1] that affects all Debian-based distributions from that era. You have to make sure that you are running an updated openssl lib or all your openssl and openssh keys and sessions are COMPLETELY compromised. 207.241.238.217 (talk) 20:57, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, don't that kind of things get updated automatically? Or manually with apt-get? —Bromskloss (talk) 21:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The updates are not applied automatically. Maybe apt-get update gets them but I haven't verified this. 207.241.238.217 (talk) 01:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Security with broadband

Hi, I've just signed up for broadband with Amnet (in Australia), with a NetComm NB6, wired ethernet router. The user manual for the router keeps discussing security levels and firewalls. I used to have dialup, and never heard anything about the need for firewalls on my system, because I thought that was all taken care of by the isp, and unless you had the capacity to act as a webserver, there was no way for anyone to break in.

• Firstly: Is this right about dialup, is broadband less secure, and what can you do (beyond ramping up all of your security settings) to stop people from getting in?
• Secondly: Should I change the password for the router itself, or does this only protect it from someone altering the settings with physical access to the computer (ie. who can sit and the keyboard and alter them manually)? 202.89.166.179 (talk) 12:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Dial-up wasn't safe either *grin*. Whilst in theory an ISP could filter inbound traffic it's unlikely; it would be hard to manage and people tend to expect to have an open net connection. Broadband isn't less secure, it's the same as dialup, it's just that with dialup you weren't connected all the time, so the likelihood of an attack went down. Consumer routers these days tend to have one built in; your router does Network Address Translation by default so that's a good start. And yes, changing the router password is a good idea; normally people can't use that password from outside the network, unless the router is configured to allow that, but better safe than sorry. --Blowdart | ^talk 12:50, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a very good point, a NAT router (like the one you got from your ISP) is an excellent inbound firewall, and that alone will give you great protection from incoming attacks. As for changing the password, that's a very good idea. There are some (mostly theoretical) attacks whereby a website can get in and monkey around with your router if it can guess the password, and you want to avoid that. In general, it's always a good idea to change default passwords for anything, really.

As for software firewalls, the one that comes built-in with Windows XP Service Pack 2 is all you really need (you can pay a kings ransom to Norton or something, but their firewalls are essentially not going to do much more). With the Windows firewall and a NAT router, you're pretty much safe from incoming attacks.

However, that does not mean your computer is immune to viruses and trojans and such! The standard security advice applies here: don't install anything you've gotten from the web if you don't trust the source, don't open email attachments or links you get from an email, and don't surf the seedier parts of the internet. And most importantly, remember to keep your machine updated! If you do all that, you're probably safe from the bad dudes online. Cheers! ADFSGL (talk) 15:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hard drive issues.

While working on my Compaq Presario 1080 with Windows 95, I accidentally set the active partition to a non-dos partition that is 51 MB in size. So when I started my computer again, it said "Missing Operating System". When I saw this I was thinking, "Hey, no big deal just fix it with a bootable floppy." Below is my process and errors.

A:\FDISK
Do want to enable large disk support » Y
I then chose option 2 » set active partition
I then chose drive C:\ (partition 2) as my active partition.
Then I pressed esc to continue and esc again to exit
I then get the error "Error reading fixed disk"

Then I went and tried a different tactic:

A:\FORMAT C:
It chugged along and then toward the end it gave me the error "Error writhing partition table. Format 
terminated."

Then I tried deleting all partitions and making one large active partition:

A:\FDISK
Large disk support [Y]
Chose option 3
Chose option 4
Deleted all non-dos partitions
Back at the main screen chose option 3 again
Chose option 1
Deleted all Pri-dos partitions
Back at the main screen chose option 1
Chose option 1
Said yes to the info
Then the fdisk said the computer must restart for changes to take effect.

Restarted then ran FDISK from the floppy to see it changes had taken effect and they had not. What must I do to get the computer working again?

70.233.165.195 (talk) 13:33, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you have a bad copy of FDISK ? It certainly should be able to do what you attempted. BTW, I like the "writhing partition table". :-) StuRat (talk) 14:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

context sensitive

Resolved

I'm looking for a suitable article to link to for wiki-linking the phrase 'context sensitive' specifically in the case of user-interface context-sensitive input - eg context sensitive responses to button pressses in video games..

Can anyone find a suitable page?87.102.86.73 (talk) 17:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe you're looking for context-sensitive? Admiral Norton ^(talk) 18:27, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Context sensitive should work now, too. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 18:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

An article that covers 'context sensitive' in the context of computers (specifically computer games) eg I press the 'use' button and the computer decides whether or not I meant throw,drop,eat etc?87.102.86.73 (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

You are looking for Context-sensitive user interface - an article which does not exist, yet. Why don't you start it? -- kainaw™ 19:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there definately nothing similar?

One problem I would have here would be getting references. Any hints.87.102.86.73 (talk) 20:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised no one has made any jokes about Conker's Bad Fur Day yet. --71.98.25.85 (talk) 20:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

OK you asked for it :User_talk:87.102.86.73#Context_Sensitive_User_Interface_Design - would anyone care to look it over, and if suitable make the article. Otherwise tell me where I went wrong.?87.102.86.73 (talk) 04:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Update Context sensitive user interface now exists - if anyone has any notable info. for the article - specifically history of., classic or state or the art examples, etc etc please leave a message for me or add the info yourself..87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:30, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

{{resolved}} (please continue discussion if you wish}}

Making Dvd compatible

I have an avi file that I want to make compatible so I can play it on the dvd player not on the lab top . Now I started the compatibility application but the process doesn't seem to be moving at all, is there some other way to do it other than to rely on windows? And what occurs during this process?Why do CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R require this process while other disc formats don't?Bastard Soap (talk) 18:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood what's being done, or I'm misunderstanding your question. CD-Rs and DVD-Rs and DVD-RWs , etc. etc. are just disc formats. Within the scope of your question, the type of disc is really irrelevant. If your DVD player doesn't play AVI files (many do these days), it will need to have the video converted into a format it can understand, such as .VOB files (on DVDs) or .DAT files (on CDs). Most burning programs come with a utility that will convert the AVI into the the format of your choice, but that's really a separate process from the actual burn to disc. If you find that you're converting a lot of files from AVI, I'd suggest you just get a cheap DVD-player that can play DivX AVIs (it will be advertised right on the box) as converting the video almost always leaves you with a lower quality picture, especially if you're using the conversion tool that comes with the burning program. If you're just concerned that the process is taking a long time, then I'll warn you that video conversion can be a huge chore for older machines and can easily take hours. Hope this helps. Matt Deres (talk) 20:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Video DVD players require the the video to be encoded at specific resolutions and format. see here: DVD-Video. AVIs can contain all sorts of different codecs and resolutions. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 20:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Make it go faster, damn it!

At my local libary there are many computers and they all connect through the interent via a proxy server, and through my investigations I have found that the same server and indeed Ip address is used accross almost every libary in my area. Now, for the past three or so years I've have been going to the libary and downloading files via bittorrent (utorrent) at a rate of about 10GB per day. But recently the download speed has dramatically droped from around 7mbps to 800kbps. I feel that someone on the other end (the proxy server admin maybe) is limiting my downloads. How can I bypass these restrictions? This problem is not one I can complian to the libary about as I probablly shouldn't be mass downloading there and at present the connection speed is not low enough to troubble the average everyday internet user, so nobody else will be complaining. ZigZap (talk) 20:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll be honest and say yes there is a way, but I am not sure if it is legal to even do as it is not your personal network. Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  21:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Without knowing the system setup, it is impossible to know if there are any workarounds to the speed limitation. Why don't you ask the system administrator about the speed change? They may have intentionally put a Quality of service limitation of some type to discourage high-speed downloading; or, there may be a system failure which needs to be fixed. Nimur (talk) 22:18, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you find some massive download that the librarians wouldn't mind (like your own copy of Wikipedia, perhaps ?). That way, when you complain that "it doesn't work when I do X", they won't say "then don't do X". StuRat (talk) 22:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Please Rgoodermote, tell me. Or at least link to a website that says how to do it. You can't just announce that there is a way and then leave me hanging! ZigZap (talk) 10:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

He's not really obligated to. It's like, if you asked if there are drug dealers, he says yes, but won't tell you who. He could become an accessory to a crime for all we know. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 18:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Upgrading Computer?

Okay so here are the specs for my computer, which I want to upgrade. I firstly want more RAM (and btw- would my computer be compatible with high density RAM? My computer only supports DDR1 RAM as of now), and I'd also like to know if you guys can think of any cheap but useful or necessary upgrades that would help the performance of my computer. Lastly, I'm planning on buying all of the upgrades from Newegg.com. Thank you for your help and suggestions! --71.98.25.85 (talk) 20:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The link didn't work for me, so I don't know your exact specs, but you'll want to get DDR2. DDR3 isn't worth it at the moment. I'd recommend a Core 2 Quad, perhaps the Q9450, I believe it's called. I think it's about $330 on Newegg, but don't forget to also check Tigerdirect.com. As for a video card, probably an 8800GT would be the best bang-for-the-buck. Useight (talk) 22:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

DDR2 RAM won't work on a DDR1 motherboard. You would need to get a new motherboard and CPU, which starts to get a bit expensive. Most people don't need a faster CPU. Try running and minimizing Windows Task Manager; it will show a little tray icon with your current CPU usage. If it's frequently at 100% then a faster CPU may help you. If it's any lower (like 95%) then the bottleneck is elsewhere and a faster CPU won't help at all. Adding RAM will probably noticeably improve performance. What sort of performance (or other) problems are you having, by the way? -- BenRG (talk) 23:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, dang, I couldn't get the link for my specs to work...but thank you both for your suggestions. On the Belarc Advisor report for my computer it says the bus clock is 200 megahertz, which I believe is the speed for the RAM, correct? So I need 200 megahertz speed RAM? And lastly, how do I know if my computer will support high density RAM? --71.117.43.247 (talk) 16:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Any kind of DDR1 RAM should work; it will have names like "PC-2700" or "PC-3200" (not "PC2-", that would be DDR2). Also, it needs to be DIMM (larger form factor for desktops) or SODIMM (smaller for laptops) depending on which your machine takes. And it can't be higher capacity than your machine supports (for example your machine might be limited to 512MB DIMMs and a 1GB DIMM won't work). The four-digit number after the PC- doesn't matter much. It's the speed of the RAM, but you probably wouldn't notice the difference. More RAM helps a lot, faster RAM not so much. I don't know what you mean by high density RAM. -- BenRG (talk) 03:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

ai computational complexity

I'm trying to write a Pentago-playing AI. The problem is that there are 288 possible moves to make (6x6 grid * 4 blocks to rotate * 2 directions to rotate). And I have to check if the human could win, so that's another 288 moves. So my AI has to look through 576 moves to decide where to go. And if I want to look ahead a move, that's 331,776 possibilities. Two moves ahead? A whopping 191,102,976! I have the magic constant set to one move ahead and there's a full 2-second delay before the AI makes a move.. two moves ahead basically hangs.

So how do chess engines and such handle so many combinations? It hardly seems like Pentago is more complex than chess.. am I wrong to use recursion? I'm working in C++, is recursion just too expensive? 76.106.15.180 (talk) 21:17, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

See Computer chess for an overview of techniques to reduce the search space. alpha-beta pruning will be especially useful. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, alpha-beta pruning looks nice! I just "started writing" and ended up with an algorithm that:

For every possible move:

• checks the board for a winner
  • if in winning state, make that move (results in a victory or a blocked victory)
  • if not in winning state:
    • make that move for the ai, recurse to step 1, then undo that move
    • make that move for a human, recurse to step 1, then undo that move

Pretty much as brute-force as possible, though it does beat the official pentago engine :D. I'll see if I can eliminate more cases than "that move" being occupied. 76.106.15.180 (talk) 01:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The "brute force" approach of looking at every possible move only works for the simplest of games, like tic-tac-toe. For anything more complex, you need to program the computer to mimic human thought patterns as closely as possible. How would you decide what a good move is in this game ? Try to program the computer to use the same logic. StuRat (talk) 22:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Because of the symmetry of the board, there are not as many moves possible as it would appear. For example, placing a marble on any of the four corners of a blank board is equivalent to placing it on any of the other corners. Just rotate the entire board. So, right off the top, you've pruned 75% of the seemingly infinite number of moves possible. Now, you can think of pattern matching. What moves are actually possible. Can you have a board with 8 black marbles and 3 white? No. Again, you've reduced the number of patterns that can be matched. So, now you should see that pattern matching is looking better. How can you cheaply represent a board? Each hole had 3 options (black, white, or empty). You are looking at a tertiary value per each of the 36 holes. That is a HUGE number, but we've already stated that only 25% of them are needed to represent all 100% of the possible layouts and most of those 25% are not valid anyway. So, from this point, you should see it possible to start a state tree. You do a depth-first search down each branch of the tree. If it ends with "human wins", you prune it. You'll end up pruning large subsections of the tree until you have a tree that always ends in draw or win. Is it possible to always win? Probably not. Creating the tree will take a very long time, but when it is done your AI program will be very simple. Just locate the state in the tree (rotating the entire board as necessary) and choose a move that eventually leads to a win state. -- kainaw™ 23:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec with below) Deep Blue relied mostly on brute force, actually. I don't think its approach to chess resembled a human's much at all. The article has some interesting things to say about this in the section Computer_chess#Brute_force_versus_selective_search. I think Computer Go is more interesting from an AI perspective because the branching factor is much higher, which makes brute force too slow. -- BenRG (talk) 23:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Chess doesn't have nearly as many moves per turn. So if you use a typical chess AI with minimax and alpha-beta pruning you're not going to get nearly the depth a chess program would work. Check out the article on Computer Go for the problems you're going to face with this project. APL (talk) 23:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Subfolders and AppleScript

Hi. I am trying to make an AppleScript to hide all items in a folder and its subfolders. So far, I've got

tell application "Finder"

try set listOne to ((entire contents of (choose folder)) as alias list)

set countOne to length of listOne

set countOne to length of listOne

repeat with i from 1 to countOne

set theItem to (item i of listOne as text)

set TheName to name of (theItem as alias)

if character 1 of TheName is not equal to "." then

set name of item theItem to ("." & name of item theItem)

end if end repeat

end try

end tell

but that will only hide things inside the chosen folder. If I replace "entire contents of (choose folder)" with "entire contents of folders of (choose folder)" it ignores the contents of the chosen folder, going only for the subfolders, and if I put "every item of entire contents of folders of (choose folder)" it still ignores the contents of the chosen folder and hides the items in the subfolder. What am I doing wrong? How can I make it hide both files and folders? Thanks a bunch. Ilikefood (talk) 21:24, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Raw (dd) copy of smaller to larger disk.

Scenario: I'm using a linux machine, where the main disk with linux is /dev/sdb. Let's assume that I have also connected a second disk (400GB) taken out of a healthy windows machine, recognized as /dev/sda, which has a single NTFS partition. Finally, a third disk (500GB) is connected, which is unformatted, and recognized as /dev/sdc.

Question: If I first use dd to make a raw disk image of the windows disk (dd if=/dev/sda of=my.image bs=1024), and then copy the image (dd if=my.image of=/dev/sdc bs=1024) to the unformatted, larger disk, will the larger disk then be functional (i.e. bootable as the main windows disk in the machine where its contents came from, or mountable in linux, or readable in some other way)?

Motivation: The scenario above does not describe what I'm trying to do, but I need to know if it would be expected to work, in order to interpret the results of an attempt at data recovery.

The real problem: I'm trying to help some friends recover data from a crashed harddisk. I have mounted the disk on a linux machine. It is seen by the bios, and cfdisk and sfdisk report no problems. However, when I try to mount it (mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/bad-disk), I get the message

$MFTMirr does not match $MFT (record 0).
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or you have hardware faults, or you have a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows TWICE. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If you have SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first you must activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for the details.

So I checked if there are damaged sectors:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null bs=1024.

dd terminated after about 3 GB, reporting damaged sectors.

I then used dd_rescue, to get an idea of the extent of the damage:

dd_rescue -A -v /dev/sda /dev/null

(-A is replace damaged sectors by zeroed sectors of the same sice, -v is verbose). The result was that only 36 sectors were unreadable, some of which might be recoverable by reading the bad parts in reverse, and patching them into the main image. So my plan is this: use dd_rescue to make a disk image, with the unreadable sectors replaced by zeroed sectors, and then dd the image to an empty, healthy disk, and hope that it is mountable in either linux or windows. The problem is, I don't have a disk with the same geometry as the damaged one. I do, however, have a larger disk.

Other suggestions on how to recover the data would of course also be appreciated. In particular, advice about software that is able to reconstruct a physically OK but logically faulty NTFS disk would be most welcome. Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I have done this far too many times so trust me here

First, go to the HDD manufacturer's website and download their diagnostic floppy/CD. Trust me - just do it. They can do a proper fix of all bad sectors and do a proper test of all the mechanics. This should be your first step with any hard drive that has a physical problem like yours. Once it is done scanning see if it boots the drive or if you can mount it. Chances are that there is extremely little file damage

Now you can try your dd trick - which SHOULD work unless your drive is so screwed even those manufacturer boot CDs can't fix it. Then the only thing you can do is try to bang the disk against stuff and put it in the freezer to get really cold.

If it will not boot Windows from the new drive slave the drive to another Window's install and use R-Studio NTFS if there are files missing. Only 50 bucks and the best recovery software I know of. If you want a free - but still great solution try the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. It is free but requires an XP cd to build it. Every computer guy should have this in their bag. I PERSONALLY endorse it. It has similar free tools - masses of them.--mboverload@ 01:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your advice, mboverload. It's a Maxtor disk, so Seatools would be the program to use. I'll try it, and if it doesn't succeed, try the dd route, and check out the tools you recommend if it still isn't mountable. These things tend to take time, and mine is limited, so by the time I'm finished, this thread may have reached the archives. Therefore, I'll write a message on mboverload's talk page when I'm done, reporting whether I succeeded.

Meanwhile, I'm still interested in hearing from anyone who have tried doing a raw disk copy of a smaller to a larger disk, or who know for a fact that this works, and that the remaining space is flagged as free space, as one would expect. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I've done it a few times when replacing a smaller hard disk with a larger one. Every time, though, I copied one partition at a time, rather than the full-disk copy that you're trying. Here are the steps I did:

1. Partition the new disk so it has one partition that is exactly the same size as the partition you're trying to copy
2. Use dd to write the data to the new partition. You can do either a partition-to-partition copy (dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1) or a file-to-partition copy (dd if=/home/myimage of=/dev/sdb1)
3. Do any neccessary repairs to the filesystem.
4. Mount the new partition to make sure everything worked correctly.
5. At this point, if you're using a growable filesystem (ext2/ext3 are, FAT isn't, I don't know about NTFS), you can enlarge the partition and then enlarge the filesystem to fill the available space. Alternatively, you can create a new partition out of the empty space.

If you've got an image of the disk, you can use Linux's loopback filesystem features to use it as if it were an actual physical disk. --Carnildo (talk) 21:59, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!. This was very useful information. I like Partimage for backups, but have been a little worried as to what would happen if I had to restore to a disk with a different geometry. Another tool to achieve what you describe, is the Seagate Disk Wizard (works if there's a Seagate or Maxtor disk connected). It does exactly what you describe in one step, including resize the partitions (fat and ext3 also). I used it recently, but don't remember whether I had to use the Super Grub Disk to boot into linux, and do a grub-install to get grub working. The program warned that I would need a bootable medium to get in touch with linux, but as far as I recall, it wasn't necessary. Seagate disk wizard is a wonderful tool - when it works. I was unable to convince it to configure the partition sizes manually (but heck - it did a good job at resizing proportionally), and I was unable to successfully clone an IDE disk to a SATA disk. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 07:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The GParted live cd will expand NTFS volumes. I've done it. It is very picky though - if it detects any problems it'll say "fogettaboutit". Which is what it should do! --mboverload@ 02:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've succeeded in rescuing the entire disk without doing any of the above! When I added an additional IDE disk to the PC, the defective SATA disk suddenly started working. I will do some additional diagnostics in the weekend, in order to see if this is reproducible, and understand what happended. I'll post the details on mboverload's talk page. Thank you, mboverload and Carnildo, you have taught me a lot --NorwegianBlue ^talk 07:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

July 29

A critical Problem.

