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August 16

The power of IP addresses

Out of curiosity, what is the most someone can do with your computer's IP address? (assuming that someone is incredibly good with computers) I'd both like to hear technological answers (i.e. how that person could 'hack'/'crack' your computer using only a computer) and also social engineering answers (i.e. 'hacking'/'cracking' your computer by maybe locating your Internet service provider, calling the company and asking for the owner of that IP address... something like that). I keep hearing that there isn't much one can do with an IP address so I thought I'd ask here --BiT (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a guess — if you have a dynamic IP, perhaps nothing? And if you don't: I seriously doubt that you could get any information by calling the company, as privacy laws would likely prevent them from telling that kind of thing even if they wanted to tell it to you. Nyttend (talk) 01:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The whole point of social engineering is acquiring information you shouldn't be able to. But the best hacker in the world couldn't do anything to you or your computer if you're not using a static IP? What if you are using a static IP? By what means would the hacker do this? --BiT (talk) 02:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

You could probe the address, which might get you something. Windows, for example, has a lot of random open ports that it uses for various Windows-y things (and are in most cases not used at all). Assuming the "victim" has an old, buggy, never-updated Windows install, and doesn't use a firewall, there are various tools one could use to totally compromise the machine, execute arbitrary code, etc. If they have a firewall, if they are patched up... not so much, unless you happen to know about unpatched Windows exploits (which are probably out there). (This is how the Blaster worm was able to spread through networks very quickly.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 04:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The things you can do with an IP address pretty much divide into two categories: sending network traffic to that address, and looking the address up in various sorts of lists.

All forms of "probing" or "scanning" fall into the first category: they involve sending traffic to the IP address and analyzing what comes back. This can include pinging to see if a computer responds, or scanning for open ports to attack them or just to determine what operating system is running. Of course, accessing a Web site or other network resource also involves your computer sending traffic to the IP address of the server or other resource. Another thing that can be done is to traceroute the IP address, which will discover the addresses of Internet routers between you and that address.

The second category, looking the IP address up in a list, includes a lot of different kinds of lists. The WHOIS system is a global directory that includes information on who owns IP addresses (and domains), and can be used to find out what ISP or company controls an IP address. This sometimes also gives you the geographical area. There are both public and private geotargeting databases which can give you the geographical area of an IP address. There are also lists such as DNSBLs which contain IP addresses reported to be involved in spam or other bad activity. --FOo (talk) 06:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Skype lowers the volume on other programs

Whenever I receive a call on Skype, the volume of every other programs (in the Windows 7 Volume Mixer) goes down to almost nothing. How do I stop it? It's annoying. Digger3000 (talk) 02:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

In your Skype, select Tools then Options. On the window that appears, under General, select Audio settings, then untick the box that says Automatically adjust speaker settings. Should fix it :) 88.105.90.106 (talk) 16:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Help modifying AutoIt v3 sample script?

Resolved

Using a mobile phone / cell phone as a pocket computer only

I have never had a mobile phone / cell phone. I do not like them, do not want one. But there are lots of old mobile phones knocking around. If I removed the SIM card, would it be possible to use any of them as a pocket computer? Is removing the SIM card enough to make incoming or outgoing calls impossible? Is it just the newest mobile phones that could be used as a pocket computer, or would some older ones that could be obtained free or cheap do this? Functions I would like to use would be using a simple basic-like programming language, reading Project Gutenberg texts, playing puzzle or board games against the computer. Thanks. 78.144.207.41 (talk) 17:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have no mobile-telephone service subscription, you will not be able to receive calls (except that in some locations, 9-1-1 emergency service calls are available without a subscription). Your phone may also provide a hardware or software "mode" switch to turn off all its radios (many new phones call this "airplane mode"). You should consider what operating system you want to run on the mobile device - some will be more suitable for operation when not connected to the mobile-phone data network; some devices will also have Bluetooth or 802.11 capability for networking independently from the cellular tower network. Also, have you looked at Netbooks? Some of these new devices are nearly as small (and cheap) as a "telephone" device. Nimur (talk) 18:27, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I think there's a mismatch between the OP's "lots of old mobile phones knocking about" and Nimur's "Netbooks . . . these new devices": my interpretation was that the OP wishes to cheaply repurpose an essentially free resource, not spend serious money on a new gadget. Actually, as someone who has also eschewed mobile phones, I'm intrigued by the OP's idea and will be interested in the answers. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 23:27, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I only mentioned netbooks because they are very cheap - new units can be below $200. A quick web search seems to indicate that even a refurbished/used smartphone will start at around $50 if you want something with a QWERTY keyboard (this puts the two classes of devices into overlapping price ranges). Nimur (talk) 00:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like you should be buying a used PDA. PDA's have somewhat gone out of fashion with fancy modern phones - but they are actually pretty well suited to your needs. SteveBaker (talk) 00:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. the PDA article says that the first mobile phone / PDA hybrid was in 1996, and that now most PDAs sold are mobile phones, called "Smartphones". I am looking to get something at very little cost, really just as a toy to play with during long journeys. 78.144.246.133 (talk) 13:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes - exactly. Hence, look for a used PDA on eBay. It should be cheap (because they aren't trendy anymore and everyone (except you!) wants a smartphone) - and it should still be able to do all the things it did when it was new. So long as the screen is intact, it should give you years more service. Looking on eBay right now - you could (for example) pick up a used/refurbished HP Ipaq for $40 (the new ones are still $450!). It has Windows Mobile, a bunch of apps, MP3 player, etc. Used Blackberries are on sale for $10 to $25. SteveBaker (talk) 02:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

My Windows XP computer makes very quiet creaking or birdsong-like noises

I only use headphones with the computer. When I scroll an Internet Explorer page up and down using the side bar I get a very quiet creaking noise. When nothing is happening I can hear what may be very quiet tropical birdsong noises. What is this and how can I stop it please? 78.144.207.41 (talk) 17:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I have noticed the same sort of behavior. I believe it is EMI (electromagnetic interference) leaking to the input of the audio card's amplifier. The probable source of the signal is bus transactions (data moving from the processor to other components on the motherboard, particular the graphics card). I don't think there is much you can do to prevent this; it's an unfortunate side-effect of the closely spaced components and the complicated intermodulation distortion resulting in audio-frequency signals leaking across wires. Hopefully the next generation of computer design standards will require more stringent RFI and EMI attenuation and testing. The real trouble is, your audio card has a powerful amplifier designed to take weak digital signals and put out enough energy to drive speakers or headphones - so even very very small interference sources get amplified up to audible levels. Nimur (talk) 18:20, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Potential solutions include

• Higher impedance headphones (I think) - may totally fail to solve the problem.
• Use wireless (eg bluetooth) headphones - the separation of the analogue stage from the computer should eliminate it completely. (not wireless headphones connected via a base station to the audio out)83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:47, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have wireless headphones then there may not be much you can do - but if you have wired speakers or headphones then wrapping the cable through a ferrite bead should fix the problem. You can probably buy those in Radio Shack or your local equivalent. SteveBaker (talk) 00:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I doubt that would work - unless the actual downmixing is happening at the headphone speaker, which I think is unlikely. I'm pretty sure the interfering signal's already been mixed down to baseband by the time it hits the audio card's amplifier, so you'd need a giant ferrite bead to stop the ~kHz signal - and it'd also cut out a lot of desired audio as well. Still worth a shot, though... 83.100's idea about bypassing the soundcard altogether with a 100% digital bluetooth headset seems like a more suitable workaround, albeit more expensive. Of course, this is largely speculative - it's also possible the OP's interference noise is totally unrelated to my original hunch. Nimur (talk) 00:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I too have experiences such issues friends...But my case is different. I use my Memory card reader to transfer data to my SD-Micro card(8GB). recently it's started making sounds like this when ever I copy some data from or to device. And the frequency seems to be in KHz range like a bird chirping. But that sound is generated only when there is any access. It stops as soon the writing\reading is over.Also I have heard the same sound when using blueetooth USB Dongle too.Whenever I connect,speaker starts sounding like this..So this is all due to this EMI?....The thing is I have external video card too...Does this make any issues to my PC life?.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 10:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly EMI - the important question is - Is the noise quite and you have just started noticing it, or is it a new noise that didn't exist before.

I've had devices that did similar things, though I didn't actually notice the noise until I had had them for 6months - they continued to work for years after.. However there is a possibility that something has malfunctioned - but I suspect it is small.83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The noise from using bluetooth was right from the first day of it's use. I thought it might be RF interference. But this noise arising from using USB-Memory card readers started recently and it's of different frequency than the noise from bluetooth one.Interference is interference,but why different freqs?....Is it EMI and RFI?...If's it's EMI,then it should be 60Hz freq buzz,but what we hear is aroud Khz...What's this issue?... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 04:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Strange behavior in Firefox

I'm using Firefox 3.5.2 on Windows XP. When I click on a tab, then quickly click on the "web page" area of the browser, that tab opens in a new window. I have disabled all of my add-ons, and this still happens. Is there some sort of "mouse gesture" setting that I have inadvertently activated? How do I disable this behavior? - SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 19:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Firefox 3.5 allows you to 'rip off' tabs (drag them between windows, or drag one off the tab bar to create a new window). If you're moving quickly away from the tab bar you may be inadvertently dragging the tab and creating a new window. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 20:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

This add-on [1] should allow you to disable this "detach tab" behaviour. 84.12.138.49 (talk) 22:28, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Handwritten font

Are there any programs that allow you to input your own characters into a scanner to create a font that is your own handwriting? In other words, you basically input every character into a scanner using a stylus or something, and then the computer scans your stroke and uses that as the character. And in order to make it more natural, it can ask for multiple inputs of the same letter, and then when you are typing something, it randomly chooses a glyph assigned to that letter and uses it, so it looks more natural in that you don't have the exact same glyph every time you type the letter "e" (just like in actual handwriting). Has this been done?--12.48.220.130 (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

There are lots and lots of programs, services, websites, etc. that do this. I think I even saw this advertised in SkyMall once. Google it up, you should be able to find all sorts of things like that. (Here's one site, for example.) I just want to note that while this sounds like a good idea, in practice, handwriting fonts sort of suck, and custom ones, well, you can guess what I think about them. It's unclear to me what situation they would ever really be appropriate in. But hey, it's your money! --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:51, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

They are appropriate for lettering a comic book and other situations where hand lettering is expected. (Certain types of engineering drawings are still done in specialized handwriting fonts, too.) APL (talk) 18:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Even then, I would say, go with a professionally-done handwriting font, like the kind Blambot provides. Those are waaaaay better than most people's handwriting. I'm just saying. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Blambot has great fonts, but for all we know the original questioner might be a professional letterer. APL (talk) 23:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure, but the odds are against it. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 16:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Lifehacker covered this awhile back. — QuantumEleven 12:51, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The lifehackers article is out of date. Yourfonts.com is no longer free. Strangely, YourFonts.com and FontBay appear to be using the same templates, offering the exact same service, and charging exactly the same amount. APL (talk) 18:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen software that will randomly vary glyphs. The closest I've seen are comic-book style All-Caps fonts where the upper case and the lower case are subtly different versions of the same glyph. I suppose you could randomly pound on the shift key. But fonts like that are rare. APL (talk) 18:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Theoretically, a font that provided a lot of ligatures and character variations (see Zapfino for examples) could do this really well. But I don't know of anyone who's done this, and it would be a buttload of work. --FOo (talk) 01:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

August 17

Does using Memory Card ruggedly as compared with Pendrives reduce it's life?

Hello friends!, I've been using my Micro-SD (8GB) Transcend memory card for all purpose data copying or for backups instead of pen drive Mass Storage device...But some of my friends keep telling me that using memory card as a substitute of Pen drive is not advisable. They say it will worn out soon,because it's not meant for such rugged data storage. But what I believe is that we use MEMORY CARD READER to read\write data to memory cards.Then how does that reduce the life of the card. Is this true?.Does anybody know if this is true or not?.Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 10:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

All Flash memory technology has a limited life, measured in the number of times that a given page is written. It doesn't matter much whether it's in the form of a USB stick "pen drive" or an SD card. Probably a bigger issue is whether you will lose it, drop it in the sink, etc. --FOo (talk) 16:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The amount of erase-write cycles before it becomes an issue is generally quite high (usually around 100,000+); you're more likely to physically break it first. HalfShadow 23:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

No...The issue is,for small form factor memory cards,the read\write cycles could be considerably less!...That led to this question...Because Pen-drives are rugged because of it's size and safety form factor... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.62.13 (talk) 04:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you are asking whether the two devices use MLC Multi-level cell or SLC Flash Single-level cell - as far as I know both use MLC in general (though some do use SLC) - but you could take them apart to check. Thus the memory would be identical. Given the very low price of USB memory I wouldn't expect it to contain a superior product. Though this information isn't final, it depends on what you bought. 83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Clarify - this press release [2] states that "Transcend insists on only using original SLC (Single-Level-Cell) NAND Flash chips in its microSD™ cards". That was in 2006 and refered to 256MB cards, a web search shows that SLC chips are available in microSD format at least up to 8GB. Any more would be speculation.

However features and specifications may change from country to country, and over time. An USB memory stick may also use SLC too. Other factors may be an issue. I can't say for certain - though it definately doesn't sound like the microSD card you got is at any disadvantage - this does not apply to all, obviously. 83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's be honest here. Whether one technology happens to have a longer life than the other – and that is likely to depend on the manufacturer far more than the form factor – either one will last far longer in the type of use you describe than you'd ever want to use it. For 'data copying' and 'backups', that sounds like fairly intermittent use. Let's assume that you completely overwrite the device with new data three times every day (which ought to be a serious overestimate). That's about a thousand writes per year. Further, let's assume that you only get one-tenth the life out of your device as you should: ten thousand erase-write cycles, instead of one hundred thousand plus. In this worst-case scenario, your memory card should be expected to fail in ten years, sometime in 2019. You'll be able to replace your current device using change you find in the couch — if you could even find one for sale. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I first interpreted your question as asking whether memory cards were physically more fragile (breakable) than USB pen drives, and it seems to me that maybe they are. As for write wear, I don't think you'll come anywhere near having it affect you as long as you're just copying files around between computers, rather than using the memory card as a substitute for a hard drive in a busy system that is writing and reading a lot (e.g. a database). 70.90.174.101 (talk) 09:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Balan (talk) 11:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC) Thanks for your suggestions and answers guys. I've been using my pendrive for USB-OS previously.Yes!,I use my Mass Storage more for USB-Version of linux such as Puppy,Ubunto. Well!, So in this case, Read or write cycles happen all time. Since recently I have changed to Memory cards rather than pendrives because of it's cost-effective nature and more compact so that I can have as many handy cards for different OS or purpose....I have started using it already...Since Transcend's latest Memory card format like this "http://www.cdfreaks.com/hardware/product/75381-Transcend-microSDHC-Card-8GB--MicroSD-Adapter.html" offers bulk transfer speed. Practically I have seen speeds over 34 to 40 MB\sec,which is simply amazing. So is the reason for opting this. Now along with this came this troublesome doubt!....

