Proposal for guidelines

We are currently drafting a proposal for guidelines at Wikipedia:Reference desk/guidelines.
Get involved! Discuss the proposed guidelines, propose your own and help us reach consensus on the associated talk page, Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/guidelines.

April 1

Clear browser cache from JavaScript

For the Wikipedia in-browser editor wikEd I am looking for a an automatic updating mechanism. Since MediaWiki user scrips are updated by flushing the browser cache, my question is: Is it possible to clear the browser's cache from within a JavaScript (this is different from clearing the Wikipedia server page cache). Cacycle 03:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I highly doubt it, since it would be a potential security risk. Even if it wasn't, people would probably not appreciate if any web page could clear their browser cache at will. One solution could be writing a browser extension to do it. --Nitku 12:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Re-)loading a script while bypassing the browser's cache would do the same - this does not look like a security risk. Cacycle 13:30, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have figured it out: window.location.reload(true); does the job, it is fully equivalent to Shift-Reload. Cacycle 02:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for a GIF animator

A lot of times I try to make stop motion videos with my digital camera. I was wondering if anyone knows of an GIF animator I could use that will automatically process each JPEG, instead of most programs I find where I have to select them one by one. Thanks in advance.

QWERTY | Dvorak 05:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

mplayer/MEncoder accepts lists of images as input. -- Diletante 16:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Commercial programs like Adobe Fireworks or Adobe Imageready do this too. --24.249.108.133 17:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Multicolor Fill Effects Gone in Powerpoint 2007

I'm using Powerpoint 2007 for the first time, and unless it's just me, I can't seem to find how to use more than one color for a slide background. The fill box only seems to accept one color. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@ 17:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm using PowerPoint 2000. I would right-click on the slide. Click Background. A window should appear. Click on the arrow below the "background-fill box". Click "Fill Effects." In the "Colors" section, check the circle that says "Two Colors". Then, select the shading style you wish. Once you've selected the shading style you want, click OK. You should be back to your original Background window. Click the "Apply" or "Apply to All" button. Now, you should have a multicolor fill effect slide. I hope this helps. Mayfare 19:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Office 2007 though is highly different (apparently) from earlier versions (at least according to the press). I'm not sure that will apply. (The 2007 "improvements" sound awful to me.) --24.147.86.187 23:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I know how to do it in previous versions. I think in 2007 it was replaced by "gradients". I thought the previous way was easier but the rest of Powerpoint is actually good compared to older versions (no new custom animations though). --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@ 00:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

HP Deskjet 3420 Printer

Whenever I print an image, the printer is unusually slow. Eventually, it stops printing. My printer connections are correctly and securely connected. This hasn't been the first time it happened. It's been a week. Thanks very much for responding. Mayfare 19:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is your computer fairly old? If you are running on a older computer, or are using a older connection (serial, USB 1.0, etc.) you may not have proper data flow. Scepia 23:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your advice. However, a couple of years ago, I had the same printer and the same "old" computer; it printed images fine. Mayfare 02:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might need to check the drivers. Splintercellguy 04:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Task manager

Is there a way to configure the Windows XP task manager not to run certain programs? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.100.167.232 (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Can you clarify? Are you talking about disabling programs from automatically starting on when Windows is booted, or are you talking about preventing a program from ever running (even if a user gives the command to run it)? If it is the later, you can use msconfig to disable autostart programs and window services. —Mitaphane _?|! 19:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm talking about application programs whether the attempt to run them is manual or automatic at startup or later on - similar to the way you can block access to any web site by placing its URL in the restricted site list. Nebraska bob 20:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can change the programs which run when windows starts up with MSConfig. Go to Start -> run -> msconfig -> Click the "Startup" tab at the top -> Untick everything you don't want to run. You can also change services that run in the Services tab. Do not change anything in SYSTEM.INI, BOOT.INI or WIN.INI unless you know what you're doing. JoshHolloway 12:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ATA-48 / Solaris 10 / Sun Blade 100

Do I need hardware support for (P)ATA-48 (> 137 GB) hard drives. And more specifically can I install such drives in my Sun Blade 100 running Solaris 10? —Ruud 22:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You need software support, both in the firmware and on the operating system. --cesarb 00:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

life's little frustrations

Who thought it was a good idea for commands like more, emacs, and less to clear the screen when they exit, so that you can't make any use of anything you might just have been looking at (such as a man page)? What do other people do about this insane annoyance? (I do know how to fix it -- create a custom termcap entry without the "reset terminal" sequence in the "exit visual mode" string -- but it's a nuisance and somewhat problematic.) —Steve Summit (talk) 23:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The first part of your question (who thought it was a good idea) is too hard for me. If you're using xterm, there is another way to get rid of the effect without editing termcap and terminfo by hand. Add "XTerm*titeInhibit: true" to your .Xresources or .Xdefaults to make it do the termcap/terminfo mangling automatically. If you use a different terminal emulator and it doesn't have an equivalent option, you can at least get less to behave properly by putting LESS=-X in your environment. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 06:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Curious. On Solaris, more/less doesn't clear the screen upon either a "q" exit or upon its exit after displaying the entire file. (And no, I have no alias covering either command.) Nor does vi (and I don't recall what emacs does).

Atlant 11:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that behavior is very annoying. Since these days I am always in X I usually just open a new terminal window. Would there be other, unwanted side-effects with the termcap solution? -- Diletante 14:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I open a new terminal window if I'm in X, or just switch sessions if I'm in the terminal (alt and they f-keys I believe)

Koriar 17:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And a different behaviour again from an old version of Linux - more does not clear the screen at the end, and less does.

There is an option -d, to make less dumb, so it does not clear the screen. Do less -d filename. Or you can do

LESS="-d";export LESS

to set the default option to dumb for use in less or man outputs. Then you do not have to add in -d on each use of less. GB 00:48, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tips. I didn't know about that titeInhibit attribute. (I was going to launch into a long rant on the folly of redefining the effect of an annoying escape sequence, as opposed to just not using the annoying escape sequence in the first place, but the time has passed...) —Steve Summit (talk) 22:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proxies

Is there any program or setup that will prevent proxy servers from being used on forum sites? I know there's hundreds of thousands of them, but I would imagine that there's a way to block a lot of them. --69.144.234.146 00:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could find a list of open proxies (there is one on Wikipedia - which does not allow open proxy editing - see Category:Open proxies blocked on Wikipedia - but a little bit of Googling shouldn't be too hard) but open proxies are being created all the time, and you do have to remember that for large forums, you risk a lot of collateral damage. When I run my forum, I just block the problematic ones when they appear. As for blocking them, vBulletin I know for sure offers IP blocking. If you own a server, you can block the IPs at the server-level via iptables or a firewall. x42bn6 Talk 02:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

April 2

RAM

I know a guy with a laptop who claims he can use hard drive space as RAM, so he can get like 10GB of RAM. Does anyone know if this is possible? I don't believe him Mix Lord 00:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See virtual memory. --cesarb 00:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any machine can do that, though physical memory is always better. Splintercellguy 03:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Once upon a time, a quintessentially moronic newbie remark was, "Virtual memory? Coool! Now I can make me a really big RAM disk!" —Steve Summit (talk) 04:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What steve is trying to say in a satirical way is that while you can make a large virtual memory for your computer, hard disks are limited in their speed compared to RAM. RAM has no moving parts, but hard drives require motion, and are therefore limited to the speed at which these parts can move. See the virtual memory article, and hard drive.--Russoc4 15:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, no it's not. Using VM (which uses hard disk space) to create a RAM disk is no different from using a regular hard disk, which is why it's stupid. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.78.208.4 (talk) 03:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

A DVD, CD, or even diskette can also be used as a "RAM disk", to provide extended memory. Of course, as with hard disks, this makes things run much slower. StuRat 20:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay thanksMix Lord 00:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can't use VM on read-only media, of course, because it wouldn't work.

Yes, quite true. StuRat 15:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Au contraire! You could do demand paging perfectly well out of a file on a read-only disk, and as far as I know this would be exactly what would happen if you were to exec an a.out file (i.e. a Unix executable) in a directory on a mounted CD-ROM filesystem. It's true you couldn't use the "virtual memory" so exposed to create a RAM disk, but hypothetically, you could make a ROM disk (i.e. a read-only filesystem) out of it... —Steve Summit (talk) 02:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC) [P.S. But yes, of course, building a "ROM disk" on top of read-only memory on top of a demand-paged file on a read-only disk would be precisely as pointless as building a RAM disk on top of virtual memory backed by a read/write disk.][reply]

Allowing DVD player, Video game system, and cable box to run on same TV.