Last year, I had bought a PC game titled 'Conflict Vietnam' which consisted of 3 CDs. Now, after installing it, it ran well. But after a few monthes, my Hard Disk was damaged. After buying a new Hard Disk, I tried to reinstall the game from the CDs. But every time I try to install it, the installation fails (while running the first CD) and a messsage appears "Cyclic Error!(Data Redundancy Check). Can anyone please suggest me away to overcome this problem and reinstalling the game successfully? Any help will be gladly welcome.117.201.97.212 (talk) 00:08, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like your CD is stratched. Run some warm water and scrub the surfaces with your fingers. Dry off with a soft towel. If this does not work you could buy a CD scratch repairer. However, it would be cheaper to just buy the game again. Copyright Jesus would not smite you for downloading the game from the internet in this case. --mboverload@ 00:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Infinity in HTML

I can't figure out how to represent the infinity sign (∞) in HTML the way I ordinarily represent such symbols. I don't know what this is called, but if I wanted to show, say, the copyright symbol (©), I'd do it with "©". Is there a similar way to show the infinity symbol, and if so, what is it? Also, what is this HTML trick called, so I can look these things up in the future? :) Thanks! --Masamage ♫ 02:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

They're called character entity references. The infinity sign appears to be ∞ --Bavi H (talk) 03:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

We have our own list of XML and HTML character entity references. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 09:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Great! Thank you both. :) --Masamage ♫ 14:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you can provide a meta-tag in XHTML (and maybe HTML 4) which indicates that you will use UTF or unicode - in that case, you do not need to use a character entity reference and you may use the character symbol directly (while still maintaining a standards-compliant page!) Nimur (talk) 21:17, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Problem with toggling switches between laptop and Projector

hi, I have been using Acer Travel Mate 2300 Laptop. When i connect the laptop to a projector, I have difficulty toggling switches between the laptop screen and the projector screen. Using the F8 function to toogle bettwen the screen are unabled and by juz moving the mouse, it suddenly toggles from the laoptop to the projector screen. The Projector doesn't reflects the imaages that the laptop is screening. The Projector only shows the screens only the wallpaper of the projector and the prensentation slides and ther stuff that the laptop is running can't be screened by the projector.

It sounds to me like the laptop is set up to use two monitors with each having an independent screen. You don't want this setting, you want each screen to be a clone of the other. Go to Start (+ Settings) + Control Panel + Display Icon + Settings Tab, I believe, to change this setting. StuRat (talk) 03:12, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

That is called "presentation mode". It shows the wallpaper and "full-screen" images. So, basically, it is for PowerPoint slide shows. Most laptops have the option for internal video only, external video only, internal and external, or internal and presentation. Often, there is only one function button and you have to hit it repeatedly to cycle through all the options. -- kainaw™ 12:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

filesystem in a file, linux

i have a 1gb file called filesys. i want to format it into a filesystem and be able to mount it. Can someone give me a tutorial? I'm pretty sure this is possible right?

Quick start: mke2fs filesys ; mount -o loop filesys /some/directory

Add whatever filesystem options you want to mke2fs, like -j to create an ext3 journal. Add -F to avoid the "are you sure you want to do that on a regular file" prompt.

If you want to bind the file to a block device without mounting it, losetup /dev/loop0 filesys --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 05:14, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

where should the "inline" specifier be placed in c++??

eg: //file "foo.h" inline void foo();

inline void foo() {

  //do somthing 

}

//where should i use the "inline",before the declaration or the definition or both of them???

Well, a quick Google search seems to indicate that you should use it on the definition but not the declaration. Also, you should put the definition into the header file instead of the source file to stop the linker from whining at you. Now, I'm off to Java-land where it's safe... « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 10:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know you can do any of the three; the recommendation in the C++ FAQ Lite is just a matter of style. You can put the definition into the .cpp file, but then you'd have to put identical copies of the definition into every .cpp file where the function is used, because the rules are that an inline function has to be defined in every translation unit where it's used (a translation unit being a .cpp file and all the header files it includes). My opinion (which differs from the FAQ's) is that extremely simple inline function bodies (like { return something_else(); }) should have no separate declaration, just the definition, and function bodies more complicated than that shouldn't be declared inline in the first place, except in unusual cases. It's easy to overuse the inline keyword. Modern compilers are good at inlining functions where appropriate even when they're not declared inline, and function call and return are very fast on modern CPUs. -- BenRG (talk) 14:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Userpage woes

Help! I can't edit my userpage anymore! Everytime I hit the edit tab, a message pops up telling me that the script is unresponsive, and then, I can't see the HTML code anymore. Please get me out of this mess. If you want, you can even edit my page in the process. I won't mind. I just want my page back to normal. La Alquimista 09:21, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Not that it's any help, but it works for me. What were you doing immediately before this happened? « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 09:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I was trying to copy HTML coding from MS Word directly into the editing area just before calamity struck. La Alquimista 14:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Try the end-all, fix-all. Reboot the computer. Useight (talk) 14:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Umm.. I didn't quite get that. What do you mean by the "end-all, fix-all"?? La Alquimista 15:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

FireFox3 opens the page with no errors. IE7 opens the page but gives an error— undoing your last edit clears that error. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's fixed now. Thanks for your time, everyone. La Alquimista 15:50, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

If you hose it up again, bring up the history and revert. In my experience, Word HTML includes some custom stuff that I have never bothered to figure out. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

cuil

Have you already tested cuil? How can it be that it indexes more pages but doesn't find many thing? Isn't it terrible that its name resembles culi.com?

The Reference Desk is not a discussion forum, and we will not answer purely subjective questions. If you have a more concrete question, ask away. Otherwise, we can't help you. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 10:15, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

More pages does not mean all keywords. Please give it some time. It did not even show Ars Technica for a while. Kushal (talk) 21:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

It shows up a great many wikipedia clones, that the biggest search engine ignores, as well as other search engines searches. It also revealed an academic article falsely attributing quantum cryptography to me. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:37, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Defrag and partitioning NTFS from Linux live CD

I want to partition a NTFS HDD using Gparted from a Linux live CD. However, how can I defrag my Windows partition without booting Windows (that is not possible)? Is defrag before partitioning absolute necessary? Mr.K. (talk) 09:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

If you are installing a Linux Distro it is highly recommended that you defrag Windows and no there is no way to my knowledge of defraging Windows through Linux and Gparted is only for the creating and deleting of partitions and is not capable of defraging. I am going to assume you are using Ubuntu. In Linux go to ubuntuguide.org. They have a large amount of things that could help you out. Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  23:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

US cell phone in Europe

I have an LG Chocolate (VX8500) (which I hate) and I will be travelling to Germany, from the US, in a couple weeks. Will I be able to use the phone while over there? Dismas|^(talk) 10:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

No, since it is CDMA 800 / CDMA 1900.

Yes, you can use it for taking pictures, playing games, using the agenda. However you cannot use it for calling since Germany, as the rest of Europe uses a GSM standard.

Okay, so if I get a new phone, what should I look for so that I can make calls? Dismas|^(talk) 12:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

In the US, your choice of carriers will be limited to AT&T or T-Mobile. BUT, neither of them will unlock your phone (so that you can put in a SIM card of your choice) until at least a few months have gone by. If you don't put in a local SIM card, then you'll end up paying exorbitant roaming rates to your carrier.This article, while a couple years old (it refers to Cingular, not AT&T) captures the basics. I believe it would also be possible to purchase an unlocked phone, via eBay for example, but you'd still have to go through the hassle of switching carriers and sign-up fees and all that. If you really need a phone, your best bet (IMHO) is to consider renting one once you've arrived in Germany. --LarryMac | Talk 13:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

If you can afford to switch to GSM, Nokia has a large selection of phones. N series phones are pretty cool. Kushal (talk) 16:52, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't want to switch providers, I'm with Verizon and I like them just fine. I don't want to go through the trouble of renting a phone. I just thought it would be nice if I had a phone that worked while over there for a few days. I've had this one long enough that I'm eligible for a discount on a new phone anyway... Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 19:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

word software

124.43.65.210 (talk) 11:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)could you recommend a free software or a word game in which, if I enter the letters of a word it must show the possible words. e. g.1 if I enter the letters a, c, e, e, h, r and t (in alphabetical order ) it must show the word teacher. e. g.2 if I enter the letters d, e, o,r, and r it must show the word order.thank you

The Anagram server at [2] will do what you're asking for. You may have to change the settings to specify word count or length, so you don't get, for example, "OR RED" when you want "ORDER". jeffjon (talk) 12:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

C++ Program

I tried to write the code for a small game in C++. There are 15 coins arranged in 3 columns havin 7,5, and 3 coins respectively.They are represented by asterisks. A player can pick as many coins as he/she wants at a time, but only from a single column. The player who picks up the last coin is the loser. For some reason, the program's not working properly, as in, the output always shows the name of the second player as the winner. Can anyone debug this program please? Thanks in advance.

#include<iostream.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>

void main(){
int a[3][7], i,j,n,c,v=0,pp1=0,pp2=0;
int f=1;
char p1[25],p2[25];

for(i=0;i<7;i++){
  for(j=0;j<3;j++){
    //initialises all cells of array a[][] with 0
    a[i][j]=0;
  }
}
for(i=0;i<3;i++){
  for(j=i;j<(7-i);j++){
    //initialises required cells with 1
    a[j][i]=1;
  }
}

cout<<"Enter player 1's name \n";
gets(p1);
cout<<"Enter player 2's name \n";
gets(p2);
for(i=0;i<7;i++){
  for(j=0;j<3;j++){
    //prints an asterisk wherever there's 1 in the array
    if(a[i][j]==1)
      cout<<"*  ";
    else
      cout<<"   ";
  }
  cout<<endl;
}
cout<<endl;

do{
  v=0;
  if(f%2!=0){
    pp1=1;
    pp2=0;
    cout<<p1<<"'s turn \n";
  }
  else{
    pp1=0;
    pp2=1;
    cout<<p2<<"'s turn \n";
  }
  cout<<"Enter column number \n";
  cin>>c;
  cout<<"Enter number of coins to be removed \n";
  cin>>n;
  cout<<endl;
  c=c-1;
  for(i=0;i<7;i++){
    if((a[i][c]==1) && n!=0){
      n--;
      a[i][c]=0;
    }
  }

  for(i=0;i<7;i++){
    for(j=0;j<3;j++){
      if(a[i][j]==1) {
        v++;
        cout<<"*  ";
      }
      else
        cout<<"   ";
    }
    cout<<endl;
  }
  cout<<"__________________________________\n";
  if(v==1){
    if(pp1==1)
      cout<<p1<<" is the winner \n";
    else
      cout<<p2<<" is the winner \n";
  }
  f++;
}while(v!=1);
getch();
}

La Alquimista 15:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Your game worked OK for me. Maybe your testing strategy is at fault.

For example:

Test 1: Player1 takes all of column 1, Player2 takes all of column 2, Player1 takes 2 from column 3 and wins.

Test 2: Player1 takes all of column 1, Player2 takes all of column 2, Player1 takes 1 from column 3, Player2 takes 1 from column 3 and wins.

General improvement to the code: I used indentation to help make the code more readable. You might also want to consider using meaningful names for the variables to make it more readable. You need to consider what happens if the last player takes all the stones - it get's stuck in an endless loop.

Astronaut (talk) 17:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Astronaut. The code could use indentation, better variable names, and error checking. I don't have access to a compiler right now, but I stepped through the code in notepad, and I don't find any reason why player 2 should be declared the winner every time. Laenir (talk) 17:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Umm.. Actually, I assumed that no one would be stupid enough to take all the stones for himself when he can easily keep the last one for his opponent. And there's another snag, which I'm surprised wasn't mentioned by Astronaut. In my PC, if I remove, say 3 coins from column 1, the output in the next stage shows 3 coins missing from column 1 as well as 1 coin missing from column 3. Or maybe something's wrong with my version of TurboC++. La Alquimista 17:43, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't do that for me:

Enter player 1's name
Astronaut
Enter player 2's name
La Alquimista
*        
*  *     
*  *  *  
*  *  *  
*  *  *  
*  *     
*        

Astronaut's turn 
Enter column number 
1
Enter number of coins to be removed 
3

         
   *     
   *  *  
*  *  *  
*  *  *  
*  *     
*        
__________________________________
La Alquimista's turn 
Enter column number

Astronaut (talk) 11:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Your game is called nim, by the way. -- BenRG (talk) 20:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

As a point of interest, gets is usually considered deprecated. I think Most compilers will complain if you use it. APL (talk) 20:59, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot Code

Few questions about Bots on Wikipedia. I am coding in Java, and I was wondering where to put the code for the bot to run, and how to get the bot to actually perform the edit. Thanks, ṜέđṃάяķvюĨїήīṣŢ ^{Drop me a line}_{Review Me!} 17:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

First, have you read WP:BOT? You can't just set a bot loose without approval. Assuming you've read that, have you read Wikipedia:Creating a bot? -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have read WP:BOT. No, I have not read creating a bot. ṜέđṃάяķvюĨїήīṣŢ ^{Drop me a line}_{Review Me!} 18:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Even if your bot is approved for use, it is not likely Wikipedia's servers will host it for you. You will probably need to provide the computer (whether it is your development/desktop PC or some other server you operate). Your code/executable/script interpreter/other method of choice will run on that system, and access Wikipedia through the available standardized interfaces. Nimur (talk) 16:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You might be able to get an account at the Toolserver; I'm not sure how accounts are assigned. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 09:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Edit with Notepad

For years every so often in Internet Explorer when I go to File--->Open, I occassionally misclick on "Edit with Notepad" and then I get a screen with the code (HTML?) and meta tags and stuff for the page. Is this simply a tool for programmers to gain easy access to the code used or does this have some other (or additional) purpose?--70.107.9.159 (talk) 18:09, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

It is a program for taking notes. It is plain text, not a word processor. Since it doesn't process your work with paragraph formatting and such, it doesn't mess with the plain text of HTML. -- kainaw™ 18:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

This feature and similar "view source" or whatever features don't cost the web browser anything (it already has the document, so showing it to the user is trivial) and people find them useful for a variety of reasons, including as a learning tool (i.e. to see how something was done), as a means to more easily extract some content, as a means to see content which has been obscured by bad web design, as a means to see how a page might look with minor alterations, all these sorts of things. --78.86.164.115 (talk) 18:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, the option under File -> Open on my work PC is "Edit with Microsoft office Word", and I'd never even really noticed it. View Source always opens a Notepad session and that's a better environment for editing HTML anyway (in my opinion). --LarryMac | Talk 20:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

How to use a chrooted environment?

I was trying to "get inside a chrooted environemt", beacause I am doig my own remaster of Ubuntu with reconstructor. And what do I mean to "get inside"? I was trying to use that environment in a graphical way, not just do "chroot /home/SF007/reconstructor/root" and only get command line access. Now, I tried running "startx" inside the chroot, but it didin't worked very well... I also tried to reboot into "recovery mode", then, do the chroot thing, and then "startx", but again, nothing... Could someone help me out here? Giving the exact commands to run? (I'm still a bit newbie in this...) Thanks. SF007 (talk) 18:30, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you're going to have a lot of trouble doing what you want. chroot is designed to isolate individual processes, not for interactive work. Generally, you'll chroot something, see what breaks, and move whatever resources it needs (shared libraries, other programs, device nodes, etc.) into the chroot environment until it works. For a graphical environment, there's going to be a hell of a lot of resources involved, and you'll spend forever trying to identify them all. (I wonder if something like vmware would be a better tool for whatever you're trying to do?) -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:42, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, unfortunately what I am trying to do is to get inside that environment to customize it and then just tell reconstructor to build me a new iso, so Virtual Machines will not work, unless, maybe, I just grab a customized environment and just copy it over the root I reconstructor will use... thanks anyway SF007 (talk) 19:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Whatever it was designed for, chroot into an entire environment is used these days, for example for installation of gentoo from a livecd - it's probably part of the instructions he has for remastering. (to the OP) You shouldn't generally need to run graphical programs from the chrooted environment, though - why do you want to? What are you trying to customize that needs a graphical program to do? --Random832 (contribs) 20:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It was mainly to customize the desktop itself, wallpaper, shortcuts, bookmarks in firefox, themes... things like that... SF007 (talk) 23:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Holographic Versatile Discs

When will Holographic Versatile Discs be available to the public? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hochitup (talk • contribs) 19:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I hear Duke Nukem Forever will come on it! (translation: holographic storage have been promised for years and years, but it's yet to materialize in a consumer format. Personally, I don't think they're ever going to become widely available. For video, no human being can distinguish video quality higher than regular ol' 1080p on a consumer device, and soon enough everything will be digital downloads anyway. Don't hold your breath, in other words.) ADFSGL (talk) 23:12, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

lol - holographic disks have been vaporware for decades now. I think there is one company that makes a system that does it, but the disks and system cost tens of thousands of dollars. --mboverload@ 23:21, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Best Storage

Which would be the best for long term storage of large amounts of data in an unstabe and possibly violent enviroment; hard drive, CD or DVD, tape drives? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hochitup (talk • contribs) 19:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

flash memory? You might read Computer data storage and/or Archival science 87.102.86.73 (talk) 20:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Off site. The instability can completely destroy the storage facility locally, but the off site storage will still be kept. There are many companies that specifically deal in secure off site storage. -- kainaw™ 02:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree, along with every company that has any stake in data, that offsite tape backups in a secured location is the best way to ensure that data is preserved. Get a cheap tape writer and store the tapes with a company that specializes in it or a climate controlled lockbox. The cheapest way I can think of is to get an enterprise grade hard drive, store the data on it, and get a lockbox from your local bank. Keep in mind that backups are useless unless you test them!--mboverload@ 02:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've seen flash memory shot out of a cannon into a wall about 5m away and all the data has been fully recoverable (with a lot of soldering mind you.) The CD's and magnetic hard-drives were blown into oblivion, not even enough material was recoverable to form them back into disks. So if you're going to be shooting them out of a cannon, I'd suggest flash memory. But for strictly long-term, the bit's will degrade on many different media, remember to keep checking and copying the data to newer media. Phydaux (talk) 12:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

installing iATKOS on VMware Workstation

How can I install iATKOS on VMware Workstation? The version I got is 4i.

I always get an error "com.apple.Boot.plist is not found"... I burned it like recommended, but still get the error...

Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.240.105.221 (talk) 20:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

two finger swipe and multi touch in windows xp

hello, I miss having two finger touch and multi touch in a Toshiba Satellite M55-A135 computer that I am using. It uses Windows XP Home. Is it a hardware issue? Can the trackpad handle multi touch? Kushal (talk) 21:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

When you say you miss it - do you miss it because you like the iPod Touch? As far as I know the only laptop that has multitouch built in is some kind of Apple laptop. Support for multitouch requires both hardware and software. Standard capacitive touchpads can not detect more than one finger. When it comes to software, multitouch will be a native feature of Windows 7, which is not yet released. I am not aware of any applications on Windows that use multitouch interfaces other than some speciality programs and hardware. --mboverload@ 02:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I primarily use an Intel-based macbook now. and when I go back to using the Toshiba, I almost instinctively try multi-touch. i guess it will not be possible for quite a while, huh. Oh, is either of gnome or kde [officially] planning to add multitouch support any time soon? Is it MPX that I should be reading for this? Kushal (talk) 19:49, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Firefox Theme

Which theme is Firefox using the screenshot in this page? Thanks. --MagneticFlux (talk) 22:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

It's the default OS X theme. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Negative, that is Windows Vista without Aero Glass turned on. I run Firefox on Windows Vista. That's what it looks like. Each operating system has its own default Firefox theme/skin. --mboverload@ 02:37, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Guys, the image on that page is dynamic...--Juliano (T) 03:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Holy crap I just got owned. Well done, sir.--mboverload@ 03:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a Linux screenshot... All I get is the Vista one. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Haha, that's entertaining. It seemed like a blindingly obvious question to me, now I see why. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

But, regardless of anything else, one can assume that the reason the OP asked this question was because it doesn't look like what he sees as the default theme. The only combination that would lead to that result is that it is showing the vista screenshot while being viewed from a computer running Windows XP. --Random832 (contribs) 20:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Must be dynamic. I've got the OSX screenshot here on my Mac. Mastrchf (^t/_c) 15:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't appear to be randomly generated. I've tried purging my cache, refreshing the page, etc and it's always the same image. Is it possible that it shows people different images depending on what OS/browser combo it detects?--VectorPotential Talk 21:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The image I'm getting doesn't seem to match the appearance of any operating system that I recognize. Is it possible that the image (assuming we're all seeing the same thing) shows some sort of obscure Linux distro with an interface that resembles a cross between XP, OSX, and Vista?--VectorPotential Talk 21:54, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The rounded drop down menu doesn't look like anything I've ever seen, is it possible that they've photo-shopped the image slightly so that the OS it's running on is left ambiguous?--VectorPotential Talk 21:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand (what is this my 4th hand now?) it could just be FF3 on Vista running a different theme. The only difference I see between the version in the picture and standard FF3 is the curvature of the drop down menu. Could be a different theme, or a different OS. So basically, I have no idea (: VectorPotential Talk 22:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

CMS without MySQL or Root Access

I'm looking for CMS software to run on a Ubuntu machine, something similar to PHP Nuke, but that doesn't require MySQL or any other database, or Root access (which I don't have). Or, if there is a way to get PHP Nuke running without root access, please let me know how to do the whole MySQL part. * Please do not tell me to contact a network admin, they are on vacation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.121.70 (talk) 22:59, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Plone maybe? --mboverload@ 23:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Does FM degrade sound quality?

Would broadcasting the music from an iPod using an FM transmitter degrade the sound quality compared to if the iPod was directly connected via the headphone jack to the same speaker? Acceptable (talk) 23:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes this is an analog system, you can expect some high frequency noise to be added, and some frequency distortion will apply with a cut off at the upper and lower end. Also in a thunderstorm you may hear static. You may not notice any of this however. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Acceptable, get an audio system with AUX-in and be happy. =) You'll blow your brains out trying to transmit at a higher power than the 12 year old with Hannah Montana next door. --mboverload@ 01:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I was actually planning to get an FM transmitter so I can listen to my iPhone/iPod in the car. But I guess the noise of the car engine will probably mask out the degradation in quality. Thanks guys. Acceptable (talk) 20:14, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, the biggest drawback is that if you're driving through an area with many radio stations, finding an empty spot on the dial can be a trick. Friday (talk) 20:17, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

July 30

Problem with computer screen

The screen of my Acer computer, which runs Windows Vista Home, started to malfunction this afternoon. It refuses to turn on, apparently because the computer believes the lid to be closed. However, when I manually deppress the rubber device that senses the lid's position and release it, the screen activates before turning off a few seconds later.

