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December 14

Need some ideas

I am helping a relative with a small business logo. How could I create a logo that involves an original picture on the internet, for free, but still w/good quality? 65.31.168.213 (talk) 00:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

What exactly are you needing help with? Do you already have a picture you want to incorporate into a logo? If you want free picture editing software Gimp (software) is the usual recommendation. If you want to create your own logo not based on an existing photo, you can also use free vector drawing software like Alchemy (software) that lets you create a logo that can be scaled up and down. Are you wanting help in finding a photo? If you're looking for general logo-designing advice I can't help, but I'm sure there are websites/other people. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

If you tell us what the business is, perhaps we can suggest a logo. Note that logos need to be simple, so 3D computer graphics are probably out anyway (although you could have a 3D version and a simplified 2D version, too). StuRat (talk) 06:08, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I guess logo was a bad choice of word to describe this. The business is a sole-proprietor bait and lure company operating out of a town in the northern Midwest. The picture will be needed for the front of the bait bag. 65.31.168.213 (talk) 01:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, you could have a happy worm smiling from a hook as a huge smiling fish breaches the water surface and gulps at it. StuRat (talk) 03:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Deleting previously-visited sites from search bar in Firefox

It should be so easy to do; I think I can't work it out because I don't know the correct terms to put into Help; whenever I start typing in the url bar, I get a menu of suggestions from previously visited sites, which is sometimes helpful, sometimes, frankly, embarrassing. How do I delete them, or stop Firefox from doing this? I'm on a Mac.

Ta Adambrowne666 (talk) 09:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

There's some advice on how to disable or configure it here. However instructions vary for different versions, so if it doesn't work tell us what version of Firefox you're using (from Help -> About Mozilla Firefox). There are other ideas about how to disable it for earlier versions of Firefox 3 here and here.

You can delete individual items in the suggestions by highlighting them and pressing delete on your keyboard (either use the up/down cursor keys to navigate the list when it appears, or put the mouse over an entry to select it). --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:03, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

If you are planning on doing some "embarrassing" browsing, you can start a private browsing session. --LarryMac | Talk 12:47, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Or use a separate profile, if you want history and bookmarks. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:19, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Worked a treat - thanks all for the informative answers. Adambrowne666 (talk) 18:59, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Dumb memory

What is Dumb memory?--Intr199 (talk) 13:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

It would depend on the context, but it could refer to memory chips (or RAM within a semiconductor) lacking any memory controller, DRAM controller, refresh logic, or other interface logic. This sense of the word "dumb" (and the opposite "smart") is common in computing, as in dumb terminal, dumb printer. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Report bug in Windows 7

Where can I report a bug in Windows 7 to? --178.208.197.76 (talk) 19:10, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

That will depend on several factors. Did you experience a program crash? If so, you should have seen a Windows Error Reporting dialog box, and you can use that interface to report the crash.

If you want to provide feedback in a more general way, you should go to http://connect.microsoft.com to provide feedback or bug reports.

Developers of new software usually head straight to the support forums at http://msdn.microsoft.com - but in general, developers know more specifically where the appropriate report should be filed. Nimur (talk) 19:17, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Open a variable URL with HTML without Javascript

Hi,

I want to read the content of a field of a HTML form and then open a URL containing the text I read from the field. Is this possible in plain HTML, without using a scripting (client- or server-side) language?

Thanks. Apokrif (talk) 20:56, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

You must use scripting of some kind. HTML is a markup language, not a scripting language. -- kainaw™ 21:01, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

And note that it would be really quite trivial to do it in Javascript. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

To continue with the unwanted help, here is how you could do it with Javascript

<input type="text" id="color" />
<button value="go" onClick="var color = document.getElementById('color').value; window.location='http://www.something.com?foo='+color;" />

TheGrimme (talk) 16:55, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

December 15

Kernel headers

What are they exactly? The article that should be about them redirects to Linux kernel, which does not explain what they are. Is there any Windows equivalent? Are there other elements which are equally important for compiling in Linux? 88.8.78.13 (talk) 02:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I see that the redirect was created on 6 May 2008 by user:Mac, who then added a section titled "Kernel Headers" which is missing from the article in its current state. Here is the old version of the article.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:15, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Kernel headers are header files that describe the C language interface exposed by the kernel. They serve the same purpose as the headers accompanying any library.

The headers are needed to compile software running on top of the kernel. In Linux distributions, they are normally distributed as part of the development package for the standard C library, which programs use instead of calling the kernel directly.

Every kernel written in C/C++ has headers. However, depending on the degree to which the C library encapsulates kernel functionality, they might not be made available to application developers, but they exist. Bomazi (talk) 09:17, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Where are the cheapest electronics?

Which country has the cheapest desktops, notebooks, etc. (not considering the salary of its inhabitants). I suppose if a country did no levy sales taxes on them, does have own factories, PCs could be very cheap. I was thinking at something about Japan, Singapore or Hong Kong. 88.8.78.13 (talk) 02:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd think China proper would be the cheapest, since they have the lowest wages. StuRat (talk) 06:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

And what about the cheapest by country/brand? Can I be sure that Toshibas are cheaper in Japan, ASUS in China non-proper, Samsung in Korea? 88.8.78.13 (talk) 14:49, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

In general a product is cheaper in the nation that creates it, yes, but not always. Some nations engage in "dumping", meaning they sell items at a loss to other nations. Why do this ? They might want to drive the target nation's own producers out of business, with the hope of increasing profits later, or the export companies might get subsidies from their government. This is not allowed under most trade agreements, but it happens anyway. Differential supply-and-demand and exchange rates might also cause unexpected prices. StuRat (talk) 03:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Speeding up Windows XP

Is there a genuine product that will speed up Windows XP.

Hamish 84. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamish84 (talk • contribs) 04:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

To speed up any version of Windows, or any other O/S for that matter, you generally want to remove things, not add them. However, there are programs which will remove some of the crap that accumulates over time, such as adware. Is this what you mean ? Also, have as little as possible running at once and reboot often. StuRat (talk) 06:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, your Windows XP installation disks. In my experience, all Windows installations seem to slow down with age. Back up your personal data (documents, photos, music, emails, etc), make a list of the programs you actually use and locate their install disks or download URLs, take note of the passwords you might have forgotten, and put all this on an external drive or optical disk(s). You are then in a position to reinstall Windows. It might also be a good time to look into adding more memory and getting a larger capacity hard drive. After reinstalling Windows you will be amazed at how much faster your PC seems to be. You will then need to reinstall your programs and put your personal data back. If that doesn't satisfy you, maybe it is time to get a new PC. Astronaut (talk) 11:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Astronaut — unfortunately, Windows systems do seem to slow down with age, at least for me, which I have always assumed was because I install a lot of software on my systems. Erasing the whole hard disk and reinstalling everything from scratch usually helps. Of course it's terribly inconvenient. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I have a computer running Windows XP which was installed in 2009, it has been on 24/7 since then and its last restart was 160 days ago according to net stats srv. I have not noticed it slowing down over time. This seems to support the theory that installing a load of junk onto a computer is the cause of these slowdowns, and not a design fault with Windows itself. 82.43.90.142 (talk) 01:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps, but you could also argue that a design that slows to a crawl if it runs anything beyond the operating system is faulty, just like a car that only runs well with no cargo or passengers. StuRat (talk) 03:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Windows may slow down if you install software and then uninstall it. Eg you install some software, use it, maybe don't like it, so uninstall it. Now the PC runs slower than it did before you installed it. This can be because the "uninstall" may leave stuff behind - which is (IMO) bad design. For you car analogy, it's like I load the car with passengers and/or cargo, drive them somewhere (perhaps using more fuel than usual because of the extra load, but that's OK) then all my passengers get out and I unload all the cargo - and now my car runs less efficiently than it did before they got in! Mitch Ames (talk) 10:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more like you are trusting someone to unload your car and they leave some of the cargo behind? I blame the uninstallers for the problem, Microsoft did not write them. Also, people install/get hijacked by horrid programs all the time, not every last bit of damage they do is cleaned up spyware removers; but, again, this is not Microsoft's fault, nor is it the antispyware programs fault, it is the user's fault and the spyware programmers fault (more the latter's really) Phoenixia1177 (talk) 10:52, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A decent operating system would isolate any download so it all goes in one folder, then delete that folder and all of it's contents on an uninstall. Things like registry entries could be placed in the same folder, with links accessing them from the registry. Also, whenever the registry finds a dead link, it should ask you if you want to remove it. Leaving it up to apps to clean up after themselves will inevitably lead to problems. StuRat (talk) 19:38, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps, but what if you have several programs using shared registry values? Or if a program changes registry values not directly created by it? You are still going to have to rely on the uninstaller and I don't think that the os should guess exactly a program will integrate into the system, I think that software designers should make programs that clean up after themselves reliably. Phoenixia1177 (talk) 12:13, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I would prohibit those type of changes, as each program should be kept separate. Just as George Washington warned of "entangling alliances", different programs sharing registry values and changing those for other programs is bound to cause trouble sooner or later. StuRat (talk) 19:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with you there, personally, I think that the option should be open to programmers, and that they are the one's responsible. I don't think Microsoft is at fault for developers using the registry poorly; I think blaming MS for this would be like blaming them for spyware being capable, its the people that make its fault. But, I see were you're coming from, and I don't think that such a system is a bad idea in and of itself. However, my personal opinion is that the OS should allow developers and users to pick their own path and that they, the users and developers, should be held responsible; and, yes, I agree that Windows doesn't fit this is all its aspects, but that's not really the topic. Sorry if I sound disagreeable, I'm typing this in between things at work:-) *Also, what you're talking about sounds a lot like ini files, which weren't so great and had their own problems. Though, you can do something like what you are suggesting without most of the issues.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 11:36, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Going back to my (somewhat modified) car example, the current system seems like a highway where there are no rules, and we just trust all drivers to do the right thing. While the majority of drivers probably would, it only takes a few bad drivers to make the highway dangerous and unusable. So, while it's the fault of the bad drivers, certainly, some blame also belongs to the lack of rules and enforcement of those rules. StuRat (talk) 19:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Getting back to practicalities, there are a number of products out there that will clean up both your registry and your file system after deleting programs using the built-in un-installer. I have found these to be effective is stopping Windows systems from slowing down over time quite so much, but they have to be used at the time of deletion and will not work retrospectively. There are any number of registry cleaners and disc cleaners but I have no personal experience of using these. However, in my experience the best thing by far to speed up an older machine is RAM, although this gets progressively more expensive per GByte as the machine gets older! Inspeximus (talk) 18:57, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Logged out of facebook on my PC ,GRAND SON LOGGED IN