Anyone know how to? Currently the guys that put the cable box in, I didn't have a cable box before, made it so the DVD player would run on Video1, same as before. They set the cable box to component 1, so therefore right now, I can't record TV. Now, I believe that if I plugged out the video game system out of the DVD player (yellow white red jacks), I could allow my DVD/VHS recorder to record the TV, currently I can only play DVD's/VHS's. But then of course I couldn't run the video game system. Can anyone think of a solution? (This is the most accurate topic area I could find, thought it would be better than Miscellaneous.) 71.175.79.130 02:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does your TV have a TV-out or something like that? If you connect that to your VHS then it can record whatever that's on your TV. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK I figured it out, but do you know if plugging in your cable box composite cables into your DVD player, then plugging av cables into your television distorts the HD picture? Also, before doing this my HD was coming in full screen, but now comes in wide screen. I mean I compared the HD and standard and the HD seems better, but do you know if it distorts it at all? 71.175.79.130 17:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is bad as you basically wasted your component connection, which means you now cannot get HD signals into your TV. I haven't tinker with the VHS/DVD combo players too much but I doubt any of them can relay component video without lost (assuming that you use component both from yoru cable box to your VHS/DVD and from there to your TV). --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cable Question

i am trying to get high speed cable internet in my home however i have two cables to the outside of my house. on the outside layer of one cable it says CATV on the other it says digital satellite which was iniatialy connected to a DISH network dish but was disconnected which one of the cables would work?--logger 03:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unless things are drastically different where you are as compared to every place that I've lived, you would not have to hook up your own cable internet. Your cable company or your ISP would normally do the outside work for you and then you would hook up the modem, router, etc. yourself from a cable jack inside your house. Or am I misunderstanding what you're doing? Dismas|^(talk) 03:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

i am trying to use comcast to do the intenet they appear to have service in my area because i see CATV cables in my house. what i want to know is if the CATV cable would work without the need of a professional.--logger 03:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming you've already signed up for their services and it's all setup, all you have to do is hook the cable modem to the jack. Splintercellguy 04:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

should be getting the stuff this week has not yet shipped but should ship soon.--logger 04:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cable modems require a high-quality (broadband) coaxial cable line; when we had one installed, the Cable Guy pulled in a new line that extended from the pole to their splitter in our basement and thence on to the cable modem itself (that we provided). They also put in a trap, downstream of which we connected the rest of the house's older CATV wiring. They advised us that putting any clunky old (e.g., RG-59) cable in the way of the modem would probably cause it to not work so well.

Atlant 14:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When ours was run, they also had to turn up the signal at the main line. It was too weak and we weren't getting synced on the cable modem. I helped it out further by removing the splitters in the crawlspace that were being used as end-to-end connectors and replacing it all with one long cable. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

what is

that little image in the left hand side of the web address bar called? (on wikipedia it's a 'W')--Honeymane_{Heghlu meH QaQ jajvam} 04:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I call it a favicon. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's because it is a favicon. --Russoc4 15:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aha! Good to know. :-) —Steve Summit (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

XP and available RAM

What is the miniumum actual ram (not recommended values etc) I would need to run XP home on my old computer? O yes, and why?--SlipperyHippo 15:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft says 64 Mb. But even at 128 Mb, Windows XP is painfully slow, taking several minutes to start up and shut down with a few programs installed. x42bn6 Talk 15:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK Ive got 192M and I cant even get XP to install so it shouldnt be a memory problem? I should say that I have MagnaRAM running. Is this likely to cause a problem?--SlipperyHippo 20:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

XP should certainly install with 192M. Are you trying to upgrade? Why not just format and install from the cd? A clean install is always better IMO. If you want to keep your data, I would still suggest backing up your important files, then doing a clean install. Sandman30s 21:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

256M to get it running smoothly and 512M (minimum) if you want to play games that load large levels at a time such as first person shooters, or work with large pictures or videos. Of course it always depends what you want to do with your old computer. The moment you notice a lot of page swapping going on, it's a sign you need more RAM. RAM is cheap so why not just get 512M, you won't regret it. Modern PC's come standard with 1G; and 2G is not uncommon. Sandman30s 21:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hardware for reading PDF files

Hi. I read LOTS of electronic books and it's an annoyance having to sit in front of the computer to just read them. Printing them isn't a possibility, due to logistic problems. I was thinking in something like a PDA, but it apparently has much more features than I would need. What do you think? Do you know any hardware that would fit my needs? Thanks in advance. --Taraborn 16:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't an electronic book suffice? --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds fine... but is that hardware commonly available and allows information to be uploaded to it from the main computer? Thank you very much for your response. --Taraborn 09:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The electronic book article even includes a list of available products, such as the Sony Reader which comes with software to move files from your computer to the book. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've also heard that the iPhone will be able to read PDF files (it's running Quartz Extreme). -HuBmaN!!!! 15:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SQL query

Using mySQL, I am trying to find a way to select both a random number and that random number multiplied by a column in my table. I have got as far as

SELECT RAND(),RAND();

which outputs

+------------------+--------------------+
| RAND()           | RAND()             |
+------------------+--------------------+
| 0.74826139095077 | 0.0067676957759705 | 
+------------------+--------------------+

which obviously isn't what I want. A different query,

SELECT RAND() as number,number;

would, I hope, select the same random number twice. However, it only gives

ERROR 1054 (42S22): Unknown column 'number' in 'field list'

Does anyone know how to do what I'm trying to do here?

Many thanks, Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 21:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Did you try

   SELECT RAND() as mynumber, mytable.foo_number as tableval, (mynumber * tableval) as myresult

by chance? dr.ef.tymac 21:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Same error, I'm afraid... Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 21:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can use a subquery.

select rand1.number,rand1.number from (select rand() as number ) as rand1;

look at the docs on the mysql website because i might be doing something silly for all i know. -- Diletante 22:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Super, that's exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks! Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 10:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm ... mySQL requires a subquery for that?! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dreftymac (talk • contribs) 16:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Ask.com Service

Does Ask.com offer a paid service? 68.193.147.179 22:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean like Google sell their search engine in a hardware box format?

http://www.google.com/enterprise/mini/#

Or like how Google sells advertising via Adwords?

Anyway I'm not sure if ask.com can come in a box, but this may help:

http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com/

Ronnystalker 05:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Research Services

What are some paid research services? 68.193.147.179 22:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your question is too broad or general, please clarify by explaining what sort of information you are looking for
For example, certain companies may do market research, where they may interview their customers. There are telephone research companies that will telephone people and ask to do a survey. There's medical research. There's research for film where you need to come up with examples of ideas for things. There's research as in fact-finding, like Google Answers, where you might have to research certain facts of information from a series of data. Your question is far too non-specific. Rfwoolf 12:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To research information about companies. 68.193.147.179 16:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Paid financial research:

Free corporate profiles, SEC filings, annual statements, etc.:

Is this what you are looking for? —EncMstr 18:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am looking for something that is like Google Answers. -68.193.147.179 21:45, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TiVo on iO cable

Can you run TiVo on iO cable? 68.193.147.179 22:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They have their own DVR recievers. It's just like TiVo. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 03:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Text messaging

I know that it is possible to:

Send a text message from a phone number to another phone number.
Send a text message from a phone number to an e-mail address.

But how do I send a text message from an e-mail address to a phone number? Is it even possible? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.43.52.21 (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

It is possible if the telephone service attaches an email address to the telephone's text messaging service. Most do not do this because nobody wants to pay for spam-text constantly clogging up their phones. --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, first of all any phone that is web-enabled can send and receive email - but it does this quite literally through the internet, just as you would ordinarily send and receive an email on a PC - it simply connets to the internet to their email service, provides their account details (such as email address, username and password) and uses the relevant email protocol to connect and download the email.
But I think you are asking if it's possible to send an email to a phone and have it arrive as an SMS. It is certainly possible - but depends on your service provider. Some service providers will allow you to create an account like 0825557779@vodacom.co.za - and when an email gets sent to that address it would send an SMS to that number with the text of the email. But certainly not all service providers provide this service - in fact these days it would be pretty uncommon for them to do that because they want to encourage people to buy web-enabled phones and to subscribe to WAP and other cell-phone internet services.
Oh and one more possibility... SOME service providers will allow you to send a free SMS to one of their subscribers - and you'd do that through their website - but like I say, only if they offer this feature. Generally if they do offer that feature it's just a service that they offer to their existing subscribers, to be able to send a free SMS to another one of their subscribers.
Hope that all helps. Just by the way 'SMS' stands for Short Message Service - which is the standard TEXT message that people use to message eachother on phones - but certain western countries have corrupted this term by using the word "TEXT" instead, as in "Just text your mate" - which is fine, but the actual service was originally called SMS. Rfwoolf 12:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The same way people improperly say "send an email to", which complete disregards the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) required to do so; or "receive email" which disguises what're they're really doing, which is using a client program to connect to an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) or POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) server. --64.0.112.54 19:32, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pandemonium 1 does not work

I just got the game Pandemonium. I tried to run it but it does not work. I searched online and I read something about using a Glide wrapper. So I downloaded dgVoodoo and I placed the DLL files in the Pandemonium directory. However, the game still does not work. Whenever I run it, it gets to the title screen but it quits a second later. Please help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Metroman (talk • contribs) 23:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

April 3

Geforce 8800, Soundcards.

