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December 16

Windows XP driver for caching index of removable drives

Does a driver exist for Windows XP that would save the last seen directory structure of removable drives, so that the folders and file names could be browsed even when the drive isn't connected? This would be very useful with various USB memory sticks and external hard drives. Search frameworks like Google Desktop might be able to give a sort of a snapshot, but I'm looking for an ordinary view in Windows Explorer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.228.7 (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Conway's Game of Life

< moved from Village pump Julia Rossi (talk) 10:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC) > < moved again from Entertainment desk TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)>

A question for those who know Conway's Game: are there any P60 backrakes under the rule B3/S23? If so, please draw it out below or on my userpage. As an example, here is how a glider would be drawn:

**0**
***0*
*000*
*****

Lucas Brown (talk) 04:18, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

That's a question for the Wikipedia:Reference Desk -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

For reference, he's talking about Conway's Game of Life. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions for a good printer...

Does any one of you know of a good, reliable and inexpensive printer to replace that crappy Epson Stylus C90 my family uses at home? I get pissed off at this piece of crap every time it jams a piece of paper or warns me of low ink. Whenever one of the colour tanks runs dry, it locks up and forces me to buy another tank in order for me to continue printing. And that one ran low again after a few sheets. Sorry for venting out my disappointment over the company here, but what do you think? Blake Gripling (talk) 14:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I love my HP PhotoSmart C6280 All-In-One printer. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The HP printers I've used have the ability to continue printing when one of the ink cartridges runs dry, although with lower quality, as would be expected. However, I've never seen any printer that wasn't subject to constant paper jams. I've resorted to feeding in one sheet of paper at a time, which seems to stop this. StuRat (talk) 17:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend any printer that has built-in duplexing. You can print on both sides of the sheet and therefore save paper. (Personally, I like the HP D5360 -- it's the only one at that price that has built-in duplexing). --70.167.58.6 (talk) 18:20, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Though duplexing is a sure-fire thing for paper jams after awhile. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Unless you need to print colour, go for a mono laser printer - a single toner cartridge will print thousands of pages. Exxolon (talk) 23:20, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I have a laser printer and a free color printer that came with some computer I bought. 90% of the time the laser is all I need. Eeeevery once in awhile I need something in color, and pull out the color one. If you don't need the color, just grab a cheap laser, and keep the color printer as occasional backup. Easy solution. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

My Epson C86 printer never jams paper. The problem may be the paper not the printer. Also mind the Laser Printer Health Hazards. If you like it loud, slow, ugly and cheap: There are still some Dot matrix printers around ;) --94.79.143.154 (talk) 23:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Game programming

Hello/HALO,

I was starting game programming and studing basics but came across a problem in which environment I should programme.Is XNA or DirectX or OpenGl or any another.I just want to know which is best(may not easy) and other which is easy(may not best). -- 122.163.15.188 (talk) 15:27, 16 December 2008 (UTC)Harshagg

I think OpenGL is easier to work with than DirectX, but perhaps it is only a matter of taste (and I am not an experienced game developer). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If you want to develop 3D games for the Microsoft Windows platform, then probably DirectX is the better choice, though. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Performance depends on driver, Microsoft provided slow OpenGL driver to support its own DirectX 3D. Id Software successfully uses OpenGL. MTM (talk) 17:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

DirectX does a lot of the work for you and is easier to develop for. OpenGL is far more flexible, but requires more brains. Compare Unreal Engine 3 (DirectX) vs. ID Tech 5 (OpenGL) --70.167.58.6 (talk) 18:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi! I'm an actual game programmer! Graphics is my speciality.

Most Windows/XBOX games are written in DirectX - this is not an easy ride for many reasons - but that's how it is. XNA is pretty much ignored (and a good thing too!). OpenGL is the only portable graphics API and it's also the only game in town for Linux, MacOSX, iPhone, Google Android phone - and it's the graphics API for things like Nintendo DS and Playstation are more closely modelled on OpenGL than on DirectX. DirectX has some severe problems because it's a Microsoft-controlled standard and they can make life arbitarily difficult for you...hence, for example, if you want to use such nice features as Geometry shaders or Texture arrays, you have to have DirectX 10. DirectX 9 won't do. Unfortunately, in a typically Microsoftian move - they refuse to publish DirectX 10 for Windows XP - you need Vista. But far more games players are running Windows XP than Vista - so most games writers are 'stuck' on DirectX 9. In the OpenGL world, there are nice extension mechanisms that allow individual hardware vendors to add features to the API without help from the OS vendor. Hence, OpenGL under Windows XP has both geometry shaders and texture arrays if your graphics card is "DirectX 10 capable". That's a bloody ridiculous situation. So with all of that information at hand - you'd think it'd be a slam-dunk and we'd all be using OpenGL. But not so. Sadly, DirectX has enough momentum behind it on two of the most dominant games platforms that people tend to stick to DirectX - despite all of it's many faults.

IMHO - it doesn't much matter which you learn initially - you're going to need to know both of them if you want to be a low-level graphics engine programmer. However, if you're going to work with (say) the Unreal Engine - you'll probably quite rarely go near that low level. Unreal provides it's own 'portability layer' over the top of DirectX, raw Xbox, bare-to-the-metal Playstation, etc. You program mostly using the portability layer and you don't give a damn whether it's DirectX or OpenGL or raw register access commands. On the very rare occasion you delve that deep - consult the DirectX/OpenGL manual!

The huge complexity of all of these API's is also way overstated and I strongly disagree that there is any complexity difference between them. These days you load textures, load shaders and DMA triangle meshes at the hardware as fast as possible. This is probably 10% of the respective API's - most of the other 90% is stuff that's obsoleted by shader technology and may safely be ignored and looked up in the manual in the unlikely case you'll ever actually need it. Shader technology has superceded a lot of old junk like "how do I draw a dotted line?" - well, you certainly don't rummage deep into the DirectX/OpenGL manual...you draw a regular line and write a shader to make it dotted.

In addition to the graphics API's - you need to get REALLY familiar with the shader languages - HLSL, Cg and GLSL. They are very similar to one-another but the small differences can kill you - so pay attention to those tiny differences!

SteveBaker (talk) 04:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That comment was really insightful. Thank you steve. -- penubag  (talk) 09:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Google Chrome as Default Browser

Is there a way to make Google Chrome the system's default web browser? The button "Make Google Chrome my default browser" under "Settings" does not work. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The button did work when I executed Chrome as administrator. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

...because to modify "system" settings you need to have administrator rights. --grawity 20:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but it is really bad designing (of Google), not to make the "Administrator Rights" dialog box appear when clicking the button. It appears just as if the button didn't do anyting. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

That's MS' fault, not Google's. Awful web browser mind. :L — neuro^(talk) 23:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that would be Google's fault. I'll give an analogy. MS is a fruit basket, and your default browser settings are an apple inside of the basket. Google is your mother. Your mother can tell you about the apple, or not. If she doesn't tell you about it, you don't know about the apple. But this doesn't involve MS at all - they just supplied the apple. flaminglawyer^c 01:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Or..... to put it in another way, when you try changing the default browser and fail because you don't have the right to do it, there should be a dialog box that pops up and (helpfully) says "You have to be logged in as an administrator to do that". At least then you know why it's not working. Belisarius (talk) 01:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Except with an apple, and my mother. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

back to the question at hand: If Chrome won't change the settings I am guessing that you are running Vista and the UAC (User Account Control) won't allow you/Chrome to change it. Right Click on the "Default Programs" (should be on your start menu, but you can also find it in the Control Panel) and pick the run as administrator option. Hope this helps. Ched Davis (talk) 10:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Thumbs

My main Music folder is subdivided into folders by artists, for music I got off CDs, plus a folder for downloaded music, which is further subdivided by artist. In each of these artist folders, in the downloaded music folder only, there is a little gear icon labeled Thumbs. I don't know how these Thumbs got there or what they do or if they mean anything at all. My music has been transferred through two other computers, an mp3 player, and an iPod, before finally ending up on this computer, and these Thumbs seem to have popped up somewhere along the journey. Are they actually anything, do they serve a purpose, or can I just delete them? Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 16:56, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you are using Windows (any version), then this file is the thumbnail cache. To delete the file, go to Tools>Folder Options, then the View tab, then check the "Do not cache thumbnails" box. The file should disappear. If it does not, you can delete it manually, as it's from your other computer.  Buffered Input Output 17:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Or you can do the same as above but instead select "hide protected operating system files" or uncheck "show hidden files and folders". Both of these won't delete the files but will just hide them. All the thumbs.db files do is store thumbnails of images in a folder so they can be viewed quickly when the folder is opened. SN0WKITT3N 17:56, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. So if I delete them, nothing bad will happen? Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 00:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

No, but if you don't do as mentioned above, they will be recreated the next time you reopen the folder. — neuro^(talk) 00:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Difference between a "method" and "function" (in context of C#)?

I am new to C#. I read somewhere a method is void whereas a function is a special kind of method which returns a value. I always thought they were synonymous!! On googling I got all kind of answers without proper explanation. Please provide an answer with valid references if possible!! :P --Sanguine learner (talk) 17:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter which term you use. Anyone who gets confused isn't worth worrying about. They probably spend all their time worrying about other important things like arguing that if you put a RAID card in a JBOD, your JBOD is no longer a JBOD. -- kainaw™ 17:31, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Come on! There has to be something more to it. --Sanguine learner (talk) 17:50, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

In the object paradigm for programming, objects have methods. In languages that have their roots in a procedural language like C++ and C# (which are based on C), methods are implemented exactly as one would implement a function. As Kainaw says, those who concern themselves about magical rules to differentiate between certain terms are way too pedantic. --LarryMac | Talk 18:21, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Lets clear up some of the terminology (this is very brief and very general):

• A subroutine is some portion of code that is generally separate from the main program, that performs some specific, often repetitive, task. Procedures, methods or functions are slightly different kinds of of subroutines.
• A function is a subroutine that takes some amount of input and produces some output. This is very much like the concept of a function in mathematics. A good and simple example is the square root function, sqrt(). It takes a number as input and produces output that is the square root of the number (so if you use the call "sqrt(25)", it returns "5").
• A procedure, a term used in procedural programming, is simply some code that have been stuffed in another place so you don't have to repeat it all the time. And if you need to alter it, you only need to do so in one place. Say you have a computer program that's controlling an elevator, then you might have a procedure called "goToFloor()", which makes the elevator go to a specific floor (call "goToFloor(5)", and it goes to the fifth floor). There are several different reasons an elevator might go to a specific floor (someone might have pushed a button in the elevator, someone might have pushed the call-button on the fifth floor, someone might be controlling it remotely, or maybe the elevator is set to go the first floor whenever it's not in use, as that is where people are most likely to enter). The code for this procedure may be very long and complicated (as it has to control many different motors and electronics and lights and things), so it's very handy not to have to type it out four different times, for five different parts of the code. It cuts down on the error-rate (since you only have to get it right in one place), and if it ever needs to be updated (like if new hardware has been installed) you only have to do it in one place.
• A method is closely related to the procedure (the terms are sometimes used synonymously), but the word tends to be used in object-oriented programming. In OOP, you use objects, and a method acts directly on a specific object. Say you are making a racing game with several different in-game cars. Each car is represented as an object (the definition, or blueprint, for an object is called a "class"). So say you have an object called "car1", and you want it to accelerate. Then you'd type (different languages use different notation, not sure what C# uses) "car1.accelerate(25)". That would accelerate "car1" to 25 km/h. Now, if you typed "car2.accelerate(25)" it would accelerate "car2" to 25 km/h, but it wouldn't do anything to "car1". The method specifically belongs to an object, not necessarily to the the whole program.

As I said, this is a very brief and general overview of what the different kinds of subroutines do, and many times the line is very blurry. Say for instance that the elevator function, goToFloor, returns a value, maybe how many seconds it will take to arrive on the floor or whether or not the move to the floor is successful. Is it a procedure or a function? Well, it's kinda both. It's a function, because it returns a value. But it's also a procedure, because it actually does something, not just fidgets with the input and returns a value. Or what if you have a procedure that acts on a specific object, like a method, but only by using the object as an input (like "accelerate(car1, 25)"). And what if it returns some value? Is it then a method, a procedure or a function?

While it is good to have the lingo down, it is much more important that you understand what is actually going on. Whether you call something a "subroutine", "function", "procedure" or a "method" (and we haven't even broached the elusive co-routine!) doesn't necessarily matter. Just understand what a subroutine does, what its purpose is, and how to write them. If you do that well, the specific name of what type of subroutine isn't all that important. Belisarius (talk) 23:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I think this may be a confusion between C# and Visual Basic. The documentation (I only have 2003, but I don't suppose it's changed that much) in the Visual Basic Language Concepts section Procedures Overview defines amongst others the following:

Sub procedures perform actions but do not return a value to the calling code.

Function procedures return a value to the calling code.

Property procedures return and assign values of properties on objects or modules

The C# documentation says:

C# makes no distinction between functions and procedures, as Visual Basic does. A method either returns a value or returns void. The syntax for declaring a C# public method is:

// C#

public int ConvertMatterToEnergy(int matter)

{

// Conversion code goes here.

}

(Visual Basic and Visual C# Concepts: Method Implementation in Custom Controls).

Therefore in Visual Basic, there is a distinction between functions which return a value but sub procedures which do not; but in C# there is no such distinction. C# methods (which are equivalent to functions and procedures in Visual Basic) can return a value or not return a value. Read the above Wikipedia links for more details on what a function, method, etc actually is. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 16:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Knowing the difference between function and method is knowing the difference between procedural and object-oriented programming, and I think it's great that Sanguine learner wants to understand the difference. Anyway, if you're doing OO, you can safely use them interchangably since method is a subset of function. That is, a method is a type (oops! don't want to use that word) kind of function that is a member of an object. I'll also (incorrectly) use class and object interchangably even though they are not the same thing. In formal and semi-formal writing, I try to be more precise in my terminalogy. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 20:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The simple answer: A method is a kind of function that, unlike a normal function, has an implicit context upon which it operates.