I 'moved' this question from the help desk [1]  Chzz  ►  10:24, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

My grand son used my PC and is loged into my facebook. How do I remove him off my PC and re-log into my face book ON MY PC HAVE ALSO FORGOTTEN MY PASSWORD -this Granny needs help- Mrs Christine Erasmus Many thanks ,much appreciated — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.177.50.118 (talk) 10:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Go to the Facebook page. At the top there is a blue bar, and to the right of the bar you will see (from left to right) your grandson's picture, then his name, then the word 'Home', then a downwards-pointing arrow. Click the arrow, then choose 'log out' from the menu that appears. Now you will arrive at the Facebook 'login' screen. At the top right of this page there are two boxes, labelled 'Email' and 'Password'. If you remember both of these things, you can enter them and log in. If not, you will need to click 'Forgotten your password', which is just under the password box. This will take you to another page where you can enter various pieces of information to recover your password. I hope these instructions explain things ok, but if you have any trouble along the way, feel free to post here again so we can guide you through. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:15, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Do "find your phone" services work?

Family member has left Iphone in a cab. It's being reported to lost property, police and we can use the Orange number to immobilise it and block calls. It has GPS in it, so can we use that to find out where it is? Is there any point in using something like mobilelocate.co.uk? Itsmejudith (talk) 12:25, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

These services may be useful, but don't guarantee you'll get your phone back. You can read a bit about mobilelocate on their website; they use GSM network-based tracking which tells you the area to a few hundred metres; other systems use GPS which is more accurate (at least outdoors) but require an app on the phone. Mobile phone tracking has a bit of info on the different methods, or read this. All services require the phone to be turned on (they may record the last position it was used if it was switched off) which is a limitation. Many of these services, like mobilelocate, are intended for tracking legitimate phone users (children or employees) rather than stolen phones. Most services allow legitimate users to stop the service (so someone who steals it may be able to disable the service if the phone isn't passworded), and it may be possible to circumvent it if you can jailbreak the phone, re-flash it, change the sim card, etc, so a determined thief who's planning to sell the phone on could probably get around it. But if you leave it in a bar it could tell you which bar, etc. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I read the links, thanks very much, but am not sure what I can do next. We are waiting to hear from lost property whether it has been handed in, and if it hasn't then will contact the police. If not prompted, they are unlikely to do anything to track it, but if we could say "it's at this location" then they might follow that up. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

There are many phone tracking services (many free ones too, like Latitude). The problem that most people have is that they decide they want to install it on their phone AFTER they lose the phone. Obviously, you can't do that. So, it is good idea to install it ahead of time. My wife and I have Latitude running on our phones. She lost her phone. I used it and went straight to the store where it was. She left it on the counter, and a worker put it behind the counter. I found it because I tracked it and, once nearby, called it and heard it ring. If we had waiting until her phone was lost to worry about installing a tracking service, we'd most likely never have found it again. -- kainaw™ 13:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Kainaw. If only... Does anyone know if there is any possibility that an iPhone contracted to Orange would have had such software installed as standard? I don't think the owner installed anything. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

How new is the iPhone. The newest ones are supposed to come with "Find My iPhone" installed. That is a subscription service from Apple. You have to sign up with MobileMe to use it. I do not know if you can subscribe to MobileMe after losing the phone and get the phone to be tracked by it (big security issue there - what if you sign up and have it track your ex-girlfriend's phone). So, if it isn't already set up on MobileMe, it probable cannot be tracked. The main issue is that if you don't have the phone in your possession, setting up software to track it is hard. It is intentionally hard because nobody wants you to be able to set up a service to track someone else's phone without their knowledge. -- kainaw™ 15:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

With Android phones, it's possible to install locating software AFTER you lose the phone. See Plan B. I just tried it out with my phone and it works pretty well. It located my phone (which was sitting next to me) within a minute. - Akamad (talk) 22:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried the obvious ? That is, have you called the number to see if anybody answers ? If so, perhaps they would then return it to you for a small reward. StuRat (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately. Apparently on first attempts it kept ringing but then appeared to be switched off. It was fully charged. Should have heard from the cabs' Lost Property by now, but will chase them up, as that seems to be only real hope. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Somebody taking the trouble to turn it off is a good sign. Probably the ringing annoyed the cabbie, who dug it out from under the seat, turned it off, and later turned it in to lost property. StuRat (talk) 19:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Huffington Post and sign on with Google

You can sign on anywhere from anywhere these days it seems. So I tried to use Google for Huffington Post....

Huffingtonpost.com is asking for some information from your Google Account XXX@gmail.com

• Email address: Richard Farmbrough (XXX@gmail.com)
• Language: English
• Google Contacts

Er.. does that really mean they are asking for my contacts? Is this Phone hacking scandal all over again? Or am I just out of touch with the technology?

Rich Farmbrough, 21:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC).

You're of course not obligated to help Google share your private information with any other website. I would decline any such request, but I would also know that it is technically possible that Google might choose to share any of your private information it already has, even without your consent.

I'm curious which website you were viewing when you saw that request: Google or Huffington Post?

I wouldn't call yourself "out of touch with technology," simply because you're reluctant to collude with major advertisers seeking to surveillance your online activities. The less consent you give, the more recourse you will have, should anything illicit ever be shared by a web company. Nimur (talk) 22:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes I was planning on commenting on a Huffington Post column. They will be denied my sagacity. I did decline the request, while I doubt it is sinister, it does look at least misleading and at worst a blunder. Incidentally I recommend Ghostery as an anti-major-advertiser-surveillance tool. Some sites have half a dozen or more tracking bugs on each web page. Rich Farmbrough, 23:07, 15 December 2011 (UTC).

