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October 30

Request for example Java program

I'm looking for a "Hello world" type example in Java that I can modify and play with. The example code should accept a string argument, display it on a pop-up window. The pop-up window needs to have a button for closing the window. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.11.61 (talk) 00:03, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

You want a JFrame example. This is Sun's JFrame tutorial. Once you can make the window open/shut, you want a JLabel tutorial. The JLabel will be placed inside the JFrame and contain the text. This is Sun's JLabel tutorial. -- kainaw™ 02:28, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Bitdefender uninstalled, but Windows is reporting that its turned off

I've uninstalled Bitdefender, but Windows XP is telling me that its reporting its turned off, even though I've restarted my computer. Do I have to edit some registries or something? The application is gone; I uninstalled it from the Control Panel, so I don't get why Security Center is reporting that it is turned off.--Lucky9109 (talk) 02:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

This is an off-the-cuff idea only, but how about if you were to install some other (perhaps free) antivirus software, and then take a look at what Security Center states? Maybe the uninstaller doesn't deal with Security Center at all (unsurprising) and maybe Security Center isn't smart enough to distinguish between "off" and "no longer present" (slightly more surprising; I would have thought they would have tested this with all antivirus products that it bothers to recognize). Tempshill (talk) 02:57, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Someone else's media files on my iTunes: wtf?

Something very strange is occurring on my PC at the moment. I'm staying in a hotel, using a PC that is wireless-enabled, but this particular room is not wi-fi enabled and I'm connected to the net via a cable. I do not have any kind of Bluetooth enabled. I have no idea if any of that's relevant, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. Anyway, on my iTunes there's a whole bunch of media files that don't belong to me, which are certainly not on my hard drive, but which I can watch and listen to through iTunes just fine. On the left hand side of iTunes, under "Shared", it says "[name of person I've never heard of]'s Library". Normally, right-clicking a song title leads me to where the file is saved, but that option is not available to me with these files. A regular search of the hard drive for the song titles brings up nothing. This is freaking me out a little: how on earth can I have access to someone else's media files? And how can I stop someone else having access to mine? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 06:36, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

iTunes automatically discovers other iTunes instances on the local network (typically every computer behind the same router) and allows every iTunes to stream (but not download) music from any other instance on the local net. See ITunes#Library_sharing. You can disable this sharing via preferences. There also used to be add-ons that would allow you to download the shared files (one of them is myTunes), but I don't know if those still work. By default, nothing is stored on your drive, the music is delivered over the network on demand. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Cool, I never knew any of that stuff. Thanks for the explanation. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Windows 7 classic start menu

How can I get the windows classic start menu in Windows 7. I hate this new look.

There are several third-party apps that will do this. Classic Start Menu Windows 7 ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Beginners programming

I'd like to learn a programming language for my own amusement. Could anybody point me in the direction of a good, free online tutorial & compiler to download, if necessary? The fun to be had is in understanding and applying the logic of a language. I've googled a little, but got lost in the options. I've pretty much no experience. Thanks Stanstaple (talk) 18:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Good for you. This is becoming a Computing desk FAQ; it was asked twice on October 27 (search for "language" on this page). I'll repeat myself that the article Educational programming language may be of interest to you; and I'll go ahead and recommend you learn some variety of BASIC even though SteveBaker hates it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:42, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

If you're interested in learning Java (one of the more difficult first languages, but still suitable for dedicated beginners), you'll find a complete tutorial brought to you by Sun. It's very well organized, and outlines exactly what you need to download to get started.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:49, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a heavy Python (programming language) user, but I think it's a fine first language. Here is a whole page of first-timer tutorials. The Wikibooks one here looks pretty good. Please come on back to this desk with the inevitable questions you'll have as you get going. --Sean 14:05, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all- Stanstaple (talk) 19:00, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Stable Motherboard on high temperature

Hello there, Currently I am looking for a motherboard which will be stable on high temperature (36* C or more) and also no freezing or lock up. I have come up with several motherboards in choice.

• XFX 750i SLI
• Asus P5 Q P45
• Asus P5 Q3 P45
• Gigabyte EP45T UD3R
• Gigabyte EP43 UD3L

So far I have found the above boards within my budget. Which one I should go for? I am using C2Q 9400 CPU.Thank you--119.30.36.41 (talk) 22:28, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend a P45 motherboard over a P43. Also it appears you've got some DDR3 and some DDR2 motherboards in there. The DDR3/DDR2 issue was discussed about 2 weeks ago, I suggest you search the archives. Specifically since you apparently live in Bangladesh I would recommend you start comparing 2x2GB DDR2 and DDR3 RAM prices where you live since I'm doubtful anyone here has any idea what the price situation is like there Nil Einne (talk) 08:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

IE Tab

Does the IE Tab extension for Firefox render pages using the current version you have installed on your PC, or does it have an internal version of IE which could be different from the version I have installed. I ask because some sites throw errors when viewed with IE Tab, but not with IE natively, and I'm wondering if it has to do with versions of IE. anonymous6494 23:22, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

It uses your current version for the rendering. If you have IE Tab installed, go to the Tools menu in Firefox, then select the IE Tab Options item. Note the "External Application" where you can specify which application to use. But the default is Internet Explorer. Also on the IE Tab page on mozdev.org, they list as a requirement that you have "Internet Explorer > 4.0".

I don't know why some pages throw errors under IE Tab. Could it have something to do with IE's "compatibility view"? –RHolton≡– 13:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I have IE 7, so it isn't compatibility view. Thanks! anonymous6494 15:24, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

October 31

Incremental backup and deleted files

How does an incremental backup handle deleted files? --Halcatalyst (talk) 00:03, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about a situation where files X, Y, and Z exist, then you back up your hard disk, then you delete the files, and then a new increment is made. The new increment just records the fact that files X, Y, and Z have been deleted. It doesn't go back into previous incremental backup files to erase the data or anything. If and when you recover your hard disk with the backup, then those files are simply never restored onto the hard disk. (Or, I suppose, some backup programs might write them out to the hard disk and then delete them, but that would seem silly.) Tempshill (talk) 02:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

That's not the way I understand that incremental backups work. I think that if you create the file A and do a backup, then file A will be written to the backup store. If you then delete it, nothing new will be written to the store. So if you do a full restore, it will restore the deleted file A. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:09, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

With incremental backup, a "full restore" requires a date. If the date is after the file was deleted, it will not be included in the full restore. -- kainaw™ 13:35, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

At best, that depends. Not all incremental backup utilities will track deleted files. Indeed, it could be argued that they shouldn't, since you may want to recover a file a while after it has been deleted. See [1] for example. --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:00, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

For example, subversion (software) requires you to commit a delete. Then, the file is marked as deleted in all subsequent revisions. In older revisions, the file is still backed up. Nimur (talk) 01:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Find out IP addresses

Hi, in the Wikipedia article about Cyberstalking there is a point about tracing an IP address in an attempt to verify their home or place of employment. How would someone be able to find out someonelse's IP address? Is it possible, if so how, through the use of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Photobucket, etc.? And also, more importantly to some extent, how would someone block their IP address being visible on such sites and the internet in general? Thanks very much for reading this and any help and information would be much appreciated. 86.138.158.223 (talk) 00:09, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, the easiest way to find someone's IP address is to have them visit a site that you have access to the server logs for. That can be as easy as sending them an e-mail with an in-line image linked to from your site -- when they open the e-mail and view the image, pow!, it connects to your server, gives you the IP address.

The only real way to block your IP is to route it through an anonymity network, like Tor. In such a situation, only the in-coming Tor node would see your IP address, and your traffic to the Tor node is encrypted.

The problem with blocking your IP address in this way is that it is very slow, on the whole (you are routing all your internet traffic through another computer, often on the other side of the globe). It also doesn't give total anonymity (see the "weaknesses" section of the article—but for many practical purposes, it would work).

Another approach would be to have as your ISP a service that was large and used dynamic IP addresses. AOL, for example, does things this way, I believe. Visits from AOL users all look basically the same—they don't give you much (if any?) information about where the user is visiting from, and they change the individual IP addresses often enough that tracking behavior by one of them is pretty hard. (Or, at least, that's the way it used to be—I don't know if it has changed in recent years.) --Mr.98 (talk) 00:53, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that. I shall use that to research further... :) 86.138.158.223 (talk) 16:51, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

BTW in case you haven't noticed, editing wikipedia without being logged in to an account also gives away your IP address. (Our privacy policy means the IP address can almost never be revealed publicly and is only viewable by a small number of people for any edit made while logged in to an account.) Nil Einne (talk) 16:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Thermal paste of processor on new motherbaord

I have been using my system for three months. Now I am planning to replace my system to newly purchased motherboard. So If I attach my processor on new motherboard should I add thermal paste again on it? Bit confused. Thanks--119.30.36.53 (talk) 09:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The best way of doing this is to clean the heatsink and processor of all the old thermal paste and add a small amount of new paste before attaching the heat sink. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:06, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Emphasis on small. See thermal grease. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:11, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Laptop Powering Down (Ubuntu 9.10)

I have a Two-year old Acer Aspire 5315 on which I have replaced Vista with Ubuntu 9.10. I'm using it more as a storage facility than anything else (even though I'm loving the new OS!) as my other Vista is down to 30GB. Anyway, as such, I need to leave it on most of the time so I can read and write data to/from it. However, I have noticed that after about 5 minutes of idling, the screen tends to dim-down over the course of around 30 seconds or so, until I am left with a blank screen. Pressing a button restores the screen, leading me to believe that this is some sort of power-saving feature. It is annoying, though, because I prefer to see the screen when I am writing to the disk from the other PC so I 'know' that files are arriving. Therefore, I want to turn off this feature (if it is a feature and not just that my laptop is buggered) but nothing changes when I open Power Management in System>Preferences and set suspend to 'never'. Is there anything else I should do? --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 10:01, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at System -> Preferences -> Screensaver. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 10:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Cheers! I did that just before I came back here to say 'no worries - found the solution!'. But, thanks anyway! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 11:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Control of Sound Card

I have a full-screen program (with accompanying sounds) that locks out Spotify when loaded ("cannot access your sound card"). Is there anyway I can forcibly remove control of the aforementioned sound card from the program - I am prepared to lose any sound from the program itself? - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 10:37, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Windows Vista Service pAck

Will installing service pack 1 on vista delete my files and programs or will they be safe and unaffected?

There is no reason why installing anything should delete anything without you being asked beforehand, but, in any case, service packs are supposed to be installed. Nothing should be affected. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 11:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

No, it will definitely not. I fact, every Windows user should install service packs as soon as they are released, for they contain important security and stability updates. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 12:59, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers! I'm installing service pack 1 and 2 so hopefully I'll have no more problems with windows freezing and stuff.

It is a little late, but you should always backup important files before applying MS Service Packs (or any similar "big overhaul" OS updates, whatever the OS). They can result in trouble, like the OS getting corrupted, things of that nature. They will not likely delete anything purposefully but can "break" an OS and require its reinstallation (which can "break" programs, at times). --Mr.98 (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

immedately give me answer this question.

what is the diffrence between window 98 and window xp? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Navjotkaurparihar (talk • contribs) 13:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Depends what you want to know, but XP (2001) is newer than 98 (1998). XP is widely regarded as superior, if only because it offers a service which many more people will find familiar, and is compatible with a much larger percentage of (new) software. 98 is no longer supported by Microsoft and maybe therefore less secure. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 13:53, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

From a technical point of view, the big difference is that Win98 is in the MS-DOS lineage of operating systems (i.e., a highly-polished turd), while WinXP is based on Windows NT, which is significantly less bad. --Sean 14:09, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

XP is very stable (if one application crashes, the entire OS will not) and secure. In XP it is possible to create different user accounts, so that person A cannot access the files of person B. Such security is not available at all in Windows 9x (Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME), where person B can access the files of person A simply by opening the "C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\Person A\" folder. Furthermore, Windows 9x is antique is many other ways as well, whereas XP is a fairly usable system still, despite of its age (nine years). The most visible difference between Windows 9x and XP is the GUI - Windows XP is themed (the default theme is called Luna) by default. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 15:33, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

As an aside, saying "Answer this immediately!!!" is impolite, especially on a completely volunteer-based community such as Wikipedia. JIP | Talk 01:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Vista Service Pack 1 trouble

I just spent an hour installing service pack 1 on vista. it reached completion, then said "Service pack did not install. Reverting changes". What went wrong??