Examples:

• C library functions, such as fread(), have no implicit context.

int f = open("foo",O_RDONLY);

read(f, buf, 10);

Here, everything needs to be explicitly passed to the functions.

• Compare the fstream:read() method

fstream f("foo", fstream::in );

f.read(buf, 10);

Here 'read()' is a method of class 'fstream' in which the implicit context (upon which methods of the class operate) is the class instance (i.e. the object 'f').

Here 'read()' doesn't have to be passed 'f' because 'f' is the context within which 'read()' operates. Inside the code for the 'read' method, the 'this' operator automagically refers to 'f'.

Explicit versus implicit:

If you disassemble the code calling the C function, you will see 'read' being called with 'f' as the first argument because that's how you explicitly used it.

If you disassemble the code calling the C++/C# code, you will see 'read' being called with 'f' as the first argument, even though you didn't explicitly do that.

Get it? -- Fullstop (talk) 21:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

BTW, I do not believe that Fullstop's answer from above is technically correct. A static method is still a method and it doesn't have a this parameter in C#. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 20:07, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow thanks everyone. Well I guess I am getting it but its still quite blurry. I got the book again and here is the definition it gives (not very clear).

• Method is a set of one or more program statements which can be executed by referring to the method name.
• Function is a set of statements that perform a specific task in response to a message.

So I guess I conclude they are similar but the meaning depends on the context? Frankly speaking still confused... :( --Sanguine learner ^talk 17:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

No offense to Fullstop, but I would ignore his answer. While it's technically correct, it's only going to confuse a beginner. The simplest definition I can give you is that a function is what you call a subroutine in procedural programming and a method is what you call a subroutine in object oriented programming. That's it. Function = procedural programming. Method = object oriented programming. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 23:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

x86 assembly programming

I have a few questions about this:

• Are functions such as MOV AH, 09h INT 21h part of DOS or part of the BIOS?
• Is it true that 0B800h:0 is the memory mapped location of the colour video?
  • How would I access 0B800h:0?

Thanks, *Max* (talk) 17:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC).

int 21h handler is provided by DOS. Ralf Brown's Interrupt List is useful for such things. 0B800h:0 is the location of character mode memory of CGA-compatible graphics cards (for graphical mode A000h:0 is used), it can be accessed with B800h in segment register, assuming real mode addressing. MTM (talk) 17:41, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. A few more questions:

• How much/which parts of the real mode address space is memory mapped?
• Which mode do most programs use to access memory beyond the first meg?
• How does the BIOS find interrupt handlers?

*Max* (talk) 02:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The real mode address space does not have one standard layout, IBM reserved some memory mapped areas in Upper Memory Area. A part of memory beyond the first megabyte can be accessed in real mode -- High Memory Area. A much more popular way is using protected (or long with AMD64) mode. Interrupt handlers are described in detail in the INT (x86 instruction) article. MTM (talk) 14:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is a memory map. Icek (talk) 05:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

data storage

Where are all the emails and account information literally stored for yahoomail,hotmail,friendsters or similar websites.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crackhead1331 (talk • contribs) 18:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

On enterprise data storage devices (big rack-mounted arrays of RAID disks) in their respective data centers. Some of these are located in big metropolitan areas like Silicon Valley and London's Docklands (Telehouse), but increasingly they're being built in places where land (and labour) is cheaper and power is plentiful - see this article for example. A large internet outfit like those you list will have several, geographically distinct, data centres, often in different countries. 87.114.128.88 (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

How do I clear a Yahoo toolbar?

I have just updated Java and the update seems to have installed a tacky and definitely unwanted tool-bar. I did not ask for this pesky, damned thing to be installed but for the life of me I can't find a way to uninstall it. I use Firefox. Can anyone advise me how I can get rid of this thing? Please. Richard Avery (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you're on Windows or Linux: Right-click the bar at the top that has File - Edit - View - History, etc. A thingy will come up that has a list of toolbars in it with checks/unchecks beside them. Just click the Yahoo! toolbar and it should disappear. And to uninstall it, go to Tools → Add-ons and it should be under the Extensions tab. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 21:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

It just happened to me in Firefox 3, and I got rid of it by clicking View > Toolbars > Yahoo! Toolbar (unchecking it). Dendodge Talk^Contribs 21:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Damn, that's it!! So simple, how embarrassing is that. Like some doctor or other once said, "Diagnosing a patient is easy - it's thinking of the diagnosis in the first place that is difficult". Thanks Flaming lawyer and Dendodge. Richard Avery (talk) 22:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Windows games

Are there any downloads for the original (pre-Vista) versions of Hearts, Solitaire, Minesweeper, Freecell, and Spider Solitaire? 58.165.14.208 (talk) 19:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Not legally, at least, since they are copyrighted by Microsoft. — neuro^(talk) 23:27, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

But if you wait until the copyright(s) expire, you can get them free of charge. (Note that the copyrights will not expire for another 50 years or longer, depending on where you live.) flaminglawyer^cneverforget 23:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Way to be a pedant... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

There are many clones. I have the same games, just with a different name, on my computer - all downloaded from the Fedora repository. -- kainaw™ 23:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure this would work... If you have the disks for the older version of Windows, try to unpack the hearts.exe, solitaire.exe etc. from the relevant .cab file on the CD. In Vista, you can run programs in "compatibility mode" (one of the tabs on the program properties). However, I suspect you might have to pull some .dll's over as well. Astronaut (talk) 18:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Wrong Disc Inserted error after patching SWBattlefront 2

once i install the update, the game comes up with this error:

Wrong disc inserted. Please insert the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 CD/DVD.

I know its a SecuRom error message, and i've already disabled my Virtual CloneDrive. I got the game at a Scholastic book fair. I want to update the game, because the mod tools dont work with v1.0 can someone help me?  Buffered Input Output 22:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

December 17

Remote Linux options

I do a lot of work remotely. I start on a Fedora box, SSH to a BSD box, SSH to a Debian box, and then SSH to another Fedora box. I primarily do everything from the command prompt, but sometimes tunnel X. What other options do I have to make this rather easy. I know I can run KDE through a tunneled X to see the remote desktop on my local screen. I've seen a Java applet that fakes a KVM to show the screen and give keyboard/mouse controls remotely. I will be increasing my remote work to become most of my work during the next few weeks, so I want to know what I can do before I choose what I will do. -- kainaw™ 02:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm by no means an expert, but have you tried using VNC? It works quite well for me in getting remote access to the desktop. You should probably tunnel it through SSH though, it's not all that secure otherwise. Belisarius (talk) 15:08, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't consider VNC before because I couldn't connect directly to the host machine. I just found out that there are VNC reflectors that I can put on the in-between machines to make it work. I wonder how slow it will be. -- kainaw™ 17:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

computer

I have a pop up on my screen, that says this screen saver may not be compatable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.35.250.63 (talk) 03:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

1. You haven't given us very much information. What kind of computer? What operating system? Exact text of the message? When did it come up?

2. Most questions related to errors or messages can be solved by Googling the exact phrase of the message and looking at some of the results. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

And there's quite a few viruses that infect by getting people to put on a nice screen saver. It's called social engineering. So do you really need a new screen saver in the first place? Dmcq (talk) 06:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

But, if you don't install the screensaver, your computer won't be turned into a bot to send out spam and some guy in Pittsburgh won't be able to order his fake Viagra pills from South Korea. Can you live with that? -- kainaw™ 17:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Next Upgrade for my Computer?

What would the best upgrade for my computer considering the performance boost relative to the cost?

Specs:
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Intel Core2 Duo CPU E6750 Shipped: 2.66 GHz OC'd: 3.40 GHz
2 sticks of 1 GB Buffalo Ram (Off brand that came with computer)
650i P5N-E Asus Motherboard
8800GT Nvidia Graphics Card

I'm thinking possibly I'll upgrade RAM or operating system, but I'm not sure. Do I really need 4 GB of RAM? (Yes, I am aware of 32-bit limitations.)
Upgrading the processor or getting a second graphics card are other options.
Nkot (talk) 04:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Upgrading the memory is probably your lowest cost upgrade. Next step, upgrade to Linux the no cost upgrade. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Except that this is almost certainly a computer used for gaming. Noticed you didn't post anything about your HDD. A good price vs performance upgrade for when you've already got a good setup is going for a RAID5 or RAID0 setup (5 is better, as it can be recovered when one of the disks starts to fail, RAID0, not so much. If recovering information isn't a problem (it rarely gets used for anything other than gaming) then you can cut the cost by only having two drives, instead of three. --EvilEdDead (talk) 11:45, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious about this advice on upgrading to Linux. If the OP wants to use this as a gaming machine, do all the current games run on Linux? Does DirectX work on the Windows Emulator? I tried Linux many years ago and was disappointed by the lack of support for popular software. Has this changed recently and is Linux now a viable alternative for playing modern PC games? Sandman30s (talk) 12:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It's only slightly more viable for gaming than a Mac is. Wine is pretty much the way to run games on Linux. It gets pretty regular updates, so if your target games are about a year (give or take) older than your computer, then you could probably work with Linux for gaming. Emulation will never be as efficient as running native, no matter what they might try and convince you of. Moreso than simply switching to Linux, you need to be confident in your problem-solving, since even after getting a stable baseline, almost every game will need various tweaks to get it working as well as it could/should be. --EvilEdDead (talk) 12:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The reason it's called wine is because it's not an emulator, despite the persistent misconception. :) The whole reason it's interesting is because it isn't emulating or pretending to be windows, it actually tries to teach linux how to run windows programs natively. If the wine developers write more efficient API implementations than Microsoft did, then a program could certainly run faster under wine than under windows. But config problems and an incomplete set of API implementations, not to mention the extra libraries, make it hard for the end user to get to the point where that would matter. Anyway, I just wanted to quibble. You're basically right. Indeterminate (talk) 00:06, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

To be more specific to your questions however: Do all the current games run on Linux? Not by a long shot. This is especially true for games that don't use OpenGL (almost all of them.) Does DirectX work..? Yes, but it's limited and/or old versions (DX8 was the latest mentioned in the official info.) ... is Linux now viable for modern gaming? I suppose your definition of modern and gaming are the most significant factors here. Don't expect the majority of games released in the last 3 years to work. Many casual games will work fine, as will most anything else that doesn't use 3D. If it uses 3D graphics, and you don't know that it uses OpenGL, be prepared for disappointment. --EvilEdDead (talk) 12:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks EvilEdDead, I suspected that little has changed over the years. Sandman30s (talk) 15:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with changing the operating system, but suggest Windows XP instead of Linux. XP will be more familiar to a Windows user and will support more of the programs you currently use. Like Linux, it will be more efficient than Vista, which is a resource hog. Thus, your computer should run better with XP. Microsoft, of course, claims that Vista, being their latest operating system, is best, but those are all just lies to improve sales.StuRat (talk) 14:33, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, this is what I would have said. I would be interested to hear Graeme's comments. Sandman30s (talk) 14:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Getting back to the original question. It really IS an upgrade to XP if you're a serious gamer. And use 64 bit at your peril - there are many problems with XP 64-bit and even more problems with Vista. Just use good old plain XP 32-bit and you will have the most compatible games machine for PC games. I just hope that MS fixes all their Vista issues with the next release. Sandman30s (talk) 15:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Get more ram. Xp will not be used by many after a year or two. Do they even sell xp anymore? --93.106.37.211 (talk) 21:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That depends on who you mean by "them". Microsoft very much wants to push Vista, so doesn't sell XP any more. However, big retailers, like Dell, continue to offer XP because their customers demand it. StuRat (talk) 05:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Procedure to connect wirless gsm modem into allean brady plc controllers??

Please help me if you know about connecting a wireless modem i.e.. gsm sim operated modem to the Allean Bradly plc controllers through DF1 protocol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Naag slet (talk • contribs) 05:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Apple Mac 2.4

I want to copy iTunes from iMac to Ipod shuffle. How do I start off with everything unticked rather than everything ticked? Kittybrewster ☎ 10:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you have it on Auto Sync. Just go to the iPod menu and set it to Manual Sync, which essentially does what you want it to do. flaminglawyer^c 11:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

JSP Code

JSP code for transfer file from one machine to other machine in LAN and JSP code for getting IP address of all machine in a LANMail2irfu (talk) 11:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It appears you are trying to use a search engine. The reference desk is staffed by real people. If you want to search, Google is a good choice. If you want to ask a question, there are some guidelines on how to do so at the top of this page. --LarryMac | Talk 15:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

FTP Mirror

What are FTP mirrors and how do they work? Any information or link will be much appreciated. The article on FTP doesn't say anything about mirrors. Thanks! ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 13:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

An FTP mirror is a server (other than the main FTP server) that has all the files that the main FTP server has. There is a little program on the mirror that checks the main server for changes and, if there are any changes, downloads the new files from the main FTP server so the mirror will continue having the same files as the main FTP server. In other words - it is a mirror of the main FTP server, or an FTP mirror. -- kainaw™ 13:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Alrighty, thanks! =)ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 14:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

GIMP: Need a palette file to change boot screen

i want to change the boot screen (among other things) for my XP computer. I am not able to view or edit the file i extracted from ntoskrnl.exe (bitmap/5/1033). I obviously need a palette file, but all the .pal files i download aren't accepted by GIMP. Does anyone have a standard 16-color palette file compatible with GIMP? I know i asked a question about this previously, but it got archived and forgotten.  Buffered Input Output 14:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

How about you instead do this:

1. Create a 640x480, 16-color picture at %SystemRoot%\boot.bmp
2. Add option /bootlogo to %SystemDrive%\boot.ini, so it will look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=7
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut /bootlogo

This way you won't need to modify ntoskrnl (modifications of it can cause various things to fail after updating Windows). --grawity 19:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I have XP Home edition. Is that a problem?  Buffered Input Output 14:09, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't be - they use the same kernel.