Does anyone know if the Geforce 8800 needs two PCI-e cables (from the PSU), or just one? Secondly, do sound cards need a connector from the PSU, or is the power supplied by the motherboard enough? (The card in question, if it matters, is Chaintech AV710.) Froglars the frog 03:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In general, no, the motherboard powers the soundcard. The only extra cabling is the one going from CD/DVD-ROM drives to the sound card, which is for... I forgot. Either direct analog or digital connection. And for the GeForce 8800, do you mean the SLI cable? If so, see the last question of the nVidia faq. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the OP means the extra power cables from the PSU that goes into PCI-e graphics cards, which I think the 8800GT needs 1, and the GTX needs 2. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:45, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have a 8800 and I can confirm it only needs one PCI-e cable. --Kiltman67 17:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The 8800GTX requires two PCI-Express(6-pin) power cables from the power supply. The 8800GTS 640MB and 320MB versions require only one PCI-E power cable.

backing up files

does anybody know of a simple, free program that will synchronize my computer files with a backup file in an external hard drive? thanks. i've tried just copying and pasting, but this requires all the files to be rewritten. --Gujarat10 06:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is your operating system? I use rdiff-backup to backup my computer. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you have Windows Vista, it comes with an automatic backup called "Backup and Restore Center". --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have windows xp 04. --Gujarat10 03:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For Mac OS X, there's SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner. --24.249.108.133 17:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Google summaries

When you search for, say, "douglas adams" on google, you will get Wikipedia entry listed quite above. What is interesting is the information below it:

Douglas Adams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Provides information about the "Hitchhiker" author and his work.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams - 162k - Cached - Similar pages - Filter

But there is no such sentence in the whole web page! (I am talking about the HTML source). So from where does this sentence comes from? Is some one at google writing this up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scheibenzahl (talk • contribs) 09:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Google Directory/dmoz I think. Search for Douglas Adams Wikipedia on either of them (they use the same index) and you'll get the same snippet. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 12:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

to send as a mail

how to send this page as an email —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.8.139.98 (talk) 10:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

There are two options (that I can think of). Email the the URL, or save the page on your hard disk and email the file (but images won't show up). - Akamad 11:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you wish to email THIS COPY of the page, click "Permanent link" in the "toolbox" on the left. An example of this can be found here. JoshHolloway 12:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you want the contents, including all the markup, you can pick "edit this page" at the top of the page, select in the edit window, use Control A to select all, then use Control X to cut all text, then hit the back button to undo the edit. The full contents of the page are now in the text buffer and can be pasted into most word processors using Control V. Note, however, that the markup won't be interpreted correctly by most programs. StuRat 21:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vista compatibility.

I'm building a new PC and I'm debating whether or not to use Windows Vista. Will game performance be lesser on Vista, due to the higher requirements, Aero, superfetch, etc? How much XP software is incompatible with Vista? Some of the essential apps I run are foobar2000, Nero, DVD Shrink, uTorrent, Knights of the Old Republic 1 + 2, Firefox, VLC Media Player, The Sims 2, Fallout 1 + 2, Call of Cthulhu, Desperate Housewives game, Last.fm, Half-life 2/Counter-strike Source, Battlefield 1942, and ePSXe -- do any of these have issues on Vista? I know I could have googled for some of this information, but a lot of what I found was untrustworthy (things like "works" and "fails" without giving any details, out of date, etc). I'd appreciate any response. Cheers. Pesapluvo 13:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most programs run in Vista, and there's also a capability mode like in Windows XP, so you can run the program as if it was running in XP. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Vista compatibility tool should find out whether these programs will run on Vista. x42bn6 Talk 16:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

VISTA SHOULD NOT BE SLOWER THAN XP. Aero barely impacts performance on systems that can run these games to any degree, and Vista's improved memory management means performance ought to be better. DirectX games run at ~100% of XP speed and OpenGL runs at ~78% of XP speed due to rubbish driver support, but that's expected to improve. 81.157.191.238 11:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Processor

Which one is better?

Intel® Core™2 Extreme QX6700 (8MB,3.2GHz Factory overclocked)
Intel® Core™2 Extreme X6800 (4MB,3.46GHz Factory overclocked) —68.193.147.179 (talk) 16:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

(http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html) May be able to help. You can compare the two against differing tasks. On Unreal Tournament it seems the X6800 is ahead. ny156uk 17:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It depends. For multitasking and in terms of operations per second, the QX6700 is better. For running one single-thread but large application such as a game, the X6800 is slightly better.

OR, you could buy the QX6800 (coming soon) which has as much on one core as the X6800 but aslso the raw power of the QX6700, although it will cost about $1200 by itself. 81.157.191.238 11:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

troubleshoot remote desktop

I am unable to connect from home to work with remote desktop....home is XP home edition; work is XP professional. I have voip phones at work. Called them to open a port.....typed in internal computer ip address:portnumber in the computer spot......typed in user name and password for work computer. Domain.....not sure what to type......old IT company had computers at work networked with an S drive and each computer had a name...(domain???) such as \\computername\shareddocs. New IT people have installed real vnc.....also am running microsoft SQl Server 2000 sp4.....when I try to connect at home error message reads; unable to connect.....too many people accessing network, network connection not established......please help mf8.9.193.154 20:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clarify, clarify! Check ports? What's the exact error message? Splintercellguy 21:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How do you check ports? the exact error message is The client cannot connect to the remote computer. remote connections might not be enabled or the computer might be too busy to accept new connectionsl It is also possible that network problems are preventing your connection. I'm a novice and not a programmer.Flippinep 22:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Make sure your router has port forward entries for the Remote Desktop ports. What router? Splintercellguy 22:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, I misread the question. Can you check to see if the remote computer has its appropriate ports open? Can you do a port scan test on it? Splintercellguy 22:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And check correct IP :). Splintercellguy 22:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could also try using RealVNC Viewer to connect. Sorry for billion responses, I'm forgetting to put stuff in. Splintercellguy 22:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Page break in MS EXCEL

How to remove page breaks in MS Excel? 21:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Page breaks are only a part of the print setup. If you don't want any page breaks, you need to set the print setup to print 1 page wide by 1 page tall. Worm 22:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That doesnt work too.....Its an automatic page break..... I dont knw how to clear it after successive futile trials..... 20:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

"File, Print Area, Clear Print Area". Anchoress 21:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)

Would a "Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)" work with a Windows-based computer (ex: Dell)? -68.193.147.179 21:41, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In short, yes. Vespine 22:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But the computer has to have a "dual link" DVI port to work with a screen that large.

Atlant 23:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Installation help

I need help installing The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (video game) onto my macintosh. My current issue is that when I open the program after installation, it says there was an error in opening OpenAL framework. What does that mean?

OpenAL has to do with audio. Perhaps: 1. you, or it, selected the wrong audio card or audio setting (OpenAL is for 3D audio), 2. your audio drivers need to be updated? --140.247.251.165

file.writelines() in python

How do I make file.writelines() work with a list of unicode strings? --Anakata 23:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

April 4

Screenshot

How do I get a screenshot of a window in Microsoft Windows XP Home without using Alt+Print Screen? 68.193.147.179 00:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Press the prnt scrn button on your computer it will take a screen shot of your computer.keyboard Staffwaterboy 03:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you want to use it? --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 02:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From Windows Help...

To copy the window or screen contents

To make a copy of the active window, press ALT+PRINT SCREEN. To copy the entire screen as it appears on your monitor, press PRINT SCREEN. Note

To paste the image into a document, click the Edit menu in the document window, and then click Paste.

Hope that helps...72.28.56.83 02:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are many free programs you can use where you can set the screen capture key to your liking. Also most graphics editors (eg. Photoshop or GIMP) have built-in screen capture functionality. You can start with Google or Screenshot#External_links. --Nitku 09:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Webcam video

I'm looking for a program that can stream a video, say a home made video through a webcam feed when using my webcam in msn or something. A similair feature appears in manycam but i can't use my own videos, can anyone help me out?

89.242.151.217 09:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

VLC media player is able to stream videos. Aetherfukz 15:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DVD capacity

I've had a look at the DVD page but capacity is only given in bytes or GB. I've tried to work it out but frankly its beyond me, so could someone please say how much capacity a 4.7GB DVD has in MB? Thanks! Think outside the box 13:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

it may be around 4796 MB expecting....just converted into mb on the basis of 1gb=1024mb 1MB=1024KB 1KB=1024BYTES 1BYTE = 8BITS

Thank you! Think outside the box 14:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That answer above might not be right, according to DVD#DVD_disc_capacity "GB here means gigabyte, equal to 10^9 (or 1,000,000,000) bytes" so a 4.7G disc has 4,482 megabytes (if a megabyte is 1024KB) -- Diletante 15:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, it's never quite clear if they are using decimal values or binary values:

Term   Decimal Value        Binary Value
====   =============        ==============
 KB    1,000                1,024
 MB    1,000,000            1,048,576
 GB    1,000,000,000        1,073,741,824

So, depending on the combo you are using, there could be 1,000 MB per GB or 1,024 or around 1,074 or around 954 (the last two requiring that one term is decimal and the other binary). StuRat 15:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And we can all sit and wonder why we allowed marketing people to call 1,000 bytes a KB, leading to calling 1,000KB a MB and 1,000MB a GB. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is the sort of thing the IEC binary prefixes were created for. The reason the "marketing people" call 10⁶ bytes a "megabyte" is because this utilizes the proper SI definition of the prefix "mega" (a megawatt isn't 2²⁰ watts!), and this works to their advantage if they sell digital storage media. -- mattb @ 2007-04-04T18:33Z

I just always remember that a DVD is approximately 4.38 GB in units that we're used to in the computer world. Anything under will always fit. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

rounding calculations to decimal places

Dear Helpers, I am unable to find out the correct html/java code for rounding calculations to a given number of decimal places. If I multiply , say, "2.33 by 6.2", I get "14.446". How do I round that to two decimal places to get the answer "14.45"? Kind regards,

Stuart Sanderson

HTML is not a programming language. It cannot round. Java is a programming language. You use rounded_number = Math.round(100*unrounded_number)/100;. Are you actually asking for JavaScript and not Java? --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Use printf. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Kainaw, Either Java or Javascript - whichever works, but I need to know what computer code tags have to surround the calculations

You are mixing HTML (a markup language) with Java/JavaScript (programming languages). They have nothing in common. There are no "tags" in programming languages. In the example above, the variable "rounded_number" will contain the number rounded off to the nearest hundredth place. If you want that on your web page, you just stick it in there. I am assuming you know how to dynamically produce HTML. If not, you are asking the wrong question. Before asking how to round a number, you should be asking how to dynamically produce HTML - then ask how to round a number. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks once again for your time. I will try to work from the info you have kindly given - SS

A Windows muffler

Microsoft Windows is stupid and noisy. I only have a collective volume control. I cannot turn down the system noises only.