If you Google the error message, you can find a number of pages that attempt to help. [2] [3] It sounds like it could be a whole variety of different, difficult-to-diagnose things, unfortunately. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:09, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

There will be a log somewhere on your computer with more detailed information. Check the Event Viewer and c:\windows\windowsupdate.log (which is a text file). To start the Event Viewer press Win+R to open the Run dialog and type "eventvwr.msc". -- BenRG (talk) 16:29, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

And this is one of the many reasons nobody uses Vista. HalfShadow (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Except for the several million who do. OP, I would just try again. Tempshill (talk) 04:42, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

As one of the several million (I tried to buy XP with my laptop in 2007, but was told it was Vista or nothing, so I just configured it to look as much like XP as possible), I've had only occasional problems with upgrades, and only occasional crashes when I've had many applications open. Are you sure you had full admin rights when you started the upgrade? (Is Windows 7 stable yet?) Dbfirs 08:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Windows 7 is very stable. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 12:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Does it allow me to configure my own desktop layout yet? (as I've been doing for twenty years). Dbfirs 09:35, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Good anti-aliasing in Photoshop

I often find in Photoshop that I have shapes that I wish were better anti-aliased—e.g., a mask that has a very hard pixel edge. Blurring said hard edges doesn't really make them look better—they look like a blurred hard edge, not an anti-aliased one. Is there a better technique here that I am missing for taking something that has a very hard pixel edge and getting that nice, anti-aliased look? The best I have come up with is producing the mask at, say, triple the resolution, and then down-sampling (which anti-aliases pretty well), but this is not always an option. Surely there is a better way? --Mr.98 (talk) 16:58, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

What was used to create the masks in the first place? I know GIMP, not PS, but in that case if you use a soft-edged tool to make the mask, it will stay that way. --Sean 21:12, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Presumably he's creating the masks in photoshop.

I meant "what tool?". --Sean 14:05, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

When you say you're blurring the edges, are you using the "feather" tool? By, perhaps, less than a pixel? APL (talk) 21:43, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Work in higher resolution - double or triple the size of the image before you start. When you're done, save the high res version for the future - but drop the resolution back down again for the version you actually want to use. I'm not a big photoshop user (I prefer GIMP) - but when you drop the resolution back down - make sure you're using whatever Photoshops' best quality option is for doing that. SteveBaker (talk) 23:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

How are you creating the masks? The Marquee tool doesn't have antialiasing, so you should use the Path (the "pen" tool, haven't used Photoshop in a while) tool to create your mask using bézier curves instead. That gives you much nicer results and you can edit your path later. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

So what I've found works very well in the meantime for single-color masks (e.g. black/white), is to put a 2 pixel Gaussian blur and then go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and push the white/black balance towards the center. It gives me a very nice anti-aliased edge for such images. Just passing that on. It appears that there is no sure-fire way to get the results I want (other than, as stated, working at a higher resolution and down-sampling). As for tool, I was using masks created with the magic wand tool (which claims to have anti-aliasing, but it is not very good). --Mr.98 (talk) 20:58, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

There's your problem. Use Path and you'll get a much nicer result. --antilived^{T | C | G} 22:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

There's an option to turn on anti-aliasing. Look on the top toolbar where you have the options for your tools; there's a check box that toggles anti-aliasing. <- this may/may not apply to masking, but the way I do making in photoshop is to add a vector mask. If you provide me with a screen shot of what you want to do, I will help you more. -- penubag  (talk) 06:12, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Blender 3D Rendering

What factors determine how fast a scene is rendered in Blender 3D? --81.227.65.168 (talk) 17:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Render/Performances -194.197.235.240 (talk) 17:28, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Sound quality

Could playing sounds from two different sources simultaneously (say, running two YouTube music videos at the same time, or a video and an online game with music) permanently degrade the sound quality on my computer? 90.193.232.242 (talk) 19:15, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

No. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I also say no. A computer's speakers (stereologic) are made to handle different audio tracks. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that the only way to cause permanent damage to speakers are to over modulate them by turning the volume up beyond the threshold of the voice coil and/or diaphragm (acoustics). Also, see loudspeaker for more info. Letter ⁷ _{it's the best letter :)} 00:30, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

(OP here) The speakers are fine, I can plug any speakers or headphones in and the sound will always be the same. Playing music while having a game on in the background is the only thing I do that other people don't, so far as I can tell. Vimescarrot (talk) 00:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

November 1

bad impacts of information system to an organisation

can anyone tell me what is the bad impacts of information system to an organisation?? i need more information about this.. waiting for your reply soon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.48.253.97 (talk) 05:24, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our aim here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Tempshill (talk) 05:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

... meanwhile, have you read our articles on Information system and Information systems discipline? An appropriate and well-designed information system can be an enormous benefit to an organisation. The opposite can be a disaster! Dbfirs 08:04, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I have to add my two bits - an appropriate and well-designed information system will bring zilch benefits if the people don't use it or don't use it properly. I experienced this myself - installing something isn't enough, it should be run often and be used, too. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

to Tempshill: i not just want the answer... i just dunno what is the bad or disadvantages of information system to an organisation... so i post here to get some information... so that i can concentrate on the information i get here and try to understand it.. and this is not my homework... just for my self study... if u can please give me some information about it.. or you can tell me about your experience or any cases about this happened to you... i will very appreciate for your information... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.50.111.87 (talk) 14:12, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

i found that one of the disadvantages of IS is>> Everything has to be kept private at all times. This could be hard to do. anyone can tell me why it is hard? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.50.111.87 (talk) 16:27, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, computer privacy and security are big issues here if the information is at all sensitive. The organisation needs to employ technicians who are totally trustworthy, and to use a database system that prevents unauthorised users copying the data. And Ouro makes a good point: the system will be a disaster if the users are not willing and well-trained. Dbfirs 09:32, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Unknown website

Hello there, I am having trouble with an unknown website. Whenever I tried to connect to internet this webpage automatically opened up. I cleaned browser and ran spyware search and destroy software but nothing happened. How can I get rid of this nasty webpage? Thanks--119.30.36.35 (talk) 11:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Autostart? Home page settings of browser? Settings of dial-up application (or whatever you use to connect) to automatically open a specific page was effected? What was the usual case before this site started harassing you?

Try installing a different browser (i. e. Opera if you are normally a Firefoxer) and see what happens. Come back then and tell us what happened. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:54, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

If you use Internet Explorer then run HijackThis to see if it picks anything up. Rjwilmsi 13:58, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Check your hosts file.–RHolton≡– 23:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Vista Sidebar RSS Gadet Text-Rendering Anomaly

Since the day I upgraded to Windows Vista (= the day it was made available in Sweden), I have wondered why the exactly (seemingly, at least) same string is rendered in different ways sometimes in the RSS sidebar gadget. See this image for an example. Normally, computers are highly predictable and deterministic, so it is rather surprising that the same string is rendered differently on different occasions. Exactly when does this happen? Why? Can you give me an example from Win32 API when this happens? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:15, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Could it be there is some HTML code in the original source feed that is causing one entry to display in a Narrow font? Sussexonian (talk) 22:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I did not believe that this simple gadget respected HTML tags. But you might be right - it sounds fairly reasonable. Unfortunately, however, I do not have access to the code that generated the image any more. But there might be more examples in the future. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 08:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

pixel intensity??

every image is saved by a computer in form of a intensity matrix,defining a value for each pixel.can any one tell me in which units the values are so that i can apply some radiation formulae like weins law,stfans law on it. yours sci-hunter SCI-hunter (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC).

There are many ways to store images. See image file. The Graphics Interchange Format article has some good technical details. --Sean 16:05, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Image file formats store intensity data in an abstract, dimensionless quantity. Computer display technologies take this information and use it to emit light of the appropriate intensity; often there is a bounded linear relationship between the value in the image file and the intensity, in other cases a gamma nonlinearity is applied. This gamma is partially a function of the characteristics of the display device (and it settings), of the graphics hardware and it settings, and sometimes (as is the case with formats like PNG) gamma information is encoded in the original image. So if you're looking for a concrete physical value, you need to know a lot about the capabilities and calibrations of the particular display devices involved - in practice they vary quite a lot in terms of their intensity curve, frequency response, and colour gamut. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:20, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

(EC) This entirely depends on the image file format. It is possibly GIF, but it might also be PNG, BMP, JPG, TIFF, XPM, TGA, etc. See bitmap (BMP) for a far more simple image format than GIF. In a BMP file, after all headers and the optional palette, the image data might be RLE compressed. If it is not compressed, and if the bitmap is 24-bit (the simplest case), each pixel is represented by three bytes (i.e. 24 bits), each byte (a number between 0 and 255) being the B (blue), G (green), and R (red) RGB coordinate of the pixel. Normally (depends on the sign of the height value in the header, if I remember correctly) the scanlines (lines of pixels) are stored bottom-up (rather than the more intuitive top-down order). Also, one must take care of padding bytes in the end of each scanline... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:22, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, some images embed a ICC profile which attempts to regularise the relationship between colour values in the image and actual colour values in the output; this still doesn't get you to absolute physical intensity levels, as there's still plenty of scope for variety of intensity between different physical display devices. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:30, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

explorer.exe

explorer.exe from windows 95 was able to run in Windows 95, 98 and ME. Why doesn't it work in XP or Vista, when even the much older progman.exe from Windows 3.1 still works? Also, why doesn't explorer.exe from XP work on Vista? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 16:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Why do you want to run a different browser on a different OS? The usual reason is checking out web development efforts with various browsers, but maybe that is not your reason. --DThomsen8 (talk) 18:21, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

The OP is asking about explorer.exe, which is the program for Windows Explorer the file browser, not Internet Explorer the web browser. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 20:51, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Internet Explorer is named iexplore.exe. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 08:59, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The first answer does not address the question. The person asking didn't say they wanted to do this; they asked why it wouldn't work.

Computer programs are sets of instructions that run in a certain environment; by that, I mean that the instructions can call on their environment to do certain things for them. When a program wants to connect to the internet, or read a file, or get the current user's name, a program often has to do different things on different operating systems, and even on different versions of the same operating system.

Microsoft made some things compatible among different versions of Windows, and some things not. For some period of time (evidently), the instructions used on W95, 98, and ME were compatible with all three versions. So the version of the XP browser that runs in Vista must have to do some things that are not available in Windows 95. This is common; as an environment such as Windows ages, changes and additions are made, and it is difficult (and arguably unnecessary) to maintain compatibility for very long. Keep in mind that Microsoft makes its money selling software, not keeping things compatible for years and years. Besides that, often new features require instructions that were not thought of and therefore not available in the older system. ralphcook —Preceding undated comment added 18:55, 1 November 2009 (UTC).

Though, on the last point, it's worth noting that the #1 selling point that people use when discussing why they stay with Windows (despite its many flaws) is that it is compatible with the most number of people, and etc. So some compatibility is built into their business model—it's part of the reason people use their software in the first place. If they neglect that, it will definitely impact the business model. That being said, expecting a core system program from 14 years ago to still work on every operating system is a little bit extreme. Your time would be better spent figuring out what it was about that program that you liked and finding a modern equivalent (which probably exists). --Mr.98 (talk) 01:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the interesting answers. I am still confused though; why would explorer.exe be too old to work yet ever older programs from Windows 3.1 like File manager and Program Manager still work on XP and Vista? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 09:22, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The age of the program does not, by itself, make a difference. What matters is what instructions it has in it. Programs have instructions in them that ask the operating system to do things for them, and for it to work, the operating system must be able to satisfy those requests. As Windows has aged, clearly some requests have kept their same "format", i.e., the way a program makes its request in Win98 is the same way it makes that request in XP. But some requests have been removed, or their format has changed, so when a program makes that request the "old" way, the "newer" operating system does not understand what it is asking and the request does not work.

A program can be written to make requests either way, depending on the operating system on which it is running, but an older program cannot usually be programmed to run on an operating system that is not in existence when the program is written.

So I expect that programs that still do work only make requests that are still there and still in the same format, and programs that do not make requests that are not still there or now in a different format. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralphcook (talk • contribs) 16:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the answer that Win95 Explorer used the Win95 style Registry, which is not the same as the XP registry, while File Manager doesn't use the registry at all (obviously) but only WIN.INI or something similar? The more intriguing question is why WinVista Explorer doesn't work in WinVista.Sussexonian (talk) 22:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

External hard drive blocked

I just moved all my files from my Noteship external hard drive to another which worked great but it's now not allowing me to put anything new on it anymore... Every time I try to add something to it it tells me I don't have permission and that it's "read only". It was never like this before and if anyone could shed some light on this issue that would be greatly appreciated. Pineapplegirls (talk) 18:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

What is the external drive formatted as (e.g., NTFS, FAT32?), and what is the OS you are using to access it with (XP, Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX?)? --Mr.98 (talk) 20:43, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what has caused the problem, but, I would suggest (if you are using Windows) right-clicking on the drive, selecting properties, then making sure that 'read only' is not checked - if it is, then uncheck it. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 20:47, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm using Mac OX and i'm not sure how it's formatted... How should I check that? thanks for your help

In Finder, click on the drive (should be on your desktop when connected), then go to File > Get Info (Apple+I). Look for the line that says "Format". My bet is that it is formatted for NTFS, which OS X can read, but cannot write.