The "Professional" part you see above is from my own boot.ini (and I'm using Pro), but the trick should work with all Windows XP versions. The part in "quotes" is only shown when you have more than one OS in boot.ini.

--grawity 19:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

WMM question

How can you get .rm files into Windows Movie Maker, because-Oh, jeez i'm gonna sound like a crazed fan here-Applemask managed to get TV Ark files into WMM. The evidence I have is the effects he used. Oh, and this Waaaa.--Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 16:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd assume it would be a matter of conversion. — neuro^(talk) 16:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You can use MediaCoder to convert from rm to wmv or avi which will be compatible with Movie Maker. SN0WKITT3N 10:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

youtube video download

recently i downgraded my pc(p3,256ram),from p4,512 . previously i was able to download any videos from youtube or metacafe etc. with mouseover-ing and selecting 'download 'with the aid of real player beta or 11. but now though i have latest version of real player 11 (downloaded from net, like the previous one), the option from real - "download this video" does not appear, as a result i am unable to download any video. I have account in both the mentioned sites.why am i unable to download videos using real as before ,& what should i do to get it as i used to? thanking you in anticipation ---Pupunwiki (talk) 16:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a good addon. — neuro^(talk) 16:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Video DownloadHelper is another good addon, or you can use a site like this SN0WKITT3N 10:30, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

thanks much. i'd check them out.--Pupunwiki (talk) 17:05, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Monitor Display Problem

Everytime I log in to Vista on my secondary account (my other half's log in) it causes errors on my main/administrator account. On the secondary account the font is massive which makes using the internet a headache as everything so large. If I reset the font/display properties it is still too large and will reset when the account is next used again no matter what I do (i.e. I adjust screen resolution and sizes etc but it is unable to retain this info). This then causes problems on my account where all my desktop icons are rearranged (back to alphaorder and autoarranged/aligned - not how I have set them), for a minute or so my icons are large then the screen blanks and the size is back to normal. I have completely deleted this account and set up new/multiple ones using different names etc to resolve this and also logged in as a guest with the same result everytime. Also if I never use this account then I have no problems. Unfortunately I need to be able to access both as the pc is for more than one user and I don't like allowing anyone else to use my log in. I have checked the display settings - screen res is 1280x1024, magnifier is off, it say the monitor is working correctly. I would just reinstall vista (home basic on a 32 bit) but never got the disc with the machine (am chasing with supplier). Any ideas? Thanks. --Gingerzilla (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ask your other half if s/he has screwed anything up in the settings. Perhaps the source of the problem is the operator... flaminglawyer^c 21:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - it's not the issue (did think that myself at first). I've created new accounts which only I have used and the same thing happens, also my other half doesn't touch settings they just use internet explorer and that's it (nothing has come up on virus etc scans either). --Gingerzilla (talk) 23:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

(reformatted) I have no advice (except to put responses in places that are not inside of sigs... :] ). flaminglawyer^c 23:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd say it's pretty important to get that Vista disk, or at least the Vista registration numbers, because you'll need to reinstall Vista sooner or later. If you have the registration numbers, and actually have a legal copy of Vista, you should be able to download Vista from Microsoft and reinstall. StuRat (talk) 05:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

December 18

Video Card

What it the best gaming video card on the market? This would be for a desktop computer running windows XP Service pack3. I am going to build a computer and the type of video card will help with selection the motherboard. Money is no issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.172.159.131 (talk) 00:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Why just one card? You get a bunch of high-end nVidias with SLI and plug them into each other. Sure, it is expensive and overkill, but you said "best" and "money is no issue". -- kainaw™ 01:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the best video card on the market at the moment, pretty much unanimously is the Radeon HD4870X2. If you can afford 2 of them you can go for intel chipset board with crossfire support. Vespine (talk) 02:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If it were just about the hardware and benchmarks then maybe the Radeon would take the prize - but if you consider device driver issues - then get the latest thing nVidia are selling because ATI's drivers are really crap. The badge of "fastest" is a tricky thing to assess because there are so many aspects to performance and some cards do better at some things and worse at others. In any case, whoever is in the lead this week is unlikely to be in the lead when the next card comes out. If you're using XP and it's a DirectX game - then you aren't using half the stuff on the card because you're stuck on DX9 which doesn't provide support for a bunch of stuff that's in the very latest hardware. So get a motherboard with dual PCI-Express interfaces - both with a decent number of lanes. A pair of SLI'ed 9000-series nVidia cards will do just fine if you have quad-core CPU's driving them. SteveBaker (talk) 05:10, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Why the 9000 series when you can SLI the GTX 280? This is what I would buy if money were no issue. You might as well investigate a modern PCI 2.0 motherboard for this if you're spending that much on a card. Oh, and lots of gaming RAM. And a monstrous LCD won't hurt. Ohhh it hurts, stop now! Sandman30s (talk) 09:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If money is no object for buying video cards I'd buy a nVidia Tesla. I don't think there's many games written for it yet though so it may not be so good for your purposes ;-) Dmcq (talk) 13:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

domain register-ing

When I "register" a domain name through a domain name registrar (like GoDaddy), what am I actually doing? Am I "buying" it? Or am I just renting it for a while? Or am I "borrowing" it? Or shibbledy-goobauschenheimer with coffee and popsicles in a meadow on a warm summer day? I'm confused. When I do one of Godaddy's search thingies, it says "For sale! $14.99 per year/month! Buy now!" But that contradicts itself - how can I buy something and then pay for it monthly/yearly (excluding credit cards)? flaminglawyer^c 06:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You would be renting it. The 'Buy now" thing is a marketing ploy, its much more attractive than 'Rent now!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.229.127.26 (talk) 06:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed; the "x dollars/year" thing suggests that you are actually renting a domain, instead of buying one outright. This rental thing makes sense especially if you only made a site for, let's say a political campaign that's only going to last for a year or two. You rent a domain like "leonidasforpresident.com", and after you won the elections (or otherwise), you may have your domain cancelled and call it quits. Blake Gripling (talk) 10:11, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Companies that are a bit more honest (like Network Solutions) clearly state that it is a lease, not an outright purchase. At worst, Network Solutions will say "annual purchase". -- kainaw™ 18:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

So... that discourages me. Is there any way to actually own (pay once, keep forever) a domain name, apart from making a country and making its own TLD? flaminglawyer^c 22:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not quite "renting" - you do own the name - to the point where you can sell it to someone else if you want to. But you have to pay to have the name stored on the name server...and that's kinda like paying rent. When you let the payment lapse, the name is no longer registered to you on the world's server - so you lose it and someone else can register it. It's actually just like a phone number is in the USA. You have the right to take your phone number with you when you change providers or move to a new home - but if you stop service on your phone, they'll give the number to someone else. SteveBaker (talk) 00:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Followup

OK, so I've decided to register a domain name. But I ran into another thingy - the price for a 1-year registration is $.99, so a 2-year should be $1.98 or less, right? It's not. It's $5.49 (link). Why such a price jump? I'm guessing it's something about re-registering when your domain expires, but I can't find anything to prove/disprove my theory on the Godaddy website (or anywhere else). flaminglawyer^c 02:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

First, no - you cannot permanently purchase a domain name for one price. But, you can get extremely long leases, such as a 10-year lease. Even if you start your own country and form your own TLD, you can still lose your TLD in the future. As for the price jump, my experience with GoDaddy for any remotely professional work has been terrible. They want your domain name. That's all. They will do whatever it takes to get you to sign up. I could fill the next three screens of text with nightmare stories that I've experienced with them, but others will come in and say GoDaddy is the greatest thing since pirated mp3 downloads. -- kainaw™ 13:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

They're not the greatest, but I don't think they're the worst at all. They're fine if you are just buying a domain name or two for private use. As with all things related to IT there are good experiences and bad ones, but I've used them for years and years with nary a complaint.

As for the price jump—GoDaddy charges more to renew a domain name (like $9) than it does to register them. It wants to lure you with short-term leases so that over time you'll pay more per domain name over time. It's a business model decision, not a technical one. Keep in mind that it is trivial to transfer control your domain name to a different registrar later, if you decide you don't like GoDaddy. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Aw shizzle! Is it cheaper to transfer to a different registrar than to renew with Godaddy? flaminglawyer^c 01:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Windows Explorer needs to close

Hi

About once a day my PC displays the message "windows explorer has encountered a problem and will now close" {approx} and then I get the pop-up about sending the data to MS blah blah. It's more of an irritation than anything else as explorer always starts again straight away. I was wondering what might be the likeliest cause. OS = XP Home Pentium D 4GB RAM Thanks for your time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.211.45.43 (talk) 10:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity - are you using Roxio media/burning software? I was having much the same trouble and that trouble went away when I removed my install of Roxio Media Creator Suite 9 (or whatever the heck it was called). Just a SWAG, there. Matt Deres (talk) 14:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I get this sometimes too on my desktop. Yeah, it's annoyance. But my point of view is: "It's Windows, what do you expect?!" ("Windows" can also be replaced with "English", "Vista", etc) :P.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 03:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

do new hard drives fit old cases (a Dell Dimension 4100 = Pentiun III 900 mhz)

Hi guys,

So I don't have much money right now and I'm using a Pentium III computer, but I bought a graphics card for it for 50 euros a couple of years back, it's a Radeon 9250 with 128 MB Ram, so actually the computer is really very good for everything I do, which is mostly on the web, nicely accelerated (solid scrolling etc). It has 512 MB or RAM and I don't have complaints. But the hard-drive is dying.

If I buy a new hard-drive, do I have to worry about what kind, or will all new hard drives be able to replace my current one?

Thanks! -Jenny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.214.30 (talk) 14:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The most common types of Hard-drive 'types' are SATA and IDE. The PC you describe will almost definitely be IDE so go with that. Even if it can take the SATA ones (which are a faster connection as I understand it) it'll probably be able to handle an IDE drive. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:07, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)All desktop hard drives are a standard size which is 3.5" width. In terms of physically fitting into the PC case it should not be an issue. Your motherboard and old hard drive are almost certain to have PATA connectors (also known simply as IDE connectors, it is the flat grey "ribbon" cable connecting your HD to your motherboard). Most modern hard drives and motherboards use SATA connectors (which uses a much narrower cable and smaller plug/socket). Look at the articles for pictures. If you're buying a new hard drive make sure to buy an IDE/PATA type. Or else buy a SATA hard drive and a SATA/PATA converter which shouldn't cost more than a few dollars. Zunaid 14:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Make sure too that your motherboard has IDE channels for the older hard drive and doesnt have only SATA channels. Even if the hard drive physically fits, it won't work if it can't connect to your motherboard. Livewireo (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, older motherboards won't allow for very large drives (ie more than 120 gb) limiting it so it only utilizes the first 120 gb of space on the drive... you might be able to upgrade your bios or something and get it to work... I don't know much about it, just that it might be a problem. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 21:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Mez screensaver?

Hi. Many years back (6-8) I had a screensaver application called Mez, Mev, or something like that. Three letters anyway. It had a really great road construction screensaver where lines of yellow machines would travel across your desktop laying down sand, gravel, tarmac, etc until your screen was a road, and then another machine would come and tear it all up again. Does anyone know if I can still get this today, or what it was even called? Thanks. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I had something similar, also called Mez (or certainly 3 letters ending in z), but I had it a lot longer than 6-8 years ago - more like 13 years ago on Windows 95. If I remember rightly, it was an application which had lots of different screen savers. I'm at work now, so I can't do it but am sure it still exists and that google will help out. -- WORMMЯOW  14:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps part of After Dark (software)? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:39, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Changing directory on XP command line

I don't use windows much anymore, so forgive me if this is obvious, but how can I cd to a directory on another drive? I have tried "cd J:" and sticking different paths after that but nothing seems to help. --93.106.56.181 (talk) 15:06, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You have to "go to" the drive first; at the command prompt just type "J:" (enter). Then you can use cd to move around on that drive. --LarryMac | Talk 15:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! --93.106.56.181 (talk) 15:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I recommend Powertoys for XP. Open Command Window Here lets you right click on a folder and open the command prompt pointing at the selected folder. I use a lot of DOS utilities at work and this is very handy. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You can also use cd /d J:\somefolder, the /d part will make it change both directory and drive. --grawity 19:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If you are only an occasional (or unwilling) Windows user - you DEFINITELY need to install CygWin. The Cygwin shell is bash or tcsh (your choice) - and there is a /cygdrive/ directory with subdirectories c, d, e, f, whatever - so in Cygwin, you go to the J: drive by typing 'cd /cygdrive/j' - MUCH better than Window's own shell. Also, you can make symlinks in Cygwin so you can link your folder on the J: drive to a place that's more convenient. So under Cygwin's /home/steve - I have /home/steve/c which is the top of the C: drive...which is a symlink to /cygdrive/c...much, MUCH nicer! This has all sorts of other benefits for the commandliner - you can say things like "ls /cygdrive/*/*.doc" and do a wildcard search across multiple drives. I have no clue how you'd do that in Windows' shell because you can't wildcard the drive letter (DIR *:*\*.doc). SteveBaker (talk) 00:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

If you have any windows version of grep installed, you can get the "ls somedrive/*/*.doc" effect, without cygwin, as follows:

    cd somedrive
    dir /b /s | grep \.doc$

--NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

New laptop

I'm thinking of buying a new laptop soon, it will probably come with windows vista preinstalled. I don't like vista that much, no real reason I just don't. Will a modern laptop be able to work if I install Windows NT 2000 on it? Or is Win2k too old for new laptops? 66.63.184.3 (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Old operating systems do quite well on modern computers. The only problem you're likely to have is that they may be too quick, so info will sometimes fly by too fast for you to see it. Also beware that many modern applications won't work on an old O/S, so you'd need to use older versions of those apps.StuRat (talk) 21:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You may also run into issues of newer hardware not having drivers for the older OS's. I've found this to be true especially with 64-bit stuff. My suggestion would be to check with some of the major builders to see if you can get the model you want with the "downgrade" to XP. Companies like Dell and HP do have those options on a few select models. I have found this issue more with Vista than the previous versions of Microsoft. Meaning that if it will run XP then you most likely won't have problems with W2K. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ched Davis (talk • contribs) 22:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC) oops .. sig: Ched Davis (talk) 22:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - I strongly agree. By all means dump Vista - but going all the way back to Win2k is too far. If you can get a legit copy of XP, that's what I'd do. Of all of the OS varients Microsoft has produced, XP is by far the best. SteveBaker (talk) 23:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Torrent woes