Is this Google+'s equivalent of Facebook Connect? So you can see what all your friends are doing everywhere on the internet and vice versa. (How fascinating for everyone to see.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:27, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

December 16

Quicktime media soundfile

Hello, I need help in determining if a quicktime media soundfile can be broken down to find information about when the file was recorded and/or information on the recording device such as cell phone or other. The file in question is a text mms sent through a smart phone. Any help will be greatly appreciated. :)

Thank you,

AJ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.79.110.134 (talk) 00:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe. The Quicktime container format does have support for metadata. Apple's documentation for that says there are optional metadata types for location (see the "location" secton) and creation date (see the "QuickTime Metadata Keys" section). A program called Metadata Hootenanny (which I haven't used, so can't speak for its safety or quality) claims to be able to read this metadata. None if this means that the given quicktime file you have will actually have that metadata, or that it will be accurate. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:35, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Can the government find who is behind my username?

Hi, suppose I live in a nice place that has been taken over by an Unpleasantocracy. Can the government find who I am from my edits on Wikipedia if I never edit under an IP? Let us assume they have complete control over the infrastructure within the country, but nothing outside, ie. no spies among the Wikipedia bureaucrats. On the other hand, if I do edit under an IP, I assume it would be easy for them. Am I right here? Thanks in advance. IBE (talk) 02:59, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

If you edit under the IP, then they can find out which ISP or Telco (or whoever) supplied the IP to you, and if they can access the company's records (and if the company keeps sufficient records) then they can tell which subscriber line used the IP at any time. The Unpleasantocracy probably have a law requiring ISP within their borders to store & divulge such info. Under your user name with wikipedia as a black box: they would not be able to identify you from historic edits. But, if they could do some sort of deep packet inspection on all internet packets going across their border, they could presumably catch you in action (e.g. by user name) and get the IP from the packet(s). That would be a monumental effort. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

So as I understand it, if they check everything, the moment they find a post under my username, when it's in transmission, they have the IP pretty much in front of them. Can they monitor all posts for certain keywords (eg. bomb, attack, "I hate the government") and then catch them? The article deep packet inspection you linked seems to suggest this, but I just want to check. Is that how they catch bloggers etc.? IBE (talk) 03:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Not in direct answer to your question, but you may find our article on Echelon interesting. Vespine (talk) 04:30, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Because of how packet-based transmissions work, it is very difficult to monitor all the Internet traffic and just put it back together to monitor usage. How bloggers (and idiots who call themselves "hacktivists") get caught is by sharing their information to the public on the Internet. They do things like go on Twitter and post their home town, make comments about where they go to school, make comments about where they work, and then make comments about how cool their latest blog entry or hack attempt was. Add to that the photos and it is far too easy for the government to track them down. -- kainaw™ 04:43, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I get this now. The critical factor in packet-based transmission seems to be the maximum transmission unit, which on the Internet appears to be very small. It would seem that if they had billions of dollars at their disposal just for surveillance of Internet traffic, they might have a chance, but I doubt anyone does. If anyone knows how Echelon gets around this, I would be very curious. IBE (talk) 05:27, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The NSA budget for 1997-1998 has been disclosed as $27 billion per year, and it has probably increased considerably after 9/11. I am sure they have no problem funding their multiple internet surveillance programs. There have also been sporadic news about network surveillance by intelligence services in other countries. 130.233.228.9 (talk) 09:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

On the NSA's post-9/11 efforts, see the Trailblazer Project. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia:Secure server (which uses HTTPS) would help protect your identity. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:29, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Since it seems that there may be a risk, even given the technical obstacles, I should mention that I was of course thinking of countries like Iran and China. I kept it anonymous to avoid any trace of politics, but as there seems to be no single, general answer, I thought I should lift the veil, even if it was not exactly obscure. If anyone knows anything specific, I would be curious. Thanks for the answers so far. IBE (talk) 10:48, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

In the case of Iran I'd say they definitely don't have the resources, but they don't even want people watching what we would call harmless television there (they care less about who is doing what online and more about who is getting online at all). ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:43, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, this may sound paranoid, but could they tell that you are using the https server, and start targeting just you, to see what else you might be up to? Then they wouldn't have to spot you over the whole internet - they could just eavesdrop on your IP, and wait for you to send one non-encrypted message, and they would have something. Or they could just get you on trumped-up charges if they decide they don't like https. IBE (talk) 10:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Most governments assign people to find people who are doing bad things, including using Internet to do bad things. Definitions of "bad" may include pornography, apostasy, racism, sabotoge, espionage, fraud, drugrunning, terrorism and many others, all of whose definitions vary. Methods and countermeasures also vary, thus have become a vast area for study including secret study, thus are not answerable in a forum like this one. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the MTU has to do with it. The hardest part of this kind of inspection is getting in between the transmissions. For instance, if you had access to a switch closet, you could monitor things going through it, but little else. To monitor the world of internet traffic you'd need to be at a central switching hub. Apparently this is what was done with the illegal surveilance program--they installed equipment in switching closets of major ISPs. That's not easy to do, and certainly not easy to do covertly, which is incidentally how the whistle got blown. There are certainly other ways to monitor traffic (subpoenaing wikipedia's logs would be one way to map IPs to users). If you happen to get inbetween connections and can monitor them, then dealing with encryption and the volume of traffic is your next problem. That's, if I understand it correctly, what Trailblazer was all about. Sorting through the mass of traffic to find what they were interested in. Shadowjams (talk) 08:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Question about upgrading from XP 32 bit OEM to Windows 7 64 bit in entirely new system

Hey guys and gals,

So my sister's HP desktop bought the farm the other day. I suspect motherboard failure. Since I had spare parts lying around from a recent upgrade, I decided that I would build her a system from scratch, new case, new parts, new everything; but transfer her data to the new PC. My plan is to clone her HDD from the HP computer (with an OEM version of Windows XP Home Edition 32 bit) to the new SDD, put that SDD in the new build, and then upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit) by booting from an upgrade disk to do a clean install. Will this work? The only issue I anticipate is that Windows might have an issue with the new components, but does that even matter? I'm not very tech savvy, so I'm not sure, but if I booted from the CD I should avoid any potential "activation" problems, correct?

Thank you in advance! Mtzen (talk) 05:41, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, make sure that the new system is powerful enough to run Windows 7 and that the processor is an x86_64. If you can, provide the specs here so we can all see what hardware you'll be working on. Other than that if all components work together you're good to go. What do you mean by 'an issue with the new components'? If you are referring to problems with drivers or compatibility, then you are running the risk that the system might just not work (properly). --Ouro (blah blah) 08:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this plan will work. I doubt that an old XP install will take too kindly to being cloned to radically different hardware, and it looks like you can't do an upgrade install of XP to 7 (I'm also pretty sure you can't upgrade 32 bit Windows to 64 bit). Why not just put the old HDD aside for the moment, build the new PC with a fresh copy of Windows 7 and get it all set up, then connect the old HDD up and copy off all the data you need? CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 23:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I've already copied all the data, etc. Since I have an upgrade disk, I wanted to use that to do a completely clean install of Windows 7 64 bit instead of shelling out $100-200 for a retail copy of Windows 7 or sticking with the old 32 bit XP. Essentially, this is a brand new computer, but I was wondering if I could take advantage of the fact that I have a legal Windows XP license, instead of paying the full price for Windows 7. My only concern is that XP, since its OEM, could refuse to work with the new mobo/ components and not "activate". However, I don't know if that matters when I boot off the disk. Mtzen (talk) 00:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see. If the data is already safe, that's less of a worry. You might not be able to activate Windows on the new hardware - OEM Windows licences aren't supposed to be moved to different computers. Sorry for the bad news. Does your sister have Windows-dependant programs (games, etc)? If not, consider Ubuntu. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 01:21, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

How can I download 40,000 web pages while re-pooling open connections?