Windows Vista Explorer

Is there any alternatives to the Windows Explorer shell in Vista? Windows Explorer keeps crapping out on me, not responding and being generally slow. It's just Windows Explorer that's got this problem, everything else works perfectly. I remember years ago being able to use the Windows 95 shell on 98 and ME, but Vista doesn't work with that. Any free alternatives? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.97 (talk) 12:16, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

When you say "free alternatives" Linux springs to mind, but I don't think you quite meant that... Kotiwalo (talk) 18:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It's probable that you are talking about Windows Aero (and not Windows Explorer, properly). Windows Aero requires a fast computer with good 3D video acceleration; if your computer is old (or not top-of-the-line) it is common to have trouble running Aeoro smoothly. There are many tutorials on disabling Aero and using the "Classic" Windows theme - the process is very easy. Here are some tutorials: How-To-Geek - Disable Aero, and Microsoft Help Troubleshooting Aero. Nimur (talk) 20:11, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I have everything set to the absolute minimal, including disabling all fancy look and feel features. This is actually explorer.exe in the C:/windows directory which is causing me trouble. I often have to end task it from task manager and start a new instance, which fixes the problem for a few hours. I'm looking for a shell replacement —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.97 (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I remember looking for an Explorer replacement in WinXP a couple years ago and stumbling upon this list. Perhaps one of the programs listed there would work for you (none worked for me, so I stayed with my beloved FAR Manager).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:52, August 17, 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I think your options are then fairly limited. Most likely, you have accidentally (or intentionally) installed some shell extensions (which I have found to be consistently the most common source of trouble in Windows, period). Windows does not let you replace Explorer; it's really embedded into the entire graphic user experience. You can use other programs for file-browsing; but it's not recommended to run without explorer.exe (although it is certainly possible - by killing the process manually and not restarting it. If you're willing to deal with the consequential compatibility problems this can cause, then you might be okay). Norton Commander and similar software may be suitable for replacing your file-browsing needs. Nimur (talk) 20:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

There are actually quite a few Explorer replacements for XP, and some of them work for Vista as well. Check out this list & review of 10 Windows Explorer replacements. Out of the ones listed on there, Cubic Explorer, Free Commander, and File Matrix look the most promising for you.

edit - looks like Ëzhiki already posted that link. Well, whatever. Indeterminate (talk) 02:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Disable Windows Media Player video conversion

Windows Media Player keeps trying to convert videos when synchronising, despite me knowing that the videos work at their current state (I can manually copy them to device and they play fine). I wanted to use WMP's auto-playlist function for Syncing videos, and all help pages on the net indicate how to turn it off, but it doesn't look like the option is there for my device. By the way, I am trying to sync to a Creative Zen X-Fi 16gb player. Jwoodger (talk) 14:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Digital Electronics

This question has been cross-posted on the Science Desk. You can read responses there. Nimur (talk) 20:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Nokia E63 caller id Display

Hello everyone,

This is regarding my phone I brought from Asia to use in the United States, if some caller is calling me my phone displays for example : +12346789023, how do i make it to display it like +1(234)-678-9023 or even 234-678-9023 there has to be some way, frankly i have been digging into it for quite sometime now, and finally decided to hand it over to you guys! Its really annoying to be using the number in that way, frankly i loose track of them! Hope to receive help!

Thanks everyone! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.252.229.186 (talk) 20:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, you cannot influence the format the caller's number is displayed in. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply!! Agreed but is it possible to have add ons or other third party software that can influence it to do that, I've been so restless ever since i have got this phone, only on this matter, otherwise the phone is doing great! Please let me know if there is any software or add ons for this matter. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.252.230.93 (talk) 10:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Hard disk problem: Hitch, hitch, hitch

I have a PC which until 2 days ago had one SATA hard disk and one SATA DVD-RW drive. I've now installed a second SATA hard disk that's nearly identical to the first SATA hard disk. The BIOS reports that they are, respectively, the master on bus 1, the master on bus 5, and the master on bus 0. Upon starting up the computer, I noticed that upon displaying the Windows desktop for the first time, Vista would "hitch" continuously for about ten seconds, by which I mean that the mouse cursor and all other screen updates would lock in place; then about 1 second later the mouse cursor's position would update, then another 1-second hitch where everything's locked up, then another mouse cursor position update, then another 1-second hitch, etc. After around 10 seconds the system returned to operating completely smoothly. I then formatted the new hard disk and have mounted it as the E: drive. I get this hitching behavior for 10 or 20 seconds every time the system seems to survey what devices are connected: as in, when I double-click "My Computer", or use Vista's backup utility and it looks for target hard disks. I have not yet tried disconnecting any devices or swapping the cables around to different buses; I wanted to ask first whether this is known behavior of a bad hard disk, and if I should return the new drive. I seem to be able to write to it OK, and I ran the "Check Disk" function from the "Properties" window and it didn't report errors. Tempshill (talk) 20:31, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you have the same file system type on both drives? (e.g. NTFS)? I've had trouble when mixing file system types. Nimur (talk) 21:31, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, both NTFS — my assumption has been that the file system could not be the issue, as the hitching was also seen to occur while the drive was installed but unformatted. Tempshill (talk) 21:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

AutoItv3 Script Adjustment

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a script i am trying to write in AutoItv3. It involves moving a GUI with WM_NCHITTEST. My script is here:

http://pastebin.com/m8c4afe7

Basically the script works and all, but i need it to update the variables $x and $y when the user drags the window. any ideas? Thank you for your time!

4.252.131.153 (talk) 21:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

strange packet delays

I have a program split across two linux (Ubuntu 8.10, I think) servers in the same rack, communicating by http via 1Gb ethernet through a switch in the rack. The http server end has to do some database operations and usually responds within 1-3 seconds but occasionally the response time is 12+ seconds. It is rarely higher than 3 seconds without being higher than 12 seconds, i.e. something is occasionally inserting a delay of 10 seconds or so. Any idea what this could be? I'm wondering if there is (for example) some tcp retransmission timeout in that range, i.e. the delay could be caused by some kind of tcp congestion within the rack. Grepping through the linux kernel constants doesn't find that (just the 3 second default RTO). I haven't yet found out whether there are congestion stats available from the switch (have to ask the ops guys about that). Does this sound like anything familiar to any of you? Thanks for any advice. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 21:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure it's the network latency, and not (for example) swapping to disk or some other algorithmic slowdown that creates such a quantized jump? Nimur (talk) 21:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Not sure at all. It could be anything. I'm casting around for ideas. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 21:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

You should consider instrumenting the server code with some profiling tools - at the very least, printing out timestamps and function calls to a log file for analysis. You can use a variety of free software performance analysis tools like gprof to generate graphical representations and find out which program elements are taking up the time. Nimur (talk) 23:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

TCP retransmission timeouts last milliseconds - not seconds. That's not it. More likely, you have an incipient hard drive failure and some disk activity is retrying over and over again. That's the only thing I could imagine that would cause random delays of that magnitude. Are there any disk retries in your kernel log? SteveBaker (talk) 01:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You can detect TCP retransmits within your application with the getsockopt(2) system call -- see tcp(7) in the manual for details -- though this may be tricky if your app is not written in C. But yeah, profiling is more likely the right approach. If you're in C/C++, you might also look at using a linked-in profiler such as this one. --FOo (talk) 01:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I may try a profiler, but I don't think this is cpu activity (it happens randomly including with what should be lightweight queries). Steve's suspicion of the hard drive matches up with mine. I don't see any disk errors in the syslog, but we're using Seagate disks notorious for freeze-ups. I will look into upgrading the disk firmware. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 02:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Need more info on what your doing. By database operations are you doing SQL insertions or queries etc? 1-3 seconds response seems rather terrible... you might have some underlying problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.144.40.31 (talk) 02:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

They are mostly SQL read queries but the server is heavily loaded and disk bound, so the 1-3 second response is par for the course. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 03:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Run your program with "strace -o log.txt -T myapp" on both sides. It will output lines like:

08:53:28.483783 read(3, ""..., 1024)    = 0 <0.000011>
08:53:28.483844 close(3)                = 0 <0.000013>
08:53:28.483900 munmap(0xb7f88000, 4096) = 0 <0.000019>
08:53:28.484019 ioctl(1, SNDCTL_TMR_TIMEBASE or TCGETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo ...}) = 0 <0.000013>

where the bracketed numbers are the time spent in each system call. If it's a network issue, you should see a write() or send() that takes a long time and you can run ethereal/wireshark at the same time and correlate timestamps to see what the holdup is. If it's not a network issue, you can run strace with "-r" to get delta times on each successive call. If you see a large gap in the same place every time, either move on to ltrace, a debugger or your source code to understand what's going on there. If the gap happens at different places every time, suspect an external issue like a bad disk, system load, gremlins, etc. --Sean 13:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!!! I have thought of that approach as being messy and complicated but I guess it's really not so bad. I will look into it. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 09:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Transmit video signal 10m

I need to transmit a video signal (1024x786) from a PC to a projector over a distance of 10m. I can use either a VGA cable or a DVI (technically, a DVI cable with a DVI -> HDMI adapter at one end) cable. Would either of these work, and what would be better? How do meetings rooms and suchlike run the cabling to projectors (often mounted in celings, which can be quite a distance)? Thank you in advance! — QuantumEleven 22:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen a 10 meter vga cable but maybe they exist. There are certainly hdmi cables that long from the usual vendors. Similarly for cable routing, there's all the usual conduits, cable ties, and such gizmos. See cable management. Another approach is to put a small computer (e.g. Mac Mini) close to the projector and run the projector from it. You'd communicate with the small computer by wifi. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 22:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I haven't ever used a VGA cable that long, either. There are powered VGA amplifiers that can boost the signal for long stretches. I don't know if there's such a thing as a DVI amplifier. Tempshill (talk) 22:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I have personally used VGA cables and DVI cables of 50 foot length (about 15 meters). The DVI shows zero signal degradation; the VGA shows virtually no signal degradation. The DVI cables were about $50 or $60 on the web. Nimur (talk) 22:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

DVI-D - being digital - is an all-or-nothing thing. Either it works and you get perfect picture quality - or it doesn't and it fails utterly...or at least is disasterously intermittant. Both DVI-A and VGA are analog systems - and they are a much poorer choice - the longer the cable, the worse the picture quality - period. SteveBaker (talk) 01:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

August 18

How to implement password based security in Windows LAN Network ?

I use windows XP and as I click on fellow computer in Network Neighborhood it ask for a username and password !

Where to change these settings about the password on LAN access ??

Plz.... reply........!!

Yugal Jindle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.173.254.52 (talk) 02:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Either goto the shared folder on the computer and right click and choose properties and you set a password their, or goto start->control panel->users and add a new username and password that you can use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.144.40.31 (talk) 02:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

HDD Led indicator glowing all time

I use two HDDs.One 160GB Sata and one 40GB IDE type(Master). I use IDE HDD for data Storage only. All OS are in SATA HDD. After a long time use with SATA being the primary boot device,I once removed my IDE HDD out without updating or logging into BIOS. I thought my PC will automatically detect and change the BIOS settings or whatever. But right from that boot, my HDD indicator LED keeps glowing all time. And it never turned off except at standby and power off situations. I didn't know why,but just left it. Now yesterday I again added my IDE Hdd back,And now the LED works fine.Why is this case?.Thanks for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.62.13 (talk) 05:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the BIOS if it will completely detect the hard drives or if you need to manually turn them on/off and although I've never heard of this exact problem (usually it refuses to detect any drives if one of them is misconfigured, but this can vary), going into the BIOS and disabling the drive is probably your best answer and it's the only way to see if it fixes it. ZX81 ^talk 14:00, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

How to block youtube ads?

I have been noticing that some youtube videos have google text ads on the bottom of the video. Is there a plug-in for Firefox that automatically gets rid of these ads. They are extremely irritating. :3) 70.171.24.164 (talk) 07:01, 18 August 2009 (UTC)UberKewlHaxor007

Try AdBlock Plus with the Element Hiding Helper. Once it's installed use Ctrl + Shift + K when on the offending page, highlight the part you want to disappear and press Enter. Be sure to preview the page first just in case it makes other page elements also disappear that you may not want. Zunaid 08:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe the OP is referring to text ads within the Flash video, which I don't think AdBlock Plus handles. --Sean 13:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

If they are actually within the SWF file that plays the video, then no, you won't be able to block them. (Oh well. The price of a gigantic, free website might just be that you have to click off the ad each time.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is a Greasemonkey script that claims to block these video ads. --Sean 16:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Demise of online file storage services

Over the past few years, many online file storage sites/ services were Launched and all of them which were launched had failed since all of them have turned themselves into Paid services. What I want to know is - is there any interest in these online storage services from common public? I am asking this because I want to launch my own service like that. If the real reason the existing services shut down was lack of consumer interest, I would not start a service. But if consumers die for such services and ready to give their kingdom for it, I should work out a business plan that somehow will work and start such a service. So please tell me whether consumers are not interested in such services or is it they are interested but not viable. If you say they are not viable, it is my challenge to make them viable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.137.139 (talk) 13:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yours friendly.

The problem was never interest, or use to be made from them, but in figuring out how to pay the bills and make money (where bandwidth is the major cost). Much of the story of the web is the gulf between things that people want and things that people will pay for. Plus there's the problem of micropayments - if someone only wants to host a few files, for which you'd like to charge them only a few cents, you can't economically charge them that, and the bother of setting up an account with payment info is too much for them. So for your service to make money, you need to figure out what people will pay for, and how to collect those payments in a way that's economical both for you and for the customer. Some companies in the space of remote backup, storage for web services (like Amazon S3), and network-smart content delivery (like Akamai) will make money, but they offer a more high-level service - it seems just storing stuff for people is becoming a bulk utility where only big players with low margins will prosper. As a small, agile startup you need a novel idea that solves a real but unmet need; retreading someone else's failed ad-supported file storage idea will just bankrupt you as it mostly has them. -- 87.113.69.234 (talk) 13:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that I can't directly answer your question about demand, but companies like Microsoft and their product of Windows Live SkyDrive are still very much in existance and offer 25Gb for free to anyone that simply gets a Windows Live ID so unfortunately adding to what the above person wrote, you would need something very good to actually make any money since they're giving it away for free already. ZX81 ^talk 13:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

For the home user, a number of ISPs now offer 5gb of storage for their own users as part of their contracts and upto 50gb for a small monthly fee, so I would imagine there is still a demand for this type of thing. Nanonic (talk) 14:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The trick is the business plan. How will you make money from it? The problem with the 'net is everyone wants stuff for free (or very cheap), but once you start scaling up these services, they cost quite a bit. Ads by themselves are usually not enough for a full business model. So how will you make money? You need to really have that ironed out if you don't want your thing to go belly up in a month. It is not uncommon for a small startup of any type to cost a couple million in the first year (for people, for machines, for advertisements, etc.). How are you going to make that back? If you can answer that question, then you're fine. If it's a "we'll just try it and then figure out how to make money off it," you're basically gambling. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Why do checkout card readers ask me to confirm my signature before I've provided it?