At my university I'm trying to download slackware linux via bittorent, but utorrent does not work. It starts up and everything seems fine but it doesn't find or connect to any peers or lechers. What can I do to bypass whatever restrictions have been placed on bittorent protocall connections? I can access everything else from the computer like normal web pages and nothing is blocked not even porn, but torrent does not work. 66.63.184.3 (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe try BitTorrent protocol encryption? Most clients support some kind of it. --71.141.138.102 (talk) 21:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You said "At my university...." ... is it possible you are behind a firewall that is blocking the port for p2p data transfer? Ched Davis (talk) 22:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, some/most universities have firewalls/proxies/blocks in place that block the port for p2p transfers (that includes torrents, LimeWire, etc.). Or, if you're behind a wireless router, you could have that configured to block that port. Or you could have your OS blocking that port, or even something else (virus? =0 <gasp!>). flaminglawyer^c 23:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

There is no "torrent port". There are only non-reserved ports. Any P2P program out there allows you to configure which port it uses. There is a high possibility that there is a protocol filter however. For the highest chance of success, used Forced Encryption, ensuring there's no 'allow incoming legacy/unencrypted' enabled. Additionally, either select a range in the 50000+ for your port, and/or have it auto-randomize. These together should defeat just about anything an ISP can do to stop your P2P activities. However, they can still aggressively throttle your connection, making it crawl quite slowly. Slow's better than none though. (The forced encryption will cause slower speeds regardless of your ISP, simply because of the far fewer connections you'll make, and slightly because of the packet overhead.) --EvilEdDead (talk) 14:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Your Freedom always worked while I was at uni, though you do need to pay. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

December 19

How to download video from Adobe Flash Player 10

I've never been able to actually download the video playing in Flash, and it seems to be no different for the current version. I want to download videos from Flickr so that I can convert them to .ogg and upload. Can someone offer some advice for how one might do this? With the addition and expansion of videos on Flickr, there's much potential for expanding Wikimedia's video collection, but copying files to the Commons for video seems impossible relative to the ease of pictures, which can be done in a few seconds on the toolserver.

I can't install my own programs on the computers I'm currently using. I can perhaps get around this by using a friend's, but is there any option for those without the ability to download and install a program to do it? Would it ever be possible to make the process as simple as pictures, perhaps by having an automatic process do the conversion for us when we upload? Richard001 (talk) 00:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

There are both programs you can download, and places on the web that will convert these types of files to .avi, .mpg, etc. http://www.savevideodownload.com/ is one of the sites which will convert the flash files (swf) to a more user friendly movie type file. If you are in a situation where you can't 'install' software, your best bet may be to do a Google or Yahoo search for convert flash to movie file and look at some of those sites. Ched Davis (talk) 01:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The site you have recommended only seems to be for YouTube. Can anyone provide me with a site that actually works? (I have tried a few). Richard001 (talk) 02:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that wiki editors usually do searches for others, but maybe http://vixy.net/ would help you. Ched Davis (talk) 03:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

BIOS

I cannot find the BIOS on this MOBO [1]. Will someone please point it out? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 03:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you are looking for the CMOS (the battery that remembers your BIOS settings). It's the round circle (battery) in the upper right corner. If it's a jumper (such as what you would use to reset a password), I'm sorry the picture isn't large enough for my old out of focus eyes to detect. Ched Davis (talk) 03:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I know where the CMOS is, but I am trying to upgrade the BIOS on one of my old computers, so I need to find out what BIOS chip it has, or where it would be located. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 04:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I've flashed a BIOS before to upgrade, but I guess you want to replace the chip eh? ... what's the model number of the mobo? Ched Davis (talk) 04:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am planning to flash it, but I have to know what BIOS I have to flash it correctly, right? The mobo is a CUW-AM rev 1.02. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 05:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this is what you are looking for: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&docname=bph07170&product=81921&dlc=en&lang=en

As far as current version of BIOS, I would think by booting (even from floppy or CD) you could keystroke into the BIOS to tell you what the current version is. I am NO mobo expert, but looked around a bit for ya. I guess it is a: Asus CUW-AM/MEW-AM, but get the impression you won't find much at the Asus site. HP used them and called them: CUW-AM (Tortuga). Are you trying to get it to accept more RAM by any chance? Well, sorry I couldn't be more help ... hope what little I looked for has helped at least point you in the right direction. You'll probably have more luck with Google than Wikipedia on this type of issue. Ched Davis (talk) 06:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The device in the brown socket is the Firmware Hub, which contains the flash memory where the BIOS resides. Rilak (talk) 09:58, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The chip that says "TEST1" to be specific. *facepalms@Ched Davis's answer* --EvilEdDead (talk) 14:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I am needing to flash it so it will boot from USB. All of the RAM ports are full on the mobo anyway. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 15:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

sorryChed Davis (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Speech recognition software

I need would like to use one of the free speech recognition programs. Unfortunately, I have no experience with speech recognition software. Browsing the articles, I read about engines, language and accoustic models... and don't really have a clue what they're talking about. (Yeah, the articles are not very accessible for people like me.) I'd sooo much appreciate if someone could give me an easy explanation (or link to one) as to how I install and get one (or more) of those programs going. And yes, I'd prefer to try out more than one program (if possible) because the recordings are of rather poor quality, so it might help to find out which program does the best. (And the rest I'll have to do by hand, I know.) Thanks a million for your help!! --Ibn Battuta (talk) 05:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC) PS: In case you wonder--yes, I'm pretty stressed out at the moment, so please excuse that I'm not taking the time to "work through" our articles... 'cause yes, I've seen enough to realize that for me, it'd be a very long way.

Wikipedia is not intended as a how-to guide. But if you go to the websites of the speech recognition software products in question, you'll find documents on what they do and how to use them. However, none of these speach-to-text enginees seems to be aimed at the end consumer, and not to beginners. (For example, the Sphinx Tutorial will require some familiarity with Linux.)

Speech-To-Text technology is in a suprisingly primitive state, and these open source projects seem to be more research than anything else, so the documentation about them is aimed at researchers, not the layman.

In any case, I don't think you'll find any package, free or otherwise, that can effectively decode some pre-existing, poor quality, samples of natural language. Speach-to-text programs typically require a "training" period where the voice they will be working with reads a bunch of known text. (They usually force you to read a page from an old novel or something.) Even after the software has been trained to work with a particular voice, using speech-to-text software takes practice. They require you to speak in a very clear fashion with unnatural spaces between the words.

I'm sorry, but I don't think you'll find software that will do what you seem to want to do, even if you're willing to pay for it. You're going to have to transcribe your tapes the old fashioned way. APL (talk) 06:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with the previous poster, as I have in the past wrestled with various commercial and non-commercial speech recognition applications. Speech recognition is an incredibly complex field, and while companies have struggled to package easy-to-use commercial solutions, the free versions available are much more primitive. If you really can't afford commercial software, then either HTK or Sphinx is probably your best bet (HTK is free for private use I believe, and will work in Windows or unix, but despite numerous tutorials and advice online it is complex to set up), but don't have unrealistic expectations. If you get it to work at all, you will have to do a lot of checking, correction, and editing on even the best recogniser output. If you buy something like Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional edition[2], it will be able to do transcriptions from file - how well it works will depend on many factors, and the output is likely to require substantial checking/correction even on noise-free speech. It may be cheaper to pay a professional typist, depending on the quantity of speech, and it will certainly be far quicker and more accurate; there is no simple, cash-free, and effort-free solution to your problem. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 13:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above posters and would also add that speech recognition only works well when you have a severely restricted vocabulary. For example, if it only tries to recognize the words "one" through "ten". StuRat (talk) 15:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Just a big thanks!!! to all of you! That helped enormously! Yes, I had expected to have to do a lot of re-checking, but still save some time... but if I won't, I'm really grateful to know this before investing time to understand the software. BTW, I guess the information you provided would also be helpful in the articles... though the problem on Wikipedia is that someone would probably claim that's "NPOV"... Anyways, thanks so much, Ibn Battuta (talk) 22:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The usual problem is that technical articles are written by people with a PhD in that field, and, as a result, are utterly incomprehensible to anyone who lacks a PhD in that field. Anyone attempting to add any content for a general audience will then be immediately reverted by the PhDs. StuRat (talk) 01:32, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes... though computer geeks seem to be rather good at being incomprehensible as well! :o) Anyways, yes, I see it as one of Wikipedia's biggest problems, especially in the sciences. ... --Ibn Battuta (talk) 17:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

How to password protect a folder in Windows

Hi, several file formats like word, excel etc. provide option of password protect, but is there a way to password protect a whole folder in Windows? 59.165.151.149 (talk) 05:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

This has some suggestions as does Google. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 05:32, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

dB to V or mV conversion

Hi, I have a spec that mentions a value of "700mV +/- 0.5dB". How to convert it to V or mV tolerance instead of dB tolerance? 59.165.151.149 (talk) 05:32, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

 <math>\beta _1-\beta_2=10\log\left(\dfrac{V_1}{V_2}\right)
  \textrm{Where }\:  \beta \:\textrm{ is measured in dB
  and }\: V\: \textrm{ measured in volts.}</math>  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.11.222 (talk) 12:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC) 

If that's an answer it's pretty hard to read. Try writing it without the attempted fancy graphics. StuRat (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I was trying to write it into LaTeX, so if u have a LaTeX editor just copy paste the code. or visit this site[3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.11.222 (talk) 18:31, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

What is the spec for Inter component level inequality

What is the spec for Inter component level inequality while measuring a PAL-B/G component video signal. Thanks. 59.165.151.149 (talk) 05:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Question about XP popularity

If Windows XP is one of the more disliked versions of Windows, why is it the most used one anyway? 124.180.116.201 (talk) 07:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

It isn't one of the more disliked versions. Just that simple. Magog the Ogre (talk) 08:49, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

And liked-ness isn't a major factor in things like this. It is a sales decision. Once the new operating system comes out then the shops (and business to business sales) all start pushing the new-version, they slowly stop selling configurations with the old version (by and large) and so the consumer isn't really offered the choice in the big-stores - they buy their DELL with the newest operating system and that's that. The vast majority of consumers won't have any opinion on better/worse because they aren't that technically interested in the system - so after an initial 'getting used to it' period they'll probably find whichever operating system Microsoft serve up is fine. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Googling suggests XP is one of the more popular (not just on sales)[4][5][6]; in user ratings it is challenged mainly by 2000. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 13:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

• Democracy is the most disliked form of government, but also the most used. Just that simple. 194.99.216.135 (talk) 12:42, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Linux problem, Ubuntu x86_64

~/Desktop/install_flash_player_10_linux$ nspluginwrapper -i libflashplayer.so

nspluginwrapper: no appropriate viewer found for libflashplayer.so

Please diagnose. The x86_64 version of Flashplayer is so buggy it's breathtaking (i.e., not worth using, willing to switch back to Windows over this issue). :) Magog the Ogre (talk) 08:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Nvm, I have Flash working: it's just a really lousy version of it (e.g., crashes upon trying to run blogtv, which really bums me out). Magog the Ogre (talk) 10:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Flash worked for me after I installed flashplugin-nonfree (or something like that). I am not an active user so can't tell if it's buggy, but it only works properly in Firefox (ie not in Opera). This suggest you don't have some 32-bit libs installed. --93.106.15.216 (talk) 13:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Navigation Columns in Dreamweaver CS3

Hello Wikipedia,

I'm cuurently building a website and I'd like it to have a navigation column on the left hand side, to make it easier to get around. I'm using one of the dreamweaver templates but, when i go to change the background colour for example, it only changes the area outside of where the text is -not WHERE the text is. Is there some way around this? Perhaps there is a better way orf creating what I have in mind..

Thanks,82.22.4.63 (talk) 11:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

It's been a while since I used Dreamweaver and I didn't use the templates, so take this as probationary advice until someone who actually knows what they're doing comes along. My first thought was that the text area is being kept in a table of some sort. If altering the page properties doesn't work, you may want to try changing the table properties, one of which should be to make the background transparent (or you can just give it the colour you want). Matt Deres (talk) 14:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

• Try using CSS - all of the style-properties (like background colors) of Dreamweaver templates are stored there. Have a brief look at the selectors and you'll understand what you should change. 194.99.216.135 (talk) 12:35, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

How Big is a BIT on a Hard Drive Platter?