Hi, for a research project I need to download ~40,000 static web pages from a research site. I don't want to inadvertently DOS the site, so I want to make sure that my script uses http-keep-alive so it can re-use the TCP connection. I'm planning on using wget like so:

 for VARIABLE in 1 2 ... 40000

 do

        wget http:my_url
 done

According to the --no-http-keep-alive section here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/manual/html_node/HTTP-Options.html
It seems that wget does that. But I'm not sure how wget remembers the last connection since it runs and exits during each iteration of the for loop. Could someone explain if it will work or if there might be a better way to do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rain titan (talk • contribs) 12:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

keep-alive is a property of the HTTP connection, which persists only as long as the underlying TCP socket does. When a process ends, its sockets are disconnected. So, in your proposed scheme, the keep-alive will be futile, not (just) because wget can't remember the keep-alive info, but because the underlying connection has already been destroyed. The keep-alive is meaningful when you make multiple downloads from the same server in the same invocation of wget; you might choose to build a list of URLs and pass them to wget -i, for example. But an altogether better way to do this is to not use wget, but to write your own download script in something like perl or python (using say pycURL) - that way the HTTP sockets are explicit objects that persist until you destroy them - and it's easier to control what gets sent. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:59, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

If you still want to use wget see Wget#Advanced examples section. It does not explain keeping the connection alive, but gives example of defining the whole set of URLs for one wget call and of avoiding DoS both on client and server side by randomizing download delays and by bandwidth throttling. --CiaPan (talk) 13:10, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about inadvertently DoSing the site. Wget only uses one connection so you will never reach the level of a DoS unless you're running many instances of wget at the same time. 82.45.62.107 (talk) 11:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

You can pipe a stream of URLs into wget, and you can also tell it to pause between requests wget -i- -w 1; I also have used --limit-rate=30k (or some number to stop it using all the internet link capacity). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Passwords?

Any tips for making strong passwords? Heck froze over (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Combine uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and numbers, with no English words. Use a mnemonic to remember it. For example, "my 2 cats names are Smokey and Alamo" becomes "m2cnaSaA". StuRat (talk) 19:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I would make that one "m2cnaS&A". HiLo48 (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, provided the ampersand is supported in passwords on the system you are using. StuRat (talk) 19:43, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Use a long password that is not specifically made of words, like "this is my password" uses only common words, and toss in a few symbols. An example is "my 100% ultra-strong password". I find that by remembering four words, I can create long passwords that I don't forget. When I'm forced to use something like 10 characters with at least two numbers and one symbol, I forget the password in about 30 seconds. -- kainaw™ 19:30, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

An anecdote: Because of the high concern of security in health data, my password for my health data password is an entire lyric from a song that I like. It takes a long time to type in. When someone asks me for something, I purposely type it one word at a time with pauses between each word. They get very annoyed and rarely return to ask me to do more of the work they should be doing. -- kainaw™ 19:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A relevant XKCD comic on this which weighs heavily towards the Kainaw approach than the StuRat approach, which is, indeed, what security experts of note advise these days. In general, passphrases are more secure than convoluted passwords. Unfortunately most secure sites of note do not support them, in my experience. (My bank won't let me make a password longer than 11 characters, and requires me to insert all sorts of difficult-to-remember stuff into it. I find this highly irritating, and I think it leads towards worse and worse practices, like using lots of the same, small, difficult-to-remember passwords on multiple sites.) For the stuff I really care about, and where I can use passphrases (e.g. with TrueCrypt containers), I pick random sentence fragments out of books I have on the shelves. I slyly dog-ear the page in case I forget it (there are enough books, and enough dog-eared pages, that retracing this would be prohibitively hard, much less figuring out which sentence fragment it was — in any case, I'm not worried about people in my house finding out my passwords). An example (not an actual passphrase of mine, but it might as well be): "it was also correct in the sense of agreeing with experiments". Long, very difficult for a computer to guess (lots of entropy), but very easy to remember, once I've written it out a few times. Even if I forget the exact phrasing, it's easy to find which sentence it was just by glancing at the page of the book in question, if I can remember even part of it. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A standard piece of advice is to turn a passphrase into an initialism. So, if a memorable phrase to you is "I am now a perfectly safe penguin, and my colleague here is rapidly running out of limbs!", you get "ianapspamchirrool", which is a reasonably strong password, seeing as there's little relationship between one first letter and the next. Paul (Stansifer) 20:29, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

But isn't that even orders of magnitude less entropy than the amount in the first XKCD example? My understanding is that these days, that is not very hard to brute force — a few days of processing or so. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

That depends a hell of a lot on who you talk to. Some people still claim that the best computers will take ages to brute-force a 10-character password that may have any of all the printable characters on the keyboard. Others have claimed to set up password hacking machines using multiple multi-GPU cards and parallelizing the whole thing. I saw one paper (wish I could dig it up right now) where a guy spent under $3000 on his password hacking box, used a GPU version of john in parallel mode, and was getting 8-character passwords in a matter of hours (not weeks, months, or years). While I don't remember the paper much, I remember bringing it up at a security conference and the experts claimed that even with 100 parallel processors, it would take months to crack the average 8-character password. So, you are left with a monstrous variance between what one expert claims and what another expert claims. -- kainaw™ 21:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A coworker just jogged my memory. The GPU password cracker came out of Georgia Tech research last year. They can do anything up to 11-characters in a reasonable amount of time (8-characters in minutes). -- kainaw™ 21:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

You can hack a password that way only if you can decide reasonably fast whether a password is good or not. For a website, you'd need to ask the site for each possibility (unless ofcourse you already have a hash for instance, but in that case you probably don't even need the password anyway). Major websites will not even allow you to try that many times, others will not be able to handle the load. "ianapspamchirrool" is much stronger than any password I've ever used, I'll switch to that :) Joepnl (talk) 02:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

When I have to general passwords for other people, who demand they be memorable, I usually use the following rubric: word number word number, where word is something I get from hitting the Wikipedia random page button and picking a word with my eyes closed, and number is from a random integer (0..99) generator (you could use random.org, but obviously it's best not to use an online source that theoretically could be intercepted). That yields stuff like christopher90bronson43, which people complain about but which they very quickly discover they can remember. That's a scheme fairly similar to the XKCD one - it's not perfect, but people do actually get reasonably strong passwords that don't appear in credible rainbow tables and that they actually can, and do, remember. For myself, especially for secure things, I use Keepass's password generator - which gives very secure passwords, but which I'm relying on a single (pretty strong) password to protect the whole lot (because storing in Keepass is a fancy way of writing passwords down, if I'm honest). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want to know the upper bound on the character space of a password the number of possibilities = number of possible characters^(number of characters in the password). So an 8 character password using upper and lower case characters and numbers has 218,340,105,584,896 possible passwords. So to crack that in a month (on average) you'd need to process 42,118,076 passwords per second. That seems high for most desktops, but the GPU and FPGA type crackers might come close. Much of this depends on what scheme the password system is using. Some, like the old zip file format, was extremely weak. Others, like most modern key derivation algorithms, are quite good.

More common crackers will use a dictionary and will adjust for common substitutions, like swapping O with 0, or changing cases, or suffixing/appending numbers. Shadowjams (talk) 05:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I use my army service number and since I left the army in 1952, I doubt that anyone (except the War Office) will know it!85.211.148.143 (talk) 19:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

How long is that service number? By restricting your possible keyspace to only numerals you make it dramatically less secure. This strikes me as a poor password choice. Shadowjams (talk) 21:16, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

would it be useful to use symbols like !@=, etc.? My current formula for passwords is to cryptically describe a math problem, for example:

(math problem) use four single number digits to make the number 20.

resulting password: 4x1#=20

4x for the four numbers, 1# representing the number of digits in each (if the digits are already specified then the 1 is unnecessary), =20 means that the 4 digits refered to earlier equal 20.

is this type of password very strong? Heck froze over (talk) 04:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

wii ip?

just curious, (i noticed my friend's wii has an IP address), do the ip addresses of nintendo wiis change? don't regular computers do this too? Heck froze over (talk) 19:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

It depends on the Internet Service Provider, who is in charge of assigning the IP addresses to subscriber devices. Some ISPs rotate IPs pretty frequently, some keep them static for years. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:50, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The Wii will most likely have gotten its IP address using a DHCP request to your friend's router. That IP address will be local to your friend's home network. Computers often do the same, however computers can also be more directly connected to the outside world, so may get their IPs from the ISP. Both Wiis and computers can also be configured with a static IP on the home network, meaning it does not change. This can be more challenging to maintain, but does allow for additional configuration options in the router, such as allowing (or blocking) certain ports for specific IPs. --LarryMac | Talk 19:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Most DHCP servers will give the same devices the same IPs back if they can. Similarly, DHCP requests can ask for a particular IP. Shadowjams (talk) 05:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Just about every device that can connect to the internet will use Internet Protocol, so essentially has to follow "the same rules". Whether it be a computer, a smartphone, a PS3 or Wii. Vespine (talk) 00:10, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Jumbo frames and non-jumbo frame devices together?