At supermarkets and other retailers self-service gizmos have me slide my credit card through and then take my signature, to be provided by me with the gizmo's stylus. It also asks me to confirm my signature. What's really strange is that the confirmation field invariably appears *above* the signature field. Why?

A secondary question is why I'm asked at all to confirm my own signature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Odin Johnson (talk • contribs) 15:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

- - - -

Thanks to Tempshill for the response [below]. Here are my answers to Temphill's questions: 1. I live in the U.S. but this is really not pertinent. I cannot presume that *all* retail card readers are configured as described. The fact is that all I have encountered are configured in that manner, and it seems strange. I was just wondering what the rationale might be. 2. Yes, it's an on-screen button. Tempshill has provided a plausible explanation. Assuming this is correct, however, I'm dismayed that sofware providers and/or manufacturers would seem to think nothing of conveying lies to those who use these machines. Why not tell the truth and just ask the user to tap the button when done? Oh well... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Odin Johnson (talk • contribs) 04:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

First question: In what country do you live? Systems differ. Second question: By the "confirmation field", do you mean an on-screen button that you tap? If so, in my experience the on-screen button is usually below the signature field. As for the reason for the button's existence, I am not in this industry, but I imagine that the guy who wrote the software would far prefer to have the user tell the program "I am done signing" than write a lot of logic in order to have the software attempt to discern whether the user is done signing. I think that is a more likely reason than any legal or liability requirement. Tempshill (talk) 15:41, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

issues with google searches

I accidentally clicked on a web site that pretended to show a legit spyware warning. It turned out that instead of protecting my computer from spyware, the web site actually added spyware. I ran Microsoft's safety scan, and all of the issues were removed. I also started a scan through McAfee, and no more issues were found.

However, my Google searches are still being redirected to fake sites. For example, I searched "wikipedia" on Google, and I got these results. I clicked on the first result (wikipedia.org), and I got redirected to this website (the link is apparently blacklisted, so here it is unlinked: http://www.couponmountain.com/search.php?searchText=wikipedia). Is there a way to fix this?--Edge3 (talk) 17:16, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You could try re-installing your web browser, and see if that fixes the problem. Otherwise it may be more embedded than that. —Akrabbim^talk 18:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Reinstalling firefox didn't help. Should I reinstall IE as well?--Edge3 (talk) 18:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you aren't completely rid of the bad stuff. Try installing and running malwarebytes. Gigs (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I already ran multiple scans. How effective is malwarebytes?--Edge3 (talk) 18:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've downloaded malwarebytes, and it found 23 additional issues, which is pretty good since my other anti-spyware programs didn't find anything. However, I still have the same problem with the Google searches. Any other suggestions?--Edge3 (talk) 22:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

At this point, I'd have to suggest going to a site like Major Geeks and posting about your situation there. The people there specialize in helping users who have compromised computers. --LarryMac | Talk 23:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Get Spyware Search & Destroy. In its advanced mode it has a lot of features that help you avoid browser hijacking, HOSTS file manipulation, things like that, which are behind your woes. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

User Identification

The website we run is paying members for reading emails. We need to accept user registrations from public. But we need to see that no one registers twice. What can we do for that? If we do email verification, one person may have 10 email ids and may register with us 10 times. Can we ask for TIN number? Is asking and storing TIN number legal in USA? Is there any other way like IP address recording? Do all Internet connections in USA have Static IP (non-dynamic)? Or what are the other ways? Can we try facebook because facebook allows only one profile per person? I don't know much about facebook. If authentication through facebook is possible, can you say how authentication can be implemented through facebook? Can something be done with credit cards? say, verify credit card numbers with some credit card verification provider? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.113.69 (talk) 17:51, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Since you are setting up payments, I would assume that you would need to establish some sort of payroll system, which would require, besides simply email addresses, full names, mailing addresses or direct deposit information, and possibly something like a SSN. I don't know what is required legally, with tax issues, etc., but I would think that with at least some of these bits of information, with some minimal verification to make sure that people are not committing fraud, you could keep track and limit one account per person. —Akrabbim^talk 18:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

No-one is going to be stupid enough to type their SSN/TIN into some website for the highly dubious privilege of looking at ads. So the only ones that are added will be stolen ones run by id-thieves looking to outsource "reading" your stuff to automated systems and third-world labour, and so to siphon off all your advertisers money into their bank accounts. Luckily no advertiser will be stupid enough to pay into this scheme - advertisers want to advertise to people with disposable income, not the kind of sad desperates that have to spend time being paid to read stuff, even if you could somehow avoid all the money going to scammers. All those other schemes you describe won't work (even credit cards - real people won't tell you, and once there's money to be made you'll attract scammers with stolen cards). I'm sorry to be so negative, but it's better than you discovering the hard way (when the FBI drag you away and accuse you of running a money-laundering operation, which organised criminals try to do with every internet payment system that doesn't spend great effort preventing that) that this is a daft business model. 87.113.69.234 (talk) 21:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Why should a user be prevented from registering twice? Clearly your payment model is flawed if doing the same amount of "reading" through two separate accounts results in higher payment. You should probably investigate better ways to verify that the user is actually reading anything at all; rather than trying to force them to have only one account. If you can ensure that fake accounts are unprofitable, then you won't even need to worry about multiple-accounts-per-person. If you are paying people salary, you should be collecting TIN numbers anyway (and deducting income tax). Nimur (talk) 22:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This is basically not a business model that is going to work out for you. It's been tried before many times -- see AllAdvantage.com for the classic failure. Here's why:

1. You're putting yourself in the position of attracting users who want something for nothing ... but you're expecting them not to sneak around and rip you off.
2. Or, alternately, you're trying to buy something intangible (attention) from the general public when you have no way of actually measuring whether you're receiving what you paid for. You are cheerfully offering to buy a pig in a poke; it would be astonishing if they didn't rip you off.
3. You're expecting online advertisers, who are much more savvy than they were in the '90s, to pay a premium for the attention of people who have nothing better to do with their lives than get paid to read ads. I'm guessing there aren't many reputable businesses interested to do that ... and when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
4. As you've noted, you're severely exposed to scammers setting up multiple accounts. What you haven't noted is that they can do this with botnets and clickbots using stolen identities. Malware and online fraud techniques have advanced hugely since the '90s, too. You're handing out free money -- sure, I'll sign up, and so will my ten thousand close friends who happen to have my virus on their computers. Make out the check to Constance Ash, or C. Ash for short.

Why not instead spend your time and effort developing a product or service that its consumers are willing to pay for? Running a highly exposed scheme like this is dangerous and probably a hell of a lot more work than getting a real job making useful things that people want. --FOo (talk) 07:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm really confused about this and can't find out much anywhere I tried so please help.

Can someone please tell me (no offence) in plain English and exactly how I can access Nintendo WFC (at home) , for DS but any info regarding the Wii if rather different would be welcomed too, given that my circumstances are the following (please tell me it's possible D: )

My ISP is O2.

(if this makes any difference) I live in ROI.

My connection is via a "Mobile broadband Modem" (just plugs into your PC/laptop without any other wires going into anything else)

Else if I can't do it with what I have is there something I can buy that will let me connect?

Please answer ASAP :) Thanks, PalkiaX50 (talk) 19:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

No offence either, but for someone who wants answers in plain English you use an awful lot of jargon. WFC DS ROI XYZ I have no idea what you are talking about195.128.250.16 (talk) 21:45, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Lol, well I only said "in plain English" so that I would avoid being bombarded with technical computer-related jargon I would not understand (btw they are initialisms [the latter two being relatively common at that too] not exactly jargon; jargon is more like rfc, rfd, rfv, etc. ) and it seems to have worked ;) PalkiaX50 (talk) 14:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

For your benefit:

Can someone please tell me (no offence) in plain English and exactly how I can access Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection (at home), for Nintendo DS but any info regarding the Wii if rather different would be welcomed too, given that my circumstances are the following (please tell me it's possible D: )

My Internet service provider is Telefónica Europe (also known as "O₂").

(if this makes any difference) I live in the Republic of Ireland.

My connection is via a "Mobile broadband Modem" (just plugs into your PC/laptop without any other wires going into anything else)

Else if I can't do it with what I have is there something I can buy that will let me connect?

Please answer 'As Soon As Possible'  :) Thanks, PalkiaX50 (talk) 19:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC

What's a 'PC'? :-P SteveBaker (talk) 02:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

See this. Boy, You have been away from home too long, haven't you, Steve? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 07:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you need a wifi modem - if your "mobile broadband modem" doesn't have an aerial then it doesn't have wifi. If your computer has wifi that will be suitable too. To check go to "network connections" in the "control panel" on a machine running microsoft windows software. If your machine runs another type of software you will need different instructions so ask if this is the case.

Basically - have you got a device with an aerial that looks like the black thing on this image

Black thing at bottom is aerial - it may be a different colour

If you have one we can proceed, if not, go and buy one.83.100.250.79 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC).

(edit conflict; guess I was too late :) Sounds to me like you'll need to set up a WiFi-network which the DS can connect to the Internet through. The Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector seems like exactly what you're looking for if you can find it or one of the similar third party products, but if not you'll need to set up a wireless router yourself and use your computer as a gateway to the Internet (which can be somewhat complicated if you don't know what you're doing). --aktsu ^(t / c) 22:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Tragically that device (N-WiFi-USB-C) has been discontinued since 2007...83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:47, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This is assuming you are actually connecting to the Internet through a mobile network (e.g. 3G/UMTS) and not an existing WiFi. If you are connecting through a wireless network, you're good to go as the DS and Wii should support it. --aktsu ^(t / c) 22:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks for the info but since Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector doesn't seem to list any of them (perhaps it should?) could you direct me to one of these "third party alternative products". A website link perhaps? Oh and just to make sure you have figured out what connection I am using (to make sure I have not confused you or anything) It says this in a little "bubble" when I connect to the 'net "HUAWEI3G.O2 IE Open Internet is now connected". And in the window that shows all the stuff like how long the connection has been on for my signal is listed as "UMTS" at the moment, but I have sometimes seen it to be "HSDPA(?)" and "EDGE", possibly "3G" too but if so then not very often. PalkiaX50 (talk) 10:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume that you haven't got a WiFi device built in or attatched to your computer then.

I would recommend contacting your ISP (O2) and see if they recommend or supply a wifi router. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok I'll try that when I get a chance. :) PalkiaX50 (talk) 14:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If they don't have any recommendations, then there are at least three ways you can add wifi to your computer

• A device that fixes internally to the computer (as shown in the image above)
• A usb connected device
• An ethernet connected device

As far as I know the first method is the most difficult - since you have to unscrew the computer, of the other two I believe the ethernet connected device is the best bet. It would probably replace your mobile broadband modem and maybe cost ~30-40 euro.

It would probably be best to ask for recommendations though, if you need to choose a device. I am not the expert on this subject.83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion you should create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network form your PC/Mac and connect your Wii or DS to that. This is a very easy option requiring little work. this should enable you to share your dongle's 3G/EDGE connection. All you need is a usb wifi dongle (google it). This page will tell you how to create an ad-hoc network: http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/edtech/presenter/doc/adhoc.html 84.92.105.93 (talk) 11:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

do they make more durable laptops today?

My wife has an old Dell laptop (an inspiron 1150 to be exact) that worked great for her needs: after pressing the power button it would come back from hibernation and load the web browser within 30 seconds. But now the thing won't recongnize the power adapter, and won't charge the battery. Now as I see it I have a few options:

• have it repaired, which probably means replacing AC jack, soldering and whatnot - estimate around $100-$150,
• buy a refurbished motherboard for this machine for about $160, in which the AC jack has either been replaced or reinforced,
• buy an equivalent used or refurbished laptop (I'm looking at the Dell D600) for around $250
• buy an equivalent new laptop for $500 (or $350 if I'm willing to switch to Acer or something).

I'm hesitant to fix the current machine as it'll just break again (I did the second option above two years ago), but I'm also hesitant to buy a new laptop if the AC jack is gonna break on it as well. So my question is have they improved the methods they use to construct these things? thanks mislih 22:09, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It no doubt varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Dell isn't especially known for its rugged, durable manufacture. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 23:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You can buy very durable laptops (e.g. Panasonic Toughbook) but they are outlandishly expensive. There are places that will do flat-rate repairs of stuff like AC jacks (a common repair) in the $100 range. The used laptop route has worked pretty well for me but I'm somewhat of a techie. I've bought a few laptops through craigslist, which gives an opportunity to physically inspect the machine before buying. There are also some good web forums for buying and selling laptops, though I'm hesitant to post urls here. I'd stay away from ebay, if that's what you're thinking. I did buy one ebay laptop but it was from a local seller and I picked up the machine in person and it worked out ok. Finally, there are some very good deals around right now on mid-brand laptops that are reasonably solid. Again I'm hesitant to post urls but you can find them with a bit of surfing. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 02:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If you aren't adverse to getting a Mac, all of them (the notebooks, that is) now sport MagSafe power connectors. These don't tend to break or get damaged unless you really try hard to do so. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Youtube video downloads

How can I download all videos by a Youtube user on Linux/Ubuntu? --194.197.235.64 (talk) 22:22, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

http://www.google.com/search?q=download+youtube+ubuntu mislih 22:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

August 19

Difference between Torrent and BitTorrent

What's the difference between Torrent and BitTorrent? Do torrents refer to the .torrent files while BitTorrent refers to the file-sharing protocol itself? --BiT (talk) 03:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think either of these have dictionary definitions yet. What you are saying sounds fairly right, but I don't think it's incorrect to use them synonymously. Vespine (talk) 04:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it maybe possible that the term "torrents" is used for the files themselves while "torrent" and "BitTorrent" may be used synonymously when referring to the protocol? The Wikipedia article doesn't mention this, so I was a bit confused after reading it. --BiT (talk) 05:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

BitTorrent can refer to a specific application (as well as a network application), the protocol, and a company. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

What about simply torrent? Are they completely synonymous? --BiT (talk) 06:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

A torrent file is used with BitTorrent software, just as a DOC file is used with Microsoft Word, or an HTML file is used with a Web browser. --FOo (talk) 06:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

BitTorrent refers to the company, protocol, and application. Bittorrent is a general term describing the system and community. A torrent is either the individual .torrent file, the files in the swarm that the .torrent file unites, or both concepts together. Mac Davis (talk) 17:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Basic Java

I was wondering if you have create an object with the following code; classA B; B = new classB(); I know that the methods would be overridden but I was wondering how much memory is allocated for object B. I thought the object decleration told the compiler to allocate space in the memory for a new object of classA so does the memory allocated for class A contain the methods in classB or classA or both? Since if both classes have a method randomMethod() and you call it the classB one will override the classA method. 66.133.202.209 (talk) 03:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's say 'A' has two fields that are 'int's. One 'int' is four bytes, so that makes eight. There is an object header which is another 8 bytes (I'm assuming a 32-bit Sun JDK). So an 'A' object is total 8+8 = 16 bytes. If 'B' adds another 'int' field, a 'B' object will be 16 + 4 = 20 bytes in size. Methods are not copied for each object, they exist once in memory. If a method overrides another method, there will be two methods, even if you allocate a million of each kind of object. The object header I mentioned above contains a pointer to the object's methods, so the runtime will know whether to call the original method or the overridden one (something like a virtual method table). 62.78.198.48 (talk) 05:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I thought the object decleration told the compiler to allocate space in the memory for a new object of classA No. You have to recognize that classA B; declares a reference (called a pointer in some languages). It does not allocate space for any objects. --Spoon! (talk) 05:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

WD My Passport Essential

Hi all; I just bought a Western Digital My Passport Essential external hard drive [3] and I'm wondering if anyone know what type of hard drive it is? Solid state like a USB flash drive or is it magnetic? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.249.132.110 (talk) 05:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Based on the MSRP, I would guess it's a standard platter drive, not solid state. a 500GB solid state drive would likely be more expensive than about $150 USD. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I should note that the specifications on the page you link to do not indicate which it is. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Well a hard drive is by definition... a hard drive. If it were anything they'd call it something else. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're technically correct, but whether a drive is a platter system or uses solid-state memory, people will still call it a "hard drive". Marketing people aren't known for being all that tech savvy, and consumers are even less so when it comes to nitty-gritty details like that. All they care about is if it works; not so much about how it works. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

It is a laptop-style 2.5" SATA hard disk (the exact Western Digital model number shouldn't be hard to figure out) in a SATA to USB enclosure. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 09:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Beating a Keylogger

The scenario is this: Your internet connection is disconnected. The library and any other publicly accessibly locations where there are computers are closed. You have only one friend.