Most system beeps and ta-da's are stored in Windows/Media folder as WAV files. Is there a free-software solution for batch level reduction? I want to make these noises much less noisier. -- Toytoy 15:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to experiment with the various sound schemes, you may find some quieter, or at least less annoying, than others. You select them from Settings + Control Panel + Sounds (at least in Windows 98). Also, be sure all applications with volume controls have them on max, so you can reduce the general volume setting as much as possible. StuRat 15:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could do some Windows equivalent of the below. sox is free and available for Windows. --~~

 for i in *.wav; do
     # reduce volume to 25% of original value
     sox -v .25 $i quiet-$i
 done

Can I add bluetooth remote function to my mobile

I have a java ready phone and of course bluetooth. So can I change my phone to a bluetooth remote control, for example to control my notebook? If it can, how? If it can't, why? roscoe_x 16:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You may write a program on the mobile and a program on the notebook so they can talk to one another (sending commands from the mobile to the notebook). As for can you, it depends on your coding ability. Personally, if you aren't currently a programmer, it will take a while to get to the level where you can write a program on the notebook to listen for commands (securely) on bluetooth and then forward commands on to other programs. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any web resources on these topics? Thank you. roscoe_x 09:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you have Mac OS X, check out Salling Clicker -- it's been available for four years. Use any Bluetooth cell phone or PDA to control your Mac. There also "Bluetooth Remote Control" made specifically for Sony Ericsson phones. Sony makes that for both Mac and Windows. --24.249.108.133 17:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've checked their website. And you can get it for windows for $23.95. And not just for sony ericsson phones. Well, I don't think any open-source program available yet. roscoe_x 22:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

download

how to download a particular page —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 122.164.146.70 (talk) 16:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Which page in particular? One here on Wikipedia? --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right click on any page and select save page as or equivalent thingy on the menu. Coolotter88 17:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

File, Save As --h2g2bob 20:18, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

file>save as >webpage (html only) Staffwaterboy 03:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Help! Microsoft Pinyin IME version 3.0

Can a nice knowledgable Wikipedian help with this problem? I have Microsoft Pinyin IME 3.0 pre-installed on my PC. But it's ruining my MS Word experience. It automatically starts up when MS Word starts and there doesn't seem to be any way to switch it off (there's no exit option or off button I can see, and the program help doesn;t tell me anything about this). I can switch it to English characters mode, but this is not good, as it does not let me type in ordinary English fonts. It uses Chinese-style English fonts instead. I can try to switch to regular fonts but it just default switches back to the Chinese-style English font. This is annoying. Suggestions about what to do (up to and including removing Pinyin IME altogether - I can't see it listed on the Control Panel add/remove programs/components list though) would be most appreciated. Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.222.27 (talk) 17:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Uh never mind, I just worked it out myself... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.222.27 (talk) 17:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Photoshop

In Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0, how do you capture a screenshot using that program? —68.193.147.179 (talk) 17:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I am pretty sure that Photoshop Elements can not do a screen capture itself (cf. this page about version 3]), but you can, of course, use the standard Windows PrintScreen or Alt-PrintScreen keystrokes and then paste the contents of the clipboard into a new file. --LarryMac 18:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Video Capture

How do I use video capture using Windows Media Player? Can I do Video Capture in Photoshop? 68.193.147.179 21:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What kind of video do you mean? Video you input from a digital camcorder? Videos from YouTube? In any event, Photoshop is meant for working with single images; Adobe makes other software for working with video. --LarryMac 22:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean something like this? - Akamad 23:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if Windows Media Player able to capture videos. But in Vista you could use Windows Media Center. roscoe_x 09:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Drivecleaner on my Mac?

I've read the wiki security page, but couldnt find any answers.

I use a Macbook Pro running OSX 10.4.8 and I received a pop up when visiting a website, which had the applemac Safari browser logo and warned me to download drivecleaner. I clicked cancel, but after some research, am worried that it could have still worked its way onto my laptop. I've searched for the file types using spotlight, and have run ClamXav through most of my computer, and it hasnt found any viruses.

Am I safe? Can Drivecleaner even affect macs?

And JUST HOW SAFE am I using a mac in relation to getting malware and viruses? Are we really immune, or is that an old myth?

Like any software, there is no such thing as 100% perfect immunity. I believe there are indeed exploits out there, though I can't think of what they are top of my head. Drivercleaner, whatever that is, probably doesn't even run on Mac OS X. Splintercellguy 00:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are much, much safer using a Mac. (Disclaimer: I'm a Mac user, so I suppose I'm biased.) But Splintercellguy's right: you're not automatically 100.000% safe. Maybe 99.99% safe.

If you're using a Mac, and you practice good computer security habits, you're probably as close to being 100% safe as makes no difference. (But if you practice good computer security habits, even Windows machines are almost reasonably safe these days.)

It's also worth looking at the kinds of things that make you safe or unsafe. For example, I was just reading this explanation of a recent Windows security problem:

Users are being infected after visiting a malicious Web page that has embedded malware designed to take advantage of the flaw. They also can be infected if they open a specially crafted e-mail message or if they open a malicious e-mail attachment sent by a hacker. [1]

Now, I would say that if all it takes to get infected is to visit a malicious web page, or to open a malicious e-mail, then your computer unambiguously has an egregious, nearly fatal bug. That is, I would say that "good computer security habits" should not even be necessary to protect against those two particular threats; protecting you against those two should be 100% your computer's responsibility. But of course not everyone agrees with me -- there are plenty of people who believe that a computer "can't be expected" to protect against all of those threats, and that "user education" is a vital and inescapable part of the computer security equation, that people are ultimately responsible for making decisions about which web pages are safe to visit, which emails are safe to open, and which attachments are safe to click on.

At any rate, the fact that no operating system is perfect, that even well-intentioned ones (such as Apple's) do occasionally have bugs, means that user vigilance is still at least an important part of the equation. If something looks fishy, don't open it. If an unexpected dialog box is asking a suspicious question, don't automatically click "OK".

(One nice thing abut Macs is that the dangerous operations -- but only the truly dangerous operations -- do almost invariably end up involving confirmatory prompts. That is, you won't get pwned just by visiting a website or opening an email. Even if some malicious content does figure out a way to try to install itself, you'll almost certainly get a prompt, which if you're smart you'll say "no" to. Furthermore, if you're using a Mac, you won't be getting those infamous "Confirm or Deny?" prompts for all sorts of other, unimportant reasons, so you won't be conditioned to reflexively say "yes" to all of them, without thinking.)

—Steve Summit (talk) 00:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

April 5

Starting a job stopped

Is it possible to start a job in 'nix and then immediately stopping it, without me having to enter ^Z once it starts? Please highlight shell-specific assumptions you may make. 00:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Good question! The only way I know of is using a debugger. It would also be possible to write a tiny little "helper" program, that just started a program stopped, in the same way that a debugger does. (But I've never heard of such a program being standard anywhere.) And even this probably wouldn't be exactly what you're looking for, because the "stopped" state that programs-under-a-debugger have is, I think, pretty different from the suspended state that ^Z gives them. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC the command "kill" can be used to send arbitrary signals, one of those signals happens to be the same signal that is sent when ^Z is typed. Root⁴(one) 02:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. But starting a process and then killing it with -STOP is only quantitatively (not qualitatively) different than starting it and hitting control-Z. (But it's true, the former can be scripted, so the window during which the process runs could be made considerably smaller.) —Steve Summit (talk) 02:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

^Z just sends a SIGSTOP, so starting the process and then immediately sending it a SIGSTOP with kill will be pretty close to what you're looking for. In bash, $! is the PID of the process most recently started in the background. Doing:

yes & kill -stop $!

will start a yes (which normally prints an endless series of the letter "y" to the screen) in the background, and then stop it quickly enough that it doesn't even get the first one out (though that's not guaranteed). --TotoBaggins 02:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of this, but if you put this in a shell script, won't this have a problem? (controlling the jobs started in a child process?) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.78.208.4 (talk) 03:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

No. The beauty of interacting with a shell is that you effectively *are* in a shell script, so (almost) everything works the same. What you're trying to do is unusual; maybe you're doing something the hard way. Mind telling us what you're trying to accomplish? --TotoBaggins 11:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, it doesn't work, I just tested it. The calling shell doesn't know anything about the jobs that the shell process invoked by the script. I have to use ps to interact with jobs that the script backgrounds.