I have a small network of computers that are connected via gigabit ethernet to a switch that has jumbo frames support enabled. Most of these computers support jumbo frames also, but there are a few that don't. Is there any overall impact on the network of having non-jumbo frame computers connected? Any modern switch is smart enough to handle both type of frames at once, yes? I assume jumbo frame computers will be able to communicate with non-jumbo computers (and vice versa) — much like gigabit devices can communicate with 100Base-T and 10Base-T devices (and vice versa), right? --76.79.70.18 (talk) 21:29, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

To do this properly you need to use a routing function to do IP fragmentation. If you use Windows it may retry with a smaller size, but because the switch does not return the ICMP fragmentation required packet, it won't know there is a problem to do anything about. So the solution may be to vlan segment the switch, and route between the jumbo enabled segment and the 1500 byte MTU part of network. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:33, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

bsddb with regards to Unix and Python

I haven't heard of bsddb till recently. I'm assuming the links below are referring to the same thing.

<http://docs.python.org/library/anydbm.html#module-anydbm>

<http://docs.python.org/library/bsddb.html#module-bsddb>

<http://www.oracle.com/us/products/database/berkeley-db/index.html>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_DB>

I haven't been able to figure out what exactly it is. bsddb seems to be installed on my Mac but I definitely didn't install it. Is that because bsddb comes installed by default? Is that true on all Unix machines? Is the library on my machine Oracle's distribution? (I tried which bsddb but that didn't work).

Could anyone just generally explain bsddb both in the the context of why it's in my machine and also in terms of the Python libraries provided (anydbm and bsddb). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rain titan (talk • contribs) 23:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll try to put those in some kind of order. Berkeley DB is indeed the product currently maintained by Oracle. It is a library that provides access to databases - storage of key/value pairs in disk files with efficient lookup by key. It includes programming interfaces for C and C++. "bsddb" is a python module which acts as a bridge between Berkeley DB's C library and the python language. "anydbm" is another python module similar to bsddb but it also works with other dbm libraries (Berkeley DB's competitors, basically). The oldest unix library that did a job similar to Berkeley DB was called "libdbm", so now "dbm" is sometimes used a generic term for any similar library. The "anydbm" module is called that because it can work with any of them.

As for what's using Berkeley DB on your machine... I dunno, in the Linux world we have package managers that can answer that question directly so we don't have to ask strangers to guess. 68.60.252.82 (talk) 03:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

December 17

Apps

I'm looking for an app that password-protects the phone when it is locked (and just that), however a look through the Android Market doesn't quite give me what I'm looking for. Does anyone know of a good app that does this? 76.64.255.81 (talk) 07:46, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

This is built-in functionality. You don't need an app. Go to "Settings" then "Security" then "Set up screen lock".

You have the choice between "None", "Pattern", "PIN", and "Password".

APL (talk) 10:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Ooh, I didn't know that. Thanks for helping! 76.64.255.81 (talk) 07:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Accesing the screen's pixels from a C or C++ program

Way back in 1998, I wrote a C program for the Amiga that "decays" the Workbench screen by making randomly-selected pixels fall down. This was rather easy because the Amiga Intuition library allows direct access to a screen's pixels via the screen's RastPort structure. Is such a thing possible in Windows or Linux, and if so, how? JIP | Talk 12:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

On the Amiga, the frame buffer for the display was held in Amiga Chip RAM, which was accessible both from the CPU address space and by the video subsystem (I think Denise). A similar arrangement, but much more divorced, pertains in most modern systems, where the frame buffer lives in RAM on the graphics adapter, on the far end of a PCIx connection. It may be possible (depending on the vagaries of a given graphics chipset) to configure this same space as accessible to the CPU via a PCI window (which would mean that, after configuration, the raw frame buffer would appear at an accessible location in the CPU's address space and could be talked to by a normal C program). As a system level task, this requires the driver to configure the PCI controller and the graphics adapter to set this mapping up. DGA does this (although I'm not sure that it's really accessing the live buffer, or just a back buffer that will be flipped into display shortly) as, to an extent, does DRI. But these days it's rare for a game to do this directly, but rather they manipulate memory buffers (in main memory) with SDL or OpenGL and then have those subsystems interact with the graphics drivers to send those buffers to the video hardware for display. Modern video drivers are heavily optimised for this path, and it's much better to leave them to work than to try to directly try to muck around with remote video memory. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Even on systems where the GPU draws its memory not from a dedicated memory device but from a portion of the system memory set aside for it (as in an Intel laptop chipset, or the original XBox) it's still rare to directly access the live frame buffer, if ever. Even without the obvious risk of tearing, having the CPU's memory controller and the GPU's one accessing the same memory leads to contention - anyone who did low-level graphics on a Commodore 64 (where direct access was the rule, and page flipping very rare) knows the characteristic timing irregularities (and consequent little wobblies) caused when the VIC (the video chip) locks the CPU out while it reads a block of memory to push through its pixel generator. Even on the integrated architectures one generally writes to a block of memory (in the space the video controller knows about) that isn't live, and then makes some calls that flip registers in the GPU to make that the new live frame buffer. Again SDL, OpenGL, and on windows Direct X do this with their respective page-flipping api calls. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:40, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

As to your "decays" application, the trouble is that now the normal desktop "screen" is now one (or several) display buffers owned by the desktop manager process (on linux its the X server). So it's that, and not the video driver itself, that you're asking to give you a pixbuf. In GTK, for example, one calls get_default_root_window() and manipulates that. Its common for things like screen savers (e.g. that take the "real" screen and then distort it with swirls or slidey boxes) to get_default_root_window(), gets a pixbuf from that, and then copy that pixbuf to a buffer. Then they create their own full-screen window (which overlaps everyone else), paste that pixbuf into it, and then mess around with that. Once they're done they can just destroy their own window and the system returns to normal. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:04, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

What I'm really asking is whether it's possible to do something like my "decays" application on Windows or Linux. I don't care about the internals on how the display screen is drawn on modern systems, all I want to know is the API to manipulate the pixels shown on the desktop. From your reply, it seems like such a thing is possible with GTK. Is there a simple tutorial on how to manipulate pixels with GTK available somewhere? JIP | Talk 13:22, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Download the src dist of xscreensaver and take a look at hacks/slidescreen.c (it's plain xlib, not gtk) and the utility code it calls. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I have got as far as to write the following program:

include <X11/Xlib.h>
#include <X11/Xutil.h>
#include <X11/Xresource.h>
#include <X11/Xos.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
  Display *display;
  Window root, win;
  XGCValues theGCValues;
  GC theGC;
  XWindowAttributes xgwa;
  display = XOpenDisplay("unix:0");
  root = RootWindow(display, DefaultScreen(display));
  win = XCreateSimpleWindow(display, root, 0, 0, 256, 256, 1,
			    BlackPixel(display, DefaultScreen(display)),
			    WhitePixel(display, DefaultScreen(display)));
  XMapWindow(display, root);
  XMapWindow(display, win);
  XFlush(display);
  XGetWindowAttributes(display, win, &xgwa);
  theGC = XCreateGC(display, win, (unsigned long)0, &theGCValues);
  XSetForeground(display, theGC, BlackPixel(display, DefaultScreen(display)));
  XSetBackground(display, theGC, WhitePixel(display, DefaultScreen(display)));
  XDrawRectangle(display, win, theGC, 10, 10, 200, 200);
  XFlush(display);
  printf("Waiting...\n");
  getchar();
  return 0;
}

This opens an unnamed window (with the fancy borders supplied by my current window manager) with a white background and draws a black rectangle inside it. When I press Return to send the contents of the character buffer to stdin, getchar() returns, the window closes, and the program exits. This is just well and good, but I can't get the program to draw a rectangle directly onto the desktop. I've tried using root instead of win in the XGetWindowAttributes, XCreateGCC and XDrawRectangle calls, but then the program just opens the window (blank white) and doesn't do anything else. When I press Return, the window closes and the program exits as normal. Am I understanding the concept of "default window of display" somehow wrong? How can I get it to draw directly onto the desktop? JIP | Talk 17:55, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