Imagine a modern hard drive with a capacity of, say, 1 TB. (SI or binary, doesn't really matter.) The drive has 5 platters of 200 GB each. How much space does a single binary digit take up? 82.2.15.100 (talk) 11:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Discrete Track Recording disks have 516 megabits per square millimeter (333 gigabits per square inch). -- Fullstop (talk) 11:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

That's 1.85x10^-9 mm² or 1.84800 x 10^-15 m² or 1848 square nanometers per bit. If my math is right. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 13:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

You can figure it out yourself by noting that the typical platter is about 3.5 inches in diameter, with about a 1-inch hole for the axle, and data on both sides, so we get:

 diameter_outer = 3.5
 radius_outer = 3.5 / 2
 area_outer = pi() * radius_outer ** 2
 
 diameter_inner = 1
 radius_inner = diameter_inner / 2
 area_inner = pi() * radius_inner ** 2
 
 total_area_per_side = area_outer - area_inner
 sides_per_platter = 2
 total_area_per_platter = total_area_per_side * sides_per_platter
 
 bytes_per_platter = 10 ** 12
 bits_per_byte = 8
 bits_per_platter = bytes_per_platter * bits_per_byte
 area_per_bit = total_area_per_platter / bits_per_platter

 print area_per_bit
       ~0.00000000000220893233

which is about 1425 square nanometers, which is quite close to Maltelauridsbrigge's numbers. At that rate, you could fit the following data on the dust mote pictured at right:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolo

--Sean 16:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

One can't use an algorithm like that to determine 'bit' size. First, platters include a quite a bit more than just storage area. Secondly, the algo above assumes a constant 1,000,000,000,000 bytes_per_platter, i.e. 1 TB per platter, which is of course not the case. Third, the algo above assumes that -- as tracks grew longer -- there would also be proportionally more sectors per track (i.e. the outermost track would have about 3 times as many sectors as the innermost track). The number does increase but not proportionally, because otherwise seek times would be proportionally greater too. -- Fullstop (talk) 21:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, you're right that I put in 1000 GB instead of 200 GB per platter, but after correcting for that I still get within an order of magnitude of M's number above, which is good enough for a Fermi calculation like this (I mean, I eyeballed the 1" hole in the platter, so let's not split bits here). Also, I don't see how tracks and sectors have anything to do with it when we've already arrived at 200 GB per platter, no matter what the layout. I stand by my envelope! --Sean 23:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Virgin ISP

Anyone know an email address for their customer services? They tell me that they cannot be contacted by email (but they manage to send them out all right). I suspect that they do have an email address, but are simply trying to prevent customers contacting them. DuncanHill (talk) 14:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

support at virgin dot net (from http://www.virgin.net/customers/contactus/ ), or support at virginmedia dot com (from newsgroup postings). They also regularly respond to queries in their newsgroups - for instance I get occasional billing/fault help via virginmedia.support.broadband.cable .Nanonic (talk) 14:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll try that, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 15:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Nope. The "support AT" addresses don't take incoming email. DuncanHill (talk) 15:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

• Well, after further digging by me, it appears that it is indeed impossible to email Virgin.com, however, because in my latest complaint to them I asked them to reply by email rather than phone, they are now apparently sending me an email response by first class post. DuncanHill (talk) 19:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Inuktitut

Is it possible to correctly view syllabics in IE7? IE6 shows them fine as does FF but IE7 dropped support for them. Here's a page that has both the fonts and examples to let you know if you can see them correctly. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Since IE6 is threaded into ur windows installation, installing the fonts provided on the Government of Nunavut's website (I thought that i may never say Nunavut on the internet :P) using control panal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.11.222 (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be a bit of a mix up here. On my home computer I have IE6 and I also have the Pigiarniq fonts installed and I can see the syllabics fine. At work I have IE7 and I also have the Pigiarniq fonts installed but I can't see them. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 20:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Hibernation Option Absent

When I click Start->Turn Off Computer and then hold down the Shift key to activate the hibernate option, nothing happens. The Standby option simply remains as it is. Please help. (Windows XP sp2) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.194.228.29 (talk) 17:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The first thing to check is if hibernation is enabled: Go into Start > Settings > Control Panel > Power Options. Click on the Hibernate tab, then check the Enable Hibernation check box to enable it.

If it is, then a driver problem might prevent XP from hibernating; see Microsoft's knowledge base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907477 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.230.33 (talk) 18:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! That worked perfectly! 117.194.226.34 (talk) 03:02, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

Learning

Does anyone know any quality, effective, free Java and or Web design learning courses online?--98.243.98.202 (talk) 17:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

W3Schools is pretty good for web stuff; no Java though. --LarryMac | Talk 17:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The last few weeks of cs50.net deal with javascript, html, php, mysql, css, ajax, etc. --VectorField (talk) 19:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

VLC Christmas hat

Is it just me or does VLC have a Christmas hat on? When did this happen, will it go away after the new year? http://lh5.ggpht.com/_SLMraXaQ8jY/SUqrGFOC52I/AAAAAAAABMg/CNia0ngUmZ4/image%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.63.184.3 (talk) 18:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

It's an easter egg that activated at midnight Dec 19th [7] [8] It only appears on the 0.9+ versions, will probably go away after Christmas. SN0WKITT3N 18:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Nice to know I'm not alone :P i tried editting the icons,pngs and xpm in the installation folder to get rid of the christmas hats, but it doesn't work. Seems that Ubuntu is caching the icons somewhere where i can't find them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.11.222 (talk) 18:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

jpeg

how can i get the extra data from the jpgs like wut you see on image pages the metadata, how can i gets this to show when i select a jpgs file on my computer. wat progroms do i need to install? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 18:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

If you're on Windows XP or Vista, right-click the image and choose Properties' -> Summary and click Advanced >>.

For more information, read EXIF. --grawity 18:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

PhotoME will show you an incredible amount of information from the EXIF. -- Coneslayer (talk) 20:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

what's the name of this computer part?

http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=3257

What's the name of the part that attaches to this hinge? Specifically, the part of the hinge with three holes is screwed onto this part. Thanks. --VectorField (talk) 19:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Been a bit since I had a Dell laptop apart, but I think the hinge plate with the three holes attaches to the LCD display and the part with the square post goes into the back of the laptop. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:35, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Right, it attaches to the LCD display. But it's a specific part of the LCD display, a small 1.5cm x 1.5cm bracket that (in my case) has fallen off of the LCD display. Do you know what it's called? I'm trying to figure out where I can order it. Thanks. --VectorField (talk) 22:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like an OEM-only part. I don't know that you'd be able to find one without the attached LCD laptop lid. But, best guess, try "LCD bracket" and the model name/number. --EvilEdDead (talk) 15:56, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Firefox broken downloads notify??

Hi. Is there any way to make Firefox notice a broken/incomplete download and notify it as such, instead of notifying a broken download as "complete"? Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 20:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean "broken?" If you mean a link to something that's not there - Firefox 3 recognizes this and gives a notice. flaminglawyer^c 21:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

No it doesn't, especially from sites like rapidshare it often reports the download complete even though it has only downloaded some of the file. Use an external download manager like Free Download Manager for troublesome links. And also compare the size of the downloaded file to what it really should be, especially for RARs as it will fuck you up to download 90 or so RARs only to find one of the damn files is broken and you don't know which one.

I can't figure why it should be hard to figure out which one is broken, if you read your operation log for the unrar/unzip program. (WinRAR it great for this, since it pops up for you with the specific problems, particularly if a certain file is broken.) As for the OP, the only thing you can do, within Firefox, is to check your download sizes. You *might* find an addon/plugin that will handle them differently, but I have doubts, since the one I use (Download StatusBar) can't tell a broken d/l anymore than FF can. --EvilEdDead (talk) 16:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Download Them All will alert you if a download is broken and allows you to resume downloads on sites that support resume. SN0WKITT3N 11:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

nameservers

Resolved

I already looked at the article nameserver. I signed up for a site at Godaddy, but want to host my files elsewhere. It tells me to enter 2 nameservers. I signed up for "free" hosting at a free hosting site, (example).com (please, no comments on that). They gave me 2 nameservers - ns1.(example).com and ns2.(example).com. What do I do now? And in case this plan fails miserably - how would I get the domain to point to my IP address? flaminglawyer^c 21:49, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Getting a domain name to point at your ip address will require you to 'buy' a domain and set it at to your ip. When you signed up for a free site they generally don't give you access to the rights that will enable you to point that domain to your ip address. But, you can upload a HTM file with a redirect code in it to send anyone trying to look at it to your ip address, but you will need to have a HTTP (and/or a ftp) server running under your ip address. here is a redirect code: <meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html">

The above information is not correct. If the free hosting site has supplied you with nameservers, you just have to go set those up with the domain registrar. It's pretty easy, as these things go. Even if you didn't have the nameservers it is easy enough to have a GoDaddy domain name point wherever you want as a simple redirect (like (example).com/~yoursite/). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I figured it out. flaminglawyer^c 22:33, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Extra (multimedia) keys on Acer Aspire 6530G

I have an Acer Aspire 6530G laptop, and I'm trying to create a keyboard driver for it using keyTouch, but I can't identify some of the key symbols, so I was wondering if someone recognised those symbols or could give me some ideas as to what keycode to assign to them. The keys:

• stylised lowercase e at the top right that looks like the "e" in the Acer logo - triangular button
• something that could either be a satellite dish or a thumbtack - in the multimedia row, to the right of the "next song" button
• one that looks like a planet with rings (keytouch-editor recognised it as WWW-Home) - immediately to the right of the above
• a small humanoid with his arms raised, seemingly constructed out of the pound-symbol (#) or an H with 2 horizontal bars, and a small curl for a head - directly below the e-logo-button, at the far right of the multimedia button row, diagonally above the KP-minus key
• a sort of sector diagram - a circle with the top part lifted out (Fn-F2)
• a tapered line forming the outline of an almost-complete circle, with a small bar perpendicular to the broad top end, and a check mark in the centre of the circle (Fn-F3)
• the outline of a rectangle, a vertical separation bar, and then a rectangle outline with a pincushioned fill (Fn-F5)

Apart from the planetoid button which was identified by keytouch-editor and the Fn-F5 key, which I'm pretty sure has something to do with the screen, I have no idea what any of these symbols are.

Thanks in advance. --Link ^(t•c•m) 23:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

These keys and their functions are defined in the user guide or manual that came with the notebook. If you don't have the paper copy, Acer probably has one available online. I couldn't find the 6530G user guide, but here's an Acer manual for the 6920 series describing what seem to be the same keys. Look under "Easy-launch buttons" and "Hotkeys". --Martinship (talk) 06:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I hadn't been able to find a suitable manual, but this one clarified a lot. The only symbol I still haven't identified is the human-like figure I mentioned. Your link definitely helped a lot, though! --Link ^(t•c•m) 11:07, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

If your Acer is like mine (they seem to be pretty consistent) then the little satellite-dish thing is a sliding toggle that turns on and off the 802.11 wireless function. This appears not be function like a key, but to be directly wired to the wireless lan chip. On my Ubuntu linux setup on a recent Acer laptop, toggling this off makes nm-applet notice that the wireless has been disconnected (in much the way it notices when the wired ethernet cable is pulled). The only deficiency I see is that when one toggles it back on nm-applet doesn't see the physical interface come up and restore the network connection on it - you have to tell nm-applet to disable networking and then reenable - this is unlike its counterpart on Windows, which does restore the network connection. 87.114.130.249 (talk) 14:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

December 20

Remote camera

Here is what I would like to set up:

• 1) A camcorder filming constantly in one room
• 2) The picture being displayed on my TV in another room (via an RF or SCART input)
• 3) The signal being somehow encrypted

Can anybody tell me what technology I could use to implement this, please? WiFiSouls (talk) 00:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

To encrypt the signal, it will have to be digital. One of methods would be using computers at both ends and transfer video through computer network. (there probably exists dedicated solutions as well). At camcorder end, there will be necesary some means of getting video in computer (and probably transcoding)(although 100Mbit ethernet should be able to handle DV format video (wifi will not, so it will require transcoding)). Computer network could be encrypted by using VPN. At other end, omputer will have rto run some sort of media player and display video on TV. I am not aware of any video cards having direct RF or SCART outputs, but there are composite to SCART adapters, and dedicated (not built in) video cards with composite and s-video outputs are common. -Yyy (talk) 06:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Most cable headends were using systems that rearranged the video lines or inverted sync or something to like to 'scramble' pay-TV. You might be able to purchase this equipment used, now that everything else is going to digital. However, I don't think I can really recommend it. Ask yourself this: Does it need to be encrypted, or just difficult to intercept? I suspect the latter, in which case, have you considered just using a really long cable? Using something called a 'balun', you can even run your video over twisted pair cables. --Mdwyer (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

What we know is this: Camcorders' don't encrypt. So there has to be something connected to the camcorder to make it do that - and that something has to be a computer. Camcorders are a pain to connect to a computer - that says you should probably use a webcam instead of a camcorder (Webcams are amazingly cheap - so tying it up 24/7 doing this job is a better bet anyway). So the computer can grab the video and encrypt it. You don't say that there can't be a cable between the two rooms...but it's hard to imagine that you'd bother encrypting a signal that just goes between two rooms in one house - so perhaps you're talking about a room somewhere a long way off? In that case, pretty much the only way to get the data there is over the Internet. That means you need another computer at the TV set end (you need that anyway because you've got to decrypt the video and that's a job for a computer)...with a video output that's TV-compatible.