Ideally I want to have a script or failing that an executable that starts a command and then immediately halts it. This is, for example, to queue up some jobs that may cause excess load to a system if run in parallel. I can then monitor with the shell's job control which jobs have finished so I can continue another one. Ideally something like this should be automated, or I can run each job one after the other in a subshell in the background, but I want to know whether it's possible to do this as I've described. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 11:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

For the record, ^Z sends SIGTSTP, which by default has the same effect as SIGSTOP but is a handlable signal. If you can arrange for the job to attempt to do terminal input (or, in some cases, output) as soon as it starts, you can arrange for it to get SIGTTIN (or SIGTTOU) which can suspend it. If you're writing your own code, you can use ptrace(), in particular the PTRACE_TRACEME option (on Linux; 0 on Solaris, ...) which literally allows you to start a process (really exec() a file) suspended. --Tardis 15:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

RTHDCPL.EXE illegal system DLL relocation

I got an error message with the above heading. The message said: "The system DLL user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly. The relocation occurred because the DLL C:\WINDOWS\Ststem32\HHCTRL.OCX occupied an address range reserved for Windows system DLLs. The vendor supplying the DLL should be contacted for a new DLL."

What does this mean? What should I do? --Halcatalyst 01:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Download the latest drivers from http://www.realtek.com.tw/ for your Realtek audio device. If is an onboard chip, check with your board manufacturer for drivers. --Kainaw ^(talk) 01:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I downloaded the drivers and ran setup.exe. The error message went away and the audio now works fine. --Halcatalyst 03:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can also apply KB935448, which is the fix for that specific problem. It will fix the problem for all programs, not only the Realtek one. --cesarb 22:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So the problem was caused by a Microsoft update I downloaded. Hunh. I hope there isn't an infinite regress here. :P I'll apply KB935448. Thanks for the tip! --Halcatalyst 03:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

my perfect blog

I want to create a blog. My main issue, for what constitutes a perfect blog, is that it create interlinks, at least as easy, as wikipedias double brackets. Are there blog hosts which interlink this easilly? I know of wikilogs, but as for thers editing my page...that is...eh...not so much. Do most or alll blogs fit that requirement, and I don't know about it, yet? Thaddeus Slamp 20:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

Try Tiddlywiki. Its a wiki-like page that you can edit, with interlinks, and its all on one html page! Think outside the box 06:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you.Thaddeus Slamp 23:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I should have specified that I must not have to load anything, and this site will not do for that reason. Do you (or does anyone else) have any alternative selections? Thaddeus Slamp 18:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'Virtual' graphics card for openSUSE linux?

Is there a project to emulate a graphics card under openSUSE? I need it to 'pretend' to be a graphics card and put the calculations on the processor. Thanks!--71.195.124.101 02:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it. Graphics cards are useful because if processors done the calculations graphics cards did, everything would be horribly slow. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.78.208.4 (talk) 05:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I know. I have a core duo 2ghz and no 3d ecaleration. A little help anyone? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.31.163.211 (talk) 05:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Uhhh why on earth do you have a C2D but no 3D acceleration? Is it just that you don't have the correct drivers installed? What is your graphics card? --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added the core 2 to an ancient box I had. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.31.163.211 (talk) 18:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Yeah, it's possible but even with a C2D you're going to find it pretty slow going. What you need is Mesa3D. It's basically a software replacement for OpenGL. It actually gives better standards compliance than many proper driver sets. The link for it is here

Elaverick 23:25, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comcast Technician labor

if i wnted to install comcast high speed internet and i already had a modem and an install kit would i still be charged for labor by the technician just because they come and install the stuff for me.--logger 05:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's exactly what "labor" means. What you already have is called "parts". StuRat 05:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What would the average labor costs be if anyone knows?--logger 05:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what you need to have done. If someone just has to come out and turn on a switch, it might be $50-$60, which they often bill as a "setup fee". If they have to do wiring and cable drops in your hours, it could be $200 or more. If you already have cable or cable outlets in your home, they most likely will not have to do any wiring. --Mus Musculus 13:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As for the "if anyone knows", I bet the Comcast sales people at 1-800-comcast know the exact cost of installation. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, Comcast charging high installation prices is really stupid. They should offer cheap or even free installs, then make the money back in cable fees. They risk scaring off customers which could be worth thousands of dollars in profits due to this short-sighted policy. StuRat 19:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why shouldn't they charge high install fees? They don't have a competitor. They claim satellite is a competitor, but it isn't. If you want a land-line cable, you have one choice and only one choice. Here, they try to confuse things with "Knology" as a competitor. Knology is just a Comcast reseller and they charge more to install that Comcast does. --Kainaw ^(talk) 22:01, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are many other forms of competition besides satellite TV, from broadcast TV, DVD rentals via Netflix, downloadable movies such as TiVo and streaming video services via DSL connections, etc. And in these days of everybody living on borrowed credit, an extra few hundred dollars on installation just may be enough to sway somebody to go with the competition. StuRat 01:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ebay Sales info

Hey All,

Does anyone know the easiest way to get information on what prices things have gone for on Ebay in a data format for free?

I know that you can perform a search using "Completed Listings Only", but I was hoping to get it in data format. I know Ebay offers "Marketplace Research", but I'd rather not pay for data (I'm a data miner!)

Is there any free 'market research'-type information on ebay sales?

I am considering just writing a VB macro to just run repeated advanced searches, locate the information within the search, and then organized it into some sort of categorical format. Has anyone done anything like this before? I did it for a local auction site for my city and it works pretty well. I don't know about Ebay though... it's pretty big. It will either take a looooong time or my IP may get banned!!

Thanks!!!

NByz 06:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Before you do create a macro to do repeated searches, check the terms and conditions of your account as using it in this way may be a breach of the T&Cs. - X201 08:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well certainly achievable with some scripting, I would use maybe some php and grep and output it to a nice pretty table. What are you trying to do though? Find stats for prices of completed auctions? --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah pretty much. I'd like to be able to export a nice pretty data set of all sales in say... the last 30 days in the category X w/ the phrase Y in the title. Then apply some stats to the data once I have it. Overkill maybe... but I'm a stock market guy, and I say every market needs to be analyzed for arbitrage opportunities!

24.68.64.122 09:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Windows update problem

After an automatic update of XP MCE edition, I get a message that user.exe has been moved to a different location in memory because of hhctrl.ocx. It says I should contact the vendor to get a more recent one. I thought I found one at Microsoft, but when I tried to install it, it said what I had was more recent. What should I do now? Clarityfiend 07:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

About 4 or 5 posts above this is a similar question (RTHDCPL.EXE illegal system DLL relocation) having trouble with the same OCX file. Have a look at that and see if it applies to your problem. - X201 14:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that did the trick. (I hate Bill.) Clarityfiend 19:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Low ink consumption printer

Which is the printer/technology with the lowest ink consumption or, being more specific, cost per printed paper? Maybe some kind of inkjet printer? --Taraborn 12:39, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much any inkjet (aka bubblejet) printer that allows you to refill your own cartridges is the cheapest. I use a BJC-210 for black and white printing. I paid $25 for a big bottle of black ink (that is actually darker than the original cartridge's ink). I refill it every other month and I've used about half the bottle in the last year. So, I'm getting about 2 years of printing for $25. It is a hell of a lot better than the laser printers here at work. Every day they want a new toner cartidge or a new drum or a new phaser... I hate them with a passion. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Man, if they want a new phaser, you're probably SOL until the 23rd century ;-( ! Hopefully, all they want is a fuser.

Atlant 17:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It all depends on the volume and the desired quality of your printouts. You can't beat an entry level inkjet and refillable cartridges for cost per sheet, if you print low volume so that the time overhead isn't a big deal. Low cost laser printers have become quite popular in the consumer market recently, which will feature sharper, more durable printouts and operate much quicker than an inkjet. Also, Phaser is a name Xerox uses for laser printers, they perform disappointingly despite my attempts to set them to 'kill'... --Jmeden2000 17:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, many of Xerox's Phaser printers are crayon-jet printers; it's the line and trademark that they bought from Tektronix.

Atlant 20:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would expect an old dot-matrix printer to use the least ink, because they don't print solid letters, but just dots. StuRat 18:43, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The trick with ribbon-based dot-matrix printers is that they never actually "run out" of ink, the printouts just get lighter and lighter. So you could print Sagan's of pages as long as you don't care if you can read them or not.

Atlant 20:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, my advice is to go laser (toner). Although, the first answer about $25 for a year's ink with refillable cartriges sounds very interesting indeed. But generally speaking, ink costs more than blood! Also, a lot of inkjet/bubblejet companies scam you by selling you their printers at a really low price (see lost leader) and then bleed you dry when you come to refill your ink - it's the same principal with Gilette's razers - the 'handles' come cheap with a free blade or two, but the cartriges to buy are really expensive (although this has now changed a bit and balanced out). Toner's much better, especially for volume, and in theory it's faster - more pages per minute, and you don't have to wait for it to dry. If you're in an office environment then get a toner printer - no doubt. The only downside with toner printers is that some of the ink ones are capable of printing on CDs and DVDs - but other than that I don't like them. Oh, and some inkjets tend to do better with picture quality - if you're looking to print out a lot of photos on fancy paper - the lasers don't always support fancy odd papers - but having said that there are definitely toner printers that can do great quality printers with excellent colour matching and can even support odd papers. Rfwoolf 19:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a loss leader, although perhaps Bush is a lost leader ? StuRat 01:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, thank-you. I've always known the term as 'lost leader' - and perhaps we need to do a redirect to 'loss leader' - I will probably say that the word 'lost leader' is a term meaning the same thing, but only when it's referred to incorrectly - you know because they have similar connotations - and if enough people started referring to the concept as a 'lost leader' eventually they would be both correct. Anyways, now I've learn to differentate between the two. ... wow, so it is true, you do learn something new every second or third day ;) (or fourth in my case). Rfwoolf 02:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

new technology

hi, i should give a seminar on technology that has just come so pls anybody suggest me where i can find the info and ppts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chakrirajini (talk • contribs) 14:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Perhaps you should tell us what exactly you wish to know. Splintercellguy 14:39, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

it will be just ppt presentation that should be any technical like a OS or any Softwares....like that so ineed info where do i get latest

Wikipedia tends to have the latest information on technical topics. Just pick one and type it in the search box. If your plan is to give a talk on "technology", you need to reserve about 200 years for the presentation just to give a very brief overview of technology. You need to focus on a single technology. For example, wireless network technology. Or, get very specific and cover bluetooth technology. --Kainaw ^(talk) 15:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that you get a copy of Popular Science, they always include the latest technology. Also check out HowStuffWorks.com: [2]. StuRat 18:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some sources of new technology information: I have somehow subscribed to these in my Bloglines account, http://www.bloglines.com , (i think I ticked a box saying I like techy stuff when I set up the account and I get all these interesting things as feeds - you could set up an account and get similar info too): Wired: http://www.wired.com/ Small Business Trends: http://www.smallbiztrends.com/ The Next Net : http://blogs.business2.com/business2blog/ I also lurve New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/ (although their site is down from my end of the web at the moment) My favourite new technology is RFID. I think it will be absolutely massive - imagine if every car was tagged with an RFID tag - and all roads had RFID receivers in the Cats-Eyes. Then they all hooked up to the net and also talked to each other. The data could be processed using some form of AI to predict where everything is heading and at what speed. It could mean no car would ever have to collide with another again! Most pedestrians are already "voluntarily" tagged with an RFID chip (its on their credit card) - so they could be demobilised if they are about to step in front of a car (perhaps a little electric shock to the knees ;o) ). Put all that info together and wow! On the down-side, Big Brother will probably want to get a piece of the action :o( Anyway, for RFID and other techy stuff, see: http://www.epcglobalinc.org/home Ronnystalker 07:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sharing photos on a LAN.

My PC is always on. I have a Picasa installation that has all my photos (~2,000) all tagged and organised. I'd like the others on my LAN to be able to access a read-only Picasa-WebUI via HTTP, or something along those lines -- even like a Picasa Web Albums that's only on my LAN. Failing this, an aesthetically appealing browser-based way of sharing photos would be great. Can anyone make any recommendations? (Note: I have almost zero knowledge of PHP, MySQL and databases.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.10.86.63 (talk) 15:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Do you want all your tags and descriptions retained while it is access on LAN? I think gallery2 can do what you want, with some tinkering. Just get an all in one package of Apache, MySQL and PHP somewhere and you have an easy web-server, then install gallery2 on it and somehow import the photos in with all the descriptions and tags (the hardest part). --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SQL Problem

I have a (SAS) dataset which has UNQ_ID, DATE, EXPENDITURE.

For each record, I require to add a variable EXP15 to the table, which stores the sum of EXPENDITURE for the rows which have same UNQ_ID, and DATE's which are within the past 15 days from the DATE in this row.

I've tried to solve this problem, but I feel my current solution can be improved. Any hint how I can write an SQL query for it will be really helpful. --Hirak 99

ALTER TABLE and triggers. You could potentially do what you're after purely with a SELECT query, but it will be rather horrid due to your "row date minus 15 days" requirement. I think you can accomplish what you're after with a trigger or just by having your application do the necessary updates. The potential gotcha is that you'll have to update the EXP15 field for practically the entire table if you ever modify EXPENDITURE in old rows or delete rows. This may not be a very desirable situation. I can't think of a way to do this that isn't fairly awful; I guess you have to decide whether you want to spend a lot of time updating the table or a lot of time on the SELECTs. Personally I would step back and see if you can work things so you don't need this EXP15 field or accomplish its intended functionality in your software. -- mattb @ 2007-04-05T16:36Z

Screencast

I am looking for software like Lotus ScreenCam that can work on Windows XP that can record my computer screen and save it to a video file. 68.193.147.179 18:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please refer to the link posted by Akamad in response to your previous query. A Google search for Screencam yields many additional options. --LarryMac 18:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Web 2.0 in Museums

How are Web 2.0 technologies being employed in museums? 141.211.8.253 19:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC)Jason[reply]

They are being used to deter people who do not do homework. Splintercellguy 19:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Goodness gracious, as much as I hate the mere mention of the "Web 2.0" hypeword, I think I'd break down in tears if I visited the High Museum and saw some POS terminal with a bubbling pastel-toned AJAX interface... -- mattb @ 2007-04-05T20:36Z

lastmeasure

how long does it take the Trojans and computer viruses from the shock site lastmeasure.com to start acting on your computer?--71.234.233.163 21:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not exactly sure Last Measure deposits trojans and viruses onto your machine, but if it does, you can easily remove with AV/anti-spyware. Splintercellguy 01:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Last Measure does none of that, it's simply a product of ActiveX and Flash. So, infinite? :) -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 10:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

removed article

hi,

i added a new article, "Realm versus Realm" and it has been removed (i think it is deleted, i can not see it anymore on wiki).

I'd like to know why. I didn't add anything against which is against any laws or rules and the data was not fake, so I don't know what did i do wrong -the article could have been removed because of that-.

Thank you for the information and for your time in advance.

All the Best, Mark Kondor

ps.: the link was "http://en.wikipedia.org/Realm_versus_Realm" —Preceding unsigned comment added by FoolorganIC (talk • contribs)

According to your contributions, you made no such article. Also, checking the creating log, no article has recently been created or deleted with the name "Realm" in the title. --Kainaw ^(talk) 21:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to the deletion log, it was called "Realm versus realm", not "Realm versus Realm". The log also has the deletion reason. --cesarb 22:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the fast reply. RE: Yes, that's exactly my problem. Edited it, added with "Save page" button, tried to access it from a blank tab in my browser and it was working properly. A couple of minutes later (let's say 20 minutes) when i checked back -to revise- it said page not found. Tried to search for "RvR" and "Realm versus Realm" on wiki (generic search) - no article... ps.: i think it could be possible that it hasn't been removed but was not created at all. In that case: a)what did i do wrong (selected "Start a new article..." on main page's "Did you know" section)? b)Why was i able to browse the page for a couple of minutes on wiki with a direct link to the article?

cesarb: Thank you for the info! (and sorry for the upper/lowercase typo). Now i see it says the reason is i tried to advertise something but this is absolutely wrong:
1st) RvR is really "their word" ('WAR' makers)
2nd) WAR Online, as fully and definitely a game advert is available on wiki (but that's OK imo, there are a lot of definitions like that, e.g. "Portal (computer game)"
3rd) I spent a couple of minutes searching for "RvR" (including wiki) but didn't find it: that's why i decided to create an account here and add the topic so i can save some time of other people
The question is: What can i do now? How can i complain against the decision?
p.s.: I'm open to remove the "advert feeling" parts of the definition.

(Thanks for all the fast responses and info, and so sorry, i'm really that noob :)

update: okay, sent a message to the wiki admin who has removed the article so... hopefully he will tell me what's up related to this topic.
to "Kainaw" and "CesarB": thank you again for the response, much appreciated!

Virus on my PC!

Hi there,

Recently, my computer is affected by a virus (I don't know what kind of virus it is). First infected yesterday, around this time. Then, I want to turn it on again, but for some reason (which I believe it is a virus), it got on very, very, extremely slow. The computer seemed to not move. I was trying to get to Wikipedia and edit, but I struggled for few hours, and was unable to log on. Today, I was trying to get to Wikipedia again. This time, my account (You know in Windows XP, you are able to create several accounts) was not able to log on. Panicked, I used the "Guest" account, and to be delight, it works! But I really want my account back, and restore my files. Waht should I do? (Please do not suggest buying Anti-Virus CD!) Smcafirst | Chit-Chat | SIGN posted at 23:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--> Please reply at User talk:Smcafirst/Requests.

I'll reply here. Use a free online anti-virus scanner of course. [3] Splintercellguy 01:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When you say "Please do not suggest buying Anti-Virus CD", is that because you don't want to pay for one, or because you're opposed to using anti-virus software at all? I agree, anti-virus software should never be necessary on a computer with a proper operating system, but if yours is deficient in the area of security (as most versions of Microsoft Windows indubitably are), then running various kind of add-on security products is an absolute necessity, unless you run your PC in isolation and never connect it to the net or allow it to interact with other computers in any way at all. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't run add-on security products. I gave them up a good while ago, and don't have any issues. If I'm about to run an executable from an iffy source, I run it through Virus Total; I don't run very many of those though. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Online virus scanners won't solve anything if it's already hit. You can get a free virus scanner like Avast! or AVG Free, put it on a floppy, boot with it, and hopefully clean it. It doesn't sound like you necessarily have a virus though; a number of things could probably cause issues like that... -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to you can re-install windows, it will get rid of the virus and as long as you DON'T reformat the hard drive you can get your files back by going into C:\Documents and Settings\Your_old_username_goes_here there you can acsses your old desktop and your old My Docs. It's hard thing to do but it'll get ride of the virus(if it is a virus, sound a bit like spyware or a recource hog to me) good luck --Lwarf 09:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Take back what I said before, I have a better idea. Start up you're PC in Safe Mode (hold down F8 when booting up) then log in as administrator you should then be ablre to go into My Computer and get at your My Docs, if you Have file on the desktop you want take a look for them here : C:\Documents and Settings\Your_user_name_goes_here\Desktop . Once you've found all your files copy them onto a thumb drive. Now you can safly re-install windows (this time DO reformat the harddrive). --Lwarf 09:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

April 6

Screenshot in Adobe Photoshop CS2?