If you are only going to use the drive with Macs, you should reformat the drive as "Mac OS Extended" format (using Disk Utility—but be aware it will clear the drive when you do this!). If you are going to use it on both PCs and Macs, you can format it as FAT32 (also with Disk Utility), though there are downsides to that format (it cannot handle files over 4GB in size, which depending on what you do, could be an issue). You can also, I believe, download software that lets OS X write to NTFS drives, though I've never used any myself (but if you Google it, it is out there). --Mr.98 (talk) 22:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, excellent. So if I format it to Mac and try to open or copy the files to a Windows drive will it work? Or will I just not be able to add anything to it from a windows OS?.. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.39.184.228 (talk) 12:44, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe you'd have to install special drivers for a Windows (NTFS) drive to be able to read the Mac-formatted drive. I know, what a pain—Macs can't use Windows correctly, Windows can't use Macs correctly. It's like we're still in 1991 or something. FAT32 is the only format that can be read by both (and, as stated, it has issues, in particular with very large files), so if you need something that can work easily/instantly on both (not installing any special software), use FAT32 (which you can do in Disk Utility). (Remember, as I said, that reformatting in Disk Utility will necessarily wipe the drive clean the first time you do it...!) --Mr.98 (talk) 14:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually Windows Vista and Windows 7 support writing and reading to UDF as does Mac OS X for a while (not sure but think 10.4.6 at least but I don't use Macs) and also of course most *nix variants (FreeBSD not sure, Linux since 2.6.2 possibly, Solaris not sure). However formatting drives as UDF is I believe often not that easy. (May be possible from the CLI, usually not from the GUI.) While UDF was originally invented for optical media, AFAIK there's no reason why it can't be used (or wouldn't work well) on different media. In fact because rewritable optical media suffers from the same limited write cycle as most flash memory but to a greater extent, UDF from 1.5 have added features to give something similar to wear levelling. While this isn't particularly relevant to extern al hard disks, it does have several advantages over FAT32 (notably including no 2GB file size limit). I've believed since perhaps 2004/5? that given the absence of a clear cut cross platform available by default option other then FAT* (excluding FATex64 or whatever it's called since that's problematic), moving to UDF would be a good idea but only a few people seem to have considered the same thing [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]. The difficulty formating drives as UDF, it's association with optical media and the slow demise of XP likely haven't helped. Nil Einne (talk) 16:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

How to protect a picture?

Is it possible to protect a picture that you uploaded in a a social networking site? Beyond water-marking it, is there something that can be done?--81.47.159.223 (talk) 18:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

No, it's really not. The very property that makes digital media so useful and flexible is how innately easy it is to copy, move, and change it. Whenever someone cooks up some half-brained digital rights management scheme to limit unauthorised copies of things, they make things much more difficult for people they still want to view the media, but not very much more difficult for anyone wanting to misappropriate it. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:29, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Everything you can see on the screen, you can copy. In almost all cases, Print Screen is sufficient, and a 100 % identical copy is obtained on the clipboard. In some rare cases, e.g. in some games and other full-screen applications, this is not possible. But, of course, you can always replace the computer monitor with some recording device (connect the DVI/VGA cable, from the computer, to this device instead of a monitor). If not even this is possible, you can place a camera in front of the screen. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

(Also, you can usually just turn off hardware acceleration, and this usually makes it possible to take a screenshot.) --Mr.98 (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I once ran in a race where organisers hired an events photography company to photograph each runner. They noted (whether by fancy image recognition or manual labour) everyone's bib number and you could go to their website, enter a bib number, and it showed you a photo of that person. But they made you install a special IE-only plugin to see the image, once that made a special directX surface on which to display the image (so to avoid the printscreen/screengrab), and that refused to work if you disabled directX. So they lost a huge number of people straight off, who wouldn't install the plugin, and more who couldn't, and more still who couldn't get it to work. Even if you did get it to work all you got was a small and heavily watermarked image. I later heard from a friend of mine who was involved with the race organisation that, out of about 25,000 runners, they'd sold about a dozen copies. Given that they had several (I think five) photographers on duty, they clearly didn't make money. I appreciate that it's difficult to make money when what you're selling is so easy to copy, but surely they'd have made some money had they just put the watermarked images on the web plain. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:11, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

They could have easily just uploaded a very low res version (looks okay at maybe 2x3 inches, but would look bad at a 4x6, then sold the full versions. I can't believe someone can be smart enough to set up a system with directx to do images but so dumb to realize it's unnecessary.

If you don't want something circulated at all, don't upload it anywhere. If you don't want people using it for high-resolution purposes (e.g. in a magazine, or whatever), don't upload a high-res version. If you don't want someone using something without your permission, your only real recourse is copyright law (threaten to sue), not a technical fix, and even that does not give you 100% control over the image (there are fair use exceptions). --Mr.98 (talk) 20:54, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Google search

I know the answer to this and when someone tells me I will kick myself, but how do you search google if you want to exclude results from wikipedia. BigDunc 18:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how to specifically exclude a site, but simply adding "-wikipedia" to the query has the same effect (rather more so, but if you're looking for sources in a universe uncontaminated by wikipedia, it's not a bad thing to also omit every page that even admits wikipedia exists from the search). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Google: -site:wikipedia.org whatYouWantToLookFor. Be sure to include the hyphen before "site:" or you will only get results from Wikipedia.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. BigDunc 19:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

November 2

blog-style website

I'd like to start a blog-style website, but I'm not sure which host would be right for what I have in mind. Specifically, I'd like a site that allows for very detailed categorizations of each post (sub-categories, easily make new categories, handle large quantities of categories, that kind of stuff). A setup that would allow me to automatically queue up multiple days of uploads would be nice. Adding pictures would be a bonus, but not a deal-breaker; this could be a completely text-only kind of thing. There seem to be dozens of different sites and it's hard to tell which one would be a good fit for me. Any suggestions? Matt Deres (talk) 02:23, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

WordPress can give you queued uploads, easy categories, large quantities of them, but is not so much about hierarchical sub-categories (and I might suggest that you probably don't need them—most sites don't). Can add pictures, etc. All for free on http://wordpress.com/ (you can migrate it to a private domain later if you want) and with loads of community-developed add-ons. Easy to set up. Give it a whirl! Let me suggest that 90% of a blog is just sitting down and writing it. Don't worry about the bells and whistles until you have actually proven to yourself you can stick with it for more than a week. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Content will not be a problem, I think :). Wordpress was the one I'd been thinking of, though the security problems (as raised on the article space) are a (minor) concern. I could do what I want to do without sub-categories, but it seemed an easy way of of dealing with what I'm planning. If it's not available, somehow I'll struggle on. Matt Deres (talk) 03:11, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

If you run it off of the Wordpress servers (e.g. wordpress.com hosting), the software will always be up to date, and the security will not be an active issue. For everything else, the update process is really easy. As for sub-categories... I would search around for a WordPress plug-in that did it. There probably is one. It is a very flexible, adaptable platform. (And on content... no one thinks it will be a problem, but it is usually the limiting factor. It takes a lot of time to write a good blog post, and people go through them pretty quickly... just speaking from experience! It is harder than it looks...) --Mr.98 (talk) 04:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay, Wordpress it is unless someone pops by with something better in the next few hours. I don't doubt that most blogs fail from lack of content, but I'm not planning an opinion or diary style thing, but something more like the "Strange Maps" and "What Were They Thinking" blog-style sites (both of which run on Wordpress). I've got the first 200+ posts basically done except for some tweaking and organizing, so that will buy me a bit of time before I have to start scratching my head again. ;) Matt Deres (talk) 20:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Xbox 360 backwards compatability

Well, I downloaded the disc that makes my Xbox 360 able to play original Xbox games. However, when I put in my copy of True Crime: Streets of LA (subpar game but the only original Xbox game I have), a message appears (in six languages, mind you) telling me "This is an Xbox game disc. Please put it in your Xbox to start playing." Well, shouldn't have the disc I just installed to my Xbox 360 fixed that problem? 71.213.70.217 (talk) 03:18, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Note: This was moved from WP:VPM#Xbox 360 backwards compatability. Killiondude (talk) 03:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Not all games are backwards compatible. Check out the site Microsoft lists the backwards compatible games. Your game appears to be on there, but you should check a few things.

1. Do you have the latest backwards compatibility software?
2. Is the game an American copy? Is the Xbox an American Xbox? If the regions don't match, it causes issues.

The other option is to go [9] to the 360 compatibility FAQ or go here, [10] where your specific issue is addressed. I'd start with the bold link.

Nezzadar ^[SPEAK] 05:28, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Wait a minute, there's a disc? I thought it was just like a patch or something you automatically download with every system update. I was under the impression it was sort of an invisible DLC thing. Anakinjmt (talk) 06:30, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

If your 360 is on X-Box Live, then it should happen automatically. But a surprisingly large percentage of 360 owners (The Majority!) don't use Live. APL (talk) 16:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Er, you probably don't want to hear this, but confusing game discs with film DVDs was one of the last things my first 360 did before it threw up E74/1 red light. Try swapping round other discs and seeing if the same thing happens. It may just be that disc, but even if it seems that way, it may be the console anyway; my old one only ever got confused by Mass Effect. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 14:19, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Simple C question

I've been at this for over 4 hours and can't figure out why this isn't working. I'm trying to write a simple + - * / ^ calculator that starts at 0 and increments based on user input. When the user presses the character Q or q the calculator quits but it doesn't work (among other things). The while ( (operator != 'Q' ) || (operator != 'q') ) doesn't work, but if I remove the || it works fine, and another interesting thing is that if I make this condition an if statement rather than a while, it works. I can't figure out why this isn't working. Any suggestions? -- penubag  (talk) 06:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

For your while loop, go back and think it through again (or use Boolean algebra): what would happen if the user inputs "q"? What would this code (operator != 'Q' ) || (operator != 'q') return if operator == 'q'? (answer: 1) Is that correct? What if operator == 'Q'? (answer: still 1) --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:24, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, computer code. How I remember the days when I was a computer major trying to learn Java. How you frustrated me so and made me realize that I needed to be a Vulcan to understand your logic. Anakinjmt (talk) 06:32, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems correct to me. If the user inputs either a capital or lowercase Q, that program should output the total and quit. -- penubag  (talk) 06:33, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Does it? That code checks if the user input isn't a lowercase q OR if the user input isn't an uppercase Q. Let's try a truth table:

Input	A: !='Q'	B: !='q'	A OR B	A AND B
'a'	1	1	1	1
'q'	1	0	1	0
'Q'	0	1	1	0

Right now no matter what the user inputs your while loop condition will always be true because you have it as A || B, when it should be A && B (ie. loop while input isn't 'q' AND input isn't 'Q'). --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:50, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Aghhhh...I see it now. Negative logic hurts my brain. What I was originally thinking was "is operator Q or q". Thanks for the help; I've updated my code above and just have one more bug to fix. -- penubag  (talk) 07:12, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

This is exactly what De Morgan's laws stipulate. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

It's good for you to be getting practice with logic now, but in production code you might just say "while (tolower(operator) != 'q') ..." or similar. Also, you should indent each block so you can see the logical structure more easily. --Sean 12:49, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Separately, and opinions vary, but I find the following structure to be clearer:

int main()
{
    char operator;
    double valuetotal, aftervalue, initialvalue;

    initialvalue = 0;
    aftervalue   = 0;

    for (;;)
    {
        scanf("%c", &operator);

        if (tolower(operator) == 'q')
        {
            break; // exits the for loop
        }

        else if (operator == '+')
        {
            valuetotal= add_function( valuetotal);
            printf("The value so far is %f\n", valuetotal);
        }

        // other options ...