No, you write directly onto the root window. I made up a little example here (I cribbed the GC code, so I can't post it here directly). That works nicely (most of the time; occasionally, for reasons I've not figured out yet, it doesn't succeed, but I can see no error). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:47, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, I copy&pasted the GC creation part of your code to my code, and got it to draw a black rectangle directly onto the desktop, not onto a window. I don't actually understand anything of the GC creation part yet, but I'll have to see whether I can learn anything about it. At the moment, it looks like this GC is now analogous to the original Amiga program's RastPort, i.e. something that I can draw on. Because the original Amiga program used the screen's RastPort directly, instead of a window's RastPort, it was even able to "decay" the borders of the currently open windows. (Of course, moving the windows around redrew their borders.) Next I'll have to try to port the actual "decaying" logic from my original Amiga program to this new Linux X11 program. JIP | Talk 20:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course, before I do that, there's one problem to settle. The Amiga Workbench screen uses indexed colour to map palette indices into actual RGB hues. In contrast, modern Linux systems use RGB hues directly. Therefore, I don't think the logic of the original Amiga program (index 0 = empty space, any other index = actual material) works any more. I'll have to devise some other logic for the program to decide if a pixel is empty space or actual material. JIP | Talk 20:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

It's easy to recover the geometry of top-level windows using XQueryTree. I wrote a recursive window-geometry-printer, which is here (note that the geometry of a child window is reported with respect to its parent, not in absolute screen coordinates). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 02:09, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

In general (not X specifically) a "graphics context" is the set of data we use for drawing - it's where we're drawing (windows and memory and sometimes clip info) and how we're drawing (drawing mode, fill mode, colours, how fat the pen is). Something analogous appears in most 2D graphics environments (including X11, Java AWT/2D, GTK, .NET). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, with your help in creating the GC, I was able to mostly port my original Amiga "decays" program onto X11 in Linux. The original Amiga program is 146 lines, the X11 program is 114 lines. (This is mostly because the original Amiga program opens its own control window, and is able to lock on to any public screen, not just the Workbench screen.) The executable binary of the original Amiga program is 7.1 kiB, that of the X11 program is 9.5 kiB. Now there are only three problems:

1. As I said before, the colour logic is now more complicated than "index 0 = background". For now, I'm using "white (0xFFFFFF) = background", but that only produces a nice "decay" effect on terminal and Emacs windows. Even the Wikipedia main page on Mozilla Firefox is too colourful.
2. Currently, the only way to stop the program is to kill the process. The original Amiga program opened a control window, and when it was closed, the program ended. But how do I know if a window I've opened is closed in X11?
3. The original Amiga program used the Screen structure to find out the current visible width and height of the screen. How do I do that on X11? Currently I've hard-coded it to 1680×1050 (the current visible size of my screen), but I'd like to make it more intelligent. JIP | Talk 14:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

1. You're assuming that all windows have the same colour characteristics; that isn't true. X is very flexible about allowing individual windows with different colour schemes to co-exist on the same screen, including mono, indexed, 24bit, and 32bit visuals, and for different windows to have different Colormaps. I've modified lschildren to use XGetWindowAttributes, and it now displays the depth of each window - on my system I have windows with depth=0 (which I guess are palettised),24, and 32.
2. You have to listen for events, and when you get an event with type ClientMessage and data wmDeleteMessage then you've been closed
3. One way is to use XGetWindowAttributes or XQueryTree to determine the geometry of the root window. You can also use XRR and Xinerama calls, for more complicated cases.

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

For the first part: My program now works by randomly picking pixels from the root window, whose visible size covers the entire visible display. What window is currently actually shown at that pixel can be any window. I'm currently using XGetImage and XGetPixel to read a 1-pixel image from the root window at that pixel's coordinates, and then reading the 24-bit colour of that image's only pixel. (According to what I've read from the Internet, there is no way in X11 to read a pixel directly from a window.) This returns a 24-bit RGB hue regardless of what actual window is shown at that pixel. If I then use the logic "0xFFFFFF = background, anything else = foreground", then pixels fall through white (0xFFFFFF) spaces and stop when they hit pixels of any other colour. Now what I've understood from your post, the actual windows can internally use indexed colour, just like the Amiga Workbench screen, it's just X11 or my video card or something that ultimately draws everything in full 24-bit colour in the end. If this is true, then I would need to be able to find out if the topmost window at given coordinates (in regard to the entire display) is using indexed colour, and if so, what is the colour index at that particular pixel. This would then allow me to figure out if it's index 0 (background) or any other index (foreground). Then there's the further matter that because the pixels move in regard to the root window, a pixel grabbed from one actual window can very well drop down to another, where the logic about what is considered the background would change. JIP | Talk 17:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, forget about the other windows' colour formats, as you only care about the root's colour format (it would be a different matter if you were querying the data of non-root windows). If you want to know what window is at a given screen coordinate, you can adapt the lschildren example to build a geometrically-queryable data structure (or look at the source of xwininfo). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:06, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, even though I understood what you meant by X11 allowing each window to have its own colour format, I found that my program treating everything as full 24-bit RGB colour works, so there has to be something mapping all those colour formats to full 24-bit RGB colour, this appears to be the root window. I guess I could make the program work better with indexed colour windows by actually treating them as such, but then it would become much more complicated. Different windows with indexed colour might even have different RGB hues as the background colour, which would mean that my program would have to keep track of not only the foreground hues of each falling pixel, but of the background hues as well, and switch them when the pixel falls off its original window. But if I were to extend the colour logic beyond "0xFFFFFF = background" to "pale (high value, low saturation) = background", then I would have to keep track of the background hues as well, but at least I wouldn't have to find out the actual windows shown at each pixel's coordinates. JIP | Talk 19:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Image licencing

I have a technical problem and there may be other issues, but I am unsure where to turn. I am trying to use the "copy left" (GNU- COMMONS-PUBLIC DOMAIN photos for an online class. They are supposed to be usable by everybody, but I have a problem using alt tags for my ADA students because it seems that wikipedia tags are not removable, yet the proper citations are present. If the materials are not really "copy left" then I will not use them, but if they are I need assistance with removing the tags or allowing them to alternate with my own descriptions of the photos. BTW Wikipedia and the page are cited under the photo as in a book. I hope this is not a legal issue because the licensing then needs to be revised if wikipedia is claiming them as proprietary and not as stated in the licensing. Aleca Smart/ Frank Monteleone — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aleca Smart (talk • contribs) 16:15, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Questions:

1. Which image(s) are you talking about?
2. Remember than public domain and GFDL are not at all the same thing
3. Not all images on the English Wikipedia are freely licenced (GFDL/cc-by-sa); some are fair use
4. Wikipedia doesn't own the copyright of any of the images it hosts, and can't give you advice or grant you permissions over and above those given in the licences on the specific image pages.

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:22, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Sortable html table

Can I create a sortable 3x3 table in html? if so, how please? Kittybrewster ☎ 16:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The easiest way is pairing HTML up with jQuery. This article has a nice writeup on several jQuery plugins for sorting HTML tables. TheGrimme (talk) 17:04, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Opening Two Excel 2007 Files

How is it possible to open two Excel 2007 files simultaneously and have them both visible on the screen at once? Cheers! KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:16, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

To have two windows instances of Excel, simply click on Excel in the start menu once the first instance is already running. From there, click File -> Open to open your spreadsheet. TheGrimme (talk) 17:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Cheers, that worked. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

If you are using Windows 7, once you have the two windows open, you can drag them to the left and right edges of the desktop to snap them into a side-by-side view. -- 24.254.222.77 (talk) 18:03, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

problem with flv files

Windows Movie Player is the default on my computer for playing flv files. But I've tried to play several flv files in it, and they always show 7 seconds of black, and that is all. I downloaded Adobe Flash Player 11 and rebooted, but I can't figure out how to use it for flv files. If I right-click on a flv file, it doesn't show Adobe Flash Player as an option to "open with". I would like to associate flv extensions with Adobe Flash Player, but I can't figure out how to do that either. (Adobe Flash Player plugin shows up in the control panel.) How can I get Adobe to be the default for flv files? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Adobe Flash Player, despite its name, isn't a media player - it's just Adobe's name for the Flash browser plugin. Instead, install VLC media player, which will play .flvs, and just about anything else, and the setup for which will offer to associate it with whatever media types you like. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