Today is the day that the Advent Calendar on Neopets is giving out free Super Magical Faerie Double-Bladed Scimitars and hence, it is imperative that you log onto your account and obtain one of these rarities. Your friend is willing to let you use his computer, however, it is installed with a Keylogger.

He wants to steal your account. He already has your account name, but not your password.

As you go to type your password, you type a random garble of letters, then using your mouse, you highlight a portion of the letters, then write over them. You do this continually for, say, 5 minutes until you have entered in a total of several hundred letters and numbers. Your password is formed from the leftover letters that you did not erase. Since your friend does not know how long your password is, nor which letters you've erased, nor which portion of the inputted letters/numbers you have erased, will this be an effective strategy to combat a Keylogger?

Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 07:19, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Depends if there is a mouse and screen logger as well, or an internet or browser data logger. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a pretty artificial situation, but I'll take it at face value and suppose that there is only a keylogger and nothing else. In that case you can certainly hide your password. For example, for every possible password character in some canonical order, type that character, copy it to the clipboard, then paste it back in the appropriate location(s) using mouse actions. -- BenRG (talk) 09:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no way to prevent your "friend" from logging every input event (keyboard, mouse, screen) that goes through the computer so he can later replay everything you saw on your screen and everything you did. If Neopets lets you log in with (say) OpenID, you could enroll beforehand with an openid service that uses one-time passwords, or otherwise lets you lock out your account (say by attempting 3 logins with the wrong password) after you have ordered your scimitar. Higher security sites like Paypal will let you enroll a hardware authentication token (keychain gizmo with an LCD display showing a number that changes every 30 seconds, that you type in instead of a re-usable password) but these aren't widely deployed. Basically your best bet for this scenario is to carry your own computer that you've somehow assured yourself is free of loggers, and also be sure that Neopets uses an encrypted (TLS) socket to receive your password, so that your friend can't sniff it from the network connection. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 09:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If your friend is not around, boot into safe mode, disable the keylogger, reboot. I know, boring. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

What you need is to find a website with a high turnover of text...the Wikipedia "Recent changes" page for example. Open one browser window there and the other to the NeoPets site. Use the mouse/keyboard to cut/paste individual characters from the Wikipedia page into the NeoPet's password area to spell out your password. Neither keylogger nor mouse logger can store what was on the web page at the time you did your cut/paste operation - so replaying your mouse moves and keystrokes won't work because the Wikipedia page now has different text on it. I suppose you should flush the browser cache at some point...just to be really sure. SteveBaker (talk) 02:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character map? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.134.37.3 (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Float

I need an help with the float comand. In a project external to wiki but based on wiki software I need to float a table with other taables around it but it doesn't run. Is there a solution? Thank you very much.--F.noceti (talk) 12:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"float" in this context is the cascading style sheets float property. That's a powerful, but often difficult to use feature (when you have more than very basic requirements). I'd recommend you work through a css-float tutorial like this one. It's not specific to Mediawiki. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You might also read Wikipedia:Reference desk/How to ask a software question to help us help you better. --Sean 15:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Iwrite as single person (with my real name) but i work with an equipe and I think that we've found the right way for our target. Thank you very much for your help! --F.noceti (talk) 20:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Light spreadsheet tool?

Is there some kind of 'light' spreadsheet tool, focusing solely on manipulating data structurally? I mean, I only use excel and openoffice for some really basic purposes: to clean up spreadsheets, convert between formats, and visually do text-to-columns conversion. So it'd be really cool if I have something fast, and memory sparing, to do just that.--Fangz (talk) 13:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Visicalc was very light and can be downloaded for free. --80.176.225.249 (talk) 20:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps something in the List of spreadsheet software would be what you are looking for. 89.241.32.157 (talk) 21:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

custom url

In Firefox, I need a way to automatically change a specific url to another one when a page loads. So for example instead of wikipedia loading http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/chick/main.css it would load http://mysite.com/custom.css when I view the page. Any ideas how to do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.136 (talk) 13:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I imagine this is the sort of a thing a greasemonkey script could do, but which would work only for you. I guess there are a range of scripting method to do this from the server. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I only need this for me. The problem is the website I wish to view is having trouble and it's css files aren't loading. I have a offline copy of the css file, I just need a way to implement it when I view the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.136 (talk) 14:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Then greasemonkey is your friend. I've never used it so cannot offer advice on operation, but it sounds as though it'll be at the very simple end of GM's capabilities - it's just an on-the-fly string replacement in an HTML file. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:05, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but I don't know how to put my .css file into greasemonkey. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.136 (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd have thought that the CSS would stay on your drive, and you'd have a greasemoney script amend the CSS references in the incoming HTML files to point at your CSS. Here's a manual for GM which might help to orientate your thinking. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's a GM script that does what you want:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           ChangeCSS
// @namespace      http://greasemonkey-question.com/
// @include        http://the-site-you-want-to-modify/*
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {

    // The format is:
    //      "bad-URL"
    //          : "good-URL"
    var url_map = {
        "http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/chick/main.css"
            : "http://mysite.com/custom.css",

        "http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/chick/some-other.css"
            : "http://mysite.com/my-other-thing.css"
    };

    var links = document.getElementsByTagName('link');
    for (var i = 0; i < links.length; ++i)
    {
        var link = links[i];
        var new_url = url_map[link.href];
        if (new_url)
            link.href = new_url;
    }
})()

--Sean 16:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You are my hero Sean! You always come along and help me with this sort of stuff! Once again, thank you :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.136 (talk) 16:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the nice compliment, but I only do it because I'm supposed to be working. :) --Sean 16:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Rotating PDF pages

Hi. Is there a free tool (preferably graphical) for Windows that can rotate PDFs? It only needs to do 90 degree rotations, typical use would be for portrait/landscape orientation of single page graphs. You would think this would be the most obvious task in the world, but Googling for "rotate pdf" brings up a crapload of rubbish and some expensive PDF editing software. On a second point, why don't the standard PDF readers (Adobe, Foxit etc.) support page rotation AND SAVING? The documents always open up in their original orientation even if you choose to "save as.../save a copy..." after rotating it. Regards, Zunaid 13:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

pdftk can rotate 90º... it's command-line but pretty easy to use.

As for why they don't support it... Adobe doesn't because they want you to buy professional. Foxit, I don't know. They ought to. I'm still waiting for the open source people to decide that a lightweight, free version of Adobe Professional is worth their while—something that would let you easily rotate pages, OCR them, move pages around in files, etc... the code to do all this is out there (e.g. pdftk), but nobody's put it into a useful GUI, as far as I know. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Got it and it's working perfectly, after a bit of tweaking and hassle. For anyone else who hates the command line and JUST wants to rotate pages (clockwise) from the comfort of Windows Explorer, follow these instructions:

1. Download pdftk.
2. Extract pdftk.exe to your favourite directory (let's call it "C:\Windows")
3. Create pdftk.bat in the same folder as above with the following contents:

@echo off
pdftk.exe %1 cat 1-endR output poknmihytfx.pdf
move /Y poknmihytfx.pdf %1

In the above code, the poknmihytfx is simply a place-holder name since pdftk doesn't allow you to overwrite files (in the next line you move poknmihytfx over the original file anyway). The %1 refers to the input file (the PDF you want to rotate), cat is the pdftk command for catenate, 1-end means "select page 1 to the last page" and R means "rotate the page RIGHT i.e. clockwise".

Now comes the tricky bit:

1. In Windows Explorer go to Tools --> Folder Options. Then click on the "File Types" tab.
2. Find you pdf file type in the list, click on "Advanced", then click on "New".
3. For "Action:" give it a descriptive name like "Rotate Clockwise".
4. Under "Application used to perform action:" enter the following: C:\Windows\pdftk.bat %1, where the C:\Windows refers to the folder you initially create pdftk.bat in.
5. Click on OK all the way out. You should now be able to right-click on any PDF file and to rotate it clockwise from the pop-up menu.
6. The above WILL NOT WORK if you are using Adobe Reader 9 as your default PDF viewer, its screws up the PDF file associations, I managed to get it working by deleting lots of PDF stuff out of the registry, but I see I've lost the PDF preview in the explorer window as a result. YMMV.

I'm leaving this open for now, would still like to know if there's a graphical tool out there. Zunaid 18:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Why not just copy and paste everything (from the default pdf viewer) into another tool? Or capture the screen and paste into any number of graphical editors? Sandman30s (talk) 21:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

My forward button is no longer blue

The details of my computer are in a previous question I asked. This [4] is where the question was answered but the link to the question doesn't work now.

I clicked the back button many times since I've been doing a lot. The forward button just turned gray and wouldn't let me go back to where I was, so I had to just keep going back.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The "forward" button will turn gray and cease to function if you click anything on a web page other than the "back" and "forward" browser buttons. Tempshill (talk) 17:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I know, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Do you know how to find the previous, related question?Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The two best ways are to search for "Vchimpanzee" using the search box at the top of this page, and, alternatively, to use Google and search for vchimpanzee reference desk site:en.wikipedia.org and see if that comes up with anything better (I see 104 results). I think your previous problem had been that the Back button had turned gray, which is a different problem (it occurs when a new page or tab is created, for example). Tempshill (talk) 18:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

There was a way to search for my questions on Wikipedia, but I made a mistake and ended up with a search engine that couldn't find the address starting with http, and then when I tried again, all it would give me was http://http://[url].

But the back button turned gray even when there was supposedly something to go back to. It's the same thing here and I'm trying to understand what happened.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

It worked. Here is the information about my computer:[5]

Sorry, does that mean that the problem is now fixed? Tempshill (talk) 19:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

And here [6] is my older question on this subject.

No, I'm trying to figure out why what happened this morning happened.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I have to assume you clicked something within the web page (or possibly hit a key on the keyboard, which can count as a mouse click to the web designer). When working on Wikipedia or elsewhere, I try not relying on the Forward button remaining viable; it is a fragile way to work. If you need specific pages to refer to, did you know you can create a new browser window by hitting ctrl-N ...then you could copy and paste the URL from the first window to the second window, and then you can switch between the two windows as needed, and not rely on the Back and Forward browser buttons as much. Tempshill (talk) 21:05, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you are using Internet Explorer then you could press Ctrl-H which will bring up the list of web pages viewed. Choose the "View by order visited today" option. Find the page you want and click on it. 89.241.32.157 (talk) 19:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

HP Notebook running Vista won't shutdown

My new HP Pavilion Notebook PC running Windows Vista Home Premium won't shutdown when on AC power. It simply restarts instead. I have found that it will shutdown normally only when on battery power. HP Tech Support seemed not to be aware of this problem, thought my OS was corrupted and had me do a complete Windows Restore. The symptom remained after the restore. Is there a fix for this? --Thomprod (talk) 16:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

How are you shutting down? Are you hitting the physical power button on the laptop, selecting the turn off button on the start menu, or are you specifically selecting "shut down" from the submenu by the turn off button? —Akrabbim^talk 18:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I have tried the two latter options, both of which result in a restart rather than a shutdown. --Thomprod (talk) 18:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this a brand new laptop, or has the problem just recently cropped up? System restore would only work if the restore point was set up before the problem emerged. A fresh reinstall may be necessary if that is the case. If that doesn't work, I would guess that the problem is in the hardware or bios or something, where a 'shut down' command is being interpreted as a 'restart' command. —Akrabbim^talk 18:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a brand new laptop. --Thomprod (talk) 01:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Simple Answer: Unplug the notebook before shutting down.

That's my current workaround. --Thomprod (talk) 01:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Long and Complicated Answer: I have had this happen before on XP. Most likely, an HP-provided driver for some AC power management is causing Vista to crash on shutdown. If you had XP, i would tell you to go to the Control Panel>System>Advanced and click on settings under "Startup and Recovery" and uncheck the "Automatically Restart" box. However, I have no experience with Vista. Try googling "automatic restart on shutdown in Vista."  Buffered Input Output 22:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Dell Startup Problem

Resolved

I have a Dell Dimension 8250 desktop computer (it's ~5 years old), and when I turn it on it displays a black screen with a command prompt cursor in the upper lefthand corner, and that's all it can do anymore. No Dell or Windows XP startup screens. What's causing the problem, and what is the solution? All the diagnostic lights are green ("no problems"), and the manual doesn't address this problem. Tried putting in a Windows XP reinstall disk but the computer doesn't run it. Bonus question: what's a fair price to sell this computer if I can't get it to work? How about if I can? Thank you very much for any help you can give. ~EdGl ★ 19:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Try unplugging any USB devices you have and see if that makes any difference. Possibly it's a bad USB device, but I believe the Dell code for that is Yellow/Green/Yellow/Green which you're not seeing. As for selling it... no offence intended, but a 5 year old, non-working computer... I'd be surprised if you could even give it away :( ZX81 ^talk 19:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Finally got Windows XP to reinstall, woohoo! Anyway, as for resale, I assumed at least some parts/accessories (e.g. monitor) would be worth something... ~EdGl ★ 22:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You could have tried selling it on Ebay (with honest description of the problem) - I've spend some time earlier this year trying to find a replacement screen for my (4.5y old Dell Inspiron 510m) that way. Going price for a dead laptop with working screen was about £40.195.128.251.195 (talk) 22:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

C/C++: optimal use of fread() and fwrite()

I'm writing a program that splits huge files into suitable chunks, and a corresponding program that reassembles these. Doubtlessly, others have done this before, but there are a couple of tweaks that I want to include, and I think I'll spend less time writing my own than finding a program that does exactly what I would like it to do.