    }

    printf("The total is %f\n", valuetotal);

    return 0;
}

This changes the structure from your:

input
test
loop:
  test
  input
output

to:

loop:
  input
  test
output

and since you don't repeat yourself on the input operation, you only have to change it in one place if it changes. --Sean 13:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Sean, your code doesn't work properly. (but mine doesn't either). Your code works until I enter an operator it doesn't understand. It says "invalid operator", which it should, but then when inputting 'Q' or 'q' for quitting, it no longer works. -- penubag  (talk)

I'm not on a system where I can test it, but my first reaction is that the scanf() is probably reading in your newline(s). If so you'll need a case for ignoring spaces, newlines, etc. Changing your error message to "printf("bad operator: '%c'\n", operator)" will help you figure out what's going on. Also read about debuggers for your platform (MSVC or gdb, probably). --Sean 17:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

That was the problem. After I add another printf("%c",c) it works fine. -- penubag  (talk) 21:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

ffshrine (2)

ffshrine is finally back up (why did they even take it down just for donations?), but it still has a problem. The download links on that site do not work. I click to download a song, but it does not start up; I right-click to download a song, but it does not download. What is causing this? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 08:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Not familiar with that site. My first thought is that, if they shut down to encourage (or for lack of) donantions, then maybe it's a bandwidth issue? Downloads would logically be a big part of a site's bandwidth, I would think, and that can get pricey. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 19:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

wavelength???

can any one guide me how can i find wavelength of the colour by its image. 220.225.98.251 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:44, 2 November 2009 (UTC).

From a photo in a JPEG file? Short answer: you can't. Even if you take into consideration all the colour space stuff, all the JPEG artifacts and the inaccuracies of cameras, a camera is only designed to capture light as we see them. A pixel records brightness of 3 colours, it doesn't record the wavelength (colour) of the scene. How do you know if orange is really orange or if it's just a mixture of red and green light? That's the long version of "you can't". --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:36, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Conceivably, a multi-spectral image or a hyperspectral image could have sufficiently dense channel packing that it could useful for estimating particular wavelengths. However, conventional images (made on consumer cameras) produce only "red", "blue", and "green" channels - which are very vague, very broad ranges of wavelength sensitivities in each channel. You could give a very wide range of wavelengths which would activate each channel, by checking the technical specifications of your camera's filters or CCD sensor response; but at best this will narrow down to a few hundreds of nanometers wavelength. If you are attempting to do spectroscopy, a conventional 3-channel "color" image will not have the required information. Nimur (talk) 19:53, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

This Kodak CCD technology review goes over the color response and shows the wavelength-vs.-amplitude response in the sensor for a particular model of camera (the Kodak DCS 620x model). In the strict sense, when you have an image, what you know is the channel amplitude (not the wavelength). So you're trying to invert from RGB to amplitude-vs.-wavelength - in other words, "go backwards" from the data recorded in RGB form back to the physical wavelengths which triggered that response. You would need to set up an inversion problem to solve for the most-likely wavelength(s) that gave you a particular RGB or CMYK value in your final image. Whether this process will work depends on many factors - how much do you know about the image source; how orthogonal are the R/G/B channels; how underdetermined is your problem; but it could be done, and it might work for certain well-controlled image processing problems. Nimur (talk) 19:59, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

If you're not aware of it already, note that although light of a particular wavelength has a particular color, it is definitely not the case that everything of a particular color is emitting a particular wavelength. In fact for most colored objects the object is emitting a range of wavelengths. Indeed, two objects can be emitting two completely different wavelength profiles yet appear to be exactly the same color. Color vision is a complex topic, due in part to the fact that eyes aren't true spectrophotometers, but are much simpler Red/Green/Blue detectors (even that's not quite correct, as it's more yellowish-green/green/blueish-violet detector, where the yellowish-green and green detectors have some activity in the violet end, and the blueish-violet detector picks up some red), which the RGB in the JPEG/GIF/etc. is trying to approximate. Unless you know that the source is monochromatic (i.e. it's from a scientific instrument - in which case see the answers above), the easiest option is to just compare the color visually with a similar photograph of the visible spectrum - the whole thing will be inaccurate anyway. Something like File:NASA_Hydrogen_spectrum.jpg is probably what you're looking for as a comparator. Keep in mind, though, that some colors (purple, brown, pink, etc.) can't be represented by a single wavelength, and need a mixture of wavelengths to produce. -- 128.104.112.149 (talk) 22:45, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

As others have correctly said - you can't do this properly. Just about the nearest you could get would be to convert the image into HSV color space (Hue, Saturation, Value) - and to observe the hue of the HSV value. If you mapped 0 (red) to 620nm and a hue of maybe around 0.9 (violet-ish) to 400nm - then I suppose you'd be getting somewhere close to something kinda-sorta right. That might get you a pure color that would look to the human eye somewhat like the color in the image source...but that's incredibly error-prone and I couldn't recommend it for most purposes. SteveBaker (talk) 02:31, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Viceo converter

Are there any open-source video converter programs that require neither codecs nor registration? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 11:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

ffmpeg, also gstreamer via gst-launch, but ffmpeg is more straightforward to use. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 13:08, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

handbrake, avidemux —Preceding unsigned comment added by .isika (talk • contribs) 13:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

diode snap-off

j'aimerai savoir ce que c'est une diode snap-off? ses structures, utilisations, caractéristiques et fonctionnement —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.204.124.12 (talk) 13:57, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Translation: I would like to know what diode snap-off is? Its structures, uses, characteristics, and function. -- Nimur (talk) 20:11, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

See Step recovery diode -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:19, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Translation: Voir Step recovery diode, en anglais. Il n'y a pas une traduction en français. Merci, gENIUS101 15:43, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

bots

what scripting language are they made from?Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 14:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you mean web bots or Wikipedia bots. They can be made from just about any of them (and are aided by there usually being standard libraries that let you do routine tasks pretty easily, like parse web content). Python, perl, and PHP are pretty common for web bots. If you are interested in Wikipedia-specific bots, see Wikipedia:Bots, especially this section for description of the many different languages that can be easily used. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

rss

I need a program that'll ding or do something to let me know when an rss feed updates. Any suggestions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 16:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I presume many of the things listed as supporting RSS at Comparison of feed aggregators can do this particularly if they are decidicated as opposed to being a web browser or some such. Having said that it appears Safari does have some notification plugin and Firefox [11] may also do notifications. Email clients with RSS support like Thunderbird would likely also support some sort of notification as they would for e-mail. The comparison page does include a column for 'tray notification' albeit most readers are listed as unknown Nil Einne (talk) 16:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I use Alertbear. F (talk) 04:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

twitter

is there a way to view/download all the tweets for a particular user? either through twitter.com or 3rd party app? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 20:14, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

No. Twitter only lets you view about the last 50 tweets by a user. After that, they get archived on the Twitter server but can't be viewed by any user.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:46, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

You can definitely see more than 50. Click 'more' at the bottom of the user's page at twitter.com. I just tried this and viewed about 200 tweets for one user. --Joe^Talk_Work 17:25, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

DOS printing

Question moved from Talk:How to print from dos to usb printer prefix:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives. Astronaut (talk) 22:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I have some DOS applications that insist on printing to a parallel printer port. However, my new printer only has USB. Where can I find a cable that can do this? (There are lots of cables that connect the computer's USB port to a parallel printer port but I need the reverse.) Alternately, are there any drivers that can fool the DOS applications into thinking that they are printing to a parallel port when they are actually printing to the computer's USB port. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.224.106 (talk) 12:19, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

You don't need a cable; DOS does not recognize USB. Assuming you have Windows XP or above, let it do the work:

• Install the printer under Windows
• In the printer properties, share the printer with a logical name
• Capture LPT1 by opening a command prompt:
  • NET USE LPT1: \\<computer name>\<printer name> /PERSISTENT:YES

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:18, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Lossy compression

I'm practically terrified by it. Well, not terror...more of a creeping paranoia. I noticed a certain song of mine had a strange buzz in the background when I listened to it through the car speakers, and thus began the paranoia.

I'm starting to become concerned about my ~600 songs. They're either bought from the iTunes music store, ripped from CDs, or occasionally one downloaded (Touché! They were songs that could not possibly be bought!). I tend to be a perfectionist, and I can't stand the thought of my beloved music becoming crappier and crappier through the years. I've read through the article about lossless data compression, but I'm still not sure I fully understand. What exactly should I go about doing to ensure that my music doesn't degrade further?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 22:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

See Lossy compression. It's a nice thought, but lossy is not lossy over time, but lossy at the point of encoding and thereafter stable. However pretty much any audiophile will prefer CD or vinyl to MP3. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Playing the music will not result in further loss. No need to worry. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:30, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

O RLY? That's quite the relief. I could have sworn reading something to this extent, though...somewhere. I'm not quite an audiophile yet, but I do prefer quality. Would the truest-to-the-original copy of a file have to be from the file itself; i.e., actually play the original CD in the car as opposed to ripping it and burning a CD? And upon ripping a CD, what would be the action to take to save it losslessly? (Tounge-twister.)

And while we're on the subject, what of images and videos? Any advice there, such as regarding scanning or taking a video?

I sure am asking a lot, aren't I? The finer details of files mystify me, like quarks mystify someone who's just taken high school chemistry. Thanks!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 00:46, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

You only get loss when you compress and make a new file (basically). So when you make MP3s from CDs, you get some loss. You don't get any additional or cumulative loss just by listening to MP3s—the loss is a one-time affair (CD to MP3 = lossy compression). If you take the MP3s and make, say, AACs from them, you get loss (this is known as transcoding—converting from one format to another—and if you go to a lossy format, you get some loss). Every time you convert to a lossy format, you get loss. And indeed, transcoding can create a lot of loss, more than just making one file with a given number of loss, because the different algorithms are taking different chunks of the data out (they aren't taking advantage of previous algorithms' "savings").

Anyway, in most cases, there's a question of how much loss you can detect. If you have not-too-great speakers, a little loss will probably not be detectable. If you are a dedicated audiophile/hi fi dude, then maybe you care. Even in that instance, there are levels of compression and corresponding levels of loss. Personally I don't really have the ear or the equipment to distinguish between CD audio and 256kbps mp3s. But some people do, or claim to.

If you really don't want loss, you have use a lossless format, like FLAC. You can get programs that convert CDs to FLAC files and let you play FLAC files. They are HUGE files though—like, half a gigabyte for one CD. Still, some people go for them. Knock yourself out...! --Mr.98 (talk) 00:57, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

And there's probably too much to discuss about images and video, though Image file formats might be a place to start (also the not so great Container format (digital) - at the very least, there are the same lossy conundrums attaching to both topics. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:04, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey, with terabyte hard drives being churned out along with iPod Classics that could eat my own computer's hard drive, anything is possible! Although, is there any easy way to convert to lossless files that an iPod could play (i.e., Apple Lossless), or will it be needlessly complicated and riddled with caveats, like every other nitty-gritty file operation has been for me?

I'll poke around the articles for image and video compression, but they aren't that much concern. Thanks again everyone!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 01:26, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

In theory you should be able to convert lossless to lossless and have it still be lossless. Apparently Max can do this. Never used it myself, though. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:57, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure FLAC is more efficient than that, after all a CD is only 700MB max. My CDs compressed to FLAC are usually 200-300MB per CD. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:00, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, maybe. I've looked at FLAC files on downloading sites and was amazed that it was basically half a gig per album. In general though I think we can just say that FLAC is about 10X more than high-quality MP3s. Which, again, is fine, if that's what you go for! --Mr.98 (talk) 13:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, raw CD audio is 10 MB/minute, lossy-compressed CD audio is 1–2 MB/minute, and lossless-compressed CD audio is 4–5 MB/minute. FLAC's compression is a bit worse than most rival lossless codecs, but it has the advantages of being computationally cheaper and completely open (patent-free with a BSD-licensed implementation). -- BenRG (talk) 15:33, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I can't really tell a difference in sound quality betwee CD and MP3. And I for one can't tell a difference between lossless and MP3. I know what it's supposed to be, but my ears just can't detect a difference. Anakinjmt (talk) 19:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I have found that some cheap brands of recordable CD's sound like crap in my car player. I can only figure that the error rate is higher. Verbatim makes some CD-R's marketed as being especially for car players, that if I remember right claim to have better temperature stability than typical cd-r's intended for use in home or office environments. I've had good luck with ordinary good brands like Taiyo Yuden. My guess is if you're hearing degraded sound, it's more likely from data errors than from the encoding algorithm. But if you're ripping your own cd's, then yeah, rip to FLAC for long term archiving, even if you use mp3 for your portable or car players. Storage space on large hard drives is practically free these days. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 01:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Windows 7 64 bit and Alienware integrated webcam driver

Hi there. Does anyone know whether there is a driver which will enable the integrated webcam in my Alienware m9750 (which came with XP) to work with my new 64 bit Windows 7? I can't navigate Alienware's awful customer support services. Cheers, SGGH ^ping! 23:57, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Its a "USB2.0 Camera" "Bison NB Pro" camera, whatever that means. Windows 7 knows that its there, and knows what it is. It lists it there under devices and printers, however it just shows a white box when I try to use it. SGGH ^ping! 00:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

November 3

Windows 7 32-bit & 64-bit DVDs the same?