Thanks, that solved my problem! Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

skype works but not add contacts

I have a netbook gifted by a relative,but when i have tried to use skype it works on it and shows active contacts but whever i want to add new contact it gives the message of no net connection but actually my connection works fine.I have un installed skype and re installed it again but get the same.plz help me solve this problem--True path finder (talk) 22:48, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

December 18

Forcing www on a domain

Is there any way (using DNS alone) to redirect anyone who visits http://domain.com to http://www.mydomain.com? I am aware of .htaccess hacks, but I was looking to do this through domain settings alone. Thanks --Chachu207 ^{talk to me} 00:35, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

You can do this on a CNAME record, but is not a generic redirect for all possible names. Perhaps you can use a javascript proxy.pac or proxy config to do this for you for the generic x.com -> www.x.com. Or not so long ago there was a DNS hijacking hack that altered peoples DNS settings to point to a bogus DNS server that directed people to an ad service. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Though if you are going to do such hacky things, why not just use .htaccess? It's really a pretty easy option, as far as they go. I would do that well before I started using Javascript as a solution here... --Mr.98 (talk) 13:49, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Android app permissions

Hi, on a Samsung Galaxy tablet, presumably the "Modify/delete USB storage contents" app permission refers only to any additional storage I might attach via the USB adaptor, does it? (And why isn't "read" mentioned, I wonder?) I mean, all apps can presumably use the onboard storage to their heart's content, can they? But they can never read other apps' onboard data? 31.53.244.201 (talk) 00:36, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, strange, I was just reading someone's reply to this, when now I notice someone else has just deleted it (here). Was that intentional? I thought it seemed a good answer. Did someone think it was incorrect? 31.53.244.201 (talk) 04:21, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know why it was removed, but I've restored my answer. APL (talk) 06:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

What you've said is essentially correct. The permission in question is "android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE", which allows writing to both external USB drives and SD cards. I believe that reading external storage does not require a permission. (Never tried it actually, but there isn't one on the list.)

As for onboard storage, yes, each app gets a data folder that is it allowed to read/write to, but no app can access another app's data folder. APL (talk) 02:27, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I had accidentally deleted the two preceding comments due to fat fingers on a mobile device, and apologise profusely. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:11, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

No problem. APL (talk) 07:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Not by some strange coincidence a Galaxy tablet using an app that requires the permission to modify/delete USB storage contents I guess? BTW the ability is rather useful since if you have a mobile device with a small amount of built in flash storage which despite the ultra low price of flash memory, some manufacturers seem to prefer for the lower end models, having the device store the data on the SD card rather then the built in memory is often preferable. From what I can tell, at least as of 2.2 and I believe 2.3, cards don't get the ability to store data on the SD card, even when you use the 'move to SD' function of Android. The data and some other 'essential' stuff is still stored on the internal storage (unless you root or otherwise modify the way your phone works). Of course some apps, despite allowing you to store the main game content on the SD and requiring the permission, seem to think it necessary to store 15MB of data on your internal storage. Yes I'm thinking of you Plants and Zombies (unless that's changed in a new verson)! Note that even if you have a more decent amount of storage, with some HD Gameloft? apps which use over 1GB (from what I've heard) of game content, being able to store on the SD is likely still useful to quite a few. Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, my tablet has 32GB onboard storage, and no SD slot. I presume it would be possible to add more external storage via the USB adaptor but I have not tried it and would hope I never need to. Incidentally, that brings me to another question. When I connect the tablet to my PC via the USB adaptor, I see all the tablet's (visible) file system laid out in Windows Explorer, and can drag and drop and stuff. However, am I safe in assuming that this does not work the other way? In other words, apps on the tablet cannot ever see my PC's file system while connected (i.e. they don't see it as some sort of huge external storage device)? I certainly would not want that. (Gratuitous plug: the Galaxy 10.1 is one seriously sexy piece of kit...) 86.181.205.216 (talk) 21:44, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

That's correct. Most tablets are set up to work as a "mass storage device", so from the PC's point of view they act like a thumb drive or similar. That does not work the other way.

It wouldn't at all be theoretically impossible to make this work, but it would require special software specifically for that purpose on the PC.

(However, if your tablet came with special drivers you had to install on your PC, we can't guarantee those drivers aren't doing something strange, but such an unusual feature would probably be prominently advertised. ) APL (talk) 23:47, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks APL, really appreciate your advice. 86.181.205.216 (talk) 00:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Screen Resolution

My 15.1 inch Dell laptop comes with Windows 7. The screen res has gone haywire for some reason. When I go to Display--> Screen Resolution, the display dropdown box shows "Generic PHP Monitor on Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" when it should actually show "Mobile PC Display". As a resut, I can't select 1366x768 res, and am forced to select 1024x768 res instead, which makes my screen looked stretched. Please Help. The mobile pc option just isn't there. How do I make it appear? 117.226.214.236 (talk) 13:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

You might try re-downloading and re-installing the display drivers. The exact one will depend on your computer model, but check the "support" section of the Dell website, find your laptop model on there, and there should be drivers to download. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Another possibility is that you have both built-in graphics that handles the lower resolution and a graphics card that provides the higher res. If the graphics card has gone bad, then it reverts to the built-in graphics display. If the graphics card is permanently damaged, it would need to be replaced. However, if it just jiggled out of the slot, then pulling it all the way out and pushing it back in should fix the problem. This is especially likely if you dropped the laptop or struck it recently.

Unfortunately, laptops aren't made to be user-serviceable, so taking it apart to check this out is risky and might cause other damage, so you might want to take it to a computer repair shop. However, before doing this, by all means try to reinstall the driver, in case that's the issue. StuRat (talk) 19:35, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

To find the driver, you might have got a DVD from Dell containing the drivers. Failing that, look on the bottom for the service tag and enter that into the support area of the Dell website for your country. You should be able to download the driver from there. Astronaut (talk) 05:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

macros/scripts

What language would be used to code macros/scripts that clients use to perform automated tasks with web pages? An example of such a task would be parsing the source code of a series of pages and retrieving information in or between certain HTML tags. Another example would be using data from a database to repeatedly fill in and submit a form, assuming there is no CAPTCHA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.156.10.14 (talk) 17:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Almost any language can be used for that; the tasks you describe are pretty straightforward in Python. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

And all of this can be made quite easy if you find a good web crawler/client class library for whatever language you use. One I have used for PHP is the Snoopy class, which makes automating form submission/data retrieval/cookie setting/etc. quite easy. I am sure there are similar class libraries for whatever language you want to use. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:48, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

HOW TO SAVE A PRINTER OUTPUT FROM A TASK MACHINE INTO A FILE

I have a task machine. The output from which is only available through a printer. Is there any device or method to save the data through the printer port into a file along with the printout. I am unable to modify the machine.I thought of connecting a two-channel device to the printor port and then connecting a printer to one of the channel and a new device to the other channel. So that I can save the data coming through the printer port into the device. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.2.182 (talk) 18:49, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Questions:

• What do you mean by "printer port"? Do you mean a parallel interface, or USB, or what?
• What kind of printer is (or was) on that port (make, model)?
• When you say you can't modify the machine - does that mean it's something like a cash register or factory-automation-thing, or is it a desktop windows PC that you simply don't have admin rights over?
• Why do you want to do this? Is it because the printer is broken (and a replacement can't be sourced) or because you want to save jobs as well as print them? What do you want to do with the saved jobs? That's important, because it affects what kind of data you want to store.