I first tried the naive approach, fputc and fgetc, thinking the compiler would take care of the buffering. The files are pretty large (40Gb and upwards). I was absolutely amazed at how long time this took - ten to twenty times as long as a simple file copy to the same USB device. The program was compiled in release mode with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0.

So obviously, fread and fwrite are the way to go. I want the program to be as fast as absolutely possible, and did some experimentation with fread and fwrite, with encouraging results.

fread and fwrite have the syntax:

size_t fread( void *buffer, size_t size, size_t count, FILE *stream );
size_t fwrite( const void *buffer, size_t size, size_t count, FILE *stream );

I will allocate the buffer using an std::vector<char>.

I am writing here to ask for advice on what values to select for size and count in each read and write operation, in order to archive optimal results.

• Does it matter whether I ask for one block of 1048576 bytes, 1048576 blocks of one byte or 1024 blocks of 1024 bytes, and if so, which choice is preferable?
• I assume that it's a good idea to avoid that the data being read is swapped to the hard disk before it is written to the device, so I suppose the size of count * size should be smaller than the amount of available RAM. Correct?
• Is there a simple way (with the MSC++ 6.0 compiler) to determine the amount of free RAM?
• What would be sensible choices for count and size on a Windows XP PC with 520Mb RAM, 1Gb RAM and 2Gb RAM (assuming no other applications are running at the same time)?

Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:44, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You might consider reading mmap(). Our article covers mmap and its Windows alternative, MapViewOfFile(). These methods will allow the compiler (rather the operating system's runtime library) to do the buffering for you. When you use low-level standard IO calls like fputc(), you are specifically requesting unbuffered reads and writes - so the compiler should not optimize those with a buffering scheme. In Java, the New IO (java.nio.*) package, (documentation) and its Channels methodology, allow you to do the same - with the VM overseeing the demand paging and swapping of buffers into and out of memory. I have yet to find a more efficient method for reading gigabyte- and terabyte- size files than Java NIO. (I attribute this to intelligent pre-buffering based on the VM's reasonably accurate assessment of when and where you will leap to in the file next). Nimur (talk) 20:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

[f]getc and [f]putc are buffered. I assume the speed problem comes from the constant checks to see whether the buffer is full/empty, combined with the inherent inefficiency of a byte-by-byte memcpy(). -- BenRG (talk) 20:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

My mistake - I was confusing the memory copy, which is single-byte-at-a-time. It seems BenRG is correct. Nimur (talk) 21:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Hm - I can't find a good standard library call to determine the amount of available physical memory in C (and I don't even remember ever learning it!) In Java, you can call Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory() - with the caveats that (a) this is an estimate, and (b) this is only the maximum memory allocatable to the JVM (not total free system memory). In C, the convention I have always used is to malloc() and check for NULL; if failed, wait-and-retry or exit. I don't know if it's good design methodology to try to allocate exactly as much memory as is reported available - so be sure to use some "margin of error". Nimur (talk) 20:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

In C#, or C++ .NET, you can use a PerformanceCounter - MSDN documentation and example in C#. Nimur (talk) 20:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah - here's what you want - Win32 API GlobalMemoryStatusEx(). This is the most portable version (for Windows computers) and works at the lowest level of abstraction. Nimur (talk) 20:44, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems like the standard way to get the current memory status on linux is to check the values in /proc/meminfo (which can be accessed like a file, although it is not a regular file). I'd be curious if some more expert linux systems guys have better insight - surely there's a system call? Nimur (talk) 20:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You shouldn't be allocating huge buffers. The buffer just needs to be large enough that the system call overhead (some constant * file size / buffer size) is negligible. 64K should be more than large enough for that. It doesn't matter how you split it between count and size—the C library just multiplies them together. What's really important when copying between different devices is that the reading and writing happen in parallel. If they alternate it will cut your speed in half. On the read side, you want the OS to do readahead; on the write side, you want write-back caching, not write-through. There's probably nothing you can do about the write-side caching. Windows uses write-through caching on USB devices by default, because people have a tendency to yank them out as soon as Explorer says their files are copied. I seem to recall that reading large chunks can cause NT to disable readahead, so this is another reason to use small chunks (but maybe I'm thinking of Win9x). Annoyingly, there is a reason you might want to write large chunks: it will decrease fragmentation because NT will search for a large contiguous region of free space when you use large writes. You can avoid this problem by preallocating the file, but you only want to do that on NTFS: on FAT I think it will cause the whole file to be written twice (the first time with zeroes). I would stick to small chunks.

If you want to get fancy, the fastest way to do disk I/O in NT is overlapped I/O. The idea is that instead of the read/write function returning when it's done, it returns immediately and then later you get a completion callback. Between your request and the callback the OS owns your buffer and you can't touch it. The advantage is that when you have several requests pending the OS can schedule the I/O better because it knows what's coming; it doesn't have to guess. To use overlapped I/O, allocate two or three buffers (maybe a megabyte each?) and start read requests on them, then go into a wait state (using SleepEx). When you get a read completion callback you trigger the corresponding write; when you get a write completion callback you reassign the buffer to another part of the file and trigger a read. Everything is single-threaded, so you don't have to worry about synchronization. It's actually quite easy and it will perform optimally regardless of FAT/NTFS and caching and so on. The main problem is that it's NT-specific. -- BenRG (talk) 20:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Java NIO also implements a platform-independent asynchronous IO: [7]. Nimur (talk) 21:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If I was committed to getting the best performance out of vanilla reads and writes, I would use a binary search to get the biggest chunk of memory malloc() would give me, and then do another binary search on the best buffer size (benchmark each). The second number is probably pretty stable on a given platform, so I'd cache the result in a file somewhere. --Sean 01:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Using large blocks and multiple asynchronous I/Os allows the system to do good disc scheduling. This means it may read or write the blocks in order of where they are on the disc rather than logically in the file, this cuts down seek time which is a major component of file copy times. Dmcq (talk) 08:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for lots of good input! I think the OS-dependent simultaneous read-and-write calls will require too work much for this job (I will need to port this to Linux afterwards), and be risky, because removable media are involved. My reason for wanting to select as large a buffer as possible, was exactly what Dmcq pointed out, but the buffer still ought to be smaller than the available RAM, no? I didn't understand Seans suggestion for using malloc to estimate free RAM, I thought malloc used virtual memory, not necessarily physical RAM. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Oops, you're right of course; too much time in kernel land.  :( --Sean 14:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Asynchronous I/O is not risky. If the output device is configured for write-through caching then the writes won't complete until they are done. It's no different from an ordinary synchronous write. In fact, when you do a synchronous write on NT it just does an asynchronous write and then waits for it to complete before returning. But stdio will work fine if you want to stick to plain C. You may as well try benchmarking different buffer sizes as Sean suggested, but large buffers (more than a few megabytes) are a bad idea; they won't help performance and probably will hurt it. -- BenRG (talk) 19:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Boost has a cross-platform asynchronous I/O library: Template:Websearch. --Sean 14:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again. Copying 40Gb to a 64Gb memory stick using a buffer size of 512Mb took approximately 80 minutes (including calculation of MD5 sums of each chunk). The memory stick was FAT32, and empty, but the file I copied from (a file which holds a truecrypt volume, unmounted of course) was rather badly fragmented.

Regarding fragmentation, the defragger that comes with WinXP was unable to do anything about it. I defragmented the disk before allocating the 40Gb file, but the program was happy as long as the individual files were contiguous. It's not like in the olden days, when the Norton utilities defragmentation tool maximized contiguous free space. When I tried to defragment the disk after allocating the volume, it just gave up, even if 25% of the disk was still unused. I think I'll move the 40Gb file to external media, fill the disk up with moderately large dummy files (4-8Gb?), and try to defrag again.

Anyway, I strongly suspect that the limiting factor is the write speed of the memory stick. According to this review, writing 1.8 Gb took 8.45 min, which should correspond to 40Gb taking 188 min, so I beat the test in the review by a factor of 2.3. Therefore, there's probably little to be gained in attempting further improvements. I liked the boost thing, though, I think I'll have a look into it just for the fun of it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 00:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Why are you using a 512MB buffer? I told you in both my responses that large buffers would hurt performance, and you ignored me. A buffer that large will disable all of the OS's caching mechanisms, leaving one device or the other idle virtually all of the time. If your faster device is k times faster than your slower device then performance with a huge buffer will be about k/(k+1) of optimum. For equal read and write speeds that's a 50% reduction. The Fudzilla review is obviously wrong about the speed as your result demonstrates. Searching the web I find quoted figures ranging from 8 to 17 MB/sec. You're getting 8.5 MB/sec.

There's no reason to use XP's bundled defragmenter. There are free alternatives that are better, like JkDefrag. Use one of them instead of trying to coerce XP's defragmenter into doing what you want. -- BenRG (talk) 10:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Boost makes heavy use of generic programming, so gird your loins for the compilation error messages, which are sadly not going away anytime soon. --Sean 12:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

@BenRG: I didn't ignore you. My first test was with a 512MB buffer. You and Dmcq gave conflicting advice, and Dmcq's advice was closer to my prejudices than yours was, so I tried that first. An increase from 8.5 to 17 MB/s would be most welcome. I am planning to test the performance with both a smaller and a larger buffer (it turned out that the source PC had a lot more RAM than I thought). I'll be back with more results! And thanks a lot for making me aware of JkDefrag!

@Sean: Heh,heh, I know. I've used some of the boost libraries in previous projects. Painless on linux, except for the error messages. A bit more problematic on Windows, as I stubbornly insist on using an ancient compiler. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:45, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's why you should be differently prejudiced. When you call fwrite it has to copy all of your data somewhere else before returning since you might modify the buffer as soon as it returns. It either has to physically store it on the device or copy it to an OS-owned buffer. But no OS is going to allocate 512MB of kernel memory to store your data. At most it will allocate a few megabytes, so most of your data will have to be written during the fwrite call. When calling fread you have the same problem in reverse. It has to fill the buffer before returning, either from cache or from the device. You only read the data once, so the only way anything will be in cache is from speculative readahead. But no OS is going to read ahead 512MB. At most it'll read ahead maybe 256K, so almost all of the physical reading will have to happen during the fread call. Since there will never be an fwrite and an fread in progress at the same time in a single-threaded application, one or the other device is sitting idle for the vast majority of the overall runtime. On the other hand, if you use a 64K buffer then writes will copy the data to kernel memory and return immediately and reads will copy the data from the readahead cache and return immediately. The actual reading and writing will happen in the background, simultaneously on both devices. There are three reasons you might want to write larger chunks: to reduce seek times (not an issue when copying between devices), to reduce fragmentation (not an issue on flash drives) and to avoid redundant filesystem metadata updates (possibly an issue on flash drives). If you use overlapped I/O you're no longer relying on kernel buffering, so you can use larger buffers (where larger means, I dunno, 16MB) and get the best of both worlds. 512MB is insane. There's no need to test it because there's no situation in heaven or earth where it would be a sensible choice. Try sizes between 64K and 1MB and go with whatever's fastest. -- BenRG (talk) 14:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a million for spelling it out in crystal clear detail. I understand, and am convinced. I'll modify my program, and do the tweaking in the 16-256kb range instead of the 128Gb-2048Gb range. I'll do some benchmarking. I hope to get the time in the week-end, and hope to be able to be back with the results before this thread is archived. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 16:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I realise you have your program working now, but the standard utility for cutting a large file up into convenient-sized chunks is split (Unix). There will surely be versions available for Windows.-gadfium 23:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. As I stated at the beginning of the thread, the reason I do this at all, is that there are a couple of tweaks that I would like to include (blockwize md5 sums being the most important). Moreover, I don't want to type a bunch of parameters, just

                mysplit SOURCEFILE DESTFILE_NO_EXTENSION
                and
                myjoin SOURCEFILE_NO_EXTENSION DESTFILE

I know, of course, that avoding command line parameters can be solved by writing a script/bat-file. I tried the the md5 checker I had available on the original 40Gb file. It was insanely slow (I don't know exactly how slow, as I didn't have the patience to wait for it finishing, but we're talking MANY hours). I'm on a different computer now, so I can't check exactly which md5 checker it was. Probably the md5 checker will behave better on the smaller chunks than on the 40Gb file. I have cygwin (which includes split) installed on my home computer, but not on the source computer for this project. I'll include split when I do the benchmarking. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 10:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You can set your I/O to work unbuffered and asynchronous and then you can use multiple large buffers. This is almost equivalent to doing memory map operations. Dmcq (talk) 11:26, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

GPU Clock and Memory Clock

Hello there, I want to know something graphics cards clock. what is the differences between GPU Clock and Memory clock? Which one increases the temperature of Graphics card? In order to avoid overheat issue which one should be decreased? GPU clock or memory clock or both? (Please do not ask me to use diagnostic tool to check overheating). Thank you--119.30.36.36 (talk) 20:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Overclocking your GPU will cause the GPU to heat up more. Overclocking your graphics memory will cause the graphics RAM to heat up more. Since your RAM probably does not have a thermal shutdown safety, this is more likely to permanently damage your hardware. As far as which overclocking scheme will improve performance, it depends whether your graphics operations are memory- or compute-bound. This will depend very heavily on the specific game, tool, or application you are running; and the ugly nitty-gritty details like your current graphics card, GPU series and core model, current device driver; and CPU load and bus load. Nimur (talk) 20:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

• I dont want to overclock. My GPU Clock is 850MHz and Memory clock is 975MHz. So which one is responsible for system overheating and freeze while playing game and browsing net (I have freezing problem in both)? You said "graphics operations are memory- or compute-bound". I don't understand it. Can you please elaborate which application requires memory or computer bound? thanks--119.30.36.36 (talk) 21:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

What evidence is there that the graphics card is the cause of the problem? And why bother asking questions here if you refuse to use the obvious diagnostic tool to determine if it is? 87.113.69.234 (talk) 23:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You haven't told us what graphics card you are using, so there is no way for us to know whether those clock speeds exceed the norm for those chips. You also haven't told us whether you have already tried to overclock the GPU or the GPU memory, or whether this is merely a concern of yours based on something you read. Tempshill (talk) 00:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

• My graphics card is XFX ATI Radeon 4890 1 GB. I have never tried overclocking GPU or GPU memory. I have freezing issue and tried ALL (using diagnostic tools, blowing fan, changing chasis etc. etc) the necessary steps to prevent it. Unfortunately, I have come to know that GPU Clock or Memory clock increases this heat issue which causes freezing. My other devices are ok. There is no way to get the card replaced. If I reduce GPU Clock do I also need to reduce memory clock. I am planning the following activities:

• Reduce GPU Clock from 850 MHz to 800 MHz (5%)
• Reduce Memory Clock from 975 MHz to 925 MHz (5%) (if required)

Should I only stick with GPU clock in order to get rid of overheating problem?--119.30.36.54 (talk) 15:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Those are the stock frequencies according to this page. If your card can't run stable at stock frequency you should go and exchange for a new one. --antilived^{T | C | G} 20:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

One further question. How exactly are you certain that it is your system temperature that is causing the lockups? It's a clever idea to think of underclocking the graphics card in order to reduce the system temperature, but I have never heard of anyone doing this, and I would think it's far more likely that your unstable system is due to a software problem or some hardware problem that won't go away merely by lowering the temperature by a couple of degrees from stock. If you're certain that it's the temperature that's causing this, you'll need to run through with us all the steps you've tried so we don't lecture you about this sort of thing, sorry. Improved heat sink on the CPU? Improved fan on the heat sink of the CPU? Improved case fans? Tempshill (talk) 21:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

• My card can run at stock frequency. But problem is sometimes it lockups during browsing (mouse pointer and keyboard stop working for a while then work and again stop. Music gets crashed if play while browsing. All symptoms happen if system runs for several hours). I use USB Modem.