Hi. I can download the images for Windows 7 for 32-bit and 64-bit. I was wondering if I need to download both images and burn them to two DVDs, or if one of them will be sufficient.

Also, I was wondering if the keys are interchangeable between 32-bit and 64-bit; i.e. if I have a key for 64-bit can I use it to install on a 32-bit computer, or vice versa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.97.244.36 (talk) 01:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not our job on the Refdesk to encourage software piracy, so you're unlikely to get a great response here. By the way, you should know that any software you get from a torrent could have a Trojan horse like a keylogger installed and you'd never know. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:34, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

No, but it is the job of the reference desk to answer questions, not throw about speculation on what the op might do with the information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 16:09, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Why assume the OP is engaged in software piracy? For all you know s/he could be a MSDN or MSDNAA user. Getting infected by trojans and keyloggers is a risk all Windows users face, no matter where they get their software from. No, the 32 and 64 bit discs are different. F (talk) 04:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but the vast majority of pirated copies of windows available on the usual torrent sites (well, minus the pirate bay now) have these integrated into the install image. Its not as simple as running a virus scan like it is with a later, not as tightly integrated, infection. --69.110.14.74 (talk) 05:11, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a fair assumption to make because I've personally got access to Windows 7 through Volume Licensing, MSDN and TechNet Plus (basically all the legal ways you can download it) and they give you the serial codes for each version/architecture and it's all very clear for which version it will work with (for MSDN and TechNet the "Keys" link is literally right next to the "Download link") However, to answer the actual question, unlike Vista, Windows 7 uses the same codes for both 32-bit and 64-bit discs. ZX81 ^talk 05:01, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Bit Torrent automatic quitting

In BitTorrent there’s an option to quit when downloads have completed. I want to know whether there is any way in which I can make BitTorrent quit automatically when the downloads haven’t completed, but the downloading has stopped because of the scheduler. Thanks in advance! 117.194.231.6 (talk) 10:15, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

How to become a good (PHP) programmer?

As of now, I can write web applications with PHP skript and mysql database that are only a tiny bit complex, say only 5 tables and 10 pages. The way it is written is probably amateurish, with more number of functions than needed etc. It would be nice if I could write complex applications. Could you please say what theoretical and practical stuff I need to learn / do in order to become a good programmer?.

The only way to improve as a programmer, like all other things in life, is to do more of it. Jump into a larger project, something you don't quite understand. There are also books that talk about coding in general and aim to sharpen your abilities. I have not read any of them, personally. I have heard that Code Complete is considered quite good. But others will have their own opinions on that. In terms of theoretical things, understanding how to use arrays and classes helps a lot; understanding how to use PHP in conjunction with Javascript is rather important to many pages these days. Again, it is better to have a project in mind than to just read the manual page, of course. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:18, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a much commoner mistake to have too few functions than too many, so you're off to a good start! Sr. 98 is correct, though: practice is the way to go. Read a little, code a little, repeat. --Sean 17:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

For one thing, try some other languages besides PHP, not because PHP is so bad, but because having experience in lots of languages will deepen your understanding. Thedailywtf.com is a fun place to see crazy errors that inexperienced programmers (a lot of them PHP programmers) make. It's possible that reading that site for a while will give you ideas of how things go wrong and what kinds of stuff to avoid. Finally, spend some time studying good code and getting a sense of what holds it together. I don't know whether MediaWiki is an example of good code, but it's a large PHP application that is pretty significant. Maybe someone else can suggest alternatives. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 01:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Football Manager 2010

What specs would I need on a laptop/desktop to run the new Football Manager game with all leagues and maximum database and with high performance? How much would such a computer cost? 81.134.2.136 (talk) 11:43, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The specs are:

Intel CPU - Pentium 4 3.0GHz
AMD CPU - Athlon 64 4000+
Nvidia Graphics Card - Geforce 7600 GT 256MB
ATI & Intel Graphics Card - Radeon X1800 Series 256MB
RAM - 1.5 GB
Hard Disk Space - 2.5 GB
Direct X - 9

Apparently... more than I suspected for a management game. The 3 gig pentium 4 is a bit more demanding that I expected, but the graphics card isn't particularly cutting edge. You could purchase the parts from reputable online stores and build yourself a desktop computer that knock that game out of the park for about (excluding monitor and/or mouse etc.) £450. I would have suggested a ballpark laptop figure if you are buying one of £400-600. Use google to convert that to dollars if you live across the pond. SGGH ^ping! 12:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Are these not the minimum requirements? I'm talking about using the maximum capacity of the game and I suspect it would require a lot more than 256Mb RAM. Where did you get this information? 81.134.2.136 (talk) 15:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the IP's right. Based on personal experience, FM manager games "work"at lower memory, but few people will put up with 10mins loading each 30 mins game-time for long. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 17:50, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the RAM mentioned refers to the vidoe adapter. --Phil Holmes (talk) 21:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Reformatted for clarity. 1.5GB of RAM is recommended. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 03:55, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

How to protect a picture II

Follow-up question to: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing#How_to_protect_a_picture. OK, it is clear that you cannot protect a picture against being copied. However, what about embedding something in the picture, so that you'll know if someone copied it and uploaded it somewhere else? That wouldn't work against "print screen", but it would work against the casual user. I am asking not for commercial purposes, but for privacy purposes. My intention is not to protect my multi-media, but to avoid that someone take my picture from a social networking site and mess with it. 80.58.205.37 (talk) 11:50, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

You mean a watermark? SGGH ^ping! 12:22, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I think they mean some kind of tracking device, so you could see who was using it. There is no such thing, sorry. There are invisible digital watermarks (like Digimarc), which are like regular watermarks but are invisible—that's about as close as it comes. Such a file will not report back to you though if it is being used and abused. Again, if you care about the privacy... don't upload it. You have no real control once it is out there in the world—it is easily copyable, editable, and so forth. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:59, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, you can use services like Tineye to find where your pictures are being used 212.140.174.46 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC).

Will Tineye work if the photo is modified? That seems to be part of the assumption in the query. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:37, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, Tineye will find pictures even when they are substantially different. The limiting factor seems to be the size of the Tineye index.212.140.174.46 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:27, 4 November 2009 (UTC).

Of course the database is also only ever going to be limited to the publicly accessible internet too. Even if it archives all that (which is obviously impossible), if someone is using copies of your picture in a nationwide advertising campaign in Nepal, printing it on T-shirts in China or it's in a TV show in Argentina you'll never know unless someone uploads something displaying your image on the internet Nil Einne (talk) 17:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The DRM article is littered with the corpses of failed attempts at exactly the kind of thing you're trying to do, worked on by billion-dollar corporations for decades. It can't be done. Your best bet is to have anyone you wish to view the media but not share it sign a non-disclosure agreement, come into a room carrying no electronic devices, view the media, and then leave. Even that method has holes. Your worst bet is to put the image on social media sharing sites. --Sean 17:53, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Why the Sandy Berger reference? Not familiar with this, and skimming the article I didn't find anything... --Ouro (blah blah) 07:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The scenario I described would be vulnerable to a Sandy Berger-style stuff-the-documents-down-the-pants maneuver. --Sean 14:30, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

How to download emails to HD from Windows Live Hotmail free account

I've searched on the web for this information and I've only found webpages that say this is possible even for the free account - they do not give step by step details, possibly because this has only become available recently. I use Windows Live Hotmail online - I might have dowbloaded and installed something relating to this but if so it does not make itself known. I am using WinXP Sp3 and IE8. So how do I actually do it please? I found something that said you should click on "Account", but I cannot find "Account" anywhere. Thanks. 78.151.90.163 (talk) 13:00, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

You can setup Outlook Express or any other e-mail program to download e-mail from your Hotmail inbox. If you want the e-mail to remain on the website, you must check the "Leave a copy of messages on server" option, otherwise the e-mails will be removed from the website during the download. --Bavi H (talk) 02:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Do HP printers refuse to print when the HP ink cartridges are past a pre-set date?

I know this happens with Epson cartridges, but does something similar happen with HP? I refill my cartridges myself. The printer is from a few years ago. I'm very experienced in overcoming various error messages (blinking lights to be more accurate). But I wonder if there is something beyond this. I do not think the older HP cartridges have chips in them, but maybe a date could be coded into the pattern of electrical contacts for example. 78.151.90.163 (talk) 13:38, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure about this? Printers generally have no knowledge of the date. My understanding of the Epson cartridges was that some of them counted squirts of ink and when the cartridge ought to be empty then they stopped firing regardless. (This is all unsubstanciated rumour). -- SGBailey (talk) 16:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

If the printer is connected to your computer by USB (or even parallel port), and you have drivers and bidirectional communication working there's no reason it can't know the date. However more likely the computer knows the date and refuses to print if the catridge has expired (so the printer itself doesn't really 'know the date' per se). The expiration date is contained in the chip which many catridges now have. Either way you can I presume hack the drivers to report a false date or in the second case to ignore the expiration date. However I saw something in the references which suggests some printers mark the catridge as bad (or whatever) so it can no longer be used without a chip resetter so you have to realise this before you first use it or your SOL. From a quick glance at these sources, it appears something like this does happen. [12] [13] [14]. It appears some printers even with the chipped catridges with expiration date do allow you to print, they just warn you. Also as you mentioned, chipped catridges also stop working when they are supposed to be 'empty'. I believe some also do other things to try and prevent refiling. What precisely your printer does will depend on the specific model and ink catridge I presume. Personally I prefer the mid range (e.g. IP4x00 line) Canon printers because of the individual ink tanks and they don't tend to be as bad (IMHO) as HP and Epson (for example they were unchipped for quite a while although my IP4300 is and they have been chipped for a while now) Edit: Looking more closely at the refs, it appears I was partially wrong. Some printers do evidentally have a battery to keep the date internally so you can't just fool it with the driver. I didn't look in detail but I presume this date is set by the drivers, but only forwards. (Although I wonder what happens if someone sets their date to bet 2020 or something and then finds their printer can't print again...) Interesting enough it appears the battery is essential in some in other words they aren't (or weren't since it's from 2005) capable of getting the date from the computer and using internal power for this. Maybe the date in the printer is set from factory, who knows, I'm not really that interested it just reenforces my believe on the evils of HP. From what I can tell from a quick Google, Canon doesn't yet do this shit, in fact I'm not even sure if Epson does [15] (and one of the earlier links) although they have other issues). P.P.S. If your printer accepts standard PS files and doesn't need special drivers then obviously getting the date from the computer is not a plausible solution Nil Einne (talk) 16:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

How do I transfer my computer's data when I get a new one?

This is a really basic question I'm sure for you guys but it's not for me. I have a somewhat older computer (c. 2004ish? can't remember). I'm running window XP, have 6 gigs (I think), and 520 megs on a Dell Dimension 2400. If I get a new computer, how do I get all my programs and data onto that new computer which will probably run Windows 7? Do I need an external device to transfer it? How do I actually do it? Spoonfeeding required. Thanks in advance.--162.84.163.33 (talk) 13:50, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

If you're asking how to move such stuff as already installed Windows software, the simple answer is that you can't. You can give it a go, and some bits might work, but finding out which they are and deleting the rest will take you longer than it would just to reinstall. If you have kept all your "data" (word processing files, mail, etc) on a separate logical drive, then you could use Clonezilla or similar to copy it all onto something external and capacious and then to copy from that into the new computer. -- Hoary (talk) 14:34, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

As said above, most "native" Windows apps cannot be simply copied, they must be re-installed on the new computer. For the rest (data, documents, media files etc):

• If you have a DVD burner, the simplest solution is to burn two DVDs and copy the data from them into the new computer
• You could buy or borrow and USB stick or external hard drive
• If you have a home network, you could "share" the hard disk on the old computer and access it from the new computer
• Assuming the computers are not laptops, you could physically put the hard drive from the old computer into the new one. This is not very complicated, and someone else can probably give you a link on how to do it, though it might be compatibility issues (but I would not expect there to be). In this case you wouldn't have to copy the data (though you might want to for security or practical reasons), the old disk would simply show up as D: or E: or something on the new computer.