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Why ./ needed to run a compiled C programs

In Linux, why do I need to type ./a.out to run a compiled C program and not just a.out? --178.208.197.76 (talk) 19:13, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe ./a.out means to run a.out in the current directory, while a.out means to search through the directories in the $PATH environment variable for it. Normally, the current directory is the first directory defined in the $PATH variable, but not always, so there can be a difference. StuRat (talk) 19:19, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

That is correct. If you just type a.out, then Linux will keep searching for a.out in every directory in $PATH until it finds one, and then execute it. If it doesn't find one, it will print out: a.out: command not found. But if you type ./a.out, then Linux will only search for a.out in the current directory, and if it finds it, then execute it. For some reason which I don't remember at the moment, the current directory (.) isn't in the path by default in Linux (even though it is in Windows). In theory, there's nothing stopping you from adding . to $PATH in Linux, in which case just typing a.out will work, but it might go against some design principle that I don't remember at the moment. JIP | Talk 19:25, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

It's a security hole. If . appears in the path, it should be the last entry, otherwise it is possible to trick a user into running a trojan by giving it the same name as another program. Looie496 (talk) 19:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Note: All this is true for any program in Linux, not just compiled C programs. It's a basic principle of how running programs in Linux works. JIP | Talk 19:41, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

And when you're saying Linux you really mean bash. Shadowjams (talk) 20:29, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know those things hold true for every commonly used shell. Looie496 (talk) 22:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

"Used shell" Looie? Why doesn't it work in a new shell? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.69.150 (talk) 14:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Reps kops. A Finnish expression for laughing so hard you bang your head on the table. JIP | Talk 15:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

a.out

Firstly, thanks for all your answers to my question above. I'm now wondering why the default output file from cc is a.out? Is .out the equivalent of .exe? If I rename the file or give it as a command line option, does it have to have the .out or any other extension or will any name do? --178.208.197.76 (talk) 21:43, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

It's an anachronism from at least the time of the PDP-7 in the late 1960s. The .out name scheme might very well have meant something back then, but now it's totally lost, and the only time you'll ever see it is this one weird case. We have an a.out article, which notes that the name was also used for the format of all compiled C executables (on some platforms), but now a.out persists only as a name. It's the C compiler's vestigial tail. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) The article a.out explains that the name is short for assembler output. There is no linux filename suffix corresponding to the .exe of Windows, your file may be called anything you like, as long as you make sure it has the file attributes of an executable file (chmod 755 filename). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

chmod +x filename would be better as it doesn't change the r & w permissions from your configure default. Astronaut (talk) 04:58, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

December 19

Display is cut off

Dear Wikipedians:

I have assembled my Zotac mini-PC and linked it to my Insignia 42-inch TV via HDMI. Everything works fine except the display seem to be cut off at the edges, as shown in the photo I took below:

File:ZotacTV.jpg

Is there anything I can do to fix this problem?

Thanks,

L33th4x0r (talk) 02:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Check your TV's settings to make sure "Overscan" is set to zero. APL (talk) 03:16, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, under Control Panel + Display, you may have some options for resizing or moving the display (depending on your graphics card). It might be worth trying other resolutions, too, as some might work better than others. StuRat (talk) 04:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Does that on my TV as well unless I turn off 'overscan' on the TV's menu. Astronaut (talk) 05:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Apache, MySQL and PHP

Can I run Apache, MySQL and PHP on a computer with no Internet access, having them process only locally hosted files, for the purpose of learning PHP and SQL? Of course, the programs would be downloaded from a computer with Internet access and transferred through a thumb drive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.19.150 (talk) 09:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's a very reasonable thing to do, one that many people do when they're learning web technologies. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:03, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Depending on your OS, the easiest solution may be to download a full WAMP package rather than trying to install each of them individually. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:50, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Writing stories by computer

I've always been fascinated by the idea that one day we will be able to read stories written by a computer/AI. While I was browsing the web I stumbled on this thesis, which was published in 1976. They must have made some progress in the last 35 years! Could anyone tell me, if they did, where I could get some information on this line of research? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 09:30, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, the original TALE-SPIN program has been lost. But the field of AI research it began is progressing, slowly but surely. It's now usually called "Interactive storytelling" or similar. (Not "Interactive Fiction", which is something else.)

There's a wiki here on the subject.

At the 2010 Game Developer's Conference I attended an hour long panel on the subject, and I see that they're selling audio from that presentation for $4. I remember being fascinated, but I don't remember if talk itself was any good, or if I was just fascinated by the concept, so I can't promise that it's worth buying.

Hope this helps. APL (talk) 11:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Difficult-to-remove folders with random names, Windows 7

After installations and Microsoft updates, folders with random names like "3286eb5992e84d4ec46ad5" are sometimes left behind on my largest drive. When I was using Xp, I just deleted such folders. With Windows 7, this turns out to be more difficult. Here's what happens:

1. I right-click on the folder, choose delete.
2. Windows replies: "Are you sure?"
3. I click "yes".
4. Windows says (translated from Norwegian): "Folder access denied. You need administrator privileges to delete this folder", and displays three buttons, one with a blue-and-yellow shield "Continue".
5. I click "Continue".
6. Windows starts counting files, but then displays a message: "You need permission from SYSTEM to change this folder". Buttons: Try again and cancel.
7. Trying again just redisplays the dialog.

So the question is: How do I get SYSTEM privileges, and remove the folder. Surely, this is junk? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 09:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Those are used by the Windows System Update, so if you're got pending updates waiting to be installed or otherwise dealt with you should not mess with those folders.

If you're absolutely sure that Windows System Update is not doing anything, and has somehow left those folders behind accidentally, they can be deleted after you take ownership of them. APL (talk) 11:58, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Is there a Facebook app that matches me up to users with the most common interests?

Omegle has something like this, but sadly, it only pairs me up with users at random, who may or may not have the same interests as me.

Then I met a young lady from California who shared about 55 interests with me! I was too busy counting, so she nexted me, sadly enough. (Some of you would even cut yourselves over this, but if something was meant to be, it was meant to be.)

These interests would be fanpages that we subscribed to.

Now would anyone please help me find an app that matches me to anyone with the most common interests? I have every confidence that in this way, I could find a (true) love at first sight! --70.179.174.101 (talk) 10:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know of any apps like that, but I wouldn't recommend facebook for getting to know people, especially potential mates. You learn very little about their actual personality (which you would be living with), the degree to which they have those interests, and what organizations they are part of. People rarely put stuff like school gangs in their profile... 99.43.78.36 (talk) 19:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Local Apache/MySql/PHP access

Can I run Apache, MySQL and PHP on a computer with no Internet access, having them process only locally hosted files, for the purpose of learning PHP and SQL? Of course, the programs would be downloaded from a computer with Internet access and transferred through a thumb drive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.19.150 (talk) 10:33, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Title added. Yes, use the IP address 127.0.0.1, aka localhost. This is an alias for "the machine I am currently using". CS Miller (talk) 10:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The same question was asked an hour before. Shadowjams (talk) 12:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Move similar programs in the taskbar independently

In Windows 7, similar programs join together on the taskbar. For example, if I open three instances of notepad they all lock together, and when I move one, they all move. I also cannot move the third instance of notepad in front of the first, because they all move together. This is annoying. In taskbar properties I set it to "never combine" ages ago but this doesn't affect the behavior I am describing. How can I set it to move them each independently? 82.45.62.107 (talk) 16:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you have notepad "pinned" to the taskbar? If you do I think it will do the behavior you're describing. If you "unpin" it (right click on the icon and the option's there) you'll have to open it from the start menu or some other way, but it should behave how you expect. If you want it on the taskbar you can reinstall the Quick Launch bar which isn't in the default Windows 7 setup but is still there (without needing additional add ons). To use it you right click on an empty part of the taskbar, go to Toolbars > New Toolbar, and put "%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch" in the field. (cite).

If you do both of these things your taskbar will behave much closer to XP than the default Windows 7 settings. Shadowjams (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood. I am not talking about program shortcuts, I am talking how programs which are running and active are being organized in the taskbar. Maybe I haven't explained it properly so here is a picture of what I mean. When I try to move one of the notepads, they all move. I don't want this, I want to move them individually. For example, I might want paint to be in-between the first and second notepads. 82.45.62.107 (talk) 19:08, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Converting an FLV to an MPEG-4 Pt. 10 AVI using mencoder: audio out of sync

Hello,

I have a long (more than an hour in length) FLV file encoded using the On2 VP6 codec that I'd like to convert to an AVI encoded with x264 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 10). I'm able to convert the video using mencoder, but the audio becomes increasingly out of sync as the converted video progresses (the audio is ahead of the video). The source FLV appears to have a number of duplicate frames, which may be the source of the problem.

I've tried the following mencoder commands based on recommendations in the MPlayer/MEncoder manual and a few threads online:

mencoder input.flv -o output.avi -of avi -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame

mencoder input.flv -o output.avi -of avi -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame -noskip -mc 0

mencoder input.flv -o output.avi -of avi -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame -noskip -vf harddup

mencoder input.flv -o output.avi -of avi -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame -vf harddup

Unfortunately, none of these produce a video without the audio synchronization problem.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 16:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)