How do I take a screenshot in Adobe Photoshop CS2? 68.193.147.179 01:07, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Press PrintScreen, open a new document in Photoshop (or any other image editor for that matter, even Paint), paste. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disable ClearType if you capture text. Cacycle 13:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grub menu

how do you delete or rename items in the Grub menu at startup? Thanks!--71.195.124.101 01:33, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst as root. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

bit torrents

hello, im new to bit torrents and im wondering what steps to take in order to put a dvd torrent on a dvd disc to play it on my home dvd player? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 60.230.51.250 (talk) 08:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I'm assuming you've already downloaded the files? If the files are > 4.5 GB and you don't have a DVD-9 blank, you should recompress. Else, just burn using Nero or any appropriate burning software. Splintercellguy 08:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent thanks for that.Well I was kind of also thinking that I might of had to download a burning program or something special for dvd's, as you can see I am a novice at this, may I say thank god for wikipedia. I downloaded the linux torrent the other night and all i have are some useless files that I dont know what to do with. It was the Linux Light version. Having never used linux before I thought it might be fun to have a look. Once again thanks. ; )

Superior notepad

Hi - I'm looking for a program like notepad (on Windows), but which has greater features. The specific feature that I'm looking for is the ability to alphabetise lists (with one item per line). If anyone know of such a program (on Windows), I'll be most grateful! Thanks, Martinp23 10:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try Notepad++ or UltraEdit32. The first is free and opensource and the second available on trial for 30 days. I don't know if they have the specific feature you're asking for, but if they haven't it, that I'm quite sure that no other notepad has it. Snowolf ^(talk) _CON ^COI - 10:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excel can alphabeticise lists, as can Word! JoshHolloway 12:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or just use the good old sort and some bash scripting. --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ask for the addition of this feature into the Wikipedia in-browser editor wikEd. If implemented, this could allow you to sort lists of wiki links after the displayed link titles. :-) Cacycle 13:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TextPad can do it. If you are just working with lists, try Raptor (surf around here). x42bn6 Talk 17:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Although TextPad will fall down if you try to work with unicode. dr.ef.tymac 18:17, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, shame about that... I have rendered so many articles useless because of that, unknowingly. I guess Raptor is best, then, although it can only work with lists. x42bn6 Talk 18:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Country-specific internet search

The advanced Google search features don't include a country field. How can I restrict a web search to sites specific to one country (specifically Australia)? (Including "Australia" in the seach terms doesn't work.) Thanks.Shantavira 11:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It won't be perfect, but if you ask it to search the .au domain. Anchoress 11:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Go to the country specific site (in the case of Austrailia its - http://www.google.com.au) type your advanced search, when the global results come up just check the "pages from Austrialia" checkbox and click search again. Google remembers your search terms between searches and anything accessible from the advanced search can be expressed in a standard search request.

Elaverick 13:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excel: Calculating average of a product of two columns

I am trying to calculate the total average time to complete a case where I have two columns Column A is number of cases and Column B is the Average duration.

I can't just average column b, because if on day 1 there was 1 case solved in 60 min and on day 2 there were two cases solved in an average of 120 min If you strictly average the durations you get 90 min (60 + 120) / 2. If you multiply by the # of cases first you get 100 minutes (1*60 + 2*120) / 3.

the excel formula would look something like this, but this does not work. sum(a1*b1:a2*b2)/sum(a1:a2)

I could create an extra column to contain the product, but I was wondering if I could do somthing that looks like this.

Excel gives an error and automaticlly convets the formula to sum(a1*a1:b2*b2)/sum(a1:a2)

thanks, Czmtzc 13:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Solved it myself. Needed to use Sumproduct: sumproduct((a1:a2)*(b1:b2))/sum(a1:a2)-Czmtzc 13:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Character Palette

Image:Character Palette.png Does Windows have anything similar to Character Palette for a Mac? Nebraska bob 14:12, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar with Mac OS, but all versions of Windows have included the Character Map utility. --LarryMac 14:20, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've linkfied the picture. Please, no "fair use" images outside of the article namespace. --cesarb 20:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Loophole in blocking IP adresses

I have noticed that everytime I switch my ROUTER on my IP changes, but always in a range 52........... Also while I checked my latest USER: contributions I saw some contribs tht were not done by me. My friend explained something like "IPs in my network providers' range are DYNAMIC and they change everytime I log on. And they pass frm one person to another in the network. So your IP is never constant!"

So this implies That if an IP address is 'blocked' the real culprit can never be penalised as he does not hv a fixed IP. On the other hand it is a headache passed to someone else in the network.

Isn't this a loophole in blocking of IPs. Can anyone explain? Please!!!

Also how can I check my contribs. which are solely mine. As it is hurting to see someone who got my 'once' IP vandalizing and giving me a bad name.

I know making a UserID may help. Can anyone explain please. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.182.27.59 (talk) 15:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Just go here, fill out the form, and press "Create Account". --TotoBaggins 15:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is a problem. But so far, no one has come up with a better solution to limit vandalism. If you have one, please speak up! There are even more ambiguous cases such as large institutions (high school, college campus, megacorporation) with large internal networks connecting outside through a carefully controlled firewall. All those zillions of users appear outside to be at the same IP address, or one of a few. If only there were a unique identifier for the particular PC—or, better yet—for the biometric fingerprint/retina scan of the logged in user to key off of.

Despite the ambiguity, this scheme does work for many users. This computer is connected through the local cable ISP, but my public IP address remains the same for many months at a time (maybe over a year?), even though the broadband modem is power cycled from time to time. —EncMstr 17:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The fact is that it takes less time to block a given IP than it does to switch it — especially when more than one admin is on the case. So even if you are very dedicated you are quickly going to run out of available IPs, and in any case it is easy to revert vandalism. So in the end the vandal has to be pretty committed to causing trouble to make it more than a momentary thing, and even then their trouble will be quickly erased. --140.247.251.165 17:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it's a loophole. It's the reason you see IP talk pages with lines and lines of warnings and yet when you go through the contributions, you find loads of good faith edits (as well as mindless vandalism). Creating an account is always a good idea. Even if vandals create accounts too, they waste their time validating and registering emails, when sysops ban in 1 or 2 keystrokes. In other words, vandals can't win. If vandalism becomes widespread, there are things that Wikipedia can do such as range blocks, or in serious cases, a lockdown of the database. x42bn6 Talk 17:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um, I agree, but you don't have to enter an email/validate it for an account on WP. -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 00:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wireless internet problem

File:Wirelessinternetproblem.gif

I have a weird problem with wireless internet on my IBM thinkpad T60. Every now and then, the wireless internet stops working. I have pasted on the right what I observe on my desktop tray. The wireless internet icon shows green waves permanently, and completely stops responding. It shows "excellent" signal strength, and the status is "connected", but it stops showing the name of the network. Everything related to networks connections, even in Control Panel stops responding. This can happen any time, and the only solution I have found till now is to switch off and restart again (shut down doesn't work.) I have even tried reinstalling my network driver. Any ideas what the problem might be? deeptrivia (talk) 17:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've been having the same problem - when I try to repair the connection (in XP), I'm told that it cannot retrieve DNS settings. The way that I've fixed this in the past is to restart the router, though this is being successful less often, leaving me wondering whether my use of WPA encryption is cauing issue on old hardware. (Note that I'm desciribng the problem here on 2 other systems, neither of which are thinkpads)Martinp23 17:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS: This problem doesn't happen on other laptops, including T60s on the same wireless router. deeptrivia (talk) 18:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wild guess here, but since it's "connection 2", could it possibly be trying to connect to the same network twice with two separate adapters? -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 00:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LG DVD firmware update

I need to update the firware of my LG GSA-4167 which is currently on my primary IDE, but the "read me" file of the update software says I should place the device on the secondary IDE controller before running the firmware update. At the moment it's impractical for me to do so, so do you think I could do the update as it is anyway? Or would it cause problems? --Sn0wflake 18:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This also happened to me...and unfortunately it did not let me Update the firmware in this configuration...there someway to bypass this? Maybe a command line / shortcut command? Although I don't think an update will help my burner because I cannot burn double layer discs and I've read recently on forums that LG drives are known for their 2nd laser which burns the other Layer failing. Anyone know if this is true?

200.12.231.42 22:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech[reply]

Internet browser windows

What's it called when an inactive internet broswer window forces itself to become active once it's finished loading, hence "snatching" away your attention? I've often had this happen with webmail programs; I open the webmail, then a new window, begin typing an address, and find the windows "switch" in the middle of my writing, sometimes resulting in a text input I never intended. It seems like this might be related to the way some popup ads can hide by sticking themselves behind other windows. Any word for this "feature"? $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 20:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is called Focus stealing --LarryMac 20:14, 6 April 2007 (UTC) (oops, fixed my wikilink).[reply]

There is a hidden feature in Windows called "prevent focus stealing" or something along those lines. Don't remember much about it, though, and it could be related to open windows only. --Sn0wflake 20:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to know how to prevent that myself. I often start loading a page in one browser window, then start typing in another, only to be interrupted when the first window loads and insists on stealing the focus back. StuRat 01:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Got it... here it is: [4] --Sn0wflake 01:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. StuRat 05:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Photoshop's weak text support

With Photoshop CS and CS2 (haven't tested CS3), everytime i type some text with the Text Tool, I noticed that the quality of the text is not as good as text editors. For example, when I print using optimal DPI and printer settings, the text shows up quite visibly pixelated when compared to text printed with Microsoft Word. This could be perhaps that the text is turned into pixels when you type in PS, but regardless, is there any way to change the quality of the text in photoshop so that it matches the quality in text editors such as Microsoft Word? Jamesino 23:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Go to the place where you rezie images (forgot the exact name), increase the dpi to at least 300, and that will make your text look better. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Snipping Tool in Windows Vista

Is there a way to download the snipping tool in Windows Vista to my Windows XP Home laptop? 68.193.147.179 23:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Linux and graphics cards

Hi, does anyone have suggestions for a cheap and well supported graphics card for openSUSE linux? Thanks!--Ryan 23:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NV cards have good proprietary driver support, internal intel graphics card have great built in open source drivers, radeons can use the opensource r200 driver for the 9x00 series (I think) or install the proprietary fglrx driver. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as cheap cards go, you could try the reasonable GeForce 5700 (packs a fair punch and is very cheap nowadays) or the 6200, which is basically the same thing, but slightly more powerful and slightly more expensive. I have used the 6200 for a while and can attest that it holds very well, despite not being amazingly powerful. --Sn0wflake 01:32, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

April 7

Photoshop Question

According to the Wikipedia article, Screenshot, it states:

Third party screenshot software There are many third-party programs available on different platforms to take screenshots with advanced functionality. Most computer graphics software (e.g., IrfanView, GIMP, and Photoshop) can acquire screenshots. Typically, these programs can be configured to include or exclude the mouse pointer, automatically crop out everything but the client area of the active window, take timed shots, areas of the screen not visible on the monitor (autoscroll), and so on.

But, I did not see any feature in Photoshop that says that it can acquire screenshots. Does anyone know how to capture screenshots within Photoshop?

Yes they can acquire images such as screenshots or just any other random image you have in your clipboard. But first you have to put it into clipboard by pressing printscreen if you want the whole screen screenshot or alt+printscreen if you want one window only. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:26, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the GIMP can actually capture a screen shot directly into the program, as described here. The description on that page seems to imply that Photoshop can not perform this function. I certainly can't find anything like it within Photoshop Elements (although I am only running version 2). I don't have access to my copy of IrfanView right now, but some of the summaries I found by Googling seem to indicate that it too has this function. It is always possible that the information on any Wikipedia article is incorrect. I will go to the talk page for that article and see if anybody can confirm whether or not Photoshop has this capability. --LarryMac 01:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Building a cheap linux box

Hi everyone. I'm planning to build my first computer, and make it a linux box. I have good experience with the software side of things, but not hardware. Could anybody refer to me a good (and cheap) motherboard and a compatible (and cheap) x68 processor? I'm not sure Intel integrated graphics comes to play in this, is it in the motherboard? Because I would really like to have Intel graphics (well supported in linux). Thanks everyone!--Ryan 00:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most Linux distros can run well on pretty much anything, and if you just want integrated graphics, you're best off just buying a crappy computer (P2/P3) for $50 bucks in the classifieds, wiping its hard drive, and installing Linux on it. EDIT: Read your query above: if I may ask, what do you plan to do with this computer? Are you putting it together for experience? -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 00:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could by a cheap P3 box, I've foumd I can run linux well on them (only problem is that the install is genraly quite slow) If your looking for somthing better than a P3, I'd go for a cheap AMD, however if you want intel and it must be better than the P3, i'd look around for a celeron the new versions go at 3gh. --Lwarf 01:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm building this for experience, so I don't want a used computer. I just want to build this for fun, experience, and to run an ssh server at home.--Ryan 03:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perl or Python

What are differences between Perl and Python and which one is much easier to learn? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.241.232.192 (talk) 01:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Python is more formal than Perl, somewhat closer to a strongly-typed language like Java. For example, saying: "print '44' + 5" will print "49" in Perl, but will give a syntax error in Python. Perl will generally try to "do what you mean", which can be convenient, but can also undermine comprehensibility. They're probably equally easy to learn, if you're starting from scratch. They both have excellent standard libraries, documentation, and community support, which tend to be more important than intrinsics of the language. You should write a few programs in both and see which one you like better. --TotoBaggins 01:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that Python is somewhate easier to learn than Python. I would recommend that language 83.254.160.182 08:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Monitor wont turn on

Wierd lines appeared on my monitor as if there was interference and my monitor went off and until now I still can't turn it on. I checked the cables the back, and when I unplug/plug back the power to the monitor, I hear a clicking sound in my monitor so I am guessing its receiving power. Anyone know a solution to this? I'd really appreaciate it. 65.95.21.81 01:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The clicking sound sounds like the relays trying to decide what video mode to put your monitor into. Could be a problem with the computer video card

I don't think so cause the light in front of the monitor is not turning green~(or responding at all), as it does usually when the monitor is on.65.95.21.81 01:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After detailed examinations, I found out that the cable that connects the monitor to the hardrive is missing one of the little needles, Is this the reason, or does someone knows otherwise? 65.95.21.81 03:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not, unless the pin just broke off. It is common for some of the pins which aren't currently used (reserved for future use) to be omitted. I suspect your monitor is broken. I doubt if it can be fixed. I'd try it on another computer to verify that it's indeed broken, then get a new monitor. Unfortunately, monitors are one of the most expensive components of a computer these days. StuRat 05:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Monitor bonk

When I turn on (or wake up) my CRT monitor (a Hitachi SuperScan Elite 751), it sometimes makes a loud and reverberating (and somewhat disturbing) BONK noise. What causes that? Thanks! --TotoBaggins 02:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Degaussing? Our article would seem to imply that. Root⁴(one) 04:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

limeware

is limeware is a kind of distributed system? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.136.68.194 (talk) 03:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Limewire is a P2P network, yes. Splintercellguy 03:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Audio and Video problems.

Hi I have been searching for a long time now how to fix my audio and video problems for my computer and have yet to find anything useful. When I play a music file on my computer it will randomly decide to mute itself,the volume icon says that its not muted. When playing a video,like something from Youtube or Media Player, the audio shuts off and the video pauses and then stops and then pauses again. This is extremely annoying because every time the audio or video stops I have to reboot my computer. I also don't think that this has anything to do with my speakers. So if you could please help me, or give the name of another site that could, I would be very grateful.

-Godz Hammer

You could try installing newer drivers for your audio card, or you could check to see that the Windows Audio service is not unexpectedly stopping. Splintercellguy 05:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strangely encoded MP4 WAV files

My MP4 player has a record function which can be used to record FM stations or from the built-in MIC itself. However, it uses some unusual format to encode the file which normal quality uses 32kbps, high quality 64kbps and recording from the radio: 256kbps. 64kbps on a fully empty 2GB MP4 (Exact value: 2,092,138,496 bytes) allows 70:56:08 hours of recording. I have to emphasise that the WAV file generated uses very strange encoding which it cannot be played by Windows Media Player/Audacity directly. Only by importing it with Audacity using the "Import RAW data" function at Signed 8 bit, mono, Sample Rate 8000 Hz, I managed to get the audible contents of the file, but it's so contaminated with noise that using the noise reduction is necessary. By then the quality is so poor that directly connecting the audio output of the MP4 to the computer is better. Is there any way to extract the WAV file without any noise? --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 05:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I can upload the file if you want to have a look at it; it's a WAV file, which Wikipedia doesn't accept.

clearing up a pic

Hi After enlarging a pic from say 560x580 to 700x800 the pic becomes blurry or grainy depending on the original quality of the pic. Using Arcsoft photo studio 2000 does anyone know how to get rid of the blur or grain without losing the new size of the pic? Cheers —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.88.3.89 (talk) 06:14, 7 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

DVD Decrypter error or Videora iPod Converter error?

Hi today I ripped a DVD into my computer and tried converting it using Videora iPod Converter, the trouble with the output file is that the audio seems to be tuned down to a ultra-low pitch with an extra slow tempo, while the graphics remained applicable.

I used DVD decrypter, these are the EXACT steps I did in the software to rip the DVD 1) Insert DVD 2) Open DVD Decrypter 3) Go to mode and selected "IFO" mode 4) Go to tools and I selected settings, in settings I went to the IFO mode tab and in the File Splitting place I selected "By Chapter" 5) I confirmed the "By Chapter" setting and went back to the main screen of DVD Decrypter. I then clicked the icon "Decrypt" 6) Files are transferred to my computer.

I then converted it using Videora converter. Is there any way to fix the distorted sound? Thanks in advance! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.78.206.75 (talk) 09:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]