Unless you have REALLY strong reasons for wanting to do this EXACT thing - I think you should consider using the screen of the second computer to watch the video on instead of a TV set - and I severely doubt you really need encryption. That being the case, a simple Internet-capable webcam and a regular computer will do the job just fine. SteveBaker (talk) 00:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh no

I tried entering the "format" command on my computer just to see what would happen, and I got a message saying "Paremeter line missing" or something of the sort. Does this mean the "format" command didn't work? Or does it mean it will work later on? Please. I don't want to damage my computer. 124.180.116.201 (talk) 05:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

You probably did not specify what to format, so command did nothing (and will not later on). To format a drive, use "format drive:", where drive is a drive letter for drive to be formatted. It will probably ask if ypu really want to format, when trying to format hard drive. -Yyy (talk) 05:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

If you don't know how the more dangerous commands work, please, please, spare yourself a lot of time and grief, and don't play with them. You can easily delete your entire hard disk with the Format command. Just don't mess with it unless you have a good idea of what you are trying to do with it. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - that was INCREDIBLY dangerous. The FORMAT command's job is to erase everything on your hard drive...irrevocably...no "undelete". Rule #1 about "unknown" commands is that you don't run them until you understand them! As it happens, you got lucky - you've gotta tell it which drive to reformat by passing the drive name as a parameter on the command line. That's what it was complaining about - and it's what saved you. SteveBaker (talk) 23:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I remember someone trying to make me run a .bat script that would automatically format the hard drive. Would it have worked? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 23:51, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, it is perfectly possible to write the commands in a batch script and tell it to do it silently, but it would only work when Windows was not active. — neuro^(talk) 02:32, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Texture file in games

220.225.242.194 (talk) 06:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)harshagg hello, how to make a 3D texture file of extension .fbx,which software can be used for making it can adobe photoshop will be able to do this or I have to use another method for 3D game modelling if present

You will probably need Adobe Photoshop Extended - that version has 3D support. Otherwise, you can use Autodesk's Maya. --wj32 ^t/c 09:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked up fbx? It's more than just texture data. I don't know of any game engine that uses FBX files directly during runtime. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not even texture data - it's motion-capture data - to do with animations. I can't imagine Photoshop could deal with it. Maya or 3DStudio probably can. SteveBaker (talk) 23:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Internet

220.225.242.194 (talk) 06:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)harshagg How can I increase my internet speed without changing my plan's speed which server usually offer

No. Unfortunately, if you ask this question at various places on the internet, you'll be told a bunch of fairy tales that say you can, and you'll be subject to some downright cons. For lots of people, their service is already as fast as the network to their home will support - the internet company isn't clamping it, and if they could offer you a faster service with the same equipment they already would be. For the rest, who are clamped, that's done on a router through which all their traffic flows. It isn't possible to somehow trick that router into allowing more traffic that it has been told to. Now people will tell you nonsense about changing your MTU size, but for an ordinary user that's pointless (and may make things slower). You'll hear the "Windows QoS myth", which claims XP (etc.) reserve a portion of bandwidth, and that you can reclaim that by turning of QoS (it doesn't, and you can't). Then come the cons - people will sell you (or let you download for "free") programs that claim to optimise your connection - some will just automatically apply the above nonsense "hacks"; some will do stupider things that break how the internet protocol works (like the silly "ack flood" things, that acknowledge packets you haven't received yet, in the vain belief this will chivvy up websites etc. into sending stuff faster); and some will just be trojans that take over your machine. To get the fastest internet you can, make sure your machine is free of viruses and trojans, make sure your wireless connection is secure (so you're not inadvertently sharing the connection with your freeloading neighbours), and only run p2p filesharing and telephony programs when you actually want to use them (they're particularly profligate with bandwidth, even when you think they're not). 87.114.130.249 (talk) 11:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Ooh. Well said. If you want to monitor your connection speed, use WireShark or something similar. Notice that I said monitor, not make faster. flaminglawyer^c 15:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

You can change your expectations though. If you have a slow connection you could set your connection so you rejected flash or even javascript for most sites except ones you approved, it would improve your security too. Dmcq (talk) 12:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, I agree. The speed of the connection isn't limited by your computer - it's dependent on your ISP's setup. So without them doing something - you're screwed. The best advice I could give would be to use something like http://www.speedtest.net/ to measure your ACTUAL network speed (both up and down-stream) - and check that you're actually getting the bandwidth that your ISP promised you in your contract. If your performance is significantly less than they contracted to deliver to you (and that's a surprisingly common thing) - you could complain and they might even do something about it. But if they are delivering all of the performance they promised you - then your only option is to upgrade to a faster service or learn to live with what you've got. SteveBaker (talk) 23:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Question

Is the Speed Run Wiki (www.speedrunwiki.com) humorous or serious? 124.180.116.201 (talk) 12:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It's serious. It's a real site about speed runs. (speed runs = trying to beat the game in the fastest time possible, even if it means ignoring any secrets/powerups/etc.) flaminglawyer^c 15:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Many games give you an extra token for completing a stage fast so this is just an extension of that.Dmcq (talk) 12:39, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Using a Sony Ericsson phone on Mac OSX

I use Mac OS X Leopard, and have a Sony Ericsson W595 phone. The software that comes with the phone is PC-only. How can I put songs onto the phone from my Mac?

Many thanks --Cash4alex (talk) 13:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I've got the same phone, and I'm a windows (and linux) user. I never installed any of the software that came with the phone (among other reasons, because of this). You just need the usb-to-phone cable. When I plug it it, I get a menu on the phone display that allows me to chose between four different modes of operation. My menus are in Norwegian, so what follows is a translation which may not be exact:

 (Telephone icon)               Telephone mode
 (Usb icon)                     Media transfer
 (Icon with two drops of ink?)  Print out
 (Folder icon)                  Mass storage

Select the last one, with the folder icon. You'll be notified that you can't use your phone as a phone in this mode, and asked whether you want to continue. After responding "yes", the phone will appear as two new usb devices. Select the one that represents the memory card ("PHONE CARD"), not the one that represents built-in stuff ("PHONE"). Navigate to the folder called "music", and drag and drop your songs there. You can create sub-folders if you like, the phone will still find your songs, but the phone menus won't reflect your directory structure, but the ID3 tags of the songs. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:35, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Does it have Bluetooth? If so, pair the phone with your computer and you can easily browse the contents using Bluetooth File Exchange in your Utilities folders. I had a 610 and s700 and I was able to easily drag and drop photos, voice memos, movies, ringtones and MP3 to and from the device over Bluetooth. I was also able to use iSync to sync Address Book contacts and Calendar events. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 03:25, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Printing all possible k-subsets of a n-set

Hello. I want to write a program in C++ which given n and k, prints all possible combinations of k distinct numbers chosen out of 1,2...n. For example if n=4 and k=2 I want to print 12,13,14,23,24,34. (The order has to increasing as well, i.e. 32 is not permitted). I can't seem to get the looping done correctly to apply the brute force method for handling this program. Also, the brute force method would become infeasible to implement if n is big (something around 1000). What is the best approach to handle this problem? Thanks.--Shahab (talk) 14:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems what you want to do is to generate permutations and then apply a trivial function to compose them (in your example, concatenation). If that's what you mean, then Permutation#Algorithms to generate permutations is for you. 87.114.130.249 (talk) 14:32, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

No I guess I don't want all permutations. I want a list of all possible k size subsets of a n size set. For example if n=10, k=2 then I want a list of ${\binom {10}{2}}=45$ numbers of the form 12,67,89 etc. That is all possible ways of selecting 2 numbers out of 1,2,...10. The should ideally be listed in increasing order, although that's not especially important. Thanks for the quick response though.--Shahab (talk) 14:41, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

You are going to want recursion. With for loops, you need a for loop for each iteration of k. If k=2, you need 2 for loops. If k=3, you need 3 for loops. It is rather difficult to write a program that magically increases or decreases the number of for loops it has. With recursion, you have 1 loop that calls itself as many times as needed. -- kainaw™ 14:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Recursion is one approach, but a recursive loop 1000 steps deep is likely to break something. So, here's a non-recursive solution I wrote and tested in FORTRAN:

• Set this declaration as high as you like or use dynamic memory allocation:

    integer*2     ARY(29,100000)     ! Array of (digits,solutions).                                       
    integer*2     I,N,K,RECORD,DIGIT,VAL

• Initialization:

    RECORD = 1                       ! Current solution number.
    DIGIT  = 0                       ! Current digit.
    VAL    = 0                       ! Current value of digit.

• Make these user inputs to improve program:

    K = 2                            ! Number of digits.
    N = 4                            ! Number of values allowed for each digit.

• Body of program:

    IF (K .GT. N) GOTO 600           ! Abort if no solutions are possible.

200 DIGIT  = DIGIT + 1               ! Go to the next digit.

300 VAL = VAL + 1                    ! Go to, then store, the next value for the 
    ARY(DIGIT,RECORD) = VAL          !  current digit of the current solution.
    IF (DIGIT .LT. K) GOTO 200       ! Any more digits ?
400 IF (VAL   .LT. N) THEN           ! Any more values allowed for this digit ?
      RECORD = RECORD + 1            ! Go to the next solution.
      DO I = 1,DIGIT-1               ! Copy the old solution up to the previous digit.
        ARY(I,RECORD)= ARY(I,RECORD-1)
      ENDDO
      GOTO 300
    ENDIF

500 DIGIT  = DIGIT - 1               ! Go to the previous digit.
    IF (DIGIT .LT. 1) GOTO 600       ! If there's no previous digit, we're done.
    VAL = ARY(DIGIT,RECORD)          ! Get value of previous digit.
    IF (VAL+K-DIGIT .GE. N) GOTO 500 ! Digit's value already too high 
                                     !  to allow increasing values 
                                     !  to end of solution. 
    GOTO 400

• Program termination:

600 DO I =1,RECORD+1                 ! Add proper prints later.
      print *,ARY(1 ,I),ARY(2 ,I),ARY(3 ,I),ARY(4 ,I),ARY(5 ,I)
   +         ,ARY(6 ,I),ARY(7 ,I),ARY(8 ,I),ARY(9 ,I),ARY(10,I)
   +         ,ARY(11,I),ARY(12,I),ARY(13,I),ARY(14,I),ARY(15,I)
   +         ,ARY(16,I),ARY(17,I),ARY(18,I),ARY(19,I),ARY(20,I)
   +         ,ARY(21,I),ARY(22,I),ARY(23,I),ARY(24,I),ARY(25,I)
   +         ,ARY(26,I),ARY(27,I),ARY(28,I),ARY(29,I)
    ENDDO

You will have to convert to C++ (good luck !). StuRat (talk) 16:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure that I understand the concept of the program. I converted it into C++. The code is given below. But the output is as follows: 1200000000000000000000000000424848013000000000000000000000000022895924199168140000000000000000000000000021472993282300000000000000000000000002291
3480240000000000000000000000000229070003400000000000000000000000001999046107229362400000000000000000000000000022901204198987. This makes no sense to me. Perhaps you can explain what I am doing wrong here. Thanks

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
int ary[29][1000];
int i,n,k,record,digit,val;
record=1;
digit=0;
val=0;
k=2;
n=4;
if(k>n)exit(0);
NextDigit:
digit=digit+1;
NextValue:
val=val+1;
ary[digit][record]=val;
if(digit<k)goto NextDigit;
MoreValues:
if(val<n)
    {
        record=record+1;
        for(i=1;i<=digit-1;i++)
        ary[i][record]=ary[i][record-1];
        goto NextValue;
    }
PreviousDigit:
digit=digit-1;
if(digit<1)goto Print;
val=ary[digit][record];
if(val+k-digit>=n)goto PreviousDigit;
goto MoreValues;
Print:
for(i=1;i<=record+1;i++)
    {
        cout<<ary[1][i]<<ary[2][i]<<ary[3][i]<<ary[4][i]<<ary[5][i];
        cout<<ary[6][i]<<ary[7][i]<<ary[8][i]<<ary[9][i]<<ary[10][i];
        cout<<ary[11][i]<<ary[12][i]<<ary[13][i]<<ary[14][i]<<ary[15][i];
        cout<<ary[16][i]<<ary[17][i]<<ary[18][i]<<ary[19][i]<<ary[20][i];
        cout<<ary[21][i]<<ary[22][i]<<ary[23][i]<<ary[24][i]<<ary[25][i];
        cout<<ary[26][i]<<ary[27][i]<<ary[28][i]<<ary[29][i];
    }
}

Cheers--Shahab (talk) 10:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Some things to add in C++ that FORTRAN does automatically:

1) Initialize the array to all zero values.

2) Include a space between each item printed.

3) Start each print on a new line.

Here's my output:

1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

When I reformat your prints I get the following:

12000000000000000000000000004248480
13000000000000000000000000022895924199168
14000000000000000000000000002147299328
23000000000000000000000000022913480
24000000000000000000000000022907000
34000000000000000000000000019990461072293624
00000000000000000000000000022901204198987

So, you're getting the correct output, but with some garbage values at what should be the end of each line, which probably will be fixed by initialization of all array values to 0 and fixing the prints (just printing the first 3 array elements instead of 29 would hide the ugly random numbers and make the output nicer for your particular test case). Also, isn't there something in C++ called "flushing the (print) buffer" ? Once you get it working, you can fancy up the prints a bit more, say by suppressing any prints of zeros. StuRat (talk) 15:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

If you still don't get the concept of how the program works, try going through it manually. That is, write all the variable names down on a piece of paper and record how the values change as you step through the program. For the array, you could maybe make a 3×7 chart and fill in the values as they are assigned. This technique can be tremendously helpful in understanding how programs work. Some debuggers can do this all automatically, but you would likely have to reduce the size of the array to 3×7 (I only made it bigger to show that the same techniques would work with much larger values for N and K). StuRat (talk) 04:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's one in Haskell:

comb :: Int -> [a] -> a
comb 0 _      = [[]]
comb _ []     = []
comb m (x:xs) = map (x:) (comb (m-1) xs) ++ comb m xs

*Main> comb 2 [1..4]
[[1,2],[1,3],[1,4],[2,3],[2,4],[3,4]]

--71.141.111.57 (talk) 12:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The article Combinadic may be of use to you, pre-fascicle 3A by Knuth referenced at the end is particularly useful. Dmcq (talk) 12:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

One way to implement it is to make it like mechanical counters - a circle of numbers in unit place turns one circle and moves the next circle by one notch. The same as listing all the numbers sequentially in base k. Shyamal (talk) 12:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Apple Script Script Editor

I have Mac OSX and I make tons of simple applications with Script Editor. I really enjoy some of them, but they stop working after 3 days precisely! I assume it is the same "Sweeper" that removes aliases saved to the desktop, but I would be very grateful if someone could tell me how to stop them from "dying"! THANK YOU 72.73.68.23 (talk) (I have an account, just too lazy to login this morning!) 14:59, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

portable disk corrupted

I was watching a video file from my portable disk when I accidentally disconnected the USB port, the media file stood still and after a few seconds the system warned me that the disk was corrupted. The data present inside it is of utmost importance and I can NEVER afford to lose it. So please tell me a way to repair my disk or recover that data. I even tried check disk on it but it wouldn't start. When I open that disk from "My Computer" I get the message "J: drive not accessible. Disk is corrupted and unreadable". I am not much knowledgeable about computers, thats why I am seeking help here in wiki. Thanks for the help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.88.20.120 (talk) 16:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried rebooting your computer and then trying again? It shouldn't have corrupted anything just to have it pulled out while it was watching a movie. (In the future, if you have something you CANNOT afford to lose, store it somewhere else as well as a USB drive. USB drives are very convenient but they are NOT necessarily reliable; when they fail, they often fail totally and without warning.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Rebooting the system didnt wrk out, still its corrupted. i just got that data so didnt have the chance to make a backup. thats why i am asking help here. before i could make a backup the accident happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.88.20.104 (talk) 18:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Typing "usb flash drive corrupted" into Google reveals lots of pages that might be helpful, as well as this extremely technical description of what the problem could be. It features the line "...there is a bug with Windows 2000 (that MS never bothered to fix) and can corrupt the drive when it is removed without proper eject." ... Out of curiosity, what parameters did you run chkdsk with? It won't fix anything if you don't run it with /r. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 19:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

PS3 controller for NXT mindstormers robot

Is it possible to use a PS3 Sixaxis controller for a NXT brick with FTC firmware on it. I am using Robot C to program the brick. If it is possible, how would i do it also. Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.15.49 (talk) 16:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd have thought it probably was possible but you probably have to do some programming unless somebody else has done this already. you might be interested in this link Using the PlayStation 3 controller in Bluetooth mode with Linux. I'd have thought one of the Lego Mindstorms or other robotics notice boards would be better help. Dmcq (talk) 12:15, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe it's been done with the Wii remote (which is also BlueTooth) - so it's probably possible. SteveBaker (talk) 22:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Spam solutions critique template author

There's a templated message that's been in use for a long time – since the age of Usenet – that is often used to critique new proposals to fight spam.