When the screen is not on, the graphics that should be shown can be dimly seen, and their appearance is as expected.

For the past two days, I've kept my computer continuously running to burn important data on the hard disks onto DVDs. I don't remember using the CD/DVD writer at any other time. I also placed the computer inverted on the ground with the screen at a right angle to the base, because it suffers from a power virus that would overheat the device if air from the cooling fan can't escape easily.

Does anyone know what the problem is? --Bowlhover (talk) 00:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If the image is there, but you can barely see it that means you backlight is broken. Call Acer support or go to a place like notebookforum.com for more help. This may be a multi-hundred dollar fix depending on model. --mboverload@ 01:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the power problems have affected the backlight. Still $$$$$ but, you might want to also mention the power problem to the repair service. Astronaut (talk) 18:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Adding Images to Webpage

How would one add images to a webpage that aren't already online?Elatanatari (talk) 02:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You upload the image and then add it to the web page. Currently, web servers aren't capable of going into your bedroom and sorting through your photo albums to find photos for you. It is still your responsibility to put the photo on the server. -- kainaw™ 02:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

lol, I've already gone through the trouble of uploading it to my computer. How do I get it onto the server? The webpage isnt on the internet, its on my computer(for now).Elatanatari (talk) 02:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

We need to know where your website is being hosted and what kind of access you have been given. The more specific the better. --mboverload@ 02:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Its not hosted yet. Its sitting on my computer, I'm using it to learn HTML, and I cant get an image onto it. Maybe I should call it an HTML document and not a webpage?Elatanatari (talk) 02:37, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Put the HTML file and the picture in the same folder/directory. I'm going to assume your picture is called "howdy.jpg". In your HTML, you use the img tag: <img src='howdy.jpg'>. You'll want to google for "HTML IMG tag" for more information on the millions of ways to configure the image tag just how you want it. -- kainaw™ 02:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If I understand the question correctly, you've got a webpage -- like an HTML page -- on your own computer. If you're the only person who's going to look at it, you don't need a server. You can follow Kainaw's suggestion. If you're going to have a number of (local) pages, you might want to create a folder for the site (the collection of web pages), and within that create a folder for your images. As in:

• VOLCANO folder for your web site about volcanos.

• index.html for the site's home page
• vesuvius.html for the page about one volcano
• etna.html, the page about another
• krakatoa.html, you get the idea...
• IMAGES folder for all your pictures

• vesuvius1.jpg for a long shot
• vesuvius2.jpg for a closeup
• etna1.jpg for a long shot

You may find this free HTML tutorial helpful; it guides you through building an entire web site locally (on your own computer). Once it's built, if you want others to view the page, you need to transfer the site to a web server (another reason for that all-inside-one-folder approach), for example via FTP. OtherDave (talk) 11:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This may be a question about relative paths. Using a relative path from the HTML document to the image will allow you to eventually upload the entire directory structure as a single unit, and your image links should be preserved. I don't know how many times I've seen web-pages which try to load images from c:\my documents\ ... Nimur (talk) 22:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Shift 3 on my computer?

Recently I downloaded the online flash game "shift 3" onto my desktop. When I opened it a series of numbers and letters appeared lasting a couple of pages. My question is how do I play this on my computer? (Shoemonkey (talk) 03:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC))

I don't think you supposed to download it on to your computer. Find a game website and play it on there. How about Newgrounds? Paragon12321 (talk) 03:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer but my whole intention was to play it on my computer not on the internet. I do believe there is a way to do it.In the past my friend HAS put multiple internet games on cds and is able to play them.Sorry for the inconvenience. (Shoemonkey (talk) 04:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC))

Usually flash files come in the SWF format, and require Flash Player to work. If you already have that installed on your computer, what is being used to open the flash files? Sounds like a text editor to me if it's just a bunch of letters and numbers. You may have to change the default program that opens SWF files. Valens Impérial Császár 93 23:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Less pixels

Is there a way of resizing images so the pixel dimensions are less but the ratio stays the same without deleting part of the image? Thanks 220.244.107.15 (talk) 05:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Searching for "photo resize" on Google will give you many links to software and online programs capable of doing the downsampling. You should also be able to resize photos on any sophisticated image editor, such as the GIMP or Photoshop. --Bowlhover (talk) 05:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Even MS Paint can resize. However, I use GIMP because I can switch indexed images to RGB before resizing to get a better looking final product. (of course, PhotoShop will do that also if you want to spend the money or illegally pirate a copy) -- kainaw™ 06:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

A simple way of doing this is to simply resize the image twice. If we assume that you have a image that's 200 x 200 pixels, you can resize it to 100 x 100 and then back up to 200 x 200. What you end up with is an image that has the same ratio but less resolution. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The OP was looking for a way to decrease the number of pixels, not a way to remove noise. --Bowlhover (talk) 07:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

In my usage, "ratio" is the ratio of width to height. A 200x200 pixel image has a ratio of 1:1. "Resultion" is the number of pixels. A 200x200 pixel image has four times (twice width, twice height) the resolution of a 100x100 pixel image. -- kainaw™ 06:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I used the word "ratio" because that's what the original poster used. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:27, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and technically, "image resolution" properly refers to how much actual data it contains. It's not necessarily an indication of the pixel count, though it's often used in that fashion (by myself as well, I should stress). I guess it would be a good idea to refer explicitly to "pixel resolution" or something when specifically discussing the number of pixels in the picture, rather than the resolution of the actual image itself (which can easily be lower than the pixel resolution, as this particular Ref Desk question makes clear), if there's any danger of confusion... -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Achingly slow speeds

Hello, I have a broadband connection through a Netgear wireless router, and have been getting achingly slow speeds. Pinging returns at 620ms, this page took about ten minutes to load, and a 995k app I am downloading right now is on its fifth minute at 3k/s.

My question is, how do I find out what is going on, and specifically, could I have something stealing my connection? I am password-protected etc so I don't think anyone is stealing my wireless, but I thought I might have some malware somewhere eating up my speed, although virus software says I'm clean.

Thanks FreeMorpheme (talk) 22:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you getting a weak wireless signal? - Akamad (talk) 10:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's a list of standard suggestions which may or may not be helpful: first, if you haven't already, try power-cycling everything (the modem, the router, and your computer). Try disabling the wireless and connecting to the router with an Ethernet cable and see if that helps. If you have a second computer you can borrow for testing, try testing the speed on that (with your computer turned off). To check your computer's network activity you can open a shell window (command prompt) and type netstat -a (this should work on all major operating systems). If you see a bunch of random-looking IP addresses in there then your computer might have been commandeered as a zombie, though this seems unlikely to me. If you're not sure how to interpret the output you could post it here. If you can't solve the problem then call your ISP—the problem may be on their end, and even if it isn't they're supposed to help you, though some of them aren't very good at it. -- BenRG (talk) 10:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for these, I'm on XP SP2, my wireless signal is strong, and my PC is actually plugged into it already, sorry for not mentioning those facts. I'll try this command prompt thing when I get home. Is power-cycling something else, or is it what you go on to give instructions for? FreeMorpheme (talk) 13:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Power cycle means turn it off and then turn it on again. Try turning everything off, then turning on the modem and waiting until the lights indicate it's connected, then turning on the router and waiting until it indicates it's ready, then turning on your computer. Actually I think my netstat suggestion makes no sense; a zombie machine won't make long-term connections to random IPs and won't use much bandwidth anyway (to avoid raising the user's suspicions). Lots of connections to random IP addresses is characteristic of peer-to-peer software like BitTorrent, but you'd presumably know if you were running something like that. -- BenRG (talk) 19:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

uninstalling winXP and win98

Hi!I'm quite a beginner.Can anyone please tell me how to uninstall the mentioned windows on my PC using MS-DOS commands or any other method to work with.Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.52.144.114 (talk) 09:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you planning on removing both Windows XP and 98 from your PC? If so, do you have another operating system installed? If not, your computer will pretty much be useless. As to uninstalling using DOS commands, I don't think that's possible. You can format your hard disks with it, but that may not be your desired result. - Akamad (talk) 10:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can remove either of these operating systems with FDISK. You start it up and follow the instructions. FDISK is not some kind of game and you'd better understand what you're doing with it.

For most purposes you're probably better off skipping FDISK. As Akamad points out above, you'll need an operating system, and if you attempt to install a new one (GNU/Linux, Windows, etc.), an installation module will guess at the chances of success in installation (leaving you where you were if it thinks it won't succeed) and then will give you various options for dealing with the existing OS(es), e.g. removing it/them. In short, it will do the work of FDISK with a more palatable interface and with reduced risk. -- Hoary (talk) 10:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by uninstall? Are you trying to remove just the operating systems, or wipe the entire drives clean? If the latter is true, then you can boot from your XP installation CD and delete both of the partitions via the recovery console using the format command. I really need more information about your goal. For example, if it's an upgrade, you can upgrade 98 to XP via the winnt32 command. You can't uninstall Windows the same way you uninstall a program, though.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 11:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If you're actually looking to make DOS your full-time operating system, SYS C: will write it to boot whatever DOS you're using without wiping the drive. Be careful, though- you'd need a specific DOS to be able to read the Win98 FAT32 file system, and none (AFAIK) read NTFS, which XP typically uses. Many also don't have any kind of long name support. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 09:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Playlogic supermod

How do you get the super mod of age of pirates caribbean tales to work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.21.173 (talk) 10:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Converting spreadsheets

I have produced a speadsheet to calculate the intervals required for timelapse photography. Can anyone reccommend some software that would convert it into java or .exe application with all the caluclation and data entry functionality retained. Thanks Kirk uk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.82.79.175 (talk) 11:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

SPAM

How do I get rid of all these people spamming my inbox? They're using all sorts of names and somehow know my name! --Jeevies (talk) 12:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The thing you should not do is reply to any of the spam. Most likely, the mail will be ignored or bounce back, but there's also the possibility that some poor sap, whose computer is infested with malware and part of a botnet, will get the mail and not have a clue why; or worse still, your adress will be added to the "sucker" list and you will get even more spam. If you can come up with something common to most of the spam, your mail package might have some rules you can configure. Set a rule up to move the spam to a "spam" folder where you can review it from time-to-time, before deleting it all. And if the spam is running into hundreds of items per day, you might have to abandon that email address altogether and get a new one.

The way to avoid getting spam in the first place, is to not tell anyone your address. I don't mean that literally, but mind who you tell your address to. I have about a half dozen different address: the one I use for close friends and family, the one I use to register with legitimate businesses, and so on right down to the one I use for "dodgy" sites (for example, casino and adult sites) where the chances of being added to a spam list are very high. It works, I get no spam mixed in with messages from the people I care about.

Astronaut (talk) 13:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Get yourself a spam e-mail account. I recommend using Yahoo or Hotmail as a specific spam inbox. Then, when you must enter an e-mail address, use that account as opposed to your home account. It's always worked better that keeping all the spam on my computer for more than a day.31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 19:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Or get Mozilla FireFox and this addon.:D--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 02:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

induced bouncy i solar chimney big help with fortran program

iam trying to have my master degree in induced bouncy in solar chimnay and i have some difficulties in programming the system of heat transfering model.i reffer to the tow parts in the program that i have problems with tilted leters namely at the step 410 and at the subroutine at the very end.i wish someone who can provide me avery big help to understand it.

Massive code-dump removed by user:Finlay McWalter (here)

I need to make sure that this part of the program is correct because when I draw it using tecplot program i see that the upper part of the chimney is geeting heated while the lower part "the absorber" is still cold.yet the actual case is like , the upper part of the chimney must be cool and the lower part must getting heated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Husseinshimaljasimdini (talk • contribs) 13:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the massive (fortran?) code dump in your question. Wikipedia's reference desk contributors are happy to answer specific factual questions, but it's entirely unreasonable to dump your massive uncommented unstructured fortran program and expect them to debug it for you. As the note at the top of the page says "Do your own homework. The reference desk will not give you answers for your homework, although we will try to help you out if there is a specific part of your homework you do not understand. Make an effort to show that you have tried solving it first." -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, that was Fortran. Taking a brief look I saw that it is written in a very old style, with terrible structure, no comments, and meaningless variables - all common practice before the advent of structured programming. I also noticed the original version appears to have been written by "GOSMAN, IMPERIAL COLLEGE, LONDON". Apart from suggesting you try your luck with Imperial College, I agree totally with Finlay's comment above. Astronaut (talk) 17:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

PS: While I appreciate that English is probably not your first language, you will need to say what you mean by "induced bouncy". At the moment it sounds like it has something to do with Space Hoppers :-)

I'm a FORTRAN programmer and would be willing to help. However:

1) I don't understand the problem. The term "induced bouncy", for example. Is that supposed to be "boundary" ?

2) You need to reduce the bug down to something more manegeable, say if a given variable is set incorrectly in a given soubroutine at a given line. Debugging the whole program would take more time than I have.

I suggest you do some debugging first, by adding prints to find out where the problem first occurs. Then, if you need more help, please come back here. StuRat (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Just tossing in my guess here that bouncy might be "bouyancy". Which doesn't sound like nearly as much fun. --LarryMac | Talk 19:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Hussein would probably like to know Imperial College London is a prestigious degree-awarding institution in London. For many years it was a "colony" of the University of London, until it "declared independence" :-) 78.148.229.233 (talk) 20:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)i have nothing to say but thanks.i know it was stupidity of me but i was desperate and i thought you guys have amagic wand.and yes i ment"bouyancy"Husseinshimaljasimdini (talk) 14:43, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Best way of storing my knowledge, tipps & tricks organized online?

Since the past 10 years I have collected and created lots of little tipps, tricks, tests and problem-solutions about windows, applications and other products.

The gathered information is mainly stored as text-files and organized in folders on my computer. But since this is not very convenient to browse or search, and not possible to read & share online, I want to find a new way of storing/collecting my knowledge.

Finally my question: Which type of software/website/solution would be best for reading, writing, taging, searching my personal knowledge online?
Thanks for your ideas! --Tigerix (talk) 13:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you have your own server? Install mediawiki and put your knowledge there. Add a better Google-based search to it and you'll able to add to it and search it nicely. -- kainaw™ 14:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there any hosted mediawiki, where I can setup my personal wiki? Unfortunately I don't own a server.--Tigerix (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this will fit, but Google Notebook[3] has a somewhat similar role. --Kjoonlee 16:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, thats an idea! Is there any web knowledge management system out there?--Tigerix (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I am in the exact same position as you Tigerix. In the end the best solution I could come up with for my own needs is Plone with the Knowledgebase product (all free). You can make glossaries, how-tos, etc with a great UI. Confiring the default installation with custom fonts/images/colors is a *****, though. It'll do its job if it's just for you.--mboverload@ 21:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint, I'll give it a try! :)--Tigerix (talk) 08:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It is possible to install MediaWiki on your desktop machine, as a portable, local-access-only web-server (even if you are running Windows). There are specific instructions and guides on a variety of websites. You can control access, to make your wiki available/unavailable over the internet per your specific needs and preferences. Nimur (talk) 17:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, also this one I will test :)--Tigerix (talk) 08:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Merging hard drives

Is there a Mac/Linux utility which can merge harddrives (local or network) so they can be seen as one drive?78.148.229.233 (talk) 15:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You can either mount one drive into a directory of the other, or use UnionFS (or whatever its Mac equivalent is) to make the two drives appear "fused" together. Only one drive will be writable, however. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

What you want could be logical volume management (LVM). With Linux you can use the Logical Volume Manager. --Kjoonlee 16:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

A RAID array may be what you are looking for. RAID can simultaneously use two or more hard drives to store large volumes of data, but it can be expensive and time consuming to set up. 20I.170.20 (talk) 19:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Sweet. I have also discovered Xsan - do any of these work with HFS+, and therefore Time Machine?--78.148.229.233 (talk) 20:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you "mount one drive into another drive's directory" on Mac OSX? I guess you can, if it has Unix roots to it.89.241.133.205 (talk) 13:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

bypass websense

At work our system admin is using websense and we can't gain access to mo0st sites .Is there a way to bypass websense without using the fancy softwares? Guys at work use a software called g tunnel to bypass this websense but after 30 mins or so it crashes and u can't acces most sites .It uses a proxy to access the net. Can one suggest a good software i can download on the net to beat this websense nonsense? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.81.128 (talk) 16:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

tor? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:31, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Just be aware that most companies use something like Websense to enforce company rules prohibiting the use of torrents or accessing of porn and other undesirable content, when you should be working. Some companies, might see it as a disciplinary offence to circumvent the filtering, and you could get fired for doing so. It might be better if you approach the system admins and ask if they could reduce the filtering a bit. Astronaut (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

In addition to blocking porn Websense is also used to stop private information and company secrets from getting out. Bypassing this system is seen in many large companies as default industrial spying. You are playing a dangerous game just so you can surf MySpace. Of course, if they are blocking Wikipedia then I'm all for bypassing.. =) --mboverload@ 21:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Your best bet is to ask your system administrator for less draconian measures. Nimur (talk) 17:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Custom HTML Tags

Is there a way to define a custom HTML tag? For example, say I wanted a tag that both bolds and italicizes. Is there a way to define it at the beginning as <myfont> and then use <myfont>blah</myfont> to create blah? Thanks in advance. --VectorField (talk) 17:42, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't know about custom tags (maybe something for a future HTML standard?), but you could use CSS to define a number of styles and get the same effect. Astronaut (talk) 17:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Right. You can't have custom tags with HTML. But you can use CSS in a number of ways, either by modifying existing tags (you could easily make the B tag also do italics), or by specifying classes with the properties you want them to have. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you modify an existing tag? Do you mean each <b> tag is individually modified to do italics or can I modify every single <b> tag by typing something in the header? --VectorField (talk) 18:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not the time or place for an extended CSS tutorial, but you could do something like the following in the header (not tested):

     <style type="text/css">
       b {
           font-weight: bold;
           font-style: italic;
       }
     </style>

If you do want an extended CSS tutorial, you might want to look at w3schools. --LarryMac | Talk 18:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

As they've said, this isn't the place for a CSS tutorial. But you can use a style sheet to customize tags in different situations. For example, you can create a CSS class that makes text in a paragraph tag appear in a given font, weight, color, and alignment for, say, the body of a blog post, and another class to make text in a paragraph tag look completely different in the sidebar, or the header, or inside a blockquote. Or, have different appearances to paragraphs in the same section of your page, as in this example. OtherDave (talk) 19:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That's exactly what I needed. --VectorField (talk) 20:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Word

In a Word document, how do I quickly remove all "enter's" that are in file. Wiki131wiki (talk) 17:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Find/Replace should have some advanced options - one of them should be a line break or carriage break; not sure what they call it. Replace them all with a blank. x42bn6 Talk Mess 18:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If by enter you mean what you get when you hit the enter key, do this:

• Bring up the find-and-replace dialog box.
• In the "find" section, enter: ^p (circumflex and p)
• In the "replace" section, enter what you want to replace the return with.

If you don't enter anything under "replace," then choosing "replace all" will replace all the enters (paragraph marks) with nothing -- as if you'd deleted them. Depending on your file, you may find it handier to replace ^p with a space (just move into the "replace" section and hit the space bar. (You can replace tab marks this way, too -- the code is ^t [circumflex and T].) OtherDave (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Cutting it

Am I right in assuming that Ctrl-X was chosen for the cut operation becasue X looks like a pair of scissors? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.157.54 (talk) 19:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems like a logical conclusion to drawn, although I can find no specific references so far to support this. If someone does, you might like to add them to the Control-X article. 20I.170.20 (talk) 19:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Note also that Z, X, C, V (undo, cut, copy, paste) are all in a row quite close to the control key (whether the control key is in its old-skool place next to "A", or below the shift key). I doubt that this placement is a coincidence. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

And the first letter of "copy" just happens to be a "C" as well :-)78.148.229.233 (talk) 20:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Coneslayer I think your answer is most probable. Thank you for pointing that out! (BTW how many cones have you slain lately?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.157.54 (talk) 00:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I haven't slain any cones since moving across the country 18 months ago.  :-( -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The use of "control-x" to cut derives from the Macintosh user interface standard, where "command' + Z, X, C, V were the standard shortcuts (see Cut, copy, and paste). The Mac shortcuts were selected for ease of use rather than for any particular meaning: you hold down the "command" key with your right thumb, and sliding your left hand down from the home row puts your fingers on the keys in question.

As a historical note, the IBM standard for user interfaces at the time (IBM Common User Access) used Shift+Insert for paste, Shift+Delete for cut, and Control+Insert for copy. --Carnildo (talk) 20:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Ctrl-Ins etc used to be the Windows shortcuts; Ctrl-C etc came in with Windows 3, but the old-style shortcuts still worked, have have done in all versions since (at least up to XP, and with some exceptions - there's a conflict with Shift-Del, which means "delete without sending to the Recycle Bin" in Windows Explorer). And my old-style fingers still know them and sometimes use them... AndrewWTaylor (talk) 22:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Video viewer program on Firefox

Currently I think I use Adobe Flash Player 9 to view videos in browsers. Does anyone know how I change the default browser video program (to, for example, Real Player)? If it's any help, I'm using the latest Mozilla Firefox browser. Thanks in advance. Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 19:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

To change which applications Firefox uses when it encounters video files on the net, go to Tools -> Options, and under the Applications tab change the action setting for "Movie clip" to the program of your choice. However, for sites such as youtube which use embedded .flv video, I think you're stuck with Flash Player. 20I.170.20 (talk) 20:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If you mean embedded Flash video like on YouTube, no, you can't view that with anything other than Flash Player in the browser. If you want to try and monkey with what applications are used to view what types of files, in Firefox go to Preferences > Applications. But embedded Flash video plays through an embedded Flash player, so it's not a "video application" in the same way that RealPlayer is used to view RM files. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You can of course download the .flv files with an application such as Video DownloadHelper and then play them locally in a compatible media player like VLC. 20I.170.20 (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Works perfect. Thanks guys. Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 20:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

oracle sql update using a with-clause

Hi,

I want to run an update statement on large tables on oracle. What I want to do is:

with helptable as (select prefix, value from <many tables> where <complex condition>) update mytable set mytable.value = helptable.value where mytable.id like helptable.id || '%'

Oracle does not allow this syntax but it should be clear what I want to do. helptable contains only few records whereas mytable is really large.

When I refactor this to an admissible syntax with the subselect in the right hand side of the set-clause the statement runs fine on a very small version of mytable but simply doesn't come back on the real data.

How is this done properly? 93.132.185.25 (talk) 19:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you want something like this:

UPDATE mytable 
SET mytable.value = ( SELECT value 
            FROM <many tables>
            WHERE <complex condition>)
WHERE EXISTS
 ( SELECT prefix, value 
   FROM <many tables>
   WHERE mytable.id = helptable.id );

Obviously your example is quite vague, so I can't test the above. You'll need to do some playing around to get it to work with your database. Phydaux (talk) 11:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I had some misprints in it, what I want is

UPDATE mytable 
 SET mytable.value = ( SELECT value 
             FROM <many tables>
             WHERE <complex condition>)
 WHERE EXISTS
  ( SELECT prefix 
    FROM <many tables>
    WHERE mytable.id like prefix || '%'
      AND <timeconsuming condition> );

and this really does the job on small enough tables but as both subselects are executed for each row of mytable it is not practical. I've resolved for now to "create helptable as (select ....)" and "update mytable set value = (select value from helptable where ...) where exists (select 1 from helptable where ...)" but I dislike to really create a new table (for several reasons, transactions are one of them).

Task like this occur now and then in many forms, thats why I posed the question as abstract as possible. 93.132.145.93 (talk) 16:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I would guess that the performance issue is holding the table (or some portion of the table) open for updates while you do all that other stuff. If that's the case, then you may very well have to do it in a two-step process, such as by using a temp table. One issue could be locking on the update table. If that SQL is only attempting to lock one line at a time (or one page at a time), and that table is in frequent use, this may cause your SQL to wait until that line becomes available for update. Then the same thing may happen on later lines. In such a case it would make sense to lock the entire table for updates before you start. Of course, if this is such a busy table, this should only be done during a maintenance cycle so you won't cause conflicts with other people/programs trying to access the table. StuRat (talk) 14:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Advantages of different radio frequencies.

Suppose we take take two different radio stations that are braodcasting at different FM requencies. Radio station 80.7 FM is broadcasting, I presume, at 80.7 Mhz (?) while radio station 107.5 FM is broadcasting at 107.5 Mhz. Suppose they are both the same distance away from the listener and are using identical equipment, which radio station, if any, will broadcast at a higher sound quality? Does the frequency affect anything else, such as range? Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 20:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Pure OR & speculation here, but I'd always assumed that lower frequencies were less desirable, since the non-profit, public, and local stations seem to end up at the low end of the dial, at least around the northeastern US. jeffjon (talk) 15:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

88-92 MHz in the US (not Canada or Mexico) is reserved for non-commercial stations. The coverage maps for WKYS on 93.9 MHz (map) and WJFK-FM on 106.7 MHz (map), two stations that have about the same ERP and transmitter location, do not appear to show a big difference in range. Xenon54 15:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The modulation type and frequency range will mitigate most things interfering with sound quality. Change modulation type and frequency band, and there will be more variables that determine reception quality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.241.132.54 (talk) 08:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This frequency band was chosen for FM audio broadcasts because it is fairly consistent across a wide variety of weather and ionospheric conditions. Other frequencies, such as those in use by shortwave radio, definitely have better performance at different bands, and are highly susceptible to time-of-day, weather, gulls, and other interference. Nimur (talk) 17:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Cassette Adapter vs FM Transmitter

When trying to maximize audio quality, which method of listening to an iPod on a car will be best; a cassette adapter or an FM transmitter? Acceptable (talk) 20:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If you care about the audio quality, surely a direct iPod<->RCA cable would be best (which does entail a little mucking around behind the dashboard). You'll get the best sound, the least mess, and probably the lowest cost. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:31, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The FM adapter will cut off more highs and lows than a cassette if (and this is a big if) the cassette adapter is full range. Chances are, it isn't. I've looked at many cassette adapters and they are worse than FM. Many aren't even stereo. -- kainaw™ 04:01, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't get too worried about sound quality in your car. When driving, cars have a large amount of background noise and terrible acoustics (what with odd shaped metal and plastic structures getting in the way of the sound). To compensate, most car audio systems use dynamic range compression to allow the high and low frequencies to be heard over the noise of the car. Astronaut (talk) 05:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Cassette adapter will typically (if not always) be better, because broadcasting through FM has limitations of frequencies, modulations, etc, and is typically considered the worst quality for listening to music in a car. And I've had 3 cassette adapters, and all of them had stereo, so I don't think you should just by a crappy cassette adaptor but the best possible scenario. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:43, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

CSS: Treating one HTML tag as another

In CSS, can I tell the browser to render tag X with class Y exactly as though it were tag Z, without telling it exactly how to render tag Z? For instance, could I make the LI children of an OL look exactly like H2s without also overriding the browser default style for an H2? NeonMerlin 20:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about exactly, but you ought to be able to come close. You need to know all the attributes of the H2 (spacing before and after, for example), and then create a class for that LI stuff you want such that the LI text has (or fakes) the same attributes as the H2. Tweak the CSS one or two characteristics at a time to get close to what you'd like (and so you know what to take out when something goes wrong). Look at the results in more than one browser. OtherDave (talk) 22:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you would try to achieve. Each browser renders different tags differently to try and make a browser render a <li> as <h2> is strange. Just format the <li> however you want it to look using css in the usual way. If you want some <li> and some <h2> to look similar then use classes so you can have <li class="important"> and <h2 class="important">, or you can just apply the class to the <ol> so you don't have to add it to each of its children. If you want certain tags to behave (not look) like another tag, use the css display property. Remember to use tags for their semantic value not what they look like, a heading should be in a heading tag, a list in list tags, etc. Phydaux (talk) 12:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Java and C

I have a Java program and a C program, both with a 4-byte integer. What is the easiest way to get them to give each other the integers? Thanks, *Max* (talk) 21:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC).

Off the top of my head.. do these programs share a common data store? You could write the number to a database table that both programs use, for example. Or, make the programs accept the number as a command line parameter. Friday (talk) 21:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Java Native Interface or internet socket or named pipe or memory-mapped file or database or plain old computer file or popen/java.lang.Process or (a bit twisted, but smart in some cases) have one paste it to Twitter and the other read it back. Which is the best, or easiest, depends on where the two programs are running, who and when they're being run, how often, and why. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

By easiest, I meant fastest (easiest to the computer, not the programmer). They are being run simultaneously and need to pass data back and forth, either within one computer or over the nettotubes (so I guess I'm looking for 2 different answers). Also, I have no idea how to code most of those. *Max* (talk) 23:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The concept you are talking about is called Inter-process communication. If you want the capability to communicate over the intertubonet you can just use an internet socket, and when you need to communicate with something on the same machine, use "127.0.0.1" plus whatever port you set up. Unless you are transmitting, like, outrageous amounts of data and the performance is critical, the overhead wont be too big of a problem.

I've never done it in C, but programming sockets in Java is easy, just use the java.net.Socket class and the java.net.ServerSocket class. The getOutputStream() and getInputStream() functions in Socket lets you read and write.

If you just need to do this on one machine, this isn't the optimal solution, but if you want to do it so that it works over the internet as well as locally, this works dandy. And it's easy to do. And you don't have to develop two different ways to do it. How much data are you planning to transfer? Is it only one 4-bit int, one time, or is it a whole bunch of them, all the time? Maybe you can give us some more details on the project and we might be more helpful :) ADFSGL (talk) 23:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I need to transfer a bunch of ints. I got sockets working in java, but I don't know how to implement the other side in C. I need it for gaming, so it needs to be fast. *Max* (talk) 21:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Monitor keep awake

Hello, my monitor enters power save mode after, ooh I dunno, three quarters of an hour maybe, of inactivity. Some programs I run seem to make it stay awake (eg the program I use to watch DVDs). Some don't (eg the program I use to watch videos off of the web). Does anyone know of a program I can run as a daemon to force the monitor to stay awake? I would like to hear about such programs for any major (> 30 million users) consumer operating environment. Thanks! --78.86.164.115 (talk) 21:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Which particular consumer operating environment do you have in mind (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux.... )? --h2g2bob (talk) 22:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You don't need any third party app for this. Just do it from your Operating System's power management. - Abhishek (talk) 03:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

h2g2bob: Let's say I have three computers, one of each. --78.86.164.115 (talk) 07:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Like Abhishek said, you just disable it from the power management section of your OS. You can also adjust the time before it goes inactive. In most programs that allow video playback, there's usually an option to disable screensavers etc from running if a video is open, but what you're asking for is like getting a second daemon to keep the first daemon from running something, when you can just disable the first daemon. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe this thing would help you out. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 10:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

ca_setup.exe?

After uninstalling Cain and Abel, I can't seem to get rid of the installer. I've tried using the "unlocker" tool, alas, to no success. Is there any way I can "force it out"?

The warning message is:

Cannot delete ca_setup: access is denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use

Cheers, Perfect Proposal ^{Speak Out!} 22:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Even Unlocker couldn't do it? Try safe mode. If it doesn't work still run Process Explorer by Sysinternals (google it, free from Microsoft). Then go to find and search for the file name. It will tell you what program is using it. --mboverload@ 23:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Worked like a charm (process explorer). Thanks. Perfect Proposal ^{Speak Out!} 23:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Unable to see image of the City Hall of Buffalo in Art Deco article

Re: image of the City Hall of Buffalo All I am getting is a blank space and caption where the above image should be. Can anyone advise why this should be so? I regularly clear my cache and temporary files. I am on Internet Explorer IE7
Windows XP
screen resolution 1024 X 768
URLs are underlined as follows: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco" and "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Buffalo_City_Hall_-_001.jpg". However when tagging on "|50px" it returns a "Bad Title". The tag certainly does not appear when I go for the URLs. Sorry, that is the best of the info I can give. Many thanks. Dieter Simon (talk) 22:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The actual URL for the image is http:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Buffalo_City_Hall_-_001.jpg Note the "/ad/". You are running an ad-blocking proxy which has an "exclude */ad/*" rule. Such a proxy configuration is bad and makes me sad and when you turn it off you'll be glad :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If that turns out to be the issue you're a genius. Is there a "kudos" or meaningless points system here? Either way I give you 4,000 internets. --mboverload@ 23:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This used to be a regular complaint, when people used the previous generation of ad blocking software. As people have moved to smarter tools like Adblock you see people with this less, although it still crops up periodically on the help desk. A similar problem is people not able to load any Wikipedia images - that's caused by adblockers that reject images sent from a different domain than the webpage (in our case Commons is in the wikimedia.org domain, not the wikipedia.org domain). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Well done, Finley, many thanks. I see what you mean. I am with McAfee Security Center, and I can't say I have been able to complain overly so far. I certainly don't get any ads or pop-ups, may be it's best to let sleeping dogs lie? Yes, so I can't get this one picture in Wiki, why complain, both Google and Yahoo show a few of its Images, so I do know what it looks like. So that is why I get a blank page when I include the /ad/ parts in the URL.

So it's a question of whether it's worth upsetting the apple cart for the sake of one image in hundreds? What do you think? Is that an insult to our image uploaders? So again, many thanks. Dieter Simon (talk) 17:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I see you need to use Mozilla for AdBlock? I \m using IE7. Dieter Simon (talk) 17:56, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

July 31

Exchange server email storage question

How does Exchange Server physically store multiple copies of the same e-mail sent to multiple recipients on the same exchange server? Does it copy each message to each recipient's mailbox, or does each mailbox reference a central storage where the message is only stored once? It seems totally inefficient if an identical message gets sent to everyone on the same exchange server and it is duplicated to every mailbox. So, does a 250 KB email sent to 100 recipients take up only 250 KB of storage space on the exchange server or 25 MB? Onsetocean (talk) 04:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Exchange is a database. Every copy of an email is stored once. --mboverload@ 05:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

How to Delete the Bookmarks from Firefox and Explorer?

I have hundreds of URLs bookmarked on both Firefox and Explorer, is it possible to delete them in one go? 92.3.71.255 (talk) 05:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep!

Internet Explorer: Go to Start>Run and type in %USERPROFILE%\Favorites

Firefox: Go to Bookmarks>Organize>Click on the first bookmark and hold "shift" then click on the last bookmark. Now all between are highlighted. Hit the delete button.

Keep in mind that these are not secure methods to delete the favorites. If you are trying to hide them from ever existing from a truly technical person with an intent to find out we will need to help you a bit more. --mboverload@ 06:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. 92.2.255.73 (talk) 22:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

FM Radio

How to prepare a FM Radio ? What instruments are used in it? This is not a homework? Give the picture or chart on how to prepare a FM Radio. 59.92.239.162 (talk) 11:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

This may be of interest: http://www.somerset.net/arm/fm_only_one_transistor_radio.html. Blake01 (talk) 11:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia won't do your homework for you. JoshHolloway 12:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I fixed your code. The text you want to make bold needs to go inside the three inverted commas, like this.89.241.133.205 (talk) 14:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

security of fixed ip addresses

Hi, I've recently signed up for broadband, and my isp has given me a fixed ip address. Is this as secure as a variable address, if people know what it is? Can't they use it to target you in some way? It's Been Emotional (talk) 16:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking at this from the other perspective for a moment - there is negligible advantage in having a non-fixed IP address. Firstly they're leased to you on a fairly long term (like a day or two), plenty of time for the hackers to find you. Secondly ISPs allocate dynamic addresses from range blocks and hackers know this and sweep those blocks looking for weak machines. As there's no real security from a dynamic address, that means you're not really worse off having a fixed one. You do need to have a robust firewall, a well maintained computer(s), and the wisdom to avoid doing the silly things on which hackers and other miscreants rely. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:44, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that answer. Does that mean if I have an insecure machine, and the hackers sweep a range of IP addresses, they will know they can find me repeatedly, at least with some reasonable probability of success? It's Been Emotional (talk) 19:03, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

If you have an insecure machine and they find it when they sweep, they'll install software that makes it a zombie slave in their botnet; then they won't have to search for it again - it'll phone home regularly to ask for orders. One chance is all they need. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Good grief! Thanks for the warning.... Did you acquire this knowledge from books/ websites, and if so, do you have any recommendations? regards, It's been emotional (talk) 19:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Not the original responder, but here's my advice:

1. If you can imagine it, it's possible for a determined security cracker to do it.
2. Nevertheless, a lot of people seem to be overly paranoid about their computer's security. Running a decent set of antivirus, firewall, and anti-spyware programs (or switching to a different operating system) will likely stop most attacks, simply because typical attackers are looking for the easiest targets.

In other words, unless an attacker uses the unlikely approach of "stalking" your computer in particular, taking basic security measures will greatly reduce the risk of your computer being compromised. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 07:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again. I meant recommendations about what to read in books or on the net. I'd often like to be independent with these things, but there's such a wealth of info that I don't know where to start. It's been emotional (talk) 06:19, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Unused elements in an array

I'm relatively new to computer programming and I'm wondering if unused elements in an array can pose a security risk.

for example, the following code generates stats on the inputted text and I initialize an array with 1,000,000 elements that will each hold one word:

Private Sub cmdStats_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdStats.Click
        Dim stats(999999) As Integer
        Dim alltext As String = txtMain.Text
        Dim spaceposit As Integer
        Dim nextspace As Integer
        Dim i As Integer
        For i = 0 To alltext.Length
            If nextspace > alltext.Length Then
                Exit For
            End If
            spaceposit = alltext.IndexOf(" ", nextspace)
            If spaceposit > 0 Then
                nextspace += (spaceposit - nextspace) + 1
                stats.SetValue(CObj(spaceposit), i)
            Else
                Exit For
            End If
        Next i
End Sub

Could the unused elements in this subroutine pose a security risk to my program? It is extremely unlikely that 1,000,000 words will be inputted (which why I made the array so large), so there will almost always be unused elements here. Thanks for the help. Thingg^⊕⊗ 16:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't imagine a way to exploit unused elements of an array for an attack. Btw on MS operating systems the security risk from my own programs would be my least concern. 93.132.145.93 (talk) 17:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Unused elements probably aren't a security risk, but the hard limit of 999,999 words might be. You say it's unlikely that anyone will input that many words, but keep in mind that in a security setting you're defending against people who are deliberately trying to break your program. If it's possible to input 1,000,000 words then you might have a security problem—and probably it is, unless Visual Basic strings have a length limit that I don't know about. It would be better to make the stats array grow as needed to hold all the words. That would have the added advantage of wasting less memory: as it is, your stats array will eat up at least 4 megabytes of virtual memory even if the string only contains a few words. I'm afraid I don't know how to make a dynamic array in Visual Basic, but it must be possible. -- BenRG (talk) 17:53, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I suppose that you can make a dynamic array in VB by just not putting the number of array elements in the brackets. In this case, it would look like this:

        Dim stats() As Integer

If that doesn't work (it might not because you might have to re-declare the array every time you add an element to it, preserving the old contents of the array), then the following should:

        Dim stats() As Integer
        ...
            If spaceposit > 0 Then
                nextspace += (spaceposit - nextspace) + 1
                ReDim Preserve stats(stats.GetUpperBound(0) + 1) As Integer
                stats.SetValue(CObj(spaceposit), i)
            Else
                ...

I'm hoping this should work; I couldn't test it because I don't currently have Visual Studio installed. Hope that helps!  ARTYOM  03:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

And, in case you don't already know, attempting to assign elements to a static array beyond the defined length will typically overwrite whatever is in memory after the array, which is more or less random. So, it's not very likely someone could take control of your computer that way, but they could very easily cause the computer to malfunction until a reboot. If you are uncomfortable using a dynamic array, I suggest you add sufficient checks to ensure that you don't assign values beyond the defined length. StuRat (talk) 13:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This is Visual Basic. Array access is bounds-checked, writing past the end of an array is a runtime error, and the worst that should happen is that the program will crash. --Carnildo (talk) 22:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Image viewer for Linux?

I'm trying to find a specific type of image viewer for Linux. It should support the usual image types - JPG, PNG and GIF - and should be usable from the command line just by typing the command followed by the image name. Now here's what I specifically want. The window of the application should automatically size itself to attempt to show the image as near as 100% magnification (1 pixel on screen for 1 pixel in image) as possible. Electric Eyes (ee) back in the days of RedHat Linux 6 did exactly this, but its development has stopped, and the most recent version (0.3.12-5) is dependent on obsolete versions of Gnome libraries, causing it to be incompatible with the latest version of Gnome. Eye of Gnome (eog) is almost what I would want, but it does the resizing the wrong way around - it resizes the image to match the window, instead of the window to match the image. Where can I find an image viewer that does this and is actually supported? JIP | Talk 18:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

What about xloadimage or its relative xli? Coming from the good old days before it became cool for programs to do things you didn't ask them to, there shouldn't be any unwanted image resizing. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 18:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

QIV (http://www.klografx.net/qiv/index2.html) seems to do everything you want. - Sorf^ane 18:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. If the image is smaller than the screen size, this works exactly as I want. But if the image is larger than the screen size, it still doesn't work exactly right. Good old Electric Eyes (damn, I miss it) made its window the full screen size and offered scrollbars. QIV, on the other hand, insists on a 100% magnified window, so it makes it bigger than the screen, requiring me to hold Alt and drag the mouse to scroll the image. Oh well, I guess I may be able to live with that. JIP | Talk 18:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

xli, when given an image bigger than the screen and no additional options, creates a window that's 90% of the screen size and lets you scroll around. (No scrollbars, just drag any point on the image to where you want it to be within the window) --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 18:53, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

xli was a bit difficult to find. A Google search for the name gives thousands of entirely unrelated hits. It's not even available for my distribution (Fedora 9), but an RPM package for Mandriva worked fine. I hate to keep nagging and reminiscing about Electric Eyes, but there's still one thing. Electric Eyes, Eye of Gnome, and QIV all support viewing multiple images one at a time, only requiring a mouse click to move to the next image. xli doesn't seem to do that. Or do I just not understand how it works? JIP | Talk 19:06, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

If you give xli multiple filenames (like "xli *.jpg") you can use "n" to move to the next image and "p" to move to the previous image. It has other keyboard commands you can read about in the man page... scrolling around in an image that's too big for the window is the only thing you use the mouse for. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 19:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, thanks. It works. I guess I should have RTFM. =) I hate to keep saying this, but quoting Columbo, there's still one thing. Pressing n at the last image quits xli. I would have wanted it to stay at the last image. Otherwise it works fine. JIP | Talk 19:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Another option not mentioned yet is xzgv. It's a little more "modern" (i.e. it has menus) but it also seems to fit your requirements so far. And I just discovered, in xzgv you press the space bar to go to the next image. When you're on the last image, space bar does nothing. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 19:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Microphone is not working

I recently got a VoIP account and set up Ekiga on my Fedora 9 system to use it. Now I can call the VoIP account from a normal phone, and the other way around, all fine, and I can hear sound from my speakers all fine. I just can't transmit any sound.

I bought a simple Logitech desktop microphone and plugged it into the mic socket of my motherboard's integrated soundcard (shown as "nVidia Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio" on hwbrowser) and tried to speak to it in Ekiga. Nothing happened. I tried the same in Sound Recorder. Nothing happened. It's as if the microphone wasn't even there.

I asked the shop who sold me the microphone, and they asked me to first check the BIOS settings to see if the whole soundcard is enabled. I told them I can hear sound all fine, just not transmit it. So they thought the soundcard itself is OK, the problem is with the drivers. How can I see if I have the correct drivers, and if not, where can I get them? By far the most commercial vendors of computer components don't know Linux exists, or if they do, they make a public statement about not supporting it.

The weirdest thing is, when I am on a call in Ekiga, merely speaking (or making any kind of sound at all) near the computer causes the speaker volume meter in Ekiga to change. Even if both the microphone and the speakers are unplugged. It still doesn't transmit any sound, though. Is the soundcard itself somehow picking up the sound, or am I being haunted? JIP | Talk 18:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for Fedora, but Ubuntu's (I guess Gnome's) sound manager lists a bunch of "devices", which correspond both with real audio devices, and with the various audio interfaces (ALSA, OSS). My first guess would be one of:

• your Ekiga is set to have its input device on the wrong audio input or an incompatible sound system (so mess around)
• your mic is muted (by software, in the audio control panel)
• your mic is unmuted but its (software again) audio level is turned way down
• there's a little "mute" switch on the mic or its cable that you didn't notice
• (please don't be insulted) you plugged it into the wrong hole

Audio support on the sound capabilities integrated into nVidia nForce is pretty good, and if you can emit sound on the same device then I don't think the driver is bad. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The three things you listed about muting and volume control were the first things I checked. Nothing is muted, every volume level is at maximum. Still no sound transmitted. I think I tried every device Gnome is listing, but I'll have to check again. As for the wrong hole, I think it was the right one. The plug is pink and the socket is pink. The whole point in colouring plugs and sockets is that the same colour of plug goes into the same colour of socket, isn't it? JIP | Talk 19:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Google Translate

As of now, Google Translate appears to, when translating from English to Croatian, translate American Idol to Home Loan Lender. Does anyone have any idea why this happens? Bart133 ^{(t) (c)} 18:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Both terms refer to the worst things imaginable. --mboverload@ 18:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Home Loan Lender is composed of three words, none of which are Croatian. They are the two worst things imaginable, but why would Google translate it that way? Bart133 ^{(t) (c)} 19:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no knowledge of what's happening on Google's servers, but if I had to guess I'd say it's probably caused by people abusing the "suggest a better translation" feature. (Either intentionally or by accident.) If you know Croatian, Perhaps you could help them fix it the same way? APL (talk) 03:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Google Translate for Finnish is causing me constant amusement. Not only does it introduce English words when translating between Finnish and a non-Finnish, non-English language, it somehow keeps translating the names of many Finnish cities to names of Thai cities. It also keeps translating things like I understand to en ymmärrä ("I don't understand") and referring to women as "he". I suspect that even with the automatic learning from human translators implied by the "submit a better translation" offer, it has decades to go before it can produce Finnish a native speaker could even remotely accept. The same must be true for Croatian. JIP | Talk 19:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The google translator has been known to do things that are far, far weirder than that. The explanation is that the translation engine doesn't work with dictionaries, it works with huge amounts of text that appear in two languages and it compares them. Occasionally, the texts aren't identical, and it gets confused. ADFSGL (talk) 12:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Volume Control/Sound Recorder Missing!!!

I had the little speaker icon on the tray off to save resources, but when i needed it back on again, my computer couldn't find the program. Message Was: "Cannot find sndvol32.exe. Reinstall it under Add/Remove programs in control panel." But when i went to Add/Remove programs, there wasn't anything about sndvol32.exe anywhere. I also found that sndrec32.exe is missing as well. I was under the impression that both programs are necessary for windows to function. Help Me! BTW: System is an old Dell Inspiron running Windows XP SP1. Has 96 MB of RAM with a 457 MHz Processor (yes it is a crappy system) Help! 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 19:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The official Microsoft solution is: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319095 but this requires the XP CD and I dont know if you have that at hand. I'll find an alternative in a minute for you - Sorf^ane 19:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Found sndvol32.exe - http://forums.techguy.org/attachments/91688d1163267820/sndvol32.zip. Be sure to virus scan before extracting it to C:/Windows/system32. - Sorf^ane 19:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

funky diff options

I want a diff program with two special options for when it's recursively comparing all files in a directory tree:

1. If two files are both symbolic links, say whether they do or don't point to the same place (as opposed to comparing the contents of the files pointed to, which of course is the default).
2. If two files are both device special files, say whether they are or aren't the same device (both block or both character, same major and minor numbers).

I find that GNU diff (at least the versions I've checked so far) doesn't have this options (which surprises me, since GNU software usually has all the obscure options you could ever want, as well as some you don't :-) ).

Perhaps I'll just add these two options to GNU diff. (Neither should be hard to implement.) —Steve Summit (talk) 20:21, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the comparison mode of tar would be useful, as demonstrated here:

 $ ls -l test1 test2
 test1:
 total 0
 crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 Jul 31 15:30 null
 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   11 Jul 31 15:31 passwd -> /etc/passwd

 test2:
 total 0
 crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 5 Jul 31 15:31 null
 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   11 Jul 31 15:32 passwd -> /etc/shadow
 $ (cd test1;tar cf - .)|(cd test2;tar df -)
 ./null: Device number differs
 ./passwd: Symlink differs
 $ tar --version
 tar (GNU tar) 1.16

Of course you'd still have to call the regular diff program if you want the usual output for regular files, but if you're not interested in that part... --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:36, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, good suggestion! And in the case I was interested in today, one of the directory hierarchies I was interested in had started out as a tar file, so this would be easy.

Unfortunately (a) I am interested in the detailed differences between regular files if there are any, and (b) tar -d has this annoying gap (or did, last time I looked) of not reporting files that are in the directory but aren't in the tarfile. (Some day I've got to resurrect the tar -d code I wrote in 1985 or so that did this correctly, and see if I can wedge it into gnu tar.) —Steve Summit (talk) 20:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Mouse sensitivity shortcut for Ubuntu

I have a low resolution mouse. The cursor jumps on the screen many pixels at once. Usually I have no problems with it, but resizing windows can sometimes be a pain. On Ubuntu Linux/Gnome can I set a keyboard shortcut to slow down the cursor temporarily? (I know of alt-f8, but it apparently only helps for the "top level windows".) --212.149.216.13 (talk) 20:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Quad-core processors

(moved from SciRef desk) Franamax (talk) 23:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

how do quad core processors work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.140.68.142 (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it will be specific enough for your question, but we do have an article on Multi-core processors in general. --Allen (talk) 20:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Stupid-Simple answer: 4 processors on 1 chip that work together to share the load. I suggest you read the article that Amcbride so nicely linked for you =) --mboverload@ 03:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Windows Mobile/AAC

What software (preferably free) can I use to play AAC (m4a) audio on a Windows Mobile 5 smartphone (Pantech PN-820; not a Pocket PC)? ~~ N (t/c) 23:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

August 1

Going to a section of page is not functioning

For the past two weeks whenever I click on the arrow in my watchlist for the specific section of a Wikipedia page I am taken to the page but never arrive at the section. I have not intentionally changed any of my preferences or anything on my computer; no monobook changes, no added programs or tools, nada. Any ideas?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I am also having this problem, but only for the last hour or two. Should probably take this to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Algebraist 00:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I've done so. Algebraist 00:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This should be fixed now, but then it shouldn't have started happening until midnight today (when a buggy revision went live). Is it ok for you now? Algebraist 01:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Nope, but then again it appears that whatever is affecting you is not the same as is affecting me. It's probably pure serendipity that yours stopped functioning near the same time I posted about my long-existing issue, thus implying a common cause when the timing suggests none.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:28, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll just mention that this started happening to me when I logged in today - about 10 minutes ago. --LarryMac | Talk 12:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Its been rebroken: see Bug 14995. Algebraist 14:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

what do you learn in digital communications class?????

can someone please tell me what the heck that means???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.252.8.3 (talk) 00:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

A description should be in the class guide. It would be impossible to generalize. --mboverload@ 03:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Question regarding MAC data

The IT columnist of a major Indian newspaper, the Hindu, says thus about MAC address: "...and something called physical address ... 12 digits or letters, two by two separated by dashes. This is your MAC number. If someone hacked your e-mail account and sent a mail in your identity, it will bear your IP address. But the physical address is something unique to your physical machine." "Once you have secured your PC physically, the MAC number will help you prove mails sent by hackers did not originate from your machine. That is the status today... till hackers come up with something new against MAC numbers." The article appears here

• This sounds like it jars with some commonplace online lore on MAC spoofing. Further, is it true to state that an email carries the original sender's MAC address through all hops it makes? Can somebody make it clear for me? Karvaka (talk) 07:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Pure bullshit. MAC addresses aren't recorded as part of the standard mail trace header. The sender's MAC address is only used on the first ethernet hop (which is a subset of the first IP hop, which is a subset of the first SMTP hop, so really a tiny fraction of the journey). and if anyone did bother to keep track of them, they'd be as useless as knowing the "10.0.0.x" address of the sender's machine behind a NAT router. By the time anyone reads a mail message, it's far too late to ask what the sender's MAC address was. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 07:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. This guy should be fired. --mboverload@ 07:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Plus, it's quite common to be able to change your MAC address to whatever you want. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Which is why MAC address filtering is an incredibly stupid and terrible way to secure your wifi network. MAC addresses should not be used for any type of security or identification, they cannot be trusted. ADFSGL (talk) 12:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, it will be only proper if I give here the columnist's own explanation mailed to me by the readers' editor of The Hindu. The two following paragraphs have the columnist's view. "The reader misses the whole context of the news item he alludes to. The purpose is not to deliver an explicit and technically watertight explanation of MAC numbers ... if one needed to do that, Wikipedia in any case, might not be the most authentic source to search. Malicious mails are being traced to their so called sender based on the IP address. The MAC number of the networking hardware is a unique identifier of the physical system, unlike the IP address. Against a background of events where possibly innocent victims of stolen identities, are asked to explain mails bearing their IP address, it might come as helpful information that there is a reasonable way to establish that a particular PC was no t used for sending a particular mail. The onus of proving otherwise shifts to the one tracing the mail.

Before the reader leaps up to question if the MAC number is absolutely unique,let me add that it is considered by purists to be quasi unique, because MAC number spoofing is also something that hackers are doing. I have taken note of this when I suggest that the comfort of being able to say 'This did not originate from my PC', may last only "till hackers come up with something new against MAC numbers". Karvaka (talk) 01:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This is just a crackpot theory from someone who apparently just found out that MAC addresses exist and got too excited about it. How is a mail forgery victim supposed to establish anything based on information that is not recorded, either in the message headers or in the server logs, by any mail server? Take a look at any message in your mailbox, wanted or unwanted, and ask yourself if you suspected me of sending it to you, how would my MAC address (00:0B:2F:4B:DC:3C on the interface that connects my computer to the cable modem) would be relevant. It's not. My IP address (98.226.122.187 at the moment) might be useful; there are IP addresses in the message headers (Received: from ... by ...) which you can compare it to. With the MAC address, on the other hand, there's nothing to compare it to. All the bleating about how "unique" MAC addresses are is missing the point. What good is a totally unique machine identifier, if no record is kept of it when a message is transmitted? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 01:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Some mitigating circumstance: A mail claiming responsibility for the recent serial blasts in some parts of India was said to have originated from a US national's flat in Mumbai. It looks like his ISP account was stolen and used for mailing.[4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karvaka (talk • contribs) 05:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

ethernet card in Ubuntu

I am using Ubuntu 8.4.1 on a compaq desktop with Pentium III processor, 20 gb hard disk, and 384 MB RAM

lspci results are here: http://pastebin.com/m23753eee How can I get my network card working? thanks. Kushal (talk) 12:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

First in the terminal type "sudo apt-get update" and then "sudo apt-get upgrade" then after No internet can't do. go to System->Administrations there are two things dealing with network. My card automatically worked. So I am sorry if this doesn't work.Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  18:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems that machine has a DEC 21142 ethernet device, which should be supported by the tulip driver (although some cards with workalike features appear to be supported by the "dmfe" driver instead). This page (which is rather old) discusses how to swap the tulip for dmfe (you can try either to see if it works). A check of modprobe should determine if the Ubuntu installer has already set one up (perhaps wrongly). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, for "a check of modprobe" read "a check of lsmod" -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Note that this device, in some configurations, appears to support multiple concurrent interfaces. Could your problem be as simple as Ubuntu has configured only one of the ethX devices, and you've got the network cable in, and have been sweating the config of, another? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Various issues regarding DEC 2114x chips are discussed in the Linux Ethernet FAQ here (gosh, is 2003 really the latest?) which identifies de4x5 and tulip as possible drivers, and explains why neither may be sufficient. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

lspci -n would give a precise ID that might be easier to look up, since there are so many different tulip cards. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 19:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

here it is http://pastebin.com/f1ac639c7

babu@babu-desktop:~$ lspci -n
00:00.0 0600: 8086:7190 (rev 02)
00:01.0 0604: 8086:7191 (rev 02)
00:03.0 0780: 127a:1003 (rev 01)
00:04.0 0401: 12eb:0001 (rev 02)
00:12.0 0200: 1011:0019 (rev 41)
00:13.0 0c00: 104c:8009 (rev 01)
00:14.0 0601: 8086:7110 (rev 02)
00:14.1 0101: 8086:7111 (rev 01)
00:14.2 0c03: 8086:7112 (rev 01)
00:14.3 0680: 8086:7113 (rev 02)
01:00.0 0300: 1002:4c42 (rev dc)
babu@babu-desktop:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 02)
00:03.0 Communication controller: Rockwell International HCF 56k Data/Fax Modem (rev 01)
00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: Aureal Semiconductor Vortex 1 (rev 02)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21142/43 (rev 41)
00:13.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments FireWire Controller (rev 01)
00:14.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:14.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:14.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:14.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage LT Pro AGP-133 (rev dc)
babu@babu-desktop:~$ 

thanks Kushal (talk) 22:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I was wrong about that. 1011:0019 is still pretty vague. Maybe lspci -v and see if there's a "Subsystem" listed under it. But are we asking the right question? You started out by offering lspci, so we're assuming that your complaint is that the card wasn't recognized, since that's the type of situation where lspci is relevant. Why don't you describe what you've tried so far, and what type of response you got --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 23:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I have no idea. The connection works fine on another desktop running Ubuntu liveCD. Well, here is the pastebin http://pastebin.com/f56b633d1 http://benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com/lspci-v.txt Please help. Kushal (talk) 00:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

You have no idea what you've tried so far? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 00:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I have not tried a whole lot. Oh, by the way, dhcpcd seems to not be installed. and here is another text paste http://benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com/ifconfig-a.txt Kushal (talk) 01:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

So the card is detected just fine... opening the conversation with an lspci dump really led us the wrong way. If you want to use dynamic addressing, it's a good idea to have a DHCP daemon installed. Does Ubuntu have an /etc/network/interfaces like Debian? That would be the place where you declare the eth0 interface's IP address to be dynamically assigned, like this:

 auto eth0
 iface eth0 inet dhcp

--tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 01:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I get a command not found for both of these commands. please help Kushal (talk) 02:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu should have DHCP client called "dhcp3-client" installed. Can you check if it's there? If not try putting in your LiveCD and use it as a repository to install the package. I have also put your lspci output into <pre> tags for better aesthetics. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

What could have gone wrong here? How can I fix it? Is there any further information needed to solve the problem? What is it? Please let me know. Kushal (talk) 13:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Easily putting together images

Hi-- I have a series of images (over 100 of them) that I simply want to put together into an animated GIF, so that first image1 appears for a second, then image2 appears, etc... Does anyone have any recommendations for a free program (or programs used together) that can do this for you? I know the GIMP has animated GIF creation capabilities, but it will take eons to open every single image file, somehow make it a layer in one single file, then create the animated GIF from that. Thanks for your help! -- 132.250.122.83 (talk) 15:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

If you are on Windows Microsoft GIF Animator works well for this sort of thing. Just highlight all the images you want in the order you want them, select an interval time and it will do the rest. 20I.170.20 (talk) 15:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Use ImageMagick (windows, mac, linux, etc.): convert -delay 100 -loop 0 *.jpg animation.gif -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Enter key instead of tab in text entry fields

My work involves feeding data to a Postgre database which has Python as query language. The interface is a any web browser and the OS usually is a Linux distro. If enter key, instead of tab were usable to move from one text field to another, work would be very easier. On some machines with Konqueror browser this is possible. Can this feature be enabled on Mozilla, Galeon etc? --Pitcherplanter (talk) 15:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you modify the source of the page itself? This would be trivial to implement with Javascript. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Be aware that using the tab key to move between fields has been standard practice for many years across all OS's I've used (Windows, Mac, VMS, and various flavours of unix including Linux). By all means make the enter key do the same, but other users of your input interface will expect the tab key to move between the fields. Astronaut (talk) 10:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

pdf file company logo to article info box

How do I upload our company logo (which is a pdf file) into my info box? IntegratedBiomolecule (talk) 17:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

What's an info box? --Sean 18:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi IntegratedBiomolecule! At the moment you should probably focus your attention here Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Integrated_Biomolecule_Corporation. Please don't take this the wrong way. Please read WP:CORP and WP:N. If you have any question you can ask me personally on my talk page by clicking the little @ sign. --mboverload@ 18:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I blame safari

I recently installed safari web browser, got fed up with it and uninstalled it and went back to internet explorer... Now when a page is loading sometimes the screen is totally red, also some websites leave the page red on blank parts..

Why? and how can I stop this?87.102.86.73 (talk) 19:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

could you upload some screenshots? Kushal (talk) 21:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I could - this image http://www.skd-dresden.de/media/images/museen/alte_meister/400_alte_meister_6.jpg (picked at random by typing "picture" into an image search) appeared red outside the boundary of the actual image when loaded in a webpage, whereas before it was white...

I actually solved the problem- it seems the background colour had been set to red, so I reset it to white and problem solved..

Except I don't think I ever changed it.. Is it possible that safari did and again why? (or have I just lost my marbles.)87.102.86.73 (talk) 21:49, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

GnuCash application seems to have disappeared

I installed GnuCash last week and created a data file for my accounts. Now the shortcut has disappeared from the desktop and I can't find the exe anywhere on my hard drive, although other GnuCash files (including the data file) are still there. Could it have somehow been mysteriously uninstalled? Running Windows Vista but I'm not very familiar with it — this is a new laptop. --Ginkgo100^talk 21:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

stupid problem in windows

hello, I have an old desktop P3 with 256 MB RAM and 20 GB hard disk. even when I log in as administrator, I get a prompt that the administrator has disallowed it. and that is in safe mode.I cannot even get the dumb think to work when I am in normal mode.Please help. How am I supposed to disinfect the computer if I cannot even log in? Kushal (talk) 21:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Is this running 2000 or XP? Can you give us the exact error message? --mboverload@ 03:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

WHOIS information lookup, using VB Express 2005

Hi, i am writing a small program using VBExpress 2005 (.NET 2.0) (trying to sort out ip addresses / info, Pay per click-related), and i need to be able to look up information (owners contact info, location) given an IP address. What would be the best way to accomplish this? I've been looking for some sort of Control i can include in my project, but i cant find any free/open source ones... Can someone please point me to a tutorial on how i can do this? I was considering one of the following approaches:

a.) using direct TCP / sockets to connect to a whois server ; (i also need to know how to pass-retrieve data)
b.) using a hidden webcontrol and then screen-scraping data from it (I'd also like to read on a guide to access webcontrols document object)
or c.) Something that i dont want to have to do: call a commandline program (like whosip.exe), output to a file, then process that (or maybe get the stdout, i dunno)

I will be processing quite a number of them, just incase it matters.

Thank you all very much in advance 122.3.19.200 (talk) 22:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like automated WHOISing is "frowned upon" because it's sort of a spammer technique for harvesting personally identifiable information. But, here is a free-ish web service which will provide you with XML output (this should be easy to parse with standard VB .NET XML libraries)

• Sample XML query for NIMUR, from some private company I've never heard of
• The same, text/html format, from InterNIC

For reasons I don't understand, this gives me less information (about myself) than when I use whois from a linux command line (which gives out all kinds of spooky information like a phone number that's been disconnected for years, and so forth). It may be a terms-of-service agreement with this WHOIS-providing website, or maybe they have a pay/premium service for more information, or something like that. Nimur (talk) 18:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Addendum - Yes, it seems like these web services limit your data access so that they can charge for it; they also include a pleasant reminder to use WHOIS data responsibly. Nimur (talk) 18:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Website Redesign

Hello. Why are so many websites (e.g. Canada Post, 4-1-1, Google Maps, etc.) redesigning at the same time? Is the web design industry monopolizing? Is a new programming language conquering the Internet? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 23:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Sites regularly redesign in a way to look like they are still "up to date" and being actively maintained. (Sites that haven't updated their basic appearance for years on end tend to look stale.) Google Maps doesn't look all that different than how it did a few months ago, unless you're referring to something I don't see. They've always been adding new features. I don't think it has anything to do with a "monopoly" on the web design industry; I doubt it has to do with any new languages (though in the last year or two many big sites, following Google's lead, felt the need to convert to AJAX-like interactions). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

If implemented in a reasonable way, switching to AJAX will greatly reduce network traffic, which can greatly reduce bandwidth costs for large websites. However, redesigning a site to get the most out of AJAX can lead to a complete makeover. So, you will find many sites look entirely different after an AJAX makeover. -- kainaw™ 00:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

August 2

Ubuntu LiveCD crashes (turns off automatically) during use

When I use the LiveCD, it sometimes turn off automatically. I don't know how/why it happened. I use two Ubuntu 7.10 LiveCDs to access the Internet with a DSL connection. I have to use the LiveCD because my laptop's hard disk drive is damage. I don't have money to buy a new one. The one I made is the primary one and the ShipIt CD is the secondary one. It does crash sometimes. I clean the CD with alcohol and towels to reduce crashes. It crashes then it loading too much (like when I'm using YouTube). What should I do to reduce the number of LiveCD crashes? Jet (talk) 03:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Remove the hard drive itself from the machine. How do you know its the LiveCD and not the hardware that is at fault? --mboverload@ 03:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It could also be the increased load of using too many programs at any given time. The CD drive may not be able to keep up with the demand and just stops. I suggest cutting down on using too many things at any given time. Like use only 1 program at a time. If that does not work. Then do the above or if you really want to. Do both. Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  04:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that explains it. LiveCDs are built to be loaded off CDs and wait for the data. What you describe would immensely slow down the OS, not crash it. At least I've never encountered it. --mboverload@ 05:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I used to run LiveCD too on my laptop because of an HD problem. It would crash every time I ran too much. I fond out that it was because the CD drive on the laptop didn't do very well being very active and just stopped working. I was thinking he was having the same problem as I was. Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  06:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Try Ubuntu 8.04.1 LiveCD? Or run it off a USB flash drive using Unetbootin and see if it still crashes. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "turns off automatically"? Does the system power off completely? Does it crash to the black-and-white PC console? If the computer itself is turning off, I'd suspect either hardware problems or your computer has reached a heat or fan threshhold and ACPI is powering off the system. -- JSBillings 14:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Adding to what Jsbillings said, if the computer is randomly shutting down you may have some sort of power-saving hardware device which automatically shuts down when you have not used the computer for a certain amount of time. Or, if the computer is crashing when you run too many programs, or a few resource hungry programs, you can try adding more RAM. But it could be that the processor is just not fast enough to cope with what you are doing, especially if it is an old computer. 20I.170.20 (talk) 15:07, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

You could be running out of memory. This can happen because there is no swap disk, so the only memory is the physical memory (RAM). You get less of this than normal because some memory is used to make the read-only CD-ROM into a read-write CD-ROM+RAM disk. Linux normally kills high-memory processes when out of memory, but this could cause the computer to shut down. Use gnome-system-monitor, free or top to check memory usage. --h2g2bob (talk) 17:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Multi-touch: what's behind the hype?

Why is multi touch so hyped? I love the touch screen on my Sony Ericsson W950 but that's only because it enables handwriting recognition and can do things akin to the mouse, but so far the only intuitive application I've seen is browsing photos and be able to zoom, rotate etc. with your fingers. I can see that being quite useful in areas like desktop publishing and graphic design, but otherwise in other uses (web browsing, checking email, the basic uses) I don't see how it is any better than normal touch screen or the traditional keyboard/mouse approach. Most of the non-zooming/rotating things on the Perceptive Pixel demonstration video can already be done with normal touch screens, and to me the panning/zooming UI is way cooler than the multi touch capability (although I also fail to see how that's useful in normal use but at least it's cool). If anything people seems to be amazed more by the fluid and organic animations, like something powered by Clutter (computing) or Core Animation, as evidenced by the whole iPhone hype. None of the demonstrations that I've seen deals with problems like gorilla arm if it's vertical, or neck fatigue if it's angled/horizontal. Can anyone enlighten me how is it the UI of the feature? --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Multi-touch is a breakthrough because it lets you touch more than one place on the screen. That's all. Right now, UI (including common mouse-driven UI) is single-touch. So, there isn't much existing UI for multi-touch. If it works well, it may be adopted over time. It may be one of those things that is lost. Who knows - we don't foretell the future here. -- kainaw™ 12:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Translation for non-computer people: UI = "user interface". StuRat (talk) 13:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree that it doesn't seem all that useful, especially in a hand-held device where, presumably, one hand is busy holding the device and thus only one hand can be used, anyway. The added complexity might make it more likely to fail, too. I'm thinking it will be like the Segway Scooter, kind of fun but, in practical terms, not all that much better than what it aimed to replace (the bicycle), just more expensive. StuRat (talk) 13:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I find the multi-touch pretty useful on handheld devices, *because* I only have one hand. Scroll around with one finger, use two fingers to zoom in and out, it doesn't require switching tools or holding down a modifier key. For the laptop, it's nice to have a multi-touch trackpad because you can use one hand to point and scroll without needing to use the keyboard. -- JSBillings 14:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it great because it's like hollywood science (ie the same tech as they have on startrek) - rather than having any (major) user performance benefits..?87.102.86.73 (talk) 13:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Star Trek? Don't you mean Minority Report? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 22:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Just like the mouse, interfaces need to be designed to take advantage of multitouch. At the moment I don't know of any good uses. But I leave those ideas to other people. --mboverload@ 19:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

We forget really how much current GUIs suck because we've become inured to the horror of them (and we're glad they're marginally less horrid that their precessors). Multitouch is the next step on a gradient of progressively better touch interfaces. Imagine scrolling by just grabbing the page like it was a sheet of silk and moving it to where you want (rather than the absurdity of the scrollbar); imagine cut and paste by circling the text you want and then tearing it out of the page; imagine playing a desktop game with your kids where you throw objects and catch them. Anyone who plays a musical instrument (particularly something "touchy" like a violin) knows that there's a great depth of skill and dexterity to using it, and people have been happy (ish) to put up with the undoubted complexity of beginning to play the violin because of the great interaction and control you get when you're a practiced user. The current keyboard/mouse/touchscreen interface has, by comparison, a very shallow learning curve, but one that reaches only a low level of capability. Touchscreen (for some applications) is better than keyboard and mouse; multitouch is better than plain old touchscreen. What's needed is more subtle control yet - can you pinch something or press it or palm it around. Beyond that you really need some haptic feedback (a technology that, for consumer at least, is mostly useless and gimmicky right now). Why can't I riffle through a stack of mp3s the way I can with a stack of vinyl records? Why aren't the files I last used warmer than ones I never touch? Shouldn't the Vulcan nerve pinch pinch me back? Mboverload is dead on the money about interfaces needing to adapt to new input and output technologies. This is rarely as planned as might be hoped, and often things get used in ways very different from how anyone had intended. I can't imagine how Doug Englebart could have imagined people interacting with 3D worlds (Half Life 2 etc.) using his mouse and WSAD (and not those fancy 3d trackball devices and datagloves that all the VR guys were convinced we'd all need). In a couple of decades we'll look back on our current modes of interaction and think our former selves to have been downright disabled. Right now touch and multitouch work best in vertical segments like kiosks and in a bunch of gimmicky ways, but it's another step to our shedding the surly bonds of WIMP. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Except most of the things you said are already doable with keyboard/mouse. Google Maps uses your "grabbing the page" idea to scroll; you can select a section of text and drag it somewhere else to copy it (at least on Linux anyway), akin to your tearing out of the page idea. It still comes back to my original gripe: all these new innovations in UI design do NOT require multi-touch. Those Perceptive Pixels guys already modified the UI of a few applications in addition to writing their own applications to take advantage of multi-touch, and yet it's still limited to the whole rotate/enlarge thing. Is that all there is to multi touch: zooming and rotating with 2 fingers? --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

There was a much older peripheral device which seemed even better, but was alas discontinued. It was a board with 8 dials used on graphics workstations (affectionately called the "nipple board" since it looked like a pig's nipples). One dial would zoom, one would pan right and left, one would pan up and down, one would rotate in the plane of the screen, two more would rotate out of the plane vertically and horizontally. One was used for the front Z-clipping plane and one for the rear Z-clipping plane. With this combo you could manipulate a 3D object far easier than with current methods or with a multi-touch keypad. A dial has the advantage of being able to turn it quickly or slowly (with precision), depending on the need. By contrast, volume controls on TVs that only have "up volume" and "down volume" buttons fail in both respects, you can't change the volume as quickly as with a dial, or as precisely. StuRat (talk) 03:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Yah, I always wondered why there are not more dials on controls. I have a volume wheel on my Logitech G15 and I love it. When music is baring at you because you left it on 100% you can't wait for some Up or Down control to change it fast enough. --mboverload@ 04:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

thumb drive adding to RAM in Vista

I've converted an XP PC with 0.5 GB RAM to Vista. Having read that Vista was capable of utilizing the storage space on a thumb drive to supplement the RAM, I plugged in a 2 GB thumb drive, but the system reports only 480 MB of RAM. First, is what I read true? Second, if so, how can I make Vista recognize and utilize the thumb drive as RAM? --Halcatalyst (talk) 12:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit skeptical that you can use it as RAM, or would want to, since it's likely to be slower, but perhaps it could be used for paging space. StuRat (talk) 13:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

What you're read about is ReadyBoost, which augments disk cache, not RAM, with thumb drives. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Vista (and many other OSs, including earlier versions of Windows, can use disk space as Virtual memory. However, you really don't want to use a flash drive for VM, because of the slow speed of the device (compared to your hard drive) and limited number of writes flash media has. Using a thumb drive in this manner is just a bad idea, I don't know where you'd get that idea. -- JSBillings 14:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for your responses. --Halcatalyst (talk) 19:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

TFT Vs LCD

Do you use a TFT or a ordinary LCD? Does it matter? Is ordinary LCD very difficult to use and read compared to TFT? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.109.243 (talk) 17:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

and older type of LCD display

Did you mean as a monitor? I think all LCD monitors use some form of TFT technology.87.102.86.73 (talk) 18:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

See Thin film transistor liquid crystal display I would say that these screens are easier to read than the original type of LCD (see image) - but this may because of the higher resolution, and the backlight..)

Perhaps you meant something like the display on a Z88 (see article for image) - I think that may not be TFT - but it is quite easy to read and effective.87.102.86.73 (talk) 18:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Is anyone else aware of non-TFT LCD displays nowadays?87.102.86.73 (talk) 18:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Programs for puppy linux

I want to install some program in puppy linux, but I´ve found only Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo and SuSe version. What ´flavor´ is more appropriate for me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 18:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I think that each session of Linux can use another sessions programs..I am not too sure. But I believe it doesn't matter. Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  18:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Why are then various versions of Gimp? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 18:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Puppy uses .pet or .pup packages and its package manager is PETget which will download & install software from the repos. Link1 Link2 Link3 -Abhishek (talk) 20:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

IIRC Puppy Linux is Debian based. However, to install Debian packages you have to do something to the package to make a .pet or .pup which you can then install. Astronaut (talk) 22:19, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Intel - risc

It's an often repeated fact(/factiod) on internet discussion forums etc that modern x86 convert instructions into risc like micro-ops prior to execution..

I'm wondering if this is true , especially with reference to the Intel Atom ? 87.102.86.73 (talk) 18:49, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

That's true (I don't know specifically about Atom, but most other Intel x86 architecture processors have done this, for at least several generations). Our micro-operation article is rather sad, but this intel document says (of Core) "In modern mainstream processors, x86 program instructions (macro-ops) are broken down into small pieces, called micro-ops, before being down the processor pipeline to be processed." -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Something more concrete: Jon Stokes' Inside the Machine (ISBN 978-1-59327-104-6) describes the Intel P6 architecture (that's more than a decade old, the Pentium Pro). He says P6 pulled 16 byte wide chunks of IA32 instructions from the L1 instruction cache into three parallel decoders which push the resulting microops (up to 6 microops per cycle) onto a micro-op queue. Those go then to the re-order buffer and then off to be executed. The hard bit is the complex decoder, which handles the (rather rare) complex IA32 instructions - these are processed by microcode which emits a sequence of simple micro-ops. So the answer to your question is that simple instructions (loads/stores/arithmetic/logic) get translated into micro-ops (where probably a given instruction turns into 1 or 2 ops) where complex instructions are processed into a longer sequence of micro-ops. Stokes quotes a source that estimates "40% of P6's transistor budget is spend on x86 legacy support" (up from 30% for pentium, where everything was either done in gates or microcode). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that micro-ops are not quite equivalent to a RISC instruction set because ultimately an x86 processor has to support all the complications of the x86 architecture. In particular, x86 micro-ops have to be able to update one or more flag bits in the flag register, which means that many micro-ops take the old state of the flag register as an additional input and produce a new state of the flag register as an output. RISC instruction sets with a flag register (such as PPC) simplify the implementation by always updating all the flags at the same time. Another complication is that the memory semantics of x86 micro-ops must incorporate the current values of the segment registers. 84.239.160.166 (talk) 16:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

On the same architecture, Hennessy & Patterson Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach ISBN 1558605967, says "if an IA32 instruction requires more than 4 uops [micro-ops] it is implemented by a microcoded sequence that generates the necessary uops in multiple clock cycles". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Things haven't changed much since then. Core 2 is just an evolutionary improvement on the Pentium Pro design. AMD's processors work in essentially the same way, as do modern RISC processors. Itanium was a radically different design which failed spectacularly (relative to expectations, anyway). -- BenRG (talk) 01:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

With Atom, however, it doesn't seem to work quite the same way. This article says they don't bother with micro-ops for many instructions (they just execute them directly). There more on that (some more concrete estimates) in the Intel Atom#Architecture section, but they don't have supporting sources. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The reason is that whereas P6 etc. are built for speed, Atom is build to consume less power. P6 performs out-of-order execution on those micro-ops, to try to get as much going simultaneously as possible. Atom is strictly in-order, so it doesn't have most of that back-end pipeline architecture. All that gubbins needs space on the die and power to run, and it seems they've binned all that for Atom in an effort to keep its power usage down. In a lot of ways Atom seems architecturally rather like a Pentium, albeit built with modern processes. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

That's what I was wondering. So it could be quite an old design built to new process perhaps.87.102.86.73 (talk) 21:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Philosophically its architecture is something of a throwback, but it's clearly an entirely new design, and it does a bunch of clever things to do with power saving that Intel IA mobile/desktop/server microprocessors haven't done (but that other chips aimed at the embedded space like StrongARM and DragonBall have). Atom seems to be a sign that smart people in Intel's embedded-space product marketing have prevailed in the perpetual "can't we can just downscale a desktop chip into the embedded space" war. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I've found out as much as I can without getting involved in serious industrial espionage...87.102.86.73 (talk) 22:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Mouse clicking?

Is it possible to ruin a laptop just by clicking the mouse too much? (Superdupermaryaaam (talk) 20:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC))

If by "mouse" buttons you mean those buttons beside the touchpad on most laptops, that work the same as a real mouse button, then it seems maybe yes. They don't ever seem to be all that well constructed, and its not uncommon to see older laptops with those buttons broken or snapped off. To some extent maybe that's because that bit gets damaged when something nasty happens to the laptop. Of course you can always just plug in a USB mouse: breaking the button isn't the end of the world. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

That is very very unlikely to happen. The mouse is built to withstand alot of pressure and impact. The only way to truly break your computer by clicking by using a hammer. I think somebody just told you this because they didn't want you to use their laptop! (Josh389 (talk) 20:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC))

Or, someone was tired of hearing "click... click click... click... click... click click... click... click... click..." -- kainaw™ 21:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I work with laptops all day. Short of hitting the laptop with a mallet there is nothing you can do to the track pad or keyboard to damage a laptop. The only ways to break a computer are:

• Liquid inside
• Blunt force that cracks internal components
• Force that breaks the LCD screen
• High amounts of pressure that bend metal together and short out the computer

Short of any of these things you do not need to worry. At all. Just enjoy your computer. It will take care of itself. --mboverload@ 22:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I had a laptop once where the mouse couldn't "click" anymore (it did still work, but there was no tactile feedback and it would occasionally click by accident) - annoying, but nothing that couldn't be bypassed by disabling it and using an external mouse. To someone who's not resourceful enough to think of this, something like this could easily make someone call the computer "broken". --Random832 (contribs) 22:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Good observation Random. Even then with fine motor skills, good lighting, and a small tool most keyboard/mouse problems can be fixed. I once used a very tiny piece of rubber cut with an exacto knife when the real thing fell out. It's a different feel but it didn't cost $100 to replace! --mboverload@ 22:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Installing graphics drivers w/o uninstalling

What will happen if you install graphics cards drivers without uninstalling the older version? Both ATI and Nvidia recommend uninstalling old ones first, but I'm just wondering what will happen if you don't. Lowered framerate? Graphics glitches? 67.169.56.232 (talk) 20:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

A (windows) graphic device driver is, these days, a big complicated beast with lots of files (some that do stuff, some for configuration). Between releases of the driver (particularly if you're upgrading from quite an old one to brand new one) they move things around and rename stuff. If you somehow ended up with files pertaining to the old driver left around when you're trying to run the new one, it might inadvertently pick up an old DLL or config file or registry entry or something, producing unexpected (and uniformly unpleasant) results (crashes, loss of features, or total inability to work at all). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

How does a computer work?

I know the general ideas and stuff, and I'm not a computer n00b, but I never found out how a computer really works. What are the most basic instructions given to a processor, and how does the processor perform them?--96.227.106.168 (talk) 21:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you read computer processor? -- kainaw™ 22:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The most basic instructions are called machine code, the program takes values stored in memory (pointed to by the program counter) which typically consist of simple commands such as

• add two numbers
• store a number at a point in memory
• compare two numbers and set a special 'flag' if one is greater than the other
• move the position of the program counter to a new position.
• store the value stored at a position in memory into a Processor_register

Typically a computer uses 'registers' to store values locally or temporarily (usually they have 8 to 64 registers)

The individual instructions are done using logic gates, numbers are represented by binary and maths is done on the binary representations of these numbers.(If you want more information on this please ask)

a good introduction might be to read about hardware adder also see Adder (electronics) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.86.73 (talk) 22:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The page Zilog Z80 gives some simple examples of this. Unfortunately wikipedia doesn't seem to have a page that represents a good introduction for a starter to this topic - (a lot of the articles assume prior knowledge)

Maybe someone else knows of a good introduction?87.102.86.73 (talk) 22:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Danny Hillis' The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

A list of instructions in most 32-bit machines is on the x86 instruction set page. The How computers work section of the Computer page is also worth looking at. --h2g2bob (talk) 03:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I've found The Unix and Internet Fundamentals HOWTO to be a clear introduction, even though I have experience mostly with Windows --Iamunknown 04:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

When studying this topic, it is good to get into the mindset of changing level of abstraction. In the lowest level, volts and amps float around through physical pathways that are carved into a piece of silicon by photochemical manufacturing processes. These electrical properties represent logical bits, cumulatively forming a very complex finite state machine with a variety of inputs and outputs linked together through a fairly standardized connection architecture. Each interconnected device translates those digital representations to its own internal "meaning" (for example, a VGA controller will convert a bunch of inputted data into a bunch of analog timing signals for controlling a monitor; a keyboard converts physical button-presses into a sequence of voltage pulses which can be understood by another digital circuit). Since we started making computers, we have built lots of conventions for these types of information translations, culminating in the user interface which you are familiar with today. One of the earliest transformations is the abstraction of software, or instructions to the machine, as a modifiable program code; subsequently, other software was designed to translate human-readable text into machine-instructions to make programming a machine easier. As a desktop user, you may write your own software or use other people's designs, but internally, you are using this extremely complex set of electronic circuits to perform a series of conceptual and physical translations from high levels of abstraction into low-level electrical impulses with very definable behaviors.

This overview was necessarily broad. If you substitute your original question with (for example), "How does my Dell Inspiron 5150 work?" you can start replacing specific electronic circuits instead of vague topics. You can obtain datasheets for these chips, learn what wires need to be connected to that chip, and how fast the signals need to be clocked, and so forth. Some of these data sheets are available to you right now, and some require that you work at a large corporation, because the information is confidential and expensive to obtain; but there are a variety of open-source digital circuit designs which together can be used to build an entire machine. Nimur (talk) 19:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Icons and Extensions

I have enabled file extensions on my computer (Windows XP Home Edition V 2002 SP 2) and can see them on the desktop. I have some .txt's and some .cpp's among other things on my desktop. I see that links to programs don't have a file extension and it does not matter what file extension you give it, it's still a link. Well, I haven't renamed these files or anything, but today when I got on, I noticed there were the little black arrows in white squares (like are used to indicate a link) at the bottoms of some of the .cpps and .txts. I checked the properties and they were not links and it gave no option to change the icon. Can anyone tell me what's going on here. (Also on a possibly unrelated note, I have disabled my AIM (using msconfig) from opening on start-up and prompting me to sign in. Sometimes, though, when I log in, it is turned back on. Can someone please tell me what's going on with this as well and how to fix it?)
Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 23:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Quick and dirty idea (in a rush at the moment). Download TweakUI from Microsoft and go to repair -> icons. --mboverload@ 02:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a solution to your problems (except to second mboverload's suggestion) but I wanted to point out that Windows shortcuts do have an extension, .lnk, but it's never shown by Explorer even when you tell it to show all file extensions. -- BenRG (talk) 16:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I knew the .lnk but I didn't know explorer wouldn't show it. Why is this? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 17:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Just how windows works. --mboverload@ 19:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Windows stores the file extension information (icon, program, etc) in the HKCR (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT) part of the registry. You can see it with regedit.exe. The .lnk extension points to lnkfile, which has the NeverShowExt value set. --grawity 16:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

August 3

Computer problems

Hi i bought a pavillion pc a 6000 cmputer two week ago after install every thing i'm getting error massage and can not run some programes.below mentioned massages are appearing in my pc.

Recovery-Reminder has stopped working A problem caused the programe to stop working correctly.windos will close programe and notify you if a solution is available.

other error is,

Windows host process (Rundll32)has stopped working.A problem caused the programe to stop working correctly.windos will close programe and notify you if a solution is available.

please tell me y and any wrong with pc.

thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.96.226.88 (talk) 04:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say get HijackThis, SpyBot S&D, AVG AntiVirus free edition, and SUPERAntiSpyware. Run a HijackThis and save the log file. Copy it and submit it here. Fix anything it tells you to fix. This should probably fix your problem. Just to try to get rid of what may have caused it, run a scan with AVG, S.A.S., and S&D. Fix anything these programs tell you to fix. This should get rid of your problem. Cheers, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 05:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you mean an "error message" ? (Although I can see how you could think that an "error massage" was computer related, as that's when they accidentally touch your naughty bits.) :-) StuRat (talk) 13:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Moving Safari profile

1. Where does Safari store its data (bookmarks, preferences)? (I use Windows XP.)
2. Is there any way to force it to use a different folder?

--grawity 13:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

What is this "Safari" thing you speak of? Is it related to Firefox? --mboverload@ 03:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Mboverload, Safari is a web browser from Apple lol. I will install it today and try to find the solution. -Abhishek (talk) 04:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Click the word "Safari" in my question. --grawity 16:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC) P.S. I only use Safari for testing my website, so stop trying to switch me to Firefox.

I found %AppData%\Apple Computer\Safari\, but how to force it to use a different folder? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grawity (talk • contribs) 16:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Feeding Papers Into a HP Deskjet 3420

Hello. How do I feed several pieces of paper into a HP Deskjet 3420 without it taking all the papers at once? I want to feed several pages (below the maximum) to the paper tray and the printer will take on one page at a time. I realize the benefits of feeding one page at a time but I would need advice on printing single-sided on many pages. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 16:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you clarify what is you are trying to do? I don't understand the "without it taking all the papers at once" part. You should be able to put as much paper in the paper tray and it should only take one at a time. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

My old HP Laserjet 6L developed a fault where it would take in several sheets at once. HP recognised it as a known problem and provided a free fix kit to anyone who requested one. My Laserjet now takes one sheet a time from the feed bin (this is normal behavoir for printers - manually feeding each page when needed is not normal). Perhaps a similar problem has affected the Deskjet 3420. I suggest you visit HP's support site for your country. Astronaut (talk) 17:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be quite a common problem with printers. I just feed them one page at a time. This has another advantage of being one of the few ways you can stop an out of control printer from printing junk pages, by just denying it paper. I then get an "Out of paper" error, and it actually allows me to cancel the print. If I ever got a printer that could feed paper properly, I wouldn't know what to do with it. StuRat (talk) 22:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Elements of a computer

hello, asking about the five elements of computer...thanks for the immediate reply... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yagifranci (talk • contribs) 16:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

As it says at the top of this page Do your own homework. You might find the computer article helpful. Astronaut (talk) 17:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Five? I'd would have imagined there are more than five elements in a computer. 20I.170.20 (talk) 20:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If your teacher has five specific elements in mind, you might have to consult the assigned reading/lecture notes. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Earth, air, fire, water, and upgrades. OtherDave (talk) 04:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

As has been pointed out, a physical computer has far more than five elements. However, perhaps your question relates to an abstract computer architecture with five main components, in which case Von Neumann architecture may be what you are loooking for. Note that this is not the only possible computer architecture - see Harvard architecture and Modified Harvard architecture for other possibilities. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Command Prompt

What's up with the start "%~dpnx0" command. It seems that all the text in parentheses does is title the prompt opened by the start command. Even if one types in start "" or simply start a new command prompt window will open so why the %~dpnx0? Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 17:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The help for the start command starts like this:

Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.

START ["title"] [/D path] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]
      [/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]
      [/AFFINITY <hex affinity>] [/WAIT] [/B] [command/program]
      [parameters]

... and suggests any text between the quotes becomes the title of the created command prompt window. If I enter the command start "%~dpnx0", I get a new command prompt window with %~dpnx0 in the title bar, which is exacly what I would expect to happen. However, environment variables are substituted for their value when surrounded by "%" chars. Perhaps "~dpnx0" is an environment variable on your PC. To use it in a start command, the command would be start "%~dpnx0%". Astronaut (talk) 18:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

When I use start "%~dpnx0%" I get a command prompt window with title %~dpnx0%. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 18:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

...in which case ~dpnx0 is not an environment variable (it's not on my PC either). Astronaut (talk) 18:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

so what's it for? Why would anyone name a window that? 74.193.92.53 (talk) 18:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it should be start "" "%~dpnx0", because now start thinks that the % thingy is a title, while it's a command. Also, this must be started from inside a .cmd/.bat file to work. (Create a new file, anything.cmd, and put this command inside.)

In cmd.exe, %0-%9 refer to command line parameters. For example, if you launch foo.cmd One tWo thRee, then %0 will be foo.cmd, %1 will be One, %2 will be tWo, and so on.

Some version of Windows introduced a way to expand these parameters. For example, if %0 is foo.cmd, and it's located in C:\MyScripts, then %~d0 will be the drive (C:), %~p0 is path (\MyScripts), %~nx0 - name and extension.

So %~dpnx0 will expand to the full path of the batch script.

--grawity 19:05, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

In short, create a file with extension .cmd (or .bat), and put this inside:

start "" "%~dpnx0"

That should work. (Save all unsaved documents before starting.) --grawity 19:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Great joke... just love that never-ending command window creator. Astronaut (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't tell you to launch it :) If you liked that, this is nice too:

:a

start "" "%~dpnx0" & goto :a

--grawity 16:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Playing normal DVDs on an HD screen

Hi, can anyone tell me what the quality is like playing normal DVDs on an HD screen? Like does the quality look impared compared to playing them on a standard def. screen? I was specifically thinking of buying the base level Sony FW model, but wanted to make sure my normal DVDs wouldn't play badly. Cheers, LHMike (talk) 20:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Providing you're not sitting very close, it shouldn't look any worse. How it does look will partially depend on the DVD player - a lot of newer DVD players have some pretty good upscaling, which manufacture fake details to produce an HD-dimension image from the standard dimensioned DVD signal. It's certainly not as good as a real BluRay or HDTV source, but the mismatch between people buying HDTVs and yet not buying BluRay players to match has been ascribed to people being largely happy with the upscaled images they're getting now. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

At least in my case, I don't want to pay for a BluRay player unless it can also record in BluRay. I'll continue using my current DVD players until they can do both, at a reasonable price, and without any defective DRM logic that prevents it from working. StuRat (talk) 22:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Stu, I think your objection is really waiting over price and not recording functionality. If you want to record HD just get an HD Tivo. Why would you want to record HDTV on to Bluray discs that (will eventually) cost 2 bucks each? --mboverload@ 22:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

How much does TiVo cost for a month ? Enough for several BluRay disks, I imagine. How would I store 100 HD movies on a TiVo ? Also, how would I hand a TiVo to a friend who wants to see the movie ? I would guess that BluRay blank disk prices will also eventually come down to the price of blanks DVDs. StuRat (talk) 22:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

All great points Stu. I mostly use Tivo to timeshift and keep shows for a week, whereas you want to keep them for longer, which I did not consider. --mboverload@ 00:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Your DVDs will look ok. It really depends on the MPEG-2 codec your laptop has. Laptops usually have PowerDVD, which is pretty good. --mboverload@ 22:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all, big help. I suppose even before blu-ray people watched DVDs on screens of many different resolutions. In a couple of years, if I'm desparate for HD, an external drive will be far cheaper than the price difference to a blu-ray model is now (heck, they're already cheaper than the price difference...). LHMike (talk) 19:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

External hard drive and eSATA

Can you plug an external SATA hard drive into the eSATA hole (sorry, I mean, port) on a computer and expect it to work? Are these interfaces compatible, or do you need an enclosure? I have read this article [5], and to me it looks like they were designed to be compatible - it just seems a bit alien to plug an internal hard drive into a computer as an external peripheral.78.144.211.104 (talk) 21:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

[6] --mboverload@ 22:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

So yes, you can. Because although they have slightly different form factors (eSATA is symmetrical, SATA is L-shaped), there are cables on the market which will connect an eSATA port to a SATA hard disc. Thanks. SATA HD's must be bus powered, then.78.144.211.104 (talk) 22:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Mathematical Keyboard

I'm not sure if this should go here or in the Mathematics desk... Anyway, is there a way to input advanced mathematical symbols (like ∝, ≈, ⇔, ⊕, ∫, among others) from the keyboard? As one can type accented characters with a US-International keyboard configuration, I was wondering if there was something similar to this? If not, perhaps there are some IMEs to do this? Since I use mathematical symbols quite often, I'd rather enter them from my keyboard than having to copy/paste or going to Character Map all the time. Maybe perhaps even a macro editor? Thanks for any suggestions. 63.24.175.154 (talk) 23:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft Office allows you to map keyboard shortcuts to insert any symbol (including Greek characters and equation characters common in mathematical writeups). Nimur (talk) 00:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I use Open Office. It has a math module that lets you type a math markup language very easily (or point and click at a cheat sheet if you need to). -- kainaw™ 01:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

If you use them that often you may want to look into LaTeX or other applications designed to make writing mathematical expressions easier.--droptone (talk) 12:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

TeX is more practical, but you could probably rig up a space-cadet keyboard if you really wanted to. --Sean 15:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

August 4

UMTS flow of events

Good day. can any body answer me about the general procedure that happened when we use an external modem assigned to a GSM network to browes a website?

i want to ask about the path of the request/respons, and the functions of every node in the UMTS network.

Regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ammarissa (talk • contribs) 00:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The external modem first contacts the active-active pro-node to establish the time sync, which is based of the gov atomic clocks. This prevents bounced signals and other interference from interfering with the signal. After syncing is done it authenticates with the active-passive cluster using the identification string assigned to that device along with a salted cache of the date. The active-passive node checks your string and salted date against a list of active devices and if allowed grants access to the network. --mboverload@ 03:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

After that it connects to Wikipedia and trys to get it to answer homework questions. =) Sorry mate, we literally couldn't give you the answer if we wanted to. The answer and the wording your teacher is looking for is in the textbook. --mboverload@ 03:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Youtube

Youtube is just ridiculously slow from my house, and has been for a few days. I was wondering if youtube was as slow for everyone else. When I stream a video, I actually have to hit the pause button and wait several minutes; sometimes, it's freezing altogether. It also might be a problem with Comcast though; I know they've had some legal trouble recently with not providing full access to certain online material. Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It could be Comcast. It could be your physical wiring connecting you to the Internet. It could be your computer. There are many possibly problems (far too many to go into detail about). In order to have any shot at diagnosing the problem, you need to experiment further. Is it ALL computers from your house? Is it ONLY YouTube? What other computers have you tried? Both Wireless and hardwired? What other video streaming sites have you tried? -- kainaw™ 02:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha, now I am a programmer, so I have done all that. No, other sites are plenty fast, and yes, other computers in the house are slow (we even restarted the wireless router). The thing that has me thinking it's youtube is that http://tubezoid.com is slow too. Have you tried doing any downloading from youtube? Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Comcast is a nasty company that blocks sites and tools that compete with them. Like bittorrent. Or things that compete with Video On Demand. Like YouTube! --mboverload@ 03:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

YouTube is at its usual speed form my computer. This video, which is 4 minutes and 43 seconds long, was fully buffered after 1 minute and 5 seconds. Downloading the video from Tubezoid took almost exactly the same amount of time. From Shijiazhuang, the download time was 58 seconds. --Bowlhover (talk) 03:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

How about downloading the higher quality version, however slowly, via keepvid.com; then you can watch it whenever you want, served up as fast as your own computer can supply it. -- Hoary (talk) 09:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

[7]. Get to it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Virus

Please answer quickly, because this is important.

My computer has been overflowed with viruses. I cannot clean the viruses because I have to register the anti-virus software, which is difficult because I'm a child. My computer still works (now, at least), but I cannot access Control Panel or Task Manager and I cannot access my hard drive and disc drive from My Computer. And the computer slows down when it tries to perform certain tasks. Please tell me how to eliminate these viruses, because if I cannot find a solution fast, my computer will crash! (P.S. I am using my laptop at the moment.) Les Games (talk) 09:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe your parents could help. When the anti-virus software was bought, it should probably come with big long number called a serial number, which you need to type in before it works. What is the Anti-Virus called? Is it McAfee? There might be some free anti-virus, which you don't need a serial number for.78.144.191.13 (talk) 09:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

First, if your sick computer is connected to a LAN or otherwise connected to the internet, disconnect it. I mean, physically unplug from it whatever cable connects it to the rest of the world. Ignore any angry message that this might bring.

Because it's free, ClamWin won't need registration. Download it with your healthy computer and somehow get it onto your sick one.

Being older won't help you, being calmer will help you. So don't rush. -- Hoary (talk) 09:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I wouldn't bother trying to sort out the computer if it is so badly infected. That happened to one of my computers and what I did one day was I copied out all my files, restarted the computer with the Windows installation CD inside, then re-partitioned the hard drive - thus formatting it and deleting everything.

The disadvantage of this method is that you'll have to reinstall windows from the CD, and then you'll have to download things like sound card drivers your self (here's a good place). Believe me, setting up your computer again will take a VERY long time. And if you've forgotten to copy out one of your files... it's lost.

If you can sort your computer out with anti-virus software, I'd definitely do that, but if it's "overflowed with viruses", I'd say you got fat chance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.128.200 (talk) 10:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The first thing to do in this situation is to turn the computer off. This will stop the virus from spreading and causing more damage. Now, you'll want to rescue your important files, so get yourself a Linux live cd; download on another computer, burn to disk. Run the live CD on the infected computer and you should be able to copy your files to a USB stick or floppy disk. Note that Linux will not be effected by the virus as it will most likely be a Windows specific virus. Be careful only to copy your files and not any system files, as these could be infected with the virus and you will just be spreading it to the next computer. Once you've saved your files, you have two options; try to repair the computer or just reinstall Windows. Personally I'd reinstall, as it at most will take about an hour, and with XP it should have most of the drivers you'll need preinstalled. If you want to try and repair, Linux should have a copy of Clam AntiVirus, the anti-virus engine ClamWin uses; but if as you say the computer is totally infected, there will probably already be too much damage to bother trying to repair. 20I.170.20 (talk) 12:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Computer viruses don't "spread through the air"; you have to run them. Using a Windows-based recovery CD would be fine too as long as you didn't start launching applications from the hard disk. Contrariwise, if you have a macro virus in a Microsoft Word document (for example), using a Linux-based recovery CD to copy it isn't going to get rid of the virus. Like StuRat, I'm suspicious that your problem really is viruses, though. The only symptoms you mentioned are (a) can't access Control Panel, Task Manager, or My Computer and (b) the computer slows down when it tries to perform certain tasks, neither of which sounds like a virus problem to me. In fact both are more likely to be caused by antivirus software. People tend to blame every mysterious computer problem on viruses without considering the alternatives. Still, regardless of the problem's cause, copying your important files and reinstalling is likely to be the quickest and easiest way to fix it. -- BenRG (talk) 16:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure it's viruses that are the prob ? It could be other problems. Try a reboot, defrag, and then run free anti-spyware programs like AdAware and Spybot. StuRat (talk) 14:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

speed of data types

I'm wondering whether some data types can be used operated on by the computer faster than others. Because I couldn't find any information on the web (other than that 64-bit computers can operate 64 bit integers faster than 32-bit computers), I decided to write some C++ code as an experiment.

I am incredibly confused by the results. As expected, unsigned longs ran the fastest, but I was surprised that unsigned chars and unsigned shorts ran MUCH more slowly... slower even than 64 bit long longs, which were only slightly slower than longs! If the computer is only 32 bits, and an integer is 64 bits wide, wouldn't the computer have to do several calculations to carry bits over or something? Also, unsigned long x:8 bitfields sometimes ran faster than unsigned chars! Shouldn't the compiler have optimized all the chars then, or is it because I'm using Visual Studio Express edition? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cnbn (talk • contribs) 09:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

You should expect optimal performance when dealing with the native word size of the machine, when accessing word-aligned data. How fast sub-accesses (accesses to packed arrays of things smaller than the word size) are depends on the native instructions available on a given architecture, and on which of those instructions a given compiler actually emits. Barring handy shortcut instructions (and perhaps even then) you'd expect byte access on a (say) 32 bit architecture to be slower (for data in cache), as to access (e.g.) the 3rd byte in a word the compiler has to generate instructions to shift the word down and AND off the other stuff. I mentioned cache above, and I guess your test was on data that would fit into the cache? If you're accessing so much data that it doesn't fit into the cache, then your timings will be dominated by cache latency (not by the few extra instructions that are needed to address some sizes) - so accessing 1Gb of uchar8s and 1Gb of uint32s should be much closer together than the ratio of the same on only 10Kb of the same. The best thing you can do, if you really want to understand what's going on, is to have your compiler emit assembly language too, and see the difference between the code it generates for the different data types. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Once you've understood this, take a look at how the compiler handles stuff like:

      struct {
        uchar8    c;
        uint32    i;
        uchar8    c2;
      } foo;

some architectures (like MIPS) will insist that i be on a word boundary, some will allow it to be misaligned (Intel), and some will allow it depending on a processor flag (SPARC, I think). Those architectures that do allow misaligned access essentially have to do the shift-and-mask thing themselves for you, and so are often slower than if you'd aligned things better. That's why compilers often have a bunch of flags that let you specify alignment and packing (things you didn't care about until right now), and why the C-programmer's favourite trick of casting a buffer of received bytes to a structure can be unportable or downright fatal. Again, looking at what the compiler emits can be very instructive. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

A question about software bug reporting .

Bold textFirst i want to say that this is not a question of how to report a bug in wikipedia. My question is how to make a perfect software bug report including : bug report components,best way to avoide needless information within the report.I hope i get an answer as soon as possible for i need it so much,,thanks... —Preceding unsigned comment added by NightxKnightx87 (talk • contribs) 12:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It varies a bit depending on what you're reporting on; if its something with an open bug-reporting system (like Bugzilla) it's a good idea to see what other people are reporting. Different programs generate different kind of error codes or data dumps, and these are generally what someone wanting to fix a bug will need. You always have to say what version of the program you're running, and generally what related things (OS version, versions of any software that interacts with the buggy program) you were running. Say what you were trying to do, what you actually did, what you expected to happen, and what actually did happen. The "what you actually did" can be very important - in order for a bug to be fixed, it must be reproduceable. So bugs that say "I was using the program and it crashed" aren't much use; instead saying "I went to www.foo.com and clicked on the red box three times, and the system reported error code X123000 and hung. I've done this several times on two different windows computers and the same thing happens every time" is much much better. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

For how much do you think this domain is worth?

For how much do you think this domain www.bloggersday.com is worth? I want to know because I want to sell. 59.96.137.111 (talk) 14:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The standard answer is that something is worth the most that a buyer is willing to pay and the least a seller is willing to accept. OtherDave (talk) 01:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The fact is that since you didn't do anything except get lucky in registering it the odds are that nobody is going to want to pay you very much for it (and why should they?). How much is it worth? However much some sucker would be willing to pay for it. Even if I was dying to have a site named "bloggersday" for some reason it would be easy enough to do "bloggersdayonline" or something like that. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

What should i do?

i bought a system from a coy at a give a way price which has an administrator's password and i tried to remove it because the person that passworded the system is no more working there and nobody knows the password.

with my little knowledge, i went through so many ways with the CMD, and this was what i got after trying the steps:

NET USER [username [password | *] [options]] [/DOMAIN] username <password | *> /ADD [option] [/DOMAIN] username [/DELETE] [/DOMAIN]

i dont know what it means, and what am i suppose to do?

somebody assist cos i cant download any software without the administrator's password which is really making me mad

thanks.

Mb —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.73.189.210 (talk) 15:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It may be worth re-installing the operating system, since you don't have full access to the machine's administrative account. Nimur (talk) 15:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're not afraid of command like, try ntpasswd. But since your computer was used by someone else, I recommend a fresh reinstall. --grawity 16:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Nimur and Grawity has the right idea here. Technically you can get into it. The problem is that used systems are nothing but trouble. Who knows what kind of viruses, spyware, and misconfigurations have happened? You should be able to use any XP cd with the serial on the sticker on the computer to reinstall it. --mboverload@ 20:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

TFT display reliability and energy usage

Are TFT displays more or less reliable than CRTs now? I heard a few years ago that somepixels would fail leaving black spots. Also do they use mor or less energy that CRT when in use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.204.221 (talk) 16:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

They are more commonly called LCD displays or TV's. Considering the billions of dollars of investment into the technology, this is the way the world has gone. CRT's are definitely old technology and in some places are literally being thrown away. As LCD's have thousands of hours of active life in them, by the time these hours are used up the next technology would be around anyway... anyone for holographic TV? The "black spot" problem was more prevalent in older models... I've seen this with my own eyes; my older Viewsonic had a few but my newer LG and Samsung don't have any. They definitely use less energy than CRT and in most cases less energy than plasma TV's. Newer LCD's are becoming even greener and using less energy. I can tell you from personal experience as well - LCD's are better for your eyes than CRT's especially when you're staring at one all day and from a close distance. Sandman30s (talk) 17:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

LCDs definitely use less power, but I'm skeptical that they will be as long-lasting as CRTs. I have 20 year old CRT TVs which have been in everyday usage and are still going strong. Based on the short length of warrantees on LCD TVs and early reports of failures on some, they seem less likely to last, to me. Also, I don't know if this applies to modern LCDs or not, but I've had LCD calculators, watches, and clocks ruined by exposure to cold if I left them out in the car during winter. I've also had an LCD laptop with random colors appearing on certain pixels. I'd be very interested in seeing a report on mean hours until failure for each technology. StuRat (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

My sons' 17" HP's which I bought in 2003 still show, via the monitor software, 18000 and 20000 hours of usage left. They are still going strong. I doubt very much if anyone would still want to watch a LCD 15 or 20 years from now, given the current rate of change of technology. With talk of 3D 360 degree holographic images popping up from watches and cellphones, I can see why. Besides, if LCD is still around in 20 years, they would probably be using paper-thin foldable material running at super-duper-ultra-HD or something. Sandman30s (talk) 13:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Looking for two specific linux tux images

I am trying to find two linux tux images I have seen but I can't remember where from. One is Tux working an abacus with small tuxes as the beads, the other is tux holding up two small tuxes, one in each of his wings. I've been able to find a small version of one of these but I am looking for the originals. Thanks -- 209.30.197.76 (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Linux Counter. The other I found is holding only one tux Link- Abhishek (talk) 17:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! the linux counter logo is one i was thinking of. The other has tux holding mini tuxes like a waiter might carry trays. -- 209.30.197.76 (talk) 23:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheap webhosting

Dear all-knowing Refdeskers,

I recently bought myself a domain from a relatively rare TLD. For various reasons I bought it directly from the registering authority. I am now looking for a cheap webhost - I need some small space for a HTML page or two and email forwarding. Now, do anyone have any tips for cheap and reliable providers? By "cheap" I mean, perhaps, less than $40 for the first year including setup costs etc. I have the domain but nothing else - all I have at the domain register interface is the possibility to enter the addresses of name servers. I am located in Europe but the hoster could be anywhere as long as the interface is English. Thanks a lot! Jørgen (talk) 19:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

NearlyFreeSpeech.net is by far the best host I have ever used. For users like you, the cost each year will be negligible. But, you could use a free host - and by free I a mean absolutely free. I currently use 000webhost.com - which would be perfect for your needs, but will probably be less reliable if you need it constantly than a paid host. However, I use them for my email at the moment and I couldn't ask for a better job. (I hope NPOV doesnt apply here ;) - Sorf^ane 19:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Personal opinions are fine as long as everyone understands that we are not liable for anything. --mboverload@ 20:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Unless it's legal or medical advice, in which case your personal opinions are still not postable. Nimur (talk) 05:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, I'll look into those (looked at NFS some time ago, in fact), feel free to add more opinions, neutral or not... :-) Jørgen (talk) 06:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Vacation videos - what format to use?

Dear all-knowing Refdeskers,

some time ago I bought a regular home-use DV camera, which records to Mini-DV tapes. Now I want to spend some time, but preferrably not much (I know that can be hard) editing this video. My main question is: what is the optimal format for storage of edited videos? I really hate throwing away information, but realize that storing the video in the same format as on the DV tapes will really be a drain on HD space. Let's say I want DVD-grade quality - what compression/codec/resolution should I use? Also, I would really appreciate tips on free / win32-bundled video editing software. I looked at Microsoft Movie Maker and perhaps it does actually fulfill my needs - except that it seemed rather restrictive on formats for the saved videos, which relates to my previous question. Can that be adjusted somehow? Thanks a lot! Jørgen (talk) 19:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I've always used DivX for compressing all my videos, and it's always compressed really well and kept very good quality. (http://www.divx.com/) Regarding editing, I've never had a problem with WMM for my basic editing needs, and I've always liked it becuase it lets me edit my DivXs, but I'm sure other users will have better ideas ;) - Sorf^ane 20:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Keep the video in the native codec for editing. For the finalized video I think H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a pretty awesome, standard one. I personally recommend that one. However, I do not know how widespread it is implemented. --mboverload@ 20:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Glancing at the DV article, I didn't find any resolution information - any suggestions on the resolution I should use on the final video? And is it straigtforward to customize resolution/codec for the final product in Windows Movie Maker? Jørgen (talk) 06:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

You should not care about any of this in the current stage. You want as high quality as possible, and that means keeping it in its original format until the final recompression. All video compression in common use are lossy, so you want to recompress as little as possible. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

My (signal) strength is waning...

Is there a walk-in store where I can buy the Channel Master CM4228 antenna in the Detroit area ? StuRat (talk) 19:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Radio Shack? Useight (talk) 20:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Radio Shack typically prides itself on selling overpriced, foreign-made junk, so I doubt if they would carry a quality, reasonably priced, American-made antenna like this. StuRat (talk) 20:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey, hey, hey. No bashing Radio Shack. Whenever you need some weird little converter to plug some electronic thing into another, they have it. I've never been disappointed. Also, their return policy is amazing. Everything is returnable, even if it's open, with no restocking fee. The higher price is worth the excellent service. Sure beats Best Buy and its inferior goods. Useight (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but they sell some rather pathetic TV antennas, like those from Terk. StuRat (talk) 02:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

At participating Ace and Tru Value hardware stores. --LarryMac | Talk 21:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

That list is of stores carrying some Channel Master products. While Ace's website lists some CM products, they don't list the CM4228 antenna. The True Value website seems quite useless, it doesn't list anything related to antennas at all. StuRat (talk) 21:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Windows vs. Puppy Linux

The amazing thing about Linux in general is not only that it works better, but in some cases it is much smaller than Windows. Puppy Linux, for example, in its full-fledged version, only needs less than 200 MB. What does Windows have in all its GBs for more or less the same functionality ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 19:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I think my Vista install is like 16 GB. Could be wrong. Whats in there? Programmers and people who have read Windows Internals by Mark Russivich should be able to help. --mboverload@ 20:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I think Microsoft (and a lot of other software companies) have taken the position that hard drives are so big now that people can afford to devote a few gigabytes to the OS and hundreds of megabytes on each installed application. And for most users that's true—I think your typical laptop/desktop hard drive is mostly empty these days. It has little to do with Windows internals; it's mostly rarely-used user-level stuff. For example, XP has some kind of "welcome to XP" multimedia thingy which remains permanently on your hard drive (just in case you add a new user to the machine some day and they want to see it). XP keeps a permanent backup of lots of system files for the System File Protection feature, which effectively doubles the space those files take. When you install a security update, the old versions of the changed files are kept in case you need to undo the change. Same with service packs. Many/most machines that ship with Windows also include the raw contents of the install CD on the hard drive so that you can install new drivers, language support etc. without needing a physical Windows install CD. Lots of other applications like to put their files in the Windows folder, which might lead you to count them as part of the OS. You may have a paging file and a hibernation file taking up a few gigabytes each. The System Restore feature will happily use as much space as you give it.

Another reason for bloat is increasing use of general-purpose libraries and increasing use of static linking. General-purpose libraries are less buggy, and static linking avoids DLL hell. They reduce development time and support costs. But it does mean that every application that uses XML is likely to have its own copy of an XML library, and that library is likely to have its own copy of hundreds of kilobytes of Unicode traits tables and Shift-JIS and Big5 conversion tables and so on, even if you only ever use ASCII. And if the application comes with several different executable files or DLLs, each one may have its own copy of the library.

Also, software tends to have fewer installation options now. Once upon a time you had a lot of control over which parts of Windows to install, but XP has only a few token options which hardly affect the installed size at all. Fewer combinations to consider means easier development and support. Also also, Puppy uses aggressive compression to get the disk image size down. Windows has nothing similar, and that kind of compression doesn't really work anyway for a system that's being incrementally updated with new software and service packs.

Looking back on these I notice that most of them have to do with easing customer support. Keeping as much as possible on the hard drive, in as many copies as possible, means no hunting for CDs and fewer cases of critical files being lost or damaged, and Joe User has no other use for the extra space. I think that's the direction the whole industry is moving, not just Microsoft. And I think Linux is moving that way too. -- BenRG (talk) 21:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that -- just to pick one example -- Windows comes with DirectX, which is a collection of software that makes it easy for games (and other multimedia applications) to use numerous different types of graphics and sound hardware without the programmers having to include separate support for every single graphics card out there in the multimedia application in question. Considering the wide variety of hardware manufacturers and products, that's not only an obvious time and money saver for the developers, but also something that makes life a lot easier for the consumer. I mean, I'm sure Windows could be a lot smaller than it is if Microsoft made that a higher priority, but it's not as if the list of features in Windows Vista is similar to that in Puppy Linux. They just aren't designed for the same purpose. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 01:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There IS OpenGL you know, DirectX is not the only technology out there. Puppy Linux is designed for compactness, whereas Windows is not. Normal Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, installs to a similar size to Windows (I have 10GB for each), but it contains a full office suite, graphics editing tool, and a lot others. I guess dynamic linking does save a lot of space. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but DirectX includes support for a lot of things other than just graphics. And yes, there are absolutely alternatives to them, but there's a reason why Puppy Linux (as opposed to some other Linux distribution) doesn't include them. I'm not saying that Windows Vista couldn't possibly be any smaller. Or faster, or better, or any such thing. I'm just saying that comparing it to Puppy Linux is a little like saying that this axe sure is better than this chainsaw, because it's not as heavy. It's getting pretty deep into that apples and oranges territory. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 09:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Restoring old version of Microsoft Word doc

I accidentally changed, saved, and then closed a Word doc. Can I get back the earlier version ? There's no Undo option since I already did a save. StuRat (talk) 21:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you can't. The only thing that might help is if you had backed up the old version of the file somewhere.  ARTYOM  00:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There's a faint possibility that you may find something useful in a Word temp file. This would likely be in the same directory as the document itself. (Not a great hope, just an outside chance that in opening the temp file you'd find something salvageable.) OtherDave (talk) 01:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Just agreeing with the others- Word actually deletes content (unlike Excel). --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Use a recovery program and search for files that begin with ~. One of those might be your Word document. Its probably too late by now. --mboverload@ 03:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Try to leave the computer alone and do research on the problem on another PC. We don't want to overwrite the area of the hard drive that contains the file we want to recover.

Download this program on another PC and put it on a disc:

http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/

On the PC that has the file, start in the program "Windows Explorer." (Start - All Programs - Accessories - Windows Explorer)

Delete any files you know you don't need or can easily get back. This gives us some disc space to put the utility on. The more files and the bigger - the better the odds. Videos are great for getting disc space back.

Then load the undelete program. If you can, load it on a drive other than the drive that contains the file you want to recover (probably C).

You just may get lucky and be able to recover the file - that is if the area of the hard drive where the file was has not been overwritten with other files - including: your web page cache that grows with every page you visit (including this one), and the undelete program you install. How lucky you are depends on a lot of things (mostly hard drive size and file fragmentation). Some of it is luck too, but deleting some files first improves your odds.

Even if it is too late to get the file back, free undelete is a great program to already have installed if you ever need it in the future. Hope it helps.

--Wonderley (talk) 07:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the file wasn't deleted, it was overwritten with new content. Would any of this work for such a case ? StuRat (talk) 11:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The temp file(s) was/were deleted, so they'd need to try to find that file.--droptone (talk) 12:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

August 5

Java applications do not run in browser

Hello. I recently reinstalled my operating system, and installed Java from java.com later to be able to view Java applications in browser. However, the first time I installed it, it did not run correctly; Internet Explorer (7) was just closing when I opened a website with a java application in it (http://www.operamini.com/demo, for example). I tried reinstalling it a couple times, even installed the older version (1.6.0.02, that was installed on my system before the OS reinstall), but nothing worked. However, somehow I managed to get the browser not to crash, but now it displays a red X in left-hand corner of the Java application window on the webpage. Java console displays the following errors in it:

load: class QuoteList.class not found.
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: QuoteList.class
	at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
	...
load: class org.microemu.applet.Main not found.
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.microemu.applet.Main
	at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
	...

I tried disabling and re-enabling the Java Active-X control in the browser, but it didn't help. I am wondering if it is because I'm using a 64-bit Vista (although Java doesn't work both in my 32-bit and 64-bit IE's); but it was working before - I just bought this laptop a few weeks ago, and it had everything preinstalled on it. That's where I got the 1.6.0.02 version from, it was among the driver installation files, but it didn't help either. I wasn't able to find any solutions online as well. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!  ARTYOM  00:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Image stabilization, after the fact.

I checked Image stabilization, but didn't find an answer, so maybe y'all have an idea.

Is there a way to take an older, somewhat shaky, video file and run it through some software (free would be nice) that will reduce the shakiness? Thanks. Bunthorne (talk) 03:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there are software packages that governments and police use to stabilize video - no matter how shaky. They have taken completely unwatchable clips into super-steady video ready for the jury to see. The only people I have heard of using it are professionals. I think they were using Avid but I'm not sure... --mboverload@ 05:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

This is the ultra highend professional level solution I was referring to. dTective - Powered by Avid I am still looking for a consumer level version. --mboverload@ 05:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Mboverload. I checked the presentation, and that's exactly the type of thing I would like to do. Of course, since that's professional software, I'm too cheap to buy it. So if there's a consumer or free program that will do the same thing, I'd be interested. Thanks for your detective work. Bunthorne (talk) 15:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Web site default page replaced with "core-project"

I have a server at my house that I keep my web site on. Yesterday my default page was modified and I have no idea how. The new version of the page simply read "core-project" - No formatting, page title, nothing - just that text. So far it does not look like any changes to other files were made.

I had been on the server yesterday, but I don't think I was at the time stamp of the file change. Even if I was, I did not: download anything, edit the web site, run any new software, do anything unusual, I did not even check mail. I did go on the web but I don't think I went to any page I was not familiar with (Netflix, Amazon, maybe the IMDB). Now maybe I did go somewhere else, but I'm 99% sure it wasn't at the time of the change.

Afterwords I did do a Windows update and 2 upgrades were installed: KB890830 and KB951748. Those patches did not look like the fix to my problem to me. My anti-virus software was up to date and I did a scan with no problems found.

I can put the page back like it was, but I am very concerned as to how and why this happened. I wouldn't think it would be a virus - wouldn't it do more than modify the 1 page and in a silly way?

Does anyone have any ideas about this?
What would make a page say just "core-project" (no quotes)?

Thanks--Wonderley (talk) 06:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you done checked the logs? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

You have server logs, yes? Those will tell you what happened. My bet is that you had some sort of vulnerabilities in your page and some bot found them and exploited them. Couldn't give you more info without more info on the page, the server, and the logs. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Firefox not sending Cookies to DTA

Resolved

I'm trying to download files that require me logged in, and so I need to cookie in order to download it in an external programme. I have done some packet captures and the cookies are missing from the HTTP headers in DTA when it's running natively in Linux, whereas the same configuration in wine works flawlessly. Is this a bug in Firefox or is there some hidden setting that I do not know of? --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Turns out I need to allow 3rd party cookies in preferences... --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Citing sources in LaTeX environment

I'm a LaTeX noob and I spent the last couple of days learning how to convert my MS Word document into LaTeX. Tables excluded, it was fairly easy, however the bibliography is still missing. What's the better approach to produce the list of sources? Right now, I have about 30 sources cited, but the document will grow until about 100, perhaps. Can you help me? Thanks in advance for your replies. 85.243.132.126 (talk) 10:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe bibtex is what you're looking for? You can do a bibliography by hand, but if you have 100 sources to cite BibTeX is a better bet. 79.71.24.204 (talk) 11:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've heard about it, but how can use it? I download an applet to build my database, create a file with it and inclue it in the .tex file? 85.243.132.126 (talk) 12:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Try reading some of the tutorials linked at the bottom of the bibtex wiki page. Basically you install BibTeX on your system (it's possibly already there, especially if you're using MiKTeX), put \cite commands in your tex file where you want the references to appear, create a sample.bib file with the details of the references in bibtex format, and put \bibliographystyle{plain} \bibliography{sample} where you want the bibliography to appear. You then run the tex file through bibtex and latex a bunch of times, and the resulting output has a nicely formatted bibliography.79.71.24.204 (talk) 12:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm using MiKTeX, and I understood the mechanism you explained, but how can I manage the database and create the .bib file, i.e., introduce the authors, titles, years (and so on...) of each work and create a file with all that information inside? Does MiKTeX carry any applet to help me performing that? 85.243.132.126 (talk) 12:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The database is the .bib file. Either create it by hand using the examples in the bibtex page etc., or find an online reference database that will spit out references in bibtex format e.g.mathscinet and look up your references one by one, or find someone you trust who cites the same sort of references you do and ask for a copy of their .bib file. I haven't used MikTex for some time so I can't tell you what it does, but the .bib file is just a text file so you can certainly edit it in whatever you currently use.79.71.24.204 (talk) 13:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

websense

i had asked for help on how to beat websense.i can't access WIKIPEDIA. aNY HELP would do trmendously —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.178.109.246 (talk) 10:20, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your question - If you can post the above message then you can access wikipedia. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

notability - beagle board

Before I create the stub, (or someone else beats me to it), I would like to ask your advice - Is an article "beagle board" worthy of an article or not?87.102.5.5 (talk) 14:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say be bold and go for it. A quick glance at Google shows a few sources and certainly enough information for a stub. Worst that can happen is someone disputes its notability or merges it into Texas Instruments OMAP or similar. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Article now under construction... please wait a moment.87.102.5.5 (talk) 17:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Nokia 3220 as modem

I will be acquiring a laptop and setting it up with Linux (probably Kubuntu) in the near future. I have a Nokia 3220 and will be buying a Bluetooth USB device to transfer data between the phone and laptop. Can I use the phone as a modem? If so, will the use of Bluetooth create security issues? NeonMerlin 15:16, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

1. Yes, most phones allow using them as a modem, but with Bluetooth it might be slower.

2. No, I think Bluetooth is secure enough.

--grawity 17:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It might be technically possible - TBH I don't know - but try this site. However, unless the modem call is within your call package, using your cell phone as a modem could be astronomically expensive. eg. here in the UK, I get charged about 10p/minute to call a "free" 0800 number because only numbers starting 01, 02, 03 and 07 are within my call package. Astronaut (talk) 17:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

What is the name of that little image next to the URL?

On wikipedia it appears as a "W" on google it appears as a "G". What is it called and is there html to personalize the one on your website? --217.227.110.149 (talk) 16:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Its called a favicon. Here's a useful page on them. - Sorf^ane 16:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

For more extensive personalization, this might be of interest. Algebraist 16:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

That is awesome :D - Sorf^ane 16:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

MP3 player for audiobooks

I am looking to buy an MP3 player for my mom to listen to audiobooks, and I am looking for some hints. It needs to have a simple interface and doesn't need much 'fancy' functionality (she's not the technophile I am :) ), and needs to be able to resume long mp3 files at the moment they were stopped. Bookmarking would also be helpful. Does anyone have any suggestions for what model / ranges I should be looking at, or what other criteria I should consider? Thanks muchly in advance! — QuantumEleven 16:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Email forwarding and storage size

Hi. Let's say I create a Yahoo email accoount and a Gmail email account. I insert each other email address to forward every email received to the other account. That is, an email received to the Gmail account will forward it to the Yahoo account and vice versa. If now I use one of them and send an email to the other one, will it loop forever? Will there ever a time when the email storage reach full capacity if it loops forever? Now, maybe they've set a limit to the number of emails you can receive per day, which will stop the infinite loop. If I start sending a 10MB mail (the maximum allowed I think) every day, will the storage of my Gmail or Ymail ever get full? This article says that Yahoo! Mail offers unlimited email storage capacity. Is that really true? What if I keep uploading/sending emails to that Yahoo! Mail account every day. Will it never get full? Thanks for your answers. 132.206.22.13 (talk) 18:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)