Previously, I had overheating problem. At that time system got frozen within 5 to 10 minutes during playing game. I took my card to the shop where bought it. Everything went fine there as they have air conditioned room. So I changed pc case and get full tower case with better cooling system and it almost solved system freezing while playing game. My room temperature sometime raises and sometimes lowers (since I live in warm country) which easily enter into pc case. But I can't get rid of "system locks up problem while browsing".

One more thing I can't get my graphics card exchanged unless I prove the problem to the shops technician. I have to prove it which I am facing in home, but I failed. They told me to disable system restore point but nothing happened. --119.30.36.40 (talk) 07:16, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like the same problem you had before - which I thought was due to a serial device overheating - probably due to the overall heat levels in the machine. Would a portable air conditioner for the room be an option (should cost less than either your graphics card or cpu).

Still it doesn't make much sense that your system is ok for games, and not for browsing - games should make it hotter83.100.250.79 (talk) 10:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It might not be heat hardware problem, but with a 4890 I really think you need to get the room temperature below 20C - it's not really a mass market part. (By the way do you have another graphics card, or integrated graphics on the motherboard - if so does the computer run ok with these.)83.100.250.79 (talk) 11:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Also find out which chip on the motherboard handles serial devices - make sure that air flow to cool it is not being blocked by wires etc.83.100.250.79 (talk) 11:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

• I don't have much money to buy portable air conditioner (since I invested all of money to new hardware). I have graphics card but it is not PCI 2.0 motherboard supported. It is 5 years old. Is my USB Modem incompatible with motherboard? Is it also causing overheating? What is least option to stop this lockup problem? Reducing GPU or memory clock?

Pc case has better ventilation which provides sufficient air flow to motherboard. Wires are placed aside to mobo.--119.30.36.34 (talk) 13:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Mac Apps on Windows

I like Windows the best and I"m running it on my Mac with VirtualBox. But there are some Mac apps I like. How can I run Mac apps in Windows like how one can run Windows software on a Mac with Parralell's Coherence? --Melab±1 ☎ 20:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You can't, basically. Apple doesn't allow emulation of Macs on non-Apple hardware. The closest you can do is a thing called Hackintosh... but it's not the easiest thing to set up, and not really what you are asking for (which isn't "how do I install OS X on a Windows machine"). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that OSx86 (same link as Hackintosh) will run in VirtualBox and VMware and the like, but it's probably illegal. -- BenRG (talk) 10:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Archive of some sort

I might have posted something like this earlier, but i don't remember and now i have more information.

The file is named main.cat and is used by a game. No tools are given to open the file and the game is pretty much nonexistent. When opened in a hex editor (HHD Hex Editor Neo Free), the first four characters come out to be "CAT1". This is not the same as a Security Catalog header (I checked) and HHD Hex Editor Neo identified it as a possible RAR archive. But neither WinRAR nor 7Zip could open it as an archive, and Game Extractor Basic couldn't do it either.

The characters near the end of main.cat correspond to files that are used by the game (like NAPALM.WAV, TITLE.XM, and so forth) with some offset bytes between them. I am assuming that the middle section of the file is some sort of compressed data (it's gibberish, btw) but i cannot identify the compression scheme.

I've tried to extract with several programs, with no luck. If anyone with knowledge of the "CAT1" header or knows what i'm rambling about, please don't hesitate to respond! ANY help at all is appreciated! Thanks!

 Buffered Input Output 22:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I gather that you are trying to get some kind of data from the file. What is your objective here? What is the name of the game? Tempshill (talk) 00:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

If the game authors had wanted you to get at the data, they'd have made it easy. Since they didn't, they obviously don't intend for you to mess with this file - and almost certainly made it virtually impossible by writing the file with some kind of unpublished custom tool. SteveBaker (talk) 02:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why you'd call it "virtually impossible"; you must know that people routinely reverse-engineer these formats for modding purposes. This one doesn't even sound very difficult, given that the filenames are in plaintext. If it does use compression there's a good chance it's zlib, since rolling your own data compression is a lot harder than rolling your own archive format. If it uses some other compression then you might have to disassemble the game executable to figure it out. -- BenRG (talk) 10:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Whoops, I spoke too soon. The data wasn't compressed, but was more or less just stored. I could have probably done it a simpler way than I did; I hex-edited the file and extracted what I wanted (and backed up the original just in case). Yayz! Thanks for your help!  Buffered Input Output 00:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

August 20

Midnight ana/cron job

Is there any way to ensure that a cron job, which is also checked by anacron, takes place at midnight if possible? The reason is that I need to update dynamic tables in a database that depend on the date but not on the time of day. NeonMerlin 01:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Macintosh code merging tool?

Can anyone suggest a Macintosh code-merging tool, something like Emacs emerge-mode if you're familiar with that? Basically something that diffs two source files, and puts up a three-pane window, with files A and B side by side, and the merged result underneath. It highlights the diffs between A and B and lets you move through the two files choosing which side to take each diff from, copying your choice to the merge window, and eventually you save the merged result in a new file. This is for use by my officemates who use Macintoshes. I don't use Macs myself so don't have much idea what's out there but I'm pretty sure such things exist. Thanks. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 02:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

There are Unix tools such as tkdiff which can do this, and which should run fine on the Mac. --FOo (talk) 03:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I like Meld the best. Here is a Mac package of it. --Sean 15:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

If you want to attack the problem before it happens, Subethaedit, a collaborative programming tool, is very good. Mac Davis (talk) 17:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Tool for writing (wiki?)

I'm a bit overwhelmed by the availability of various tools and not really quite sure how to pin this down - I'm torn between thinking it should be a text editor (OpenOffice Writer, SciTE) or a wiki (MediaWiki?) or a web service (scribd?). I'd like to non-collaboratively write a story with some sort of logical break (chapter, page) but utilize a lot of wiki-esq features - versioning, and more importantly what I understand to be backlinks (?) and hopefully some form of *auto*link (so, for example, every instance of "Harry Houdini" automagically substitutes itself to (link to Harry Houdini notes page)Harry Houdini(/link), whose page has those backlinks ibid, and "diff". Setting up an Apache/MySQL/PHP stack isn't a challenge - finding the right tool is. Or even the search terms to sift through, as "authoring wiki" and vice versa conflate in meaning. Pointers would be appreciated. 69.255.26.5 (talk) 03:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you should look at using DocBook as the markup language, and keep all the files in Subversion or CVS? It has all the formatting features for writing a book, and has the ability to include links to references. -- JSBillings 11:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Printing a mail with no Header

I'm trying to print a message from my Microsoft Outlook inbox, I want the print out to contain only the body of the message and none of the fields such as To, From, Name etc. Just wondering if this is Doabl? Thanks - Foz 80.88.241.94 (talk) 09:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing there's a reason you don't want to do this in another application? If you don't care you just need to highlight the text copy (Control+C) and then open up Word/Notepad/Whatever and paste it (Control+V). You can then print it with only the information you want. 09:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually there is a good one, Copy-Paste for some reason is not working properly, it's cutting out some lines.. have tried everything i could think of to fix this, with no success. So now trying to think out of the box! Foz 80.88.241.94 (talk) 09:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps rather than copy/paste you could do some kind of "save as text" (I don't have Outlook, so I'm guessing), and then edit the text file? --Sean 15:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

How to connect to localhost using putty ?

How to connect to localhost using putty (telnet / ssh session) in windows / cygwin environment ? thanks in advance. --V4vijayakumar (talk) 14:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Same as any other host; just use "localhost" as the hostname. You'll need to have an SSH server running, of course. --Sean 15:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Also consider connecting to the IP address 127.0.0.1 (or really 127.any.num.ber) in case localhost would somehow not resolve or be redirected in hosts.txt. IP addresses begining with 127 loopback to the local machine under RFC 3330. Freedomlinux (talk) 22:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Using games software for animation

Some users have tweaked games software to create "3D" video animations, shown on YouTube. I do not play those kind of games, and I know nothing about animation. What software can I use to create similar animations please? 78.149.149.64 (talk) 14:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

See Machinima. --Sean 15:15, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

In the past (circa 2002) to hack Halo PC we used an older, differently named version of Autodesk 3ds Max. You'd create a "skin," another design for a tank or gun. This would only change how things looked, not how things acted. To actually change the functionality of something you'd open up a hex editor and tweak the parameters. This way you can get invisible characters and infinite speed rockets. To make machinima, you can just hookup your Xbox or whatnot to your PC with a video capture card and record video like that, adding voice overs and doing some light video editing to get your finished product. Mac Davis (talk) 17:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Specific question about wikis

A wiki I made running Semantic MediaWiki has a page with an #ask function that creates a sortable table. The page in question is here. Now, if I choose to sort the list by the property "Debut", the Guard article is sent to the top, even though its property should place it after Zay-Kessa. This seems to be because the page its property links to does not exist. Short of creating the page, how can I stop this happening? (Note that stopping the property from creating links will not work, as I need the links.) Anthrcer (click to talk to me) 15:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Unexpected restart and error log

Hello there, suddenly my system restarted automatically when I connected my usb modem to usb port. When desktop appears a message pop up which is something like "The system has recovered from a serious error. A log of this error has been created. For more information about this error, click here". I clicked on the link and following message appeared: BCCode : fe BCP1 : 00000004 BCP2 : 89B2A008 BCP3 : 8933CA74 BCP4:00000000 OSVer:5_1_2600 SP:2_0 Product : 256_1. I clicked on technical information about the error report and it showed following 2 files which will be added to the error report:

• C:\DOCUME~1\nahid\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER5eb2.dir00\Mini082009-01.dmp
• C:\DOCUME~1\nahid\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER5eb2.dir00\sysdata.xml

What was this sudden restart and what about this error report and files?--119.30.36.39 (talk) 18:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It is likely that your USB modem's driver is poorly written and it crashed the computer. If you experience no further crashes and the modem is functional, I'd forget about it and go on with your life. If it continues to crash, update its driver using the manufacturer's website, and if that doesn't fix it then contact their technical support service; and if none of this helps, then return the modem and buy one from a manufacturer with better drivers. By the way, this sort of crash is more common by far under Windows XP and previous editions than it is under Windows Vista and, presumably, the upcoming Windows 7, both of which use a different driver model that makes it harder for poorly written drivers to crash the whole machine. Tempshill (talk) 21:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

High Resolution Settings and Browsing

I have a 1920x1200 display and while browsing the internet I notice I have to increase the text size a lot to make things legible. However when I do this the formatting of the pages tend to get screwed up and I can't see a lot of the text. What's the best way to browse full screen web pages on a high resolution display?

I use firefox if that makes a difference. TheFutureAwaits (talk) 18:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Try increasing the font size(DPI) of your operating system...it's generally available in the advanced section of your display properties(os dependent)Piyushbehera25 (talk) 19:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Newer versions of Firefox (I think 3 onward) have an option where instead of just increasing the text size (which throws layouts out of whack), it will zoom the entire page (so the images increase in size as well). I don't know if that is advisable but it's an easy thing to play with. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

For a quick and dirty fix, if there is just some small text you can't read, hold down "control" and move the mouse "scroll wheel". This does also get formatting out of whack, but it's good if you just want to make something large for a moment to read it then put it back to normal again. I think this works on most browsers. Vespine (talk) 05:35, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Right, but this is actually the problem. I keep having to press control and scroll to increase website sizes since at their native size they only take up the middle third of my screen. But then when I zoom in I lose a lot of the information contained on the bottom of the page. Is there some way I can just expanded the horizontal size of the page to fill up my screen? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 08:46, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Research Issues in Routing

Hi,

I'm a final year B-Tech(undergrad degree) student in Computer Science...i'm intrested in carrying out research in the Computer Networks field(esp in Routing). As i'm from a small college there isn't much exposure to currently undergoing research in the above said topic. If any one can suggest me any research issues(in routing) to work on I would be very grateful to them...Also it would be very helpful if you could point out any sites or other resources which are related to the Routing...Thanking you in advance...Piyushbehera25 (talk) 19:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Privacy when using a PC

I'm currently using an XP computer attached to an old CRT monitor. I'm in the UK - not sure if this means the monitor works using PAL like UK non-digital tvs, or NTSC like old US tvs, or something else. But my question is - could someone in the next room with little or no equipment pick up the image from the monitor or elsewhere, even if a very noisy image? Years ago I think I remember I could get the ghost of an image from my computer on a nearby tv if I fiddled with the tuning - not sure if that still holds. 89.241.32.157 (talk) 21:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You are using neither NTSC nor PAL, which as you know are television standards and not computer monitor standards. Your CRT monitor is using a variety of the VGA standard. I have never seen the ghost of a CRT image on a nearby CRT or TV. If you're paranoid about spies, you may become more so when you read our TEMPEST article, which concerns shielding such electronic equipment to prevent nearby snoopers with special equipment from spying on what's on your monitor. Tempshill (talk) 21:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Also Van Eck phreaking to freak you out even more. Vespine (talk) 01:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

In general the answer is no. I think - the signal will leak a little, but there will be so much electronic noise they'd definitely need specialist expensive equipment.

However as you note - it does sometimes happen that the 'moons align' and a weak signal can be amplified, and appear fairly clearly elsewhere - the problem is probably more pronounced with analogue signals

However with an directional aerial (built for VGA frequency communications) connected to a high frequency amplifier connected to a monitor it may well be possible to pick your signal - however the limit here is knowledge, not cost. And they'd still need some specialist equipment. Maybe someone else could verify the validity of this listening method?83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:04, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

August 21

Looking for a nutrition web site

I originally posted this Q on the Science Desk: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Looking_for_a_nutrition_web_site. It was suggested I cross-post to here.

I'm looking for a site which will list foods which are good for diabetics, those with high blood pressure, those with kidney failure, etc. No big deal ? Well, I want it to recommend foods for those with multiple medical conditions. (Note that I'm not asking anyone here to recommend any foods, just a site where I can look it up myself.) Ideally you should be able to weight the medical conditions, say if you only have slightly high blood pressure but have severe diabetes. In that case avoiding foods with a high glycemic index would be more important than avoiding salt. It should also list foods from best to worst, for the given medical conditions and weighting factors.

The Best Buy web site can do something similar with appliances right now. You give it some parameters, like the size of monitor, it's resolution, and cost range, and they give you a list of monitors that match, then they can sort by, say, the current price. The same thing could easily be done with foods, where the parameters become low glycemic index, low salt, etc. The site nutritiondata.com already has this info, I just need it to be made "searchable" and "sortable". So, does such a site exist, or must I create it myself ? If so, is there a way to extract the data from an existing site and add searchable and sortable columns to it ? StuRat (talk) 00:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Categorization tool/bot

I want to add several categories to existing articles on a major scale. For instance, adding [[Category:Gram positive bacteria]] to all Staphylococcus articles. Is there a tool or bot that can help? I've searched WP:BOTS, WP:TOOLS, and the searchable archives for this talk page to no avail. - Draeco (talk) 07:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:AWB. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Mediawiki error

So I have been getting this annoy error, it first popped up when I tried to use the Social Profile with Mediawiki 1.15.1, then in a desperate attempt to see if it was because the software was incompatible due to age or something I updated to 1.16 and then when that failed I did a shits and giggles attempt and installed 1.16WMF (which comes with the most recent version of the extension). The error is "Warning: Parameter 1 to incEditCount() expected to be a reference, value given in ****\w\includes\Hooks.php on line 132"

The extensions I used can be found here.

This error happens with ANY AND EVERY extensions that has to use Hooks.php. Please note that I have deleted the Hooks.php and replaced it a number of times and the error makes editing impossible by happening after an attempt to confirm an edit is made.Rgoodermote  07:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there a search engine or program that can manipulate row/column arrays?

Many web sites have tables of numeric row coumn data. For example, imagine a nutrition table with rows of foods and columns of nutrient contents for each food. Does anyone know of a program that could manipulate any recognizable website data array like a spreadsheet, so that you could sort the rows by the values in a specific column? alteripse (talk) 11:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Note that this is related to my nutrition Q, 3 questions up. StuRat (talk) 12:04, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds a bit fiddly or problematic without <td id="???"> or <td name="???"> tags - is it possible to assume that it uses tags such as these (ie the standard HTML Document object model)?83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:54, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It would be trivial to write a greasemonkey script to do this with the tags, less so, but still possible without83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:56, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

If you are writing the web page from scratch then it should be easy to use javascript to create a sortable table using the tags described above.83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the idea is to extract the info from an existing web site, and we can't rely on them having those tags there, either. StuRat (talk) 19:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

MySQL -- from scratch to database in how long?

I know this is highly subjective, but I'm just looking for a rough estimate.

My personal background: master's degree in science, HTML literate, learned CSS this past Spring without difficulty, comfortable in Dreamweaver CS4, no real programming language experience, maintained a personal website as a hobby for years

My goal: Add a searchable, sortable, expandable post-launch database with upwards of 200+ binary (yes/no) variables for each entry to my existing website.

Tools at hand: Learning PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites by Robin Nixon + whatever info I can find online.

Basically, this dbase has been a dream project of mine for a few years and I've finally got time to pursue it. Hosting is a non-issue, as I've already got a lovely plan with all the extras I need. I'm here to ask about time. Not knowing a lick of MySQL, I am wholly unable to estimate how long it will take me to get up to speed and how simple/complex my dbase idea is compared to other MySQL applications (I'm guessing "not very")... the upside of the project is that daydreaming about it for several years has resulted in a rock-solid task list, with no possibility of feature creep.

Anyone out there wanna take a shot at this? 100 manhours? More?

Thank you, 61.189.63.183 (talk) 12:03, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

If you want an accurate estimate, you need to give us that rock-solid task list. For example, how does the data get entered, updated, and accessed ? All through the web site ? And how much data is there ? StuRat (talk) 12:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, more info needed. The hardest part about a database is getting the data in it. If, for example, you already have the tables filled out in Excel spreadsheets, turning that into a functional database takes not very long at all. If you have to put together complicated data entry tools, though, that takes 90% of the time. MySQL itself is generally dead easy, because you aren't doing that much with it (add a row, get a row, compare value X to value Y, etc.). It's the PHP, Javascript, etc., that you are making work with the MySQL that takes time. The database is the easy part—it's just a bunch of values in a table—the application is the time-consuming part. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

OP here. I was planning on having the data updated via a form on the website, but could certainly do it via Excel spreadsheets. This is the part of the plan that I can't speculate on because I don't have any experience with anything other than HTML & CSS. As far as data structure, each entry is a unique name and then a simple has/hasn't checkbox for a LOT of variables. I'm guesstimating 200+ right now, but each actual entry will probably never have more than ~40 checked boxes (yeses). Because the data entry will be brutal no matter how you slice it, I was hoping to make that available online for multiple people to input together. So I guess the database would have 2 access methods - browsing & editing/updating. As for searches, I just want visitors to be able to check as few or as many of the same variables as they wish, and then have the dbase spit out every entry that contains those variables. (chocolate AND vanilla AND nuts AND low-fat...) Because everything will be binary (yes/no), I'm imagining this aspect being relatively simple. Please ignore any urges to get sidetracked about the usability of the system - that can come later! Right now I'm just looking for a rough estimate. More info, if necessary, can be provided. 216.93.191.240 (talk) 13:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, unless you have a bunch of slaves who are happy to do the data entry no matter how you set it up, you will be best served by spending some time thinking about what an intuitive way to enter all that data in would be. Hint: clicking on Yes/No checkboxes is NOT a good way to do it -- it is time consuming and much more difficult than, say, keyboard-based approaches. Coming up with a good interface is a MUCH harder programming and design task than the database.

Your database structure is pretty simple (though there are a few different ways you could do it—depending on the specifics of the data, which I can't tell from your description). Setting up a MySQL database can be done very quickly if you get a GUI program for it, like phpMyAdmin. You could probably have the basic data structure up and running in a few hours. Setting up the PHP to access the database is pretty straightforward if you follow the instructions in your book (and don't try to just guess your way through it—there are specific ways things are done and orders things should be done it). So I would say, setting up a bare-bones proof-of-concept probably would take, oh, maybe 20 hours total, assuming you are able to learn and debug your work at a modest pace. (For someone more familiar with the tools, it would take maybe 1-2 hours, but there's a learning curve in this as in everything). Developing something more user-friendly, that would take maybe 100 hours, assuming you are not a Javascript whiz already (Javascript is your friend for creating good interfaces, but it takes a little time to learn how to use it appropriately as well). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 16:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to post, everyone. 216.93.191.240 (talk) 23:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Word Processing - half a line

In the usual suspects, is there a way to easily insert half a line feed. eg between two paragraphs to have a blank line that is only half the standard blank line. Specifically I'm thinking is there a way to make it easy to insert as well eg CTRL+Enter = Line feed 1.5 ? 83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:10, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

In MS Word, the way you'd generally do this is select the paragraph in question, then go to Format > Paragraph. There is a section that says "Spacing"; set the "After" to whatever the equivalent of 1.5 lines is at your font size (it is in points; so if it is 12pt, try 18pt). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I can't find an equivalent in open office - is setting "spacing below paragraph" to be >0cm the way to do it? Or have I missed a better option?83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is probably that. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Directly below the "Below paragraph" is "Line Spacing" and a drop box where you can choose 1.5 lines. -- kainaw™ 14:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I want extra lines after the paragraph, not in it.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:35,

Then, increase the spacing either "Before paragraph" or "Below paragraph" as mentioned. You can alter the style itself so you don't have to manually do it to each paragraph. -- kainaw™ 21:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

21 August 2009 (UTC)

More:line feed without carriage return

A way to do this ?83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Vertical proportional printing/justification

Is this possible (eg within a text box), does it have a proper name?83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

HDR

How do High dynamic range imaging and High dynamic range rendering work? The respective articles are a bit too heavy on the jargon for me. 69.77.202.90 (talk) 13:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The short version is that HDR combines three images taken at different exposure settings. Using photos as an example, most digital cameras have a range of five stops - which means that you can have detail in the dark areas or detail in the light ones, but not both at once. Thus the camera normally picks something in the middle, allowing the mid range to look good, but not the two extremes. You normally see it with dark areas where you can't really make out what's in them and a "blown out" sky that just looks like an expanse of white. With HDR you take three pictures, one with a short exposure showing the light areas, one with a long exposure showing the detail in the dark areas, and one in between (the photo you would normally take). Then you combine the three, giving a picture that shows detail throughout. - Bilby (talk) 13:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The rendering (of three photos into one) takes place by comparing the three photos pixel by pixel, this is why the three must be EXACTLY the same shot, at various exposures. The minimums in the short exposure (the too dark shot) and the maximums in the long exposure (the too bright shot) are thrown away and replaced with a more balanced value from one of the other two shots. The process is deceptively simple, but obtaining a good balance of what is 'too dark' or 'too bright' is sometimes difficult, leading to advantages in certain applications that use more complex algorithms. This is why HDR is most often used as a silly effect filter as opposed to a serious technique to improve a scene. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 13:54, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

(This is the answer for High dynamic range rendering, the first sort is different and given above.)

A typical computer monitor has ~256 scales of grey going from 0 black to 255 white.

In the real world light intensities vary much more eg the light in the sun is 1000 times brighter than indoors light (eg a lightbulb looks very dim when turned on during the day)

High dynamic range rendering calculates the light intensities at the higher scale (ie a big range of numbers typically with a intensity range of greater than 1 to 1billion actually even more)

However though the computer can stored these numbers (ie the calculated light intensities) for each pixel, a computer monitor can't display them.

To get round this the values are scaled back to fit inside the 0-255 range. (basically divide by a big number so that the most intense lights match 255)

(The scaling isn't always linear - can be logarthymic.) - in fact the way the big light intensity values are scaled is an important part of making computer HDR work well.

Ask if you require more expansion.83.100.250.79 (talk) 13:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Windows mail password prototection?

My wife and I both use the same login profile for windows vista. When I (or she) click on 'Windows mail' my inbox automatically comes up. She logs into her hotmail email via the web. Is there any way I can put a password on windows mail so she can't get into my email. I love her dearly but I need a little privacy for the next few weeks. I don't want to give her a whole new vista profile to log into (that might make her suspicious) but I would like to stop here accidentally getting at my mail.58.170.109.8 (talk) 13:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but as far as I know you can't. Because Vista (and XP for that matter) are setup with the ability for people to make their own Windows user profile this is why the option doesn't exist in Windows Live Mail as it's expecting the security to be handled by the login itself (i.e. password protect the Windows account). ZX81 ^talk 14:16, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Just remove the account info from Windows Mail (if possible) and use webmail for the next weeks? Or start a Gmail account to get all the info about the super-secret surprise anniversary vacation (or whatever your secrets are) sent there instead? Jørgen (talk) 17:45, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Install Windows Live Mail. It's an upgrade for Windows Mail, and you can set it so that a a password is required everytime. Warrior4321 19:18, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Another alternative might be to move windowsmail.exe (or whatever it's called) from wherever it lives now to C:\super\secret\location. Then clicking the icon won't work, but you can still go and manually start it. --Sean 19:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The path is "C:\Program Files\Windows Mail\WinMail.exe". But moving the file might not work (you can try, though). However, my personal opinion is that every person using a computer should have her own user account. Always. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree - it's not really even about privacy, it's about accuracy. If the computer says "Joe has mail", you won't know whether Joe or Joe's wife, daughter, cat, or sentient robot (who share the same account) actually need attention. The computer has no way to distinguish individual users, except in the form of login-accounts. If you want to make data shareable between different users, that can be arranged on most modern operating systems (including Windows); but the computer can still treat accounts separately. The sentient robot part isn't so far from the truth. This actually happened to me this morning - cron, which was incorrectly running in a user-account on spacenimur was sending email to nwmoussa (me, the human), when it should have been sending it to the ntp-daemon - just this morning! Unfortunately, I didn't know what to do with that email and it was written in a language that only the NTP-daemon would speak, and NTP-daemon wasn't getting the update requests, so disaster ensued and the system-clock was way out of whack! Point is, even automated tasks that are being done FOR you should properly be run under a separate login authorization - this is best practice for security. Nimur (talk) 21:13, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Controlling google results

I am in desperate need of help. Someone posted my full name and other identifying information in the comments section of a video on xtube, an amateur pornography site. I have no idea why this happened. I got the site to remove my name and information, and after a lot of difficulty I got google to remove the page from a search for my name.

It is now 4 months later, and the same page suddenly started appearing on my results again, with the comment visible, even though when you actually go to the page the comment is gone. I don't know if this is a cached page or what. I don't know anything about search technology. I requested that google remove the result again but they keep denying the request. I contacted xtube but haven't gotten any response.

Anyone with a knowledge of search technology, please tell me what steps I can take or who I can contact to fix this. I can't even figure out why it is happening, so if you can tell me that I would also be grateful. Isn't it ridiculous that wikipedia is the only place I am pretty sure someone might respond to this question?

Thank you! Gohome00 (talk) 17:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

If by "my results" you mean "the page google returns when I search for my name", then the problem is still Google - they've not removed it from all of the places they had it, and you need to yell at them again. Unfortunately tech companies are particularly bad at responding to electronic communications, so it might be time to write to their legal department at their HQ in Mountain View, California. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:06, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like to not do that but I understand I might have to.... thanks!Gohome00 (talk) 20:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Google can help remove personally identifiable information. There is a link to the website removal request information. Ironically, you must have a Google Account, and submit information to them, if you wish them to remove information about you. [8]. Nimur (talk) 20:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I tried this 3 times. It's an automated form, and if there is some part of the request that doesn't work, all you get is a message that says "denied" with a link to a list of vague possible explanations, none of which apply to me. That's why I'm so frustrated. Gohome00 (talk) 20:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Google books - copyright

Can someone help me out on this google books/copyright thing - I'm a bit confused. The impression I've got is that google has scanned (and used optical recognition to convert to 'text') books; some of which are still under copyright, and then offered them as electronic versions, but doesn't make any effort to observe any original copyright rights due to the author(s)unless they come along and claim them in which case it gives them $60. Have I got this wrong - or does something happen to the copyright when the book is scanned. eg from the Google Book Search article

publishers maintain that Google has no right to copy full text of books with copyrights and save them, in large amounts, into its own database

ok on the surface it seems a no-brainer to me that what is being described is obvious copyright violation (without a prior agreement). What's going on here? Thanks.83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it was blatant and obvious copyright violation; the result was that Google Books stalled for nearly two years in a pitched legal battle (first in 2005), and again in a new legal fight which was recently resolved out of court (despite much continued opposition). After a re-think of the business model, Google Books now partners with advertisers, publishers, and online booksellers; they offer their service as a sort of "advertisement." Nimur (talk) 20:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Any point asking "what were they thinking" (also perhaps even what happened to "do no evil" - hardly saintly anyway)

Can I ask for a second opinion (not that I don't trust your word Nimur - it's just that it seems so blatant as to be almost unbelievable) - is there no explanation for it (excluding economic boldness?) 83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

My curmudgeonly answer is that a lot of people at google really think that they are changing the world and it is their responsibility to drag everyone else along with them, even at the expense of currently accepted notions of copyright, privacy, etc. Gohome00 (talk) 20:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

A bit like WP:BOLD perhaps. Nobody is suggesting a legal excuse though - not even tentative ????83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Presumably, one of the things rethought is that you will find sets of a few consecuetive pages missing from the scanned books. I have on occasion found the google books service useful, but of course the bit you want to read is always in the missing bit. Astronaut (talk) 21:37, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the McGraw-Hill complaint found here (near the bottom) you can see some screenshots of Google Print as it existed at the time of the complaint. Public domain books were viewable in full. Copyrighted books were only viewable as a few lines surrounding the highlighted search terms (like the current fragment view), unless the publisher had explicitly authorized Google to show more. It's no different from their web search service, which also shows short excepts from each returned page with search terms in context, again without the explicit permission of the page owner in most cases. They weren't serving the full text of copyrighted works. It wasn't blatant and obvious infringement. The copyright code is very unclear regarding this sort of thing, to everyone's detriment. The result of the Authors Guild settlement was an increase in the number of full pages that are viewable, not a decrease, as far as I know. -- BenRG (talk) 00:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Someone said "what happened to 'don't be evil?'" To me it sounds like Google Books did what they did staying true to the mantra. How evil would it be to withhold vast quantities of knowledge from being absolutely free to the human population? Pretty fuckin evil if you ask me. Mac Davis (talk) 01:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you should ask authors who depend for their livelihood on their material NOT being free what they think about who is "evil" in this situation. As far as I'm concerned, unilaterally deciding that they know best IS being evil, no matter what the specifics of each situation and initiative may be. Gohome00 (talk) 17:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

"Don't Be Evil" is a useless slogan if evil is not well defined. Evil has a huge span of contradictory interpretations. Specifically in the case you mentioned, not everybody agrees that all information should be free - just because you and I think it should be does not make the opposite "evil." I can think of at least a few cases where information privacy might outweigh the "goodness" of information proliferation. Take a look at the unfortunate situation brought up by the previous question - this isn't a matter of copyright, but proliferating personal information, in the guise of "free expression", doesn't sound too good to me. Nimur (talk) 07:56, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I got the impression that they were serving up entire copyrighted books to everyone, rather than just indexing them (and displaying parts in search results). That's more understandable.83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Blender Fade

How can I fade objects in Blender? --81.227.67.213 (talk) 21:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

August 22

How to really search for an exact phrase on the internet

I just searched for the phrases "Made in China (E)" and "Made in China (W)" (with quotes, as in http://www.google.com/search?q="Made+in+China+(E)"), and both Yahoo and Google just take the parenthesis out and seem to take neither the space nor the characters literal, so they'll match such strings as "made in China,e.g." or "MADE IN CHINA è un marchio di fabbrica". Is there any way to really only get the pages that contain this exact phrase? — Sebastian 01:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think it is possible to do that (if anyone else knows a way to do so, please let us know). What you can do, though, is tell Google not to include certain phrases, such as http://www.google.com/search?q="Made+in+China+(E)" - "e.g." - "fabbrica". I did this when I was searching for info on the mathematical term "matrix" and kept getting hits for the movies. A "matrix" - "keanu" - "film" - "movie" search did a much better job for me. StuRat (talk) 13:20, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparently you're only allowed _ and &. See http://www.marketingshift.com/2006/3/google-special-character-search-string.cfm 81.131.6.207 (talk) 17:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, that's interesting! — Sebastian 18:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The replies provide two links: http://www.google.com/apis/reference.html, which is generally interesting, but doesn't say anything about this particular issue, and http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=430 which is 404 now. But it's not just Google: Yahoo seems to have the same problem. — Sebastian 19:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Download an entire YouTube channel

I want to download all of somebody's videos. There are 435. What is the most efficient way to do this? Mac Davis (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you'll have to download each one seperately using a youtube video downloader. Do you use firefox? Warrior4321 04:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I know enough ways to download an individual video. I was hoping there was a batch tool of some sort. Mac Davis (talk) 05:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is a command line youtube video downloader. Here is a youtube channel's URL:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BarackObamadotcom&view=videos&start=0

Here is what each video link looks like in that channel page:

href="/enwiki/watch?v=R3XW5XQLnk8&feature=channel_page"

so to get the whole channel, just do something like:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

$max_batch = ceil(435 / 20);

for $batch (0 .. $max_batch) {
  $batch_url = "http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BarackObamadotcom&view=videos&start=$batch";
  $page = `wget -O - '$batch_url'`;
  while ($page =~ /href="(/watch?v=(\w+))&feature=channel_page"/g) {
    $vid_url = $1;
    $vid_id = $2;
    system "youtube-dl -a -o '$vid_id.avi' '$vid_url'";
  }
}

Untested! --Sean 12:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft Word keyboard thing

So, what’s happened is that at work, I got a new (used) computer, but in Microsoft Word, some of the keyboard shortcuts (Control + whatever) have gotten changed around. Instead of Ctrl+c giving me the copy function it prints the character “ç” for some reason. It’s the same for Ctrl+a, instead of selecting everything, it prints “à,” and Ctrl+ gives “î” instead of italics. There are probably some other ones. It’s really annoying. Anyway, how can I stop this and bring everything back to normal? I’ve looked in the help file and online, but apparently I haven’t typed in the right words or something. Anyway, any help you have will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. 169.231.32.17 (talk) 08:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like your Ctrl key now has the function of an AltGr key. Have you installed the computer from scratch, or did you take someone else's installation? If the latter, then maybe that person messed around with the keyboard layout. There are programs, such as Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator and Wyrdplay, with which you can change the individual key settings. Maybe you can reset it by going into Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages tab -> Details -> under "Installed services", select "English" -> click Add button -> check "Keyboard layout/IME" -> in the dropdown, select another layout (presumably one of the "United Kingdom" or "United States" settings, depending on your preference). — Sebastian 19:23, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I overlooked that you wrote "Microsoft Word". Do the keys behave as expected in other programs? In that case, it seems as if the settings in Word have been changed. Go to Tools -> Customize -> Keyboard button -> Reset All. (Before you reset all, it may be wise to check if the keys are really reassigned in word by testing them. Do that as follows: Select the box under "Press new shortcut key" and check what it says below after "currently assigned to". If that's the correct function, then the key has not been reassigned in Word. — Sebastian 19:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's the second one, but in either cse, I now know what to do. Thanks so much. 169.231.32.17 (talk) 19:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Adobe's code signing cert revoked?

Hi, I'm trying to install Flash on XP. The installer downloaded wouldn't run, saying "You must unblock this publisher". Digging further, I found that the code signing cert issued to Adobe Systems Incorporated serial ‎76 57 f9 cb ca c1 ea 95 04 83 8e 3e d9 35 5d 2d is "revoked by its certification authority". Anyone know why? Should I just remove the revocation and install it anyway? 121.72.171.75 (talk) 10:30, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I can't reproduce this under Windows 7. The installer runs fine. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 01:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

OK this is weird, Youtube works fine now, no need to reinstall Flash. Thanks. 121.72.171.75 (talk) 09:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

How to reinstall Windows XP - where can I get CDs?

I have MS Windows XP which I have a license for. I have no install CDs - either I lost them or I suspect I never had any. How can I get them - will MS give them to me? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.49.27.114 (talk) 11:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Contact whoever you bought the computer from (assuming it came with XP?) - They may be able to sell you a "media kit" for a small fee. ZX81 ^talk 11:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Check first whether there is a recovery partition. 121.72.171.75 (talk) 12:16, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Download them —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.136 (talk) 05:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I removed a direct link to a probable copyright violation above which is against policy Nil Einne (talk) 18:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I linked to a search engine, not any copyright works directly. My link was no more of a copyright violation than linking to a google search string.

Testing a web based software Vs testing a conventional software

Its not about comparing two types of softwares that do the same. It is about differences in testing methodologies. Can you please say the differences in testing a web based software (say a pixlr) and its software counterpart (say gimp)?. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 13:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

With any web-based software, I would expect the performance to vary dramatically based on the current connection speed. Therefore, you'd need to test to see how it handles that. For example, Netflix streaming videos dynamically adjust the image quality based on the current connection speed. Software that doesn't do that may become unusable if the speed drops dramatically, as it often does. Netflix also has an example of how not to do things, on their queue on their website. When you select the widget to move a movie to the top of the queue, it appears to move it up one position in the queue, refresh the page, then move it up another position, refresh the page, etc., until it gets to the top. This type of inefficient programming may work fine on a dedicated computer, but not when dealing with web connections of suspect speed. Instead, the obvious solution is to move the movie to the top of the queue and only refresh the page once, instead of up to 500 times.

So, any web-based testing should be run with both high-speed and low-speed connections. I'd even test on dial-up, to see what happens. StuRat (talk) 22:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd add that testing should not only be high-bandwidth vs. low-bandwidth, but also high-latency vs. low-latency. Another awful area of testing is that you do not control what browser your users are using. There will be bugs viewing the web-based software in Internet Explorer 6 that do not exist when using Mozilla Firefox 2, and probably vice versa. Tempshill (talk) 03:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

glDeleteTextures

I've been doing some OpenGL programming (in C, no garbage collection). Will I be leaking graphics card texture memory if I don't call this function at the end of my program? The examples I've been working from don't use it, and the GL redbook only mentions it as useful for freeing up memory to put more textures in. 81.131.6.207 (talk) 17:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You won't be leaking memory. The gpu driver will get informed when your program terminates and free (if it's not buggy) all resources allocated by you. --194.197.235.63 (talk) 18:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you. 81.131.6.207 (talk) 18:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

chess script programming

is there any way to change the script for the chess game that comes with apple computers? I want to tinker a bit but can't find it's programming... Thanks for any help 81.34.109.174 (talk) 17:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a compiled program, not a script. You can get the source code here. --Sean 18:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Specifically, here — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 01:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

August 23

chroot and graphical apps: is it possible?

is it possible to set-up a chroot and use graphical apps? I don't want them in a xnest window or similar, I want them to be displayed on my normal desktop, like all other apps. Is this possible? How can I do it? (I already have the chroot prepared) - SF007 - 05:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes; but I think you might be confused about what chroot does. Which graphical application do you plan to use? I think anything which uses any dynamically linked libraries is going to complain if you chroot it and deny access to your library paths... are you writing the graphical applications yourself and statically linking them? Nimur (talk) 06:57, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

You could always copy the libraries your app needs into the chroot. The debian debootstrap package might be useful. --194.197.235.54 (talk) 11:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Mediawiki Error - Still

Not writing this againRgoodermote  06:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Chances are, everyone who looked at your question earlier was unable to answer it. Reposting probably won't help. If you can rephrase or elaborate on what the problem is, we might be able to help; but just reposting (especially when the original post is still on the desk) is not going to get you any more answers. Nimur (talk) 06:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Well that is as elaborate as I can actually make it, I can tell you that it seems to have something to do with my version of PHP. As I never noticed it before till today that the PHP number was 5.1.37 not 5.1.33 and some Google searching turned up a lot of people complaining..but of course getting no answers..about this problem. When I updated my version of PHP is beyond me. I also got this little doozy recently "Warning: Parameter 1 to ConfirmEditHooks::confirmEditMerged() expected to be a reference, value given in ***\w\includes\Hooks.php on line 132". Second, I find it unlikely that there is not one single person on Wikipedia who can't answer this question. Rgoodermote  07:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The obvious thing to try is to go to an earlier version of PHP, hopefully without the bug. StuRat (talk) 08:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The Reference Desk is only read by a tiny fraction of Wikipedia users. I promise we're not holding out on you; nobody here seems to know the answer. Perhaps you should contact the developers of the software? --Sean 14:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like a legitimate software bug; try contacting the developers. The message means that a wrong variable type is being passed to a function, which is the sort of thing they are probably interested in knowing about. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 16:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Practical measures to preserve privacy and security when computer is stolen

What can I do to preserve my privacy on the assumption that my computer will be stolen one day? I dont just mean keeping credit card details safe, but keeping correspondence encoded or otherwise private? Log-in and other passwords too. (A version of OpenOffice that works with encoded word-processing files would be a good idea.) Something good enough for the average computer -burglar or -fence not to bother with decoding it rather than just deleting it. This is a seperate issue from backing up files. 78.149.186.253 (talk) 13:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The easiest way would be to just encrypt the whole hard-drive or at least the user directory. Most operating systems have ways to do this built into them (e.g. FileVault for Macs). If you want to encrypt the whole thing, TrueCrypt can do this. Doing it on a file-by-file basis is not terribly practical—that's a lot of passwords to type in, and makes it quite difficult to send you files to others, and there are cryptologic problems with encrypting lots of small files. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I partially agree with 98. Although I've never done this, TrueCrypt can encrypt the entire hard disk, so it will be unusable to anyone who does not know (and can't guess) the password. BitLocker is Microsoft's full-disk encryption system, which comes with some versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Alternatively, you could use TrueCrypt to create a single "container" file on your hard disk that is encrypted, and store all your sensitive data in that container file. But it sounds like you want a little more certainty than that in the case of Outlook's .pst files being stored somewhere else, maybe temporary files on the hard disk will have sensitive data — whole-disk encryption avoids all those problems. Tempshill (talk) 17:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Windows Movie Maker

Is it possible to download windows moviemaker to XP without downloading service packs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.197.87.181 (talk) 13:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Windows Live Movie Maker requires at least Windows XP with Service Pack 2 to run, so it's either install the service pack or don't install Movie Maker. (Is there any particular reason you don't want to install a service pack? I can't think of any.) Xenon54 (talk) 17:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Well I can't imagine installing SP2 on a fresh Windows XP over dialup is a fun experience, particularly if you pay by the minute. For that matter installing over a GPRS connection. However the IP looks up to a Finnish ADSL connection which doesn't exactly speak 'slow connection' Nil Einne (talk) 18:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)