It starts off with

Your post advocates a
  ( ) technical
  ( ) legislative
  ( ) market-based
  ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work.
Here is why it won't work....

and then runs through several check-all-that-apply explanations and principles. A full copy is available here, and probably everywhere else on the 'Net.

Anyway, I was wondering — does anyone know the identity of the original author? As well, this document has been widely reproduced for many years; was it ever explicitly released into the public domain (or under any free license) by the copyright holder? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it was ever copyrighted... it's the Internet. For the same reason I can say it's unlikely you'll ever find who wrote it. --grawity 09:25, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Every creative work is copyrighted unless explicitly released. This applies on the internet as elsewhere. Algebraist 09:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, if that person that OP linked to can post the full text without getting sued, and the fact that you said it's been used since the invention of Usenet, I believe that you could use it without any fear of legal repercussions or anything like that. flaminglawyer^c 14:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

There is often a broad gap between 'doing something that won't get you sued' and 'doing the right thing'. In any case, I'm not looking for (bad) legal advice — I'm genuinely interested in who the author is. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Correct. You cannot use "they did it too" as a defense in court. As for the author, it is highly unlikely that the author will be possible to find. There are likely many people claiming to be the author. I've had a very similar experience. I pulled a hoax a long time ago (because I thought was going to get a book published and the hoax was a cool tie-in). Since then, I've found many people claim to have been the ones who created the hoax - and they have evidence to prove it. -- kainaw™ 21:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I also suspect that the document has evolved over time; I wouldn't be surprised if there have been tweaks over the years (additional rationales have been added, etc.) and that there have been many contributions. Still, is there anyone who is strong in Google-fu who knows of the earliest Usenet mention? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

By now there will be dozens to hundreds of authors who contributed to the current version. Those things definitely evolve. A few years ago I got a funny email about "Top 10 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon on your software development team" - it was OK - but I added a bunch more ideas to it and put it up on my web site (here: http://www.sjbaker.org/humor/klingon_programmer.html) - now do a Google search on a phrase found only in my version and you'll find over fourteen THOUSAND web sites are "mirroring" my additions to the original post. Of the few I looked at, several have improved on my version - culling out some of the weaker jokes and adding new ones. Now this 'meme' has spread and the "latest" versions probably have dozens or even hundreds of separate authors. Even if you could track down the original author, you wouldn't be able to get him/her to grant you legal rights to use the current version because there are an unknowable (and definitely uncontactable) number of amenders. Fortunately, people don't usually expect to enforce copyright on humor posts like that...but that doesn't change the law. SteveBaker (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I think google's usenet searching is badly broken. I can't find any example of this post on usenet previous to 2004. I would bet good money that it's appeared on usenet at least as far back as the 1990s. APL (talk) 15:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

battery life: monitor or sound output?

What costs more battery power of an offline laptop: Writing in Word or listening to sound files via headphones (with the monitor switched off)? If it's the latter: How big is the difference--enough to be able to sometimes switch on the monitor and take notes in Word and still save battery life? (I'm trying to figure out how to maximize battery life while working out of reach of an outlet.) Thanks, Ibn Battuta (talk) 17:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The two are probably much the same. For normal operations, power is consumed (more than usual) when the hard disk spins or the GPU fires up properly. Absent either of these, the difference between the two actions you describe is likely to be minimal. 87.114.130.249 (talk) 00:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Utorrent check

I use utorrent to download files, but because I use public computers each time I start utorrent to resume downloading a file from the previous session, it goes through an extremely long checking sequence which can take upto half an hour for 20GB. I realize this checking is a vital function, but on my home pc it remembers what it has checked from session to session and just resumes straight away. So my question is, on public computers how can I make utorrent remember what it has check and just start downloading? Is there some registry files it needs to work from different pc to pc? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.63.184.3 (talk) 21:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Utorrent usually saves the resume information in C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\utorrent, but you can make a portable utorrent. To do this put a clean version of utorrent.exe into it's own folder on your portable drive, then make a new text file (File -> New -> Text Document) and call it "settings.dat" making sure the file extension has been changed from .txt to the .dat extension. Now start utorrent and it will save all it's settings in that folder. You will have to go through the check sequence only once and it will remember it for the next session. However, this only works if the drive letter of your flash drive or portable hard disk remains the same on the computers you use. If you're using the same public computers but they just wipe the session data when you log off it should be ok, but if the drive letter changes it will cause errors. SN0WKITT3N 19:19, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Minefield → Shiretoko

Resolved

flaminglawyer^c 02:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I use Minefield (the pre-pre-beta version Firefox) for my web browsing. It is updated nightly, so I get updates every day. One day, a couple weeks back, when it got updated, it changed names on me - it's now something calledShiretoko. It seems to be the same thing, but they have 2 seperate pages on the Mozilla website, so I assume there must be some subtle differences. Can someone tell me what the difference(s) is/are between these two programs? flaminglawyer^c 22:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Minefield versions are all trunk builds - the latest versions of Firefox, irregardless of version. Shiretoko is the codename for Firefox 3.1; Shiretoko Alpha 2 has been released recently. --wj32 ^t/c 00:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually what was recently released is Firefox 3.1 Beta 2, not Alpha 2. --dapete 09:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

My bad. --wj32 ^t/c 01:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

So Minefield is newer than Shiretoko, because Alphas are generally newer than Betas? flaminglawyer^c 14:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Beta versions are newer than Alpha versions, and both are pre-release versions. Minefield builds are the latest version of Firefox (built nightly I think). On the Minefield page it says: "Warning: This is NOT A FINAL OR PRE-RELEASE VERSION." --wj32 ^t/c 05:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Our article Software release life cycle explains what Alpha and Beta releases are - and what to expect from them! SteveBaker (talk) 15:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Images in Safari, Firefox

I've noticed that in Safari and even in Firefox, often my computer decides to only try to load maybe 75% of the images on a page. Hitting reload usually gets the rest. This happens in particular with Google Images and Facebook, but often also happens with things like Google Maps (it'll load maybe half the tiles and then just give up, and just put a "loading" in place or sometimes a "can't load at this resolution" which is always incorrect here). What's the likely issue here? Any suggestions on fixing it? I have a MacBook, OS X 10.4.11, with the latest versions of both Safari and Firefox, with a usually pretty reliable internet connection. It's an irritating quirk. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a common problem in Firefox, and one which there doesn't seem to be a fix for, but why Safari would also do it I don't know. Have you tried Opera to see if it also happens? The only thing I can think is you're getting a network timeout server closing the connection, especially if it's a very large image. There are some suggestions on a similar problem here which may help. SN0WKITT3N 19:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Firefox doesn't do that under either Linux or Windows on dozens of machines I use regularly...if this is indeed Firefox-related and as common as that - then it must be associated with the Mac port of Firefox. Personally, I doubt it's Firefox's fault. If all Firefox/Mac installations did this on sites as common as GoogleMaps and Facebook, then the error reports would be all over the Firefox developer site at top importance levels - and they aren't. If you see it in Safari to then the problem certainly lies elsewhere. Something's screwy with your network setup - which is going to be tough to diagnose remotely. It certainly sounds like a network timeout though. SteveBaker (talk) 22:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I was remembering Firefox used to do this all the time but since version 3 I've never had the problem. I found a few old bugzilla reports and questions about this but looks like if there was a problem they fixed it. SN0WKITT3N 22:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

OK. So what ought I do? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:01, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

December 21

Quantum GIS question

I'm trying to create a map for Virginia State Route 28. I've downloaded all the data I need, my map looks like the following: [9] My problem is with the colouring. How do I get, for example, the line representing 28 to become red, Interstate 66 to become blue, Virginia State Route 267 to become green, etc.? And how would I add the state border? Would I do all of this in Inkscape? Thanks in advance, a very confused Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 18:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

(it's good to know someone else uses Inkscape!) I assume you have it saved as an SVG. If you have the roads set to different objects, then you can change the colors easily by just selecting the object and clicking the color red on the color bar at the bottom. As for the state border - just use the bezier/straight line tool and draw it based on a real map. Or find an image of the state border (just a line), import it, and resize it to fit your map. flaminglawyer^c 20:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

FWIW: I use Inkscape a LOT!SteveBaker (talk) 22:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought I should do - except Quantum GIS' "Save As Image" function only saves as JPGs or PNGs. Any members of the maps task force around here? Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 20:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Then this is something you'll have to do in something like Photoshop or GIMP (the latter is a free download). GIMP and Photoshop are 'raster' editors - Inkscape is for 'vector' images. You should tell your Quantum machine to save as PNG - NOT JPG. The artifacts caused by saving as JPEG will make your recoloring task VASTLY harder. SteveBaker (talk) 22:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 22:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Mass audio file data edit

I have many, many songs on my laptop. I now have 3 issues.

When I first uploaded them, I used the following file structure:

• Artist
  • Album
    • Disc no (for double albums)
      • Song name

Because I now also use an MP3 player, I would prefer the following file structure:

• Artist
  • Album
    • Disc no (for double albums)
      • Artist - Song name

I have already done this for my 'The Beatles' folder and my 'John Lennon' folder, but wondered if there is a quick and easy way to do it to all of them.

Secondly, I would like to edit the little pieces of info (what's it called - metadata or something?) like the song title, artist name, etc. Is there a quick way to do that?

Finally, some of my songs - seemingly at random - appear as 'Track 6' or something in Windows Media Player, despite the filename being different to that. Is there a way to fix that? Dendodge Talk^Contribs 21:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Uploaded? To what? Is this itunes, cd rips? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 21:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

It's just MP3 versions of music from CDs, which I imported using Roxio. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:31, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

ok, cause in itunes there should be an option to do what you want easily. For the "Track 6" problem you can use audacity to add a title to each track that will show in WMP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 22:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Audacity isn't needed at all. On Windows (and probably other OS's) all you need to do it right click → Properties → Summary → Advanced. And you can just click to edit right there. flaminglawyer^c 22:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm on Vista, and that doesn't seem to work. There's an 'ID tag' tab, which I guess is similar, but apparently I need a PowerPack to edit it. Plus it sounds like a long way - isn't there a way to automatically fill it in using the filename? Dendodge Talk^Contribs 23:13, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) For the metadata editing problem, there is an "Advanced Tag Editor" (on XP) option that allowed me to edit every single tag associated with the file - not just artist and title but composer, genre, album, track no., even beats per minute. You can get there by right-clicking on a track in the WMP library and clicking Advanced Tag Editor. As for the filling-in of the data automatically, you will probably have to do that manually. You could always search download.com, etc. but it seems unlikely that such a program exists. Xenon54 (Frohe Feiertage!) 23:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Try EasyTAG. It can fill in file metadata from filenames and rename files from their metadata. --wj32 ^t/c 01:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

foobar2000, whilst also being my absolute preferred audio player, has this feature as standard, and everything is done as simple tags (such as %album% %artist% %tracknumber%). — neuro^(talk) 02:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

December 22

Playstation emulation glitch

My copy of "The Misadventures of Tron Bonne" freezes whenever I get past the blue Reaverbot in the intro stage. The freeze is just the emulator's screen goes black. (Also, I ripped it to an IMG file to play it on the computer if the format makes any difference.) 71.220.220.198 (talk) 04:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

What emulator are you using? SN0WKITT3N 11:32, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Both ePSXe and pSX. They both had the same failure. 71.220.223.101 (talk) 00:57, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Webcam/digital camera

I have a few questions: 1) Can webcams be bought for cheap, and how can I acquire a decent one for cheap? I'm tech savvy enough to know how to do things, so I don't need extra gadgets where I could accomplish something in software anyway. 2) Do digital cameras usually have webcams attached? And are the prices significantly higher? Thanks all. Magog the Ogre (talk) 04:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Samsung is my favourite brand, I personally use an S730 which I find to be particularly good both value and quality wise (some of my pictures, for reference on how good it actually is, are here), and most medium quality or above cameras will not have webcam functionality. — neuro^(talk) 12:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Both Logitech and Microsoft (and probably a bunch of others) have WebCam's that you can pick up for $25 new - or less on eBay. "Decent" is a relative term. Webcams (by definition) are intended to send video over the web - as such you don't need (and don't generally get) super high resolution. The $25 web cams produce reasonable images at poor resolution (640x480 maybe). Higher end digital cameras are not generally designed to 'stream' video. They capture it into memory locally. You might find a digital camera that can do it - but it's far from normal - and they'll generally cost you much more because they have to be built to consume very little battery power (a webcam can take as much as it needs), to produce super-high resolution (most digital cameras can do at least 3 megapixels - a webcam is typically only called upon to do half a megapixel), to store that in flash memory, to have a viewfinder and LCD viewer...a bunch of things that a basic webcam doesn't need and doesn't have. SteveBaker (talk) 15:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Any suggestions on a specific webcam then? I'm willing to purchase over net or at Walmart/Target. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:00, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Digital camera 'hack'..........