As for the specific copying, you open Windows Explorer and drag-and-drop all the contents you want to keep from the old drive into the new one (for DVDs it may be slightly different to write to the DVD, but exactly the same to copy from it). This can be very slow for many files but is much easier than the more complicated methods of moving the entire partition. Jørgen (talk) 17:37, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

As for what to copy; unless you have stuck stuff in unusual places, copy everything in "My Documents". If you are someone who saves photos, documents, etc. to the desktop, don't forget those too. You might also want to consider copying your internet favorites, emails, email contacts. Also track down stuff you have downloaded (especially things you paid for). Astronaut (talk) 00:41, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

If you only have 6ish GB of data, its probably easiest is to get a USB stick (8GB or 16GB) and use that as the transfer medium. More elegant would be to set both computers up on the network and simply copy data across - with Linux and scp or rsync, that would be trivial. There are scp clients for Windows (see puTTY), but I don't know if there is easy way of getting the server (remote) site to work under Windows. Or switch to Apple - apparently Apple offers file transfer from a PC to a new Apple as a free service (but you need to take it to a shop). One of the less visible, but more impressive features of Apple's line is the ability to automatically move all user data from an old to a new Mac - when I got my last Mac, it told me to plug a Firewire cable into both machines, and some x minutes later, all the stuff MacOS-X could know about was copied over - including payware (Wolfenstein and Warcraft-III). I only had to reinstall the Linuxy Fink that lived outside the normal MacOS-X world in its own top level directory hierarchy. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally I would recommend the entire Documents and Settings folder of Windows XP. In other words all users and all data in them. This should ensure you get program data you might want like bookmarks. Some savegames too. However if you do have games (with only 6gb I would guess no), you'll need to take more care since some old games unfortunately still store data in the program directory. There are a few programs too but it's not that common they have anything important (some P2P programs are an exception) unless you saved stuff in odd places. With only 6gb I recommend you just copy everything just in case. If you're using Explorer I recommend you turn off the Hide options in Tools, folder options, view and in particular make sure you display hidden files etc. Perhaps leave out the page file, and if it exists the hibernation file. Unless you're planning to get a netbook or laptop with solid state drive, the 6gb is only likely to be a small percentage of your new HDD so your unlikely to have to worry about disc space. Nil Einne (talk) 16:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

server adminstration under linux for beginners

Basically a windows user and i'm largely a web designer. I will most likely have to co-administer a web server running linux soon. Out of curiousity I tried linux as desktop on a few occasions over the years only to go back to windows. I am being given a windows machine and im thinking of installing cygwin to learn linux commands since I forgot them. I have never administered a web server under any OS. Please say how I go about it?.

I wouldn't install cygwin for this task, as cygwin runs daemons (apache et al) as windows services, and the interface there is rather Windows specific (and a bit annoying), and I don't think it'd really help you prepare for maintaining a linux machine - and it's poor preparation for installing and removing software, managing logs, or manipulating startup/shutdown etc. Rather than Cygwin I'd install linux on the machine properly (ubuntu linux is popular and user friendly, but you should check which distribution is run by the machine you'll be managing, as redhat/fedora type machines do some things differently from debian/ubuntu type ones). You could (if you're really pushed for machines) put Linux into a virtual machine (VM ware etc.), but again you'd have some issues with bridging the network between the windows host and the linux VM, and so again you're doing work that doesn't simulate the task you want. It's likely that the server will run Apache (or maybe Websphere), so you really need to know the ins-and-outs of its config (particularly if you're used to IIS). Beyond that you'll find any number of online tutorials (but search for "red hat system administrators guide" or "ubuntu..." rather than just linux). The book "Unix System Administration Handbook" by Nemeth, Snyder, Seebass, and Hein is a decent introduction (but it's a bit shallow). I'd strongly recommend maintaining a machine running the same OS version and variant as the production machine, so you can mess around on that without fear of breaking the live site - if you only have the live machine, you'll be (rightly) scared of doing anything on it. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

You could install some flavor of GNU/Linux as an alternative to Windows, selectable via grub on boot-up. (I assume that your new computer, like most, has a ridiculously large hard drive. If your hard drive, like mine, seems to have been designed for storing pirated movies, a second OS won't cause any strain.) -- Hoary (talk) 14:39, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The Linux system adminstrator's guide used to be considered pretty good, though it's incredibly old by now. Might still be ok to help get started. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 22:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Frozen computer screens

I have a couple of pages on my computer that are frozen to the point of not responding to any commands. I can't close them at all. I can minimize them but they won't go away. I have tried turning the computer on an off, unplugging it and plugging it back in, doing everything I know how to do but I can't close the screens no matter what. They have been on for two days. What do I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.166.96.156 (talk) 15:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by pages? Do you mean windows? What do the windows (or whatever) look like? Do they have text or images in them? When you say you turned the computer on and off, do you mean that you shut down the operating system? When you turned it on again, when did the windows/pages reappear? -- BenRG (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure that you really shut down the OS and restarted it? Perhaps you only went into hibernation mode (where the computer actually is off, but the contents of the RAM are saved to the hard drive, and restored afterwards)? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Could these "pages" be generated by the monitor itself? Try turning your monitor/screen off and back on again.–RHolton≡– 05:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

CD/DVD Tray not opening.

I have a Dell C521 desktop about 3 years old and just out of warranty (Boo-hoo) which has suddenly developed the above problem - but not all the time. It plays and records fine but as before, it sometimes won't open. I have read on other pages how to stick a straightened paper clip through the tiny hole and push gently - but that doesn't work for me. So, given I use the CD/DVD facility quite a lot, do I have to replace it, and if so, will my PC recognise the new one or do I need software to make it so? And if I take the faulty one to my local PC Spares Shop (say Maplins UK) will they be able to supply a like for like player, or must I go back to Dell? Thanks. 92.8.6.118 (talk) 18:54, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Essentially all desktop optical drives are the same size and shape, and fit into the same size hole, so a cheap replacement (which should cost about £20) should fit fine. If your Dell desktop is anything like mine, actually getting the old one out might be more of a challenge than on a generic PC (I had to pull all kinds of funny little levers and remove the plastic fascia plate to get the darn thing out). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:03, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The drive will come with its own software drivers. Your regular software will recognize it. It is probably not worth trying to repair the old one. You can get internal CD-R/DVD-R drives for very cheap these days. Installation is not very hard, as far as hardware goes—it is all standardized. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

File folder read as a file

Hi, my USB stick has many folders on it, one of which computers now think are a file and ask what program to open it with. I think this occured when pulling my USB out of a computer without using the Safely Remove Hardware thing. Is there anyway of making computers realise it is a folder or should I just delete it? I can't remember how important the contents are as I don't really know whats in there. Thanks. 86.138.158.223 (talk) 21:31, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

It almost certainly really is a file. You can get this kind of thing if you execute a command like copy foo u:\bar where bar is a folder, and you expect to end up with a file called u:\bar\foo. But if there isn't a folder called u:\bar (it's called something else, or it's been deleted) then you'll end up making a file called u:\bar that contains the same thing as foo. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:36, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Try opening it in 7zip —Preceding unsigned comment added by .isika (talk • contribs) 21:39, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

mod_wsgi not loading in Apache

So I downloaded mod_wsgi for Apache (an odd .so file), renamed it to mod_wsgi.so, and placed it in the modules folder (the proper place, on Windows (which I'm running)). To activate it (it's apparently not activated by just being in the folder), I'm supposed to go into the httpd configuration file in the conf folder, where I should put the command LoadModule wsgi_module modules/mod_wsgi.so which loads it. Note that this is exactly how the others were loaded in the same httpd conf file. Now save, and restart the server to see the changes... and I get this error: "The requested operation has failed!". Now I comment out the LoadModule wsgi_module modules/mod_wsgi.so line that I added... and it works like a charm (but with the obvious side effect that the module isn't loaded).

What am I doing wrong? What should I be doing to make it work? Thanks, [flaminglawyer] 22:22, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Make sure you have exactly the version of mod_wsgi for your particular version of Apache; Apache is all too willing to barf chunks when it encounters a plugin that was built for a different version. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I downloaded something mod_wsgi's list of downloads saying it was for "(Win32/Apache 2.2/Python 3.1)". I'm running 32-bit Win, Apache 2.2, and Python 3.0. Installing Python 3.1 right now, seeing if it helps. [flaminglawyer] 22:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

3.1.1 installed, now it produces no errors on loading! Now to figure out the virtualhost things... *sigh* [flaminglawyer] 23:24, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Logout/logoff folder or script or equiv?

On Windows, is there a mechanism to force a local script or folder of commands to be executed during logoff, comparable to what happens in StartMenu/Programs/Startup?

I think that what's needed for my office could be accomplished with a .bat file, but one of the requirements is to run one of the MSOffice modules, which in turn requires interacting with the user, waiting for him to finish, save the file, exit the program, etc. So, such a file or script has to be in the right place in the logoff/shutdown sequence where such interaction is still permitted.

(In fact, what would be ideal is to prompt the user for whether he still needs to run the exit program (it only has to be run once a day), and skip it if not, but that kind of scripting is likely beyond what I can do. I know I can prompt the user with echo, but don't have a clue how to get a response and test it in a .bat file...)

This is WinXpPro, if it makes a difference.

Any advice? Thanks! --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:27, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I have not tried this, and so am not sure it will work, but this problem is described here with a solution. There seem to be other options via a Google search on windows "shut down" script. --Phil Holmes (talk) 14:55, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Got it -- thanks! Once again it's the case that knowing what something is properly called makes it much easier to search for! --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:30, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

November 4

Valid hexadecimal HTML web colors invalidated by trademark

Someone told me there are certain web colors which can't be used for making an HTML webpage by entering hexadecimal web colors because they have been color trademarked by Microsoft. Is this true? The article web colors appears to not state this, or if it does, I clearly missed it.--128.54.238.26 (talk) 06:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about that, but colors have been involved in trademark lawsuits. [16] bibliomaniac15 06:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I was well aware of that, but anyway to find out if a) Microsoft specifically trademarked colors and b) are those trademarked colors invalid as web colors (for example, if you enter them you wouldn't be sued for trademark infringement because they would not even show in the browser as the hex color you entered)?--128.54.238.26 (talk) 06:25, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The claim that once a colour (or anything, really) has been patented it can't be used elsewhere is completely bogus. A trademark protects the mark of the trade - every trademark has a relevant scope, it maybe the Cadbury purple for confectioneries or yellow for school buses, but none of this matters if you merely want to paint your house with that colour. Unless you are building a website with the intent of passing off (a real tort) as another company or being too similar to another company's trademark (definition of "too similar" isn't always clear) there isn't any reason why the law would stop you from using any colour. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:44, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

If you had a web site selling 'Microcomputers' and put it in the same font and colours as Microsoft, or otherwise made you site otherwise look very like a Microsoft site then they would have a valid case against you Dmcq (talk) 11:03, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like total B.S. to me. It would be legally unenforceable to have certain colors off limits for web browsers at a technical level, and practically pointless if not counterproductive. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

You cannot trademark, copyright, or patent a color. You can trademark the use of color. For example, I worked on a project that wanted to use a lower case sans-serif T in the logo. Blue Cross/Blue Shield stepped in and said they wouldn't complain if and only if we didn't make the lower case T blue, which would be too similar to their use of a blue +. -- kainaw™ 14:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all. I thought this was BS when I first heard it hence why I went to the Ref Desk here. It is sad that someone who claims to know so much about computers passes this off as true.128.54.238.26 (talk) 17:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a lot of confusion when it comes to trademark laws (not encouraged by many popular press articles that happily report that company X has trademarked the color orange, and don't really make clear that this is only in the context of the telecom industry, for example), patent laws, and other intellectual property issues. The underlying concepts that govern them are not really that hard to understand, but you have to make a little effort of it to really "get" them. (For those who would like to "get" them, I recommend the work of Lawrence Lessig, which is very readable, interesting, and clear.) --Mr.98 (talk) 00:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Cheapest ethernet device?

What's the cheapest thing you can buy that has an ethernet port, a few I/O lines and is programmable?

New device? Maybe an Arduino with Ethernet shield (or make your own from AVRs). As for old devices, you could find a junker PC with onboard Ethernet port and use the parallel port as I/O lines... --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Arduinos are a little pricey. A Pic based solution would probably be cheaper. This one is the cheapest ready/made solution I can find. APL (talk) 17:16, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

(Or if you want a little less do-it-yourself, and a little more finished-solution, you might look at Plug computers. The SheevaPlug looks interesting.) APL (talk) 17:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I've got a SheevaPlug - it works fine and is a very useful small server (with a large USB disk). But there must be things that are way cheaper than US$ 100... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:23, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why APL thinks Arduino's are pricey. A very quick Google search turned up the Pic with an ethernet at $51 in one-off quantities. An Arduino in one-off quantities costs $26 + $15 for the Adafruit Ethernet Shield and $12 for the XPort module...$53. I'd say that that was pretty close to a dead heat! The Arduino is a much more modern system with vastly nicer tools than the ageing Pic - and I'm much happier since I decided to switch over from Pic to Arduino for all of my little embedded system projects. What I like most about the Arduino is that the Atmel processor it's based around can be purchased for $5 even in on-off numbers - you can use an Arduino board to program & debug the thing in a friendly manner - then take the programmed chip and solder it into your own circuit board for the actual device. It only takes a resistor and a couple of AAA batteries - no other external circuitry is needed. Hence, I can have a computerized doorbell and front-door lock for about $8. However, our OP needs to be aware that neither the Pic nor the standard low-cost Arduino has very much RAM on-board - although there is some flash memory you can also use if you're very careful about how. That means that you're unlikely to be running your web site off an Arduino! It's highly suitable for things like having it measure the conductivity of the soil in the pots of your favorite plants and emailing you when they need watering...or using it to turn lights on and off in your home via email. Of course all of these applications assume that you're moderately "handy" with soldering iron and cutters - as well as knowing your way around a C++ compiler. SteveBaker (talk) 22:52, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Where did you find the XPort for $12?

Menu with back arrows, etc. disappeared on AOL

I was using AOL when suddenly that little menu below the main menu - the one with back arrows and the search window - disappeared, and the window for website got bigger. How do I keep this from happening again? Sorry if you can't understand this, I can't, either. :-(209.244.187.155 (talk) 14:29, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Wayback machine for TV programs

Is there any wayback machine for TV programs? 80.58.205.37 (talk) 16:14, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sadly no. There are various groups on the Internet that specialize in the illegal trade of old, mildly obscure television shows,(Find them on BitTorrent, Usenet, and IRC fserves.) but if you want to stay on the up-and-up, you're stuck renting DVDs. Try Netflix. APL (talk) 17:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

You can find most stuff by typing the name of what you want followed by "rapidshare.com" with the quotes.

usb is out of order

My usb is out of order .Its font portion (that is inserted into cpu )is loose,that is it frealy moves up and down .How can i get my data from it. --True path finder (talk) 18:32, 4 November 2009 (UTC) mks

USB is a universal standard for the interface between digital components. For instance, USB cables connect printers, cameras, keyboards, music players, web cameras, etc. to computers and even to each other. I guess you mean a "USB memory stick" when you say "USB", i.e. a small memory storage device with a USB connector. Also, the CPU is the part of a computer that actually executes programs. I guess that you mean "that is inserted into the computer" rather than "that is inserted into the CPU". The CPU has no USB connector. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that being pedantic about the terminology really helps anyone. It's pretty easy to see what the OP is meaning, and I doubt they appreciate the lesson in proper use of jargon. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Andreas Rejbrand is not being pedantic, just clarifying what the questioner was asking, though I agree that it is unlikely that they were asking about the bus connection to the CPU. Dbfirs 22:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I think pointing out the CPU unit has no USB connector is pedantic. Nobody thought it did. The meaning of that part in the original message was obvious. The entire response is just an explanation of why the terms were wrongly used and what the right terms are. That's what I would consider to be pedantic. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Mr.98, let's try to be helpful and answer the questions that users like this are really trying to ask, please. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, point taken. He didn't go on to suggest any helpful solution, did he? I hope the OP managed to recover his data. Dbfirs 20:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I recommend bringing it in somewhere where computers are repaired. They will be able to take a look at it and tell if you if it salvageable or not. It is hard to tell on here without a picture. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

If it really is the flash drive that is coming apart, then, yes, take it to a computer repair shop where they might be able to transfer your data onto another drive. You could try plugging it into a hub, and plugging the hub into your computer. You might be able to hold it straight long enough to copy your lost data to your computer, but if the connections inside have broken, then it is expensive (but not impossible to repair) to repair. The cost of repair might be more than the cost of a new "pen drive" but how much is your data worth? This technology is far from 100% reliable, so it is always worth keeping a backup. Don't try to write anything else to the flash drive if the connection is faulty because you might make the data harder to recover. Dbfirs 22:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

My bet is that if it is just the USB part of it, a place with the right tools could swap out the old one and put in a new one, at least temporarily, to get the data off the drive. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Firstly - if you get the data off this thing - then you toss it and buy a new one - OK? No trying to resurrect it later! Have you tried plugging it into a different USB port - maybe it's the connector on the computer that's broken? If the connector itself is loose when plugged into the computer - then you'd have to gently bend it back into shape - but that's exceedingly hard to do with USB connectors. If the connector is loose on the 'handle' part of the memory stick then you'll have to carefully dismantle it - look carefully where the pins on the connector join up with the tiny circuit board inside. You'll need a steady hand and a soldering iron to carefully join it back together to make a good electrical connection. If those things are not possible for you (or not working) - then perhaps you have a still-usable intermittent connection. I suggest you try to beg, borrow or buy a USB extension cable. Plug one end into the PC and the other into your USB memory stick. Now you can rest it on something soft (maybe use a piece of modelling clay or something) and you should be able to carefully jiggle it around until the connections meet up and computer recognises it without gravity interfering. The moment it works, get all the files you can off of it - because you may never have another chance! SteveBaker (talk) 02:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I had a USB drive which worked if you pulled it up/held it in a certain way. You may want to try wiggling it around while plugged in and see if this works before anything else although it depends on what precisely the problem is which isn't clear Nil Einne (talk) 17:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

BT Home Hub

hi,

i recently got a new BT Home Hub when i switched to BT's broadband but have been having a few problems with it. This has been in the form of very slow speeds, compared to my previous Belkin wireless router, and often an inability to 'find' the router let alone connect to it, even when the laptop is directly next to the router. Is this anything to do with the 'channels' or interference from other stuff (the neigbours have home hubs too) and will changing to a different 'channel' help at all?

thanks, --217.44.29.136 (talk) 20:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, your problems could be due to using the same frequency channel as a neighbor, and switching to a different channel could help. See 802.11#Channels_and_international_compatibility. While there are about a dozen channels (depending on country), adjacent channels overlap, so you want to be 5 or so channels apart from your neighbors. You could start by trying 1, 6, and 11 and seeing if any of those works better. Those three channels do not overlap with each other, so people tend to pick one of those three. -- Coneslayer (talk) 20:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks this has solved the problem :) --217.44.29.136 (talk) 20:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Netgear WGT624v3 wireless router keeps disconnecting

Hey guys I have a wireless Netgear WGT624v3 and it keeps disconnecting. Would changing the router's channels fix it? The only other wireless thing in my house is my phones, which is on the main floor and the router in the basement.--Loans979 (talk) 21:10, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I refer you to the previous question. In short, yes, try it. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to release/cancel OpenMP barrier?

Hi! Is it possible to end the OpenMP barrier? I have bunch of threads waiting on the barrier, meanwhile other threads are doing computation. If some runnig thread find the solution, i want to send some signal to waiting threads to cancel the barrier, resume and/or exit ... Is it possible at all? After exhausting search on internet and books I'm still unable to answer this question ... Thanks for help! Lukipuk (talk) 22:53, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

RAM prices

RAM seems to be getting more expensive every day, and this has been going on for months. Any idea what's going on? Artificial shortage? Correction after a glut? Will we return to the days of cheap ram anytime soon? About a year ago I bought a pair of 2gb ddr2 desktop dimms for $20 each shipped, and now they're at least 2x that much. But what I really want is 4gb or 8gb modules, which are much more expensive than 2gb modules on a per-gb basis as well as per module. Now that 8gb has replaced 4gb as the bleeding edge, will the $/gb of 4gb modules approach equality with 2gb modules anytime soon? 69.228.171.150 (talk) 22:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

From my experience, RAM prices are one of those things which fluctate quite a lot over the medium term (and even over the short term to some extent). In terms of the current situation, I believe that because of the recession and other factors, there was quite a big glut at the end of last year. This was met, as you would expect and as they do all the time, by a cut in production by most of the major manufacturers which eventually brings the price back up. See this ref [17] for example.

You should also bear in mind DDR2 is being replaced by DDR3. Depending on where you live, the prices may be close to equality or 25-50% more at most. Eventually DDR3 will be cheaper then DDR2 basically everywhere. I don't personally expect DDR2 to become very expensive, history with DDR and SDRAM suggests to me this is unlikely. It's going up now, but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes down again close to the previous lows (although also wouldn't be surprised if it takes a year or more for this to happen). However the gap between DDR3 and DDR2 will widen so you'd start to wonder whether the upgrade is worth it (although at 2xUS$20 and since I presuming you are living and earning money in the US it may not seem like enough to worry about).

For comparison I bought my 2x1GB of DDR in around mid 2006 (unfortunately just after prices had started to rise here in NZ). DDR2 prices had already started to overtake DDR but I already had my motherboard etc. In mid 2008 prices were significantly lower (but DDR2 was way cheaper particularly considering the 2gb sticks). However the prices were quite a bit higher then US$20 so this isn't a great comparison (since at that level it's likely difficult for them to get that much cheaper due to various fixed costs, increased capacity sticks takes over from that but as I mention later this is unlikely for DDR2).

As hinted at earlier I doubt 4gb DDR2 modules will ever be available at a decent price. For starters, AFAIK these are all ECC sticks. Producing non ECC sticks may be possible (I'm not sure, I presume at least it will need higher density DDR2 chips which one is going to bother to make) but you can bet no one is going to bother. I don't believe 8gb DDR2 sticks even exist but if they do they're likely to remain very expensive (does your motherboard really support 16gb? I doubt it if it's a typical desktop motherboard). It's similar with DDR and 2gb modules and SDRAM and 1gb modules (actually I'm not sure if the later exist but I believe so). However I'm confident in saying DDR3 will definitely have cheap 4gb modules, in fact they're likely to become the cheapest/gb as happened with 2gb vs 1gb for DDR2 etc. (Whether there will be 8gb non ECC modules, I don't know, my guess is no based again on history.)

If you really need 8gb RAM, your best bet is to use 4x2gb presuming your motherboard supports it. Else move to a DDR3 platform at some stage. Given such extreme requirements (is it for professional usage?), you may also want to consider whether a workstation with ECC RAM and motherboard may be a better bet in the future as well.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, my question was about the pricing situation in general, but the initial situation that led to the question was about upgrading a rack full of servers at work, so the cost change is substantial. 4gb ddr2 modules exist (including for desktops and laptops), though they are a bit uncommon and there is a moderate cost premium. 8gb ddr2 ecc registered server modules exist but are ultra expensive (something like: 2gb=$50, 4gb=$120, 8gb=$500 for servers; 2gb=$40 and 4gb=$150+ for laptops). An eventual migration to ddr3 is inevitable but my hope is that this ddr2 stuff still has some life left in it. Thanks. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 18:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

November 5

Mpeg vs .avi

What is better quality when ripping off a dvd. .mpeg or .avi? Also, does changing format from .avi to .mpeg assuming you always pick the highest quality affect the quality from avi to mpeg?

Reason why I am asking is because I am attempting to take clips from avi high quality rips and converting the clips to .FLV. when i convert the .avi to clipped .flv the audio and video are out of sync. But, if i convert the .avi to mpeg then create the .flv clip the audio and video issue goes away but I want the highest quality clips. Thanks 142.176.13.22 (talk) 01:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

You have to understand first that .mpeg or .avi is just a container. They do not determine the video quality. What determines the video quality is the video codec used inside the file.F (talk) 03:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

^^That was quite informative and clarified a lot of things. Thanks for the links. I'm still curious on why an .avi container to .flv does not sync audio yet a conversion from .mpeg(from the original .avi converted to mpeg) to .flV works fine. I figure it has to do with how the audio and video streams behind the container or the converter I am using sucks. Thanks for your information! 142.176.13.22 (talk) 04:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, converting between video formats is, well, still one of those "feels like we are in the 1990s" kinds of technologies. There are a million formats, a million options, and little easy way to distinguish between them other than trial-and-error. In my experience. What are you using to convert to FLV? That might be the first place to start looking when it comes to figuring out what the problem is, and what the options are. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Help with javascript please? highlighting links in menus.

Hi, i am trying to make a page on my website a little better with some javascript. I am trying to apply highlighting of links (blue) on mouse hover, and when the user clicks on the link i want it to turn a different (green) color and stay that color. As you will see by my code, i have accomplished this, but if you click a link you will notice the other links are no longer blue on hover. Why is this? is it because i used the script to make the style white, and that over-rides any other styles? Any help in fixing this little bug would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

My code is here: http://pastebin.com/m20258cb7

Thanks again!

137.81.112.220 (talk) 04:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you need JavaScript for that. You can just use CSS: [18].--Drknkn (talk) 05:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Using CSS is so much easier to achieve that than Javascript. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

They know how to use :hover, as is clear from the code. That is not the issue at hand, read it more carefully. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it seems to involve the menu1, menu2, menu3 turning it white code (if you comment it out, it works more like you want it to). I recommend, just creating a class called menulink_clicked, and then change the class of the clicked one to that (this.className='menulink_clicked'), and the other ones to regular menulink again. That way you aren't actually mucking across with the classes' stylesheet directly. I am not really sure why it is eliminating the :hover instructions you have already put in there (you don't modify them), but it seems to be ignoring them after those lines of code. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

What's happening is that initially the elements are being colored by the background-color CSS property cascading down to them from A.menulink:hover, but when you assign to that property explicitly you give the element its own individual style, which will always override the cascaded value. Your best choice is to do the class manipulation suggested by Mr. 98. If you really don't want to do that, you must re-set the style properties for each link that wasn't clicked on and handle the hovering/onMouseOver yourself, which will obviously be a pain. --Sean 17:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay so heres the deal. In honesty a friend helped me code most of what was in that page, although i have had programming and do understand mostly how it works. I attempted to make the modification suggested (menulink_clicked class) however its not exactly working as i had thought. can someone have a look and correct my errors please? :)

http://pastebin.com/m5a4111d4

137.81.112.176 (talk) 20:54, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind! i fixed it! thanks!!

Resolved

137.81.112.176 (talk) 21:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

iPhone v AppleMac Address Book

When I try to sync the Address Book with my iPhone, all the contacts are added in duplicate. Why should this happen please? Can I delete the entire contents (only) on my iPhone Contacts, and re-sync, if so how? Any advice would be appreciated please. Thanks in anticipation.--88.110.20.147 (talk) 08:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I had this problem whe I was syncing between my Mac, PC, iPod touch, WinMo smartphone, and Google... somewhere along the line, something in the name or other key information was changed and I was left with duplicate (and at one point triplicate) entries for every contact. The only effective way to fix this is to make a backup of your address book in one location, delete ALL contacts from every other location and disable syncing from the "parent" location you choose. Then get your address book sorted out, enable syncing, and wait a while for your "new" address book to propegate across devices. I also make a backup of my address book fairly frequently so if this happens, I can restore it in a few minutes. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 18:04, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

How to get Wikipedia?

I want to use whole of Wikipedia offline. I thought of downloading Wikipedia (as a whole, not as PocketWikipedia). But is is huge. So, is there a way to get it on a DVD Set or CD Set? (I am ready to pay the price, if required). My Thanks in advance. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 09:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The closest thing I could find is the Wikipedia for schools initiative, which covers about 5000 articles. Given the size of Wikipedia, downloading anything close to the whole encyclopedia would take a large number of DVDs. — QuantumEleven 12:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

You might also want to consider how up-to-date the info will be and how many of the articles will be in a vandalised state when the offline copy is made. Unless there is a really compelling reason to buy many DVDs, stick with the online version. Astronaut (talk) 12:32, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Wasn't there an article in the Wikipedia namespace that talked about the longterm possibilities of a print Wikipedia? I think I remember reading something like that, but I can't seem to find it right now. —Akrabbim^talk 12:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you mean Wikipedia:1.0? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the one I read a few years ago. Still inching forward I guess —Akrabbim^talk 13:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

3590 volumes 18 stacks

The problem with a print Wikipedia is that it would consume literally an entire wall full of shelves (see image above - and note the scroll-bar! There is more off to the right there!). Similarly, with 4.4Gbytes of article text plus an even greater number of talk pages, WP: pages and photos, it's not going to fit on any kind of dismountable media - there isn't an optical disk format or a tape that could hold it all. So you're down to needing some big hard drives or a heck of a lot of flash memory. There has been at least one successful effort to boil down the essentials to something that'll fit on a CD or DVD - but the vast majority of articles are missing and the think is practically devoid of cross-links because of that - also, all of the pictures are reduced to thumbnails that you can't expand so that many important diagrams and maps are illegible. The pocket Wikipedia is a great little gadget - but again, it's missing the pictures, the Talk pages (no RefDesk!), etc. If you're willing to pay the price - buy a Kindle from Amazon. It's not an offline device - but (at least in the USA) it uses free cellular bandwidth - so you can use it anywhere where Amazon supports the service without paying any connection fees. SteveBaker (talk) 13:52, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

You can buy 3TB portable hard drives these days. One of those would hold it all I think.

Wikipedia m:data dumps are available in a bunch of formats including static html files (those are currently somewhat out of date, and don't include the pictures). The download is a few gb, which isn't that bad (you can transfer it overnight) if you have broadband. That's a compressed archive file so it needs quite a bit more hard drive space, but hard drives are quite large these days. I've been wanting to set up a mediawiki instance and a copy of wikipedia on my home computer for a while, but haven't had the time to figure out the real requirements and install all the different software needed. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 18:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

According to the data dump site, the June 2008 HTML data dump of the entire English Wikipedia, minus stuff intentionally left out (user data and deleted content) is 14 gigabytes. That's only about five DVDs or one-seventieth of the LaCIE USB hard drive sitting on top of my computer right now, and while it's not small enough to put in my jeans pocket (as a USB stick containing every Commodore 64 game ever commercially released would be), it's certainly small enough to fit in a bag to carry on my travels. The only downside is that even with my high-speed 2 MB/s Internet connection, downloading the entire dump will take almost two hours. JIP | Talk 21:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Would an AM3 Quad Core AMD computer work OK with Ubuntu?

Would it just be a normal instal, or does it start getting complicated please? 92.29.76.195 (talk) 10:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why would based solely on the CPU but the other hardware could cause issues Nil Einne (talk) 16:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Normal install, no big deal. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 18:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

vista ram

So I have windows Vista and 2 gb of ram. Why is 1 gb of ram always used up even when absolutely no programs are in use and after a fresh install? Is vista really that ram hungry that it needs a full 1gb just to run, when windows 7 seems to be working good on 512mb of ram —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 12:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

That's absolutely right. Vista, along with all its accessory processes, normally takes up at least 1 GB of RAM. That is one of the intentions of Win7 - that it would be faster and more efficient than its bloated predecessor. —Akrabbim^talk 13:42, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

See criticism of Windows Vista. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

So if I installed Windows 7 on the same computer as my current windows vista, it wouldn't no longer use 1gb of ram it'd only use 512mb? So I'd have more free ram for programs and stuff? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 15:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

All other things being equal, approximately yes. — QuantumEleven 16:25, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Free advertising?

My friend has a forum website that really needs members. So what is the best free or cheap way to advertise it?Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 14:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Go to other relevant forums, put a link to it in your "sig", and post some quality things that will make others think you are someone they might want to hear more from? The problem is that there are probably a thousand other forums that do similar things -- you need to think about how you are going to let the small number (relatively speaking) of people out there who might be interested in it know that it exists and is worth their time. It is a non-trivial task for new sites in general, especially forums, which require an existing user base before they become seen as worth participating in. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:14, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I would be careful with something like that. It could easily come across as spamming. At the very least make sure you read the rules first. Better yet get somewhat established in the forum first before you change your sig. Even better, after getting established but before adding it to your sig, ask whether it will be okay in an appropriate place (don't link to the other forum, that will come across as spamming) unless of course it's clear that you shouldn't ask. Nil Einne (talk) 16:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

You can probably tell what is acceptable in a sig by looking at other people's sigs. --Tango (talk) 16:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

It depends. What's okay for someone who's been with the site for years may not be okay for someone who just joined yesterday or even a week ago. In particular, altho I neglected to mention this earlier my key point was that if you make a bunch of posts which people find unhelpful, offtopic or otherwise unwanted and it appears to them your sole point is to get more posts and you just joined and are advertising a site in your sig they're unlikely to be happy to say the least even if they don't normally care if newbies advertise sites in the signatures. Nil Einne (talk) 17:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I do emphasize that quality is important in such things. A small link with good posts—probably not offensive. Dumb posts, obvious spamming—not going to be effective. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:42, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I second the "reputation-based" distinction between spamming and informing. "Spam" is a tough nut to define - it's "undesirable" advertisement (whatever that means). So, if you have no reputation and you ask people to check out your cool stuff, then it probably is spam. But if Steve Baker links to his cool toys (Sorry to use you as an example), or even his commercial ventures, we might take it seriously because he's a credible, consistent contributor, and most of the time he's not trumping up his own website. When a reliable, consistent contributor does link to some external site, we take it a little more seriously than if a new guy shows up touting his own projects with every post. Then again, most mass-media advertisements are commercial endorsements from random strangers; I don't know why they work (I suspect they don't, and $385 billion worldwide are wasted each year). Nimur (talk) 18:14, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Uncompressed image file formats other than .bmp files

What other file formats are there, apart from BMP files, that are uncompressed and can be processed as a raw bit stream? I require to know the exact file structure of these formats.

The results for searching this includes:
[19], [20] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Csanghamitra (talk • contribs) 15:38, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe that, traditionally, uncompressed TIFF is the easiest uncompressed file format for developers to handle. Note that although there is an uncompressed variant of BMP, most BMP files you'll find are compressed (usually, I think, with RLE.) Similarly, some TIFF files are LZW compressed, as noted in the TIFF article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

PS: Template:Compression formats has a whole list of image compression formats that you should go through. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The Netpbm formats are incredibly simple. -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:25, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

TIFF files are commonly used by image processing people. They can store uncompressed data. PNG can store with lossless compression (but compressed), depending on whether your software tool supports this feature. Our Comparison of graphics file formats article allows you to sort by compression technique. If you're looking specifically for no compression, your options are narrowed down pretty significantly; lossless compression preserves information but is a bit more work for you as a programmer. "Anything" can be handled as a bitstream, but it sounds like you want to be able to seek to a specific pixel location without decoding any other values - that is a bitmap by definition; and you probably want a .BMP or TIFF container format. Nimur (talk) 18:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Comet Tuttle (talk • contribs)

I believe that Truevision TGA(Targa) can also be handled in a uncompressed way. But, can also use RLE, so you can't depend on any given TGA being uncompressed. APL (talk) 18:45, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Linux 64 Assembler Error

I keep getting a (Error: suffix or operands invalid for `pop') for the line (pop %ebx) when I try to compile a script for linux. I looked all over the internet and most hints state that this code is incompatible with linux 64 bit assembler. So what exactly do I have to do to compile it correctly in gcc? 70.171.22.194 (talk) 17:00, 5 November 2009 (UTC)asmProgrammer

You could try pop %rbx, but I doubt that will be sufficient. Porting x86 assembly to 64 bits isn't trivial. The calling conventions are different, structure sizes and offsets are different, and you need to understand how a 32-bit quantity is being used to decide whether it should be extended to 64 bits or not. -- BenRG (talk) 17:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If you post example code demonstrating the problem, we'll have some chance of being able to help you. --Sean 21:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Mac/Unix: Open a file from a remote server on command line

Hi all,

There is a server on my network that I have access to. If I want to copy a file to/from there, I can use scp otherserver:/path/to/file.txt file.txt. Is there any way to open up that file for editing on the command line? For instance, on my computer with TextMate installed, I can run mate file.txt. However, I cannot run mate otherserver:/path/to/file.txt. For some reason, the command tries to find a file in /Users/username/otherserver:/path/to/file.txt.

How should refer to a file on a remote server?

Thanks! — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 18:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If the other machine has TextMate installed and TextMate works over X11, then this will suffice:

ssh -X otherserver mate /path/to/file.txt

If not, this might do for you:

ssh otherserver vi /path/to/file.txt

If you're committed to TextMate and not doing this too often, this will work:

scp otherserver:/path/to/file.txt file.txt
mate file.txt
scp file.txt otherserver:/path/to/file.txt

If you are doing this a lot, you probably want to NFS-mount the directory containing the file you're editing:

ssh otherserver
   sudo sh -c 'echo "/path/to your-local-ip-address/255.255.255.0(rw)" >> /etc/exports'
   sudo /etc/init.d/nfsserver reload   # this will vary based on what the other machine is
   exit
sudo mkdir -p /mount/otherserver/path
sudo mount otherserver:/path /mount/otherserver/path
mate /mount/otherserver/path/file.txt

There will probably be some file permissions things that need some fiddling with. Some editors have remote-editing features built in, so maybe that's worth looking at. --Sean 20:48, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Help with java script (Part 2) Folding items?

You may remember my post from earlier today where i had issues with a menu highlight system using JS. Ive fixed this now thankfully, but i still need to impliment one more thing. I need to make it so that when you click each of my links, there is a function which shows the appropriate table for that specific link. I have tried to do this once before by simply googling the effect i needed, but i only managed to do strange things like unfold a table by clicking ANYWHERE on the links table, which i obviously dont want! Therefore i removed all of the extra code and decided to ask you, the pros!

What is the best way to impliment folding (hiding!) of tables until the user requests a specific table? I do want to hide all tables except the relevant one. I am including my fixed menu code for reference, with a table for an example. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

http://pastebin.com/m1266827b

137.81.112.176 (talk) 21:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)