I read somewhere that there was a 'hack' for those disposable camcorders. I`d like to know if there`s a somewhat related 'hack' for a digital camera. I have a "Concord Duo LCD" 1.3 megapixel camera and I`d like to be able to 'lock' the 'shutter' open to take long exposures, astrographs, through my telescope. If someone knows about such a hack, please let me know. I`d be very appreciative. Thank you ahead of time. Dave64.230.233.197 (talk) 04:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

.ogg files

Hi, I have a MacBook with OSX Leopard and I cannot play .ogg audio files. Whenever I click a link to a .ogg file on a Wikipedia page (or elsewhere) the browser asks me what program I want to use to play the file but I do not seem to have a program installed that can play the file. Also, shouldn't the file be able to play from within my browser? Cheers, Joe^Talk_Work 05:07, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

You can either download and install Xiph.Org's QuickTime Components, or you can install VLC. --wj32 ^t/c 05:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Wj32. I installed the QT components and I already had VLC (but didn't know I could use it with .oggs) so now I have programs I can open .oggs with. But is there any way I can get them to open within my browser (i.e. Firefox)? Cheers, Joe^Talk_Work 04:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

PSP EMULATOR

06:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)harshagg IS there any psp emulator available for pc.Actually I don't like playing through remotes and want to play GOW on my pc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.16.64.198 (talk) 06:27, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Potemkin (emulator). SN0WKITT3N 11:33, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

XNA ignorace

220.225.242.194 (talk) 06:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)harshagg Why XNA is ignored while it is good it works on xbox 360 even and using 2D texture file is also easy in that while in opengl even creating a small car will take much of coding.MY friend is studying on opengl basics and I XNA and he could make a 3D car and I had made 2D track game(not long trak though) or it is a way that handling 3D in openGL is easy than XNA

Hi! I'm a professional computer games programmer - I've been doing 3D graphics for close to 30 years. XNA is crap.

Use OpenGL (or, if you are absolutely, utterly certain that you never want to run on anything other than Windows or XBox - you might consider Direct3D). The 'ease' of XNA is a false lure - it's easy to do the easiest things - but when the going gets the slightest bit difficult, XNA becomes useless. If you start down the XNA path, you'll soon wish you hadn't - and then it'll be too late. Plus it doesn't work on Linux, Mac, iPhone, AndroidPhone, Nintendo DS, Wii, Playstation...OpenGL works on every platform that can do 3D graphics. SteveBaker (talk) 15:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Getting rid of backdoor.tidserv

I have a virus on my computer called backdoor.tidserv. I need to know how to remove it. It makes some sites, such as Google, act strangely. I can't remove it with the anti-virus software because it shows up as "left alone". And I can't use System Restore because nothing happens when I click the "next" button on the third step. Is it safe to remove it manually by going to the directory it is in, right-clicking it, and choosing "delete"? If not, are there any free anti-virus programs that will remove this virus? Not those that require registration. Just the free ones. 60.230.124.64 (talk) 11:14, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mepis, Debian, SuSE, etc. Each of them free, none of them requiring registration, all of them ensuring that you'll never again suffer from this kind of crap. -- Hoary (talk) 11:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to switch operating system. All I'm interested in is getting rid of this treacherous virus. 60.230.124.64 (talk) 12:11, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Ignore Hoary, there are plenty of viruses for *nix, and his answer doesn't even address the question. I'm going to write up some instructions now, which AV are you using? :) — neuro^(talk) 12:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Symantec. 60.230.124.64 (talk) 13:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Then this should help. — neuro^(talk) 13:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC) Turns out 'done' != 'solved'. — neuro^(talk) 13:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Yeah it annoys me too when someone suggests changing your whole OS and migrating your stuff just to fix some minor Windows problem.

this link tells you a bit about your virus. It seems Norton Anti Virus can get rid of it for you and I suspect that other Anti Virus software can remove it as well (perhaps your Anti Virus has ben compromised in some way). If you don't want to splash AUS$60 or more, you can try a manual removal. The word "TDSS" seems to be an important clue. Search your system for all files with "TDSS" in the filename, and search the registry for "TDSS". Delete the obvious candidates and move/rename the less obvious ones (remembering their old name/location). Reboot your PC. You might have to go round this process several times to be sure you have got all of it. One last thing: messing with the registry and system files carries a high risk of breaking Windows so bad that you need to reinstall everything. Make sure you back up anything you cannot afford to lose (ie. documents, photos, emails, etc.) before you start. Astronaut (talk) 13:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Well no there aren't "plenty of viruses for *nix", but I do agree that Hoary's comment was a bit pointless. Anyway, go ahead and delete the virus' file. If you can. You see, while the virus is running, Windows locks the file so you can't delete it. You'll have to terminate the process first. If Windows Task Manager can't terminate the process, try IceSword or gmer or something else. You can also try booting from a GNU/Linux LiveCD with NTFS support or a Windows Live CD (see BartPE) and delete it from there.

The first thing you'll have to do is locate the virus' file. This can be done using Process Explorer (google it). If the virus is some sort of DLL, then it's going to be much harder. If it's a rootkit, use IceSword or gmer. --wj32 ^t/c 21:30, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's not that simple. This does have a rootkit component (thanks for the link, Astronaut). You'll first have to use IceSword's registry editor to delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TDSServ, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal\TDSServ.sys, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal\TDSServ.sys and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\TDSS. Then use IceSword to move any files that start with TDSS in C:\Windows\system32 to a backup directory. --wj32 ^t/c 21:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I've heard that this virus can stop you from getting anti-virus programs. I don't know if this has happened to my computer, but what if it does? What can I do then? 60.230.124.64 (talk) 23:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Please, stop worrying about what might happen if you "get an anti-virus" program. Search Google for IceSword and download it. Run it, and follow the instructions I just gave you. Sorry, but... your computer will not blow up if the rootkit you have prevents you from running an anti-virus program! --wj32 ^t/c 00:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, hunt down and kill any running processes and services that start with "TDSS". Process Explorer is good for that, and/or a rootkit killer such as IceSword if a rootkit is involved (though if you're running Vista you might have difficulty finding a rootkit killer that works). The big problem though is thinking you've got rid of it all, only to find it comes back afer a reboot. In my experience, it is possible to have multiple copies of the same virus or many different virus infections all hidden by the same rootkit. Getting them all is a long job.

The best guide is to be familar with what your PC loads at boot time and then check up on any changes. Anything that starts at boot time should be checked out (googling file names is one simple method - eg. googling "TDSServ.sys" gets 9,000+ hits mostly about malware). Astronaut (talk) 01:33, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I used this program ComboFix a while back to get rid of some spyware/virus on a friend's computer after all other antispyware programs failed and I think the files it got rid of did start with TDSS... So maybe give it a shot. Cheers, --71.141.107.171 (talk) 04:59, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Caches

I was logging in to an MMORPG when a glitch occured,the login button didnt work and the moderator asked me to "clear my cache",I don't understand —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.245.31.100 (talk) 15:47, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

To give you the best answer, we need to know what game you're having trouble with. The process for deleting the cache for a browser-based game will be different than deleting the cache folder of a game with its own client. Laenir (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Almost definitely browser based. In FX, Tools > Clear Private Data > Tick 'Cache', 'Clear Private Data Now'. — neuro^(talk) 16:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

And in IE, Tools > Internet Options > Delete... > Delete Files... & Delete Cookies... --wj32 ^t/c 21:34, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Skpjack & the Clipper Chip

See Skipjack and Clipper chip for more info
If Skipjack was classified then how could companies use it to encrypt data? It seems paradoxical to me. Plus, is the weakness in that a key is included for each chip or that there's a weakness in the algorithm? Because, if the government were to use the unique cryptographic key on each chip to decrypt the message couldn't they just use the backdoor that was planted in it? --Melab±1 ☎ 16:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

"If Skipjack was classified then how could companies use it to encrypt data" They couldn't, but it isn't. I don't really comprehend the rest of your question, sorry! — neuro^(talk) 16:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Classified doesnt mean "government only." If a company were given access to classified information (which many of them often are, see Lockheed Martin), then using it wouldnt be a problem. Livewireo (talk) 17:17, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's how it was intended to work:

• The Skipjack cipher was indeed classified. This wasn't (they said) security through obscurity, but rather just to prevent the design secrets of how the NSA's theory-of-cipher-construction worked (and thus aid the growing civvy-street crypto community to design better ciphers).
• Government contractors (e.g. VLSI Inc.) would make hardware encryption chips (that's the clipper chip) which embodied the Skipjack algorithm, the key exchange protocol, keystorage, and rest of the cryptosystem (modes and stuff, signing)
• Computer manufacturers (IBM, Sun, Dell, etc.) would buy these chips from VLSI and would put them on their board. They'd probably also have a standard API for accessing the chip.
• When you set up your new computer, you'd input (or have it generate) your keys - but you didn't get to pick all of the key. Instead the key was split, with a portion of it (my memory says 22 bits out of 80, but I'm not sure) injected in the VLSI factory (a different fragment for each individual chip). This (the Law-enforcement access field) was kept in the government's key escrow - even you, as the owner of the chip, couldn't recover it.
• You'd pick the remaining bits, and the chip would use the elision of your key and the LEAF for encryption and decryption. Skipjack is a pretty good algorithm - contrary to people's fears at the time, NSA hadn't deliberately released a broken system. The system is secure as long as the government's escrow isn't compromised (you'd hope they'd look after that). Each chip was tamper resistant (which means it'd blow its little brains out if someone tried to get into it), and even if they succeeded (an expensive process) they'd only recover your specific key and the specific LEAF for that chip (no, the NSA weren't dumb enough to use the same LEAF for everyone).
• If the US government wanted to read your encrypted traffic, they'd identify your chip (I think from the exchange of unique chip serial number as part of the key exchange), and then apply to the relevant authority for the appropriate LEAF. That leaves them with 22 (say) bits known out of 80, so they'd have to brute force the rest - but they're the NSA, so they've got plenty of capacity to do that, and knowing the LEAF makes it a very tractable task.
• All in all the system was (if you trust the government) secure (there's no weak key, no trapdoor in the cryptosystem, and no backdoor in the chip). You're relying on the US government not to cock up and leak the LEAFs; say what you like about the NSA, they're not dumb enough to leave a USB stick with all the country's LEAFs on the train.

It's really a very nice system implemented well; the only problem with it was political (that they proposed to make it the only strong crypto that anyone could use). The same principles (secure central escrow, unique local key in tamper-resistent module) are used (and were before Clipper) by the banking industry (and you can bet in military systems too) - the need for a large organisation to be able to recover stuff encrypted by a key stored in a now lost device make some kind of escrow inevitable for them. In addition the British government's Rambutan system (which works much as described above, although still classified and I've no idea if it has a LEAF equivalent) is (supposedly) in use handling non-secret stuff British government departments (the tax office, the health service, etc.). -- AgentOfDoom (talk) 17:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

The british thing is Rambutan (cryptography). -- AgentOfDoom (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

AgentOfDoom is right on the money. And IIRC, 22 bits out of 80 is correct. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

DDR2 memory

If I place DDR2 1066 memory sticks into slots on motherboard that supports maximum DDR2 800(OC), will it work there? MB: [10] Or my only option is to buy DD2 800 and lower? Failed Google search, and DDR2 SDRAM article did not answered this question. Vitall (talk) 17:23, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

The DDR2 1066 will work in any DDR2 slot. They are backwards compatible within the DDR2 series. Your 1066 should work in the 800 slot, but only at the performance of DDR2 800. Freedomlinux (talk) 18:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Upgrading Laptop Graphics Card

Hey guys, I guess this question has been asked a lot of times, but any help would be appreciated. I have a 64 mb nvidia dedicated graphics card on my hp laptop. I find it to be too slow for games and i just wanted to upgrade it to a 256 mb or a 128 mb dedicated graphics card. Is this possible in any possible way on a laptop or should I just consider buying a new laptop? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.159.65.57 (talk) 20:36, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It's possible, but laptops aren't normally made to be user-serviceable, which means you'd have to pay someone to do it for you. Why use a laptop for games ? I suggest you get a less expensive regular PC for that, and keep the laptop for those occasions when you need a computer away from home. You can play some less graphics-intensive games on it on those occasions. Then, when the need arises in the future, you can upgrade the regular PC. StuRat (talk) 20:49, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Laptops aren't standardized, so good luck finding something that fits. As for paying someone to do it, I have been in the freelance IT business working with various firms for years, and nobody has ever mentioned that they have a skill like that to me. Hm. — neuro^(talk) 00:26, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Auto forwarding past and future mail

Hey, I'd like to know if there are any free forwarding services out there that is able to forward email from my current inbox (Juno Online Services) to my GMail account. It has to be able to copy the messages from my Juno inbox and folders to GMail (with original headers), and it would greatly help if it supports incoming mail as well, but that's only second in priority. Does anyone know of any software or free service that can achieve this? Much appreciated, Vic93 (t/c) 22:29, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

This might be of assistance. — neuro^(talk) 00:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Try just copying over IMAP in your mail client from one account to the other. --71.141.107.171 (talk) 04:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Image search

Is there a tool online for which I can find an image if I have it on my hard drive (i.e., no keywords)? I imagine it would process by EXIF/metadata/checksums or something like that. I've had people send me awesome images, but I can't locate them online. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Try TinEye — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 23:07, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Gdebi inside Gdebi

I have a bash script I distribute to my clients every few months, to update their Debian OS, that script downloads .deb files, installs them, and also installs software from the repositories, is it possible to put this file inside a .deb? would it work properly? I'm not sure... Thanks SF007 (talk) 01:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC)