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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, Mart inp23 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]

How about emacs? You can get it for Windows too, you know. And yes, it does sort lists (and does pretty much everything else you could think of, too). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might also want to take a look at Comparison of text editors. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:12, 8 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]

Type "site:au" in the Google search field in addition to your search terms. E.g.:

site:au hotel cheap

(Anonymous)

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

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)Mart inp23 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]

Might be a DHCP sever error, take a look in your router setting and make sure that the DHCP sever option is enabled, then go into the TCP/IP properties on your laptop and set them to obtain an IP address automaticly. --Lwarf 09:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"connection 2" is because I reinstalled network driver in an attempt to solve the problem. All other laptops work fine on the same router, so I don't think there's a problem with the router. And with my laptop, the same problem happens on different router at different locations. Thanks for the suggestions, and I'm still looking for the solution. deeptrivia (talk) 15:48, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your firewall or router's firewall could be the cause. You might experiment by disabling your firewall(s) temporarily to see if that still happens. If you try repair a connection for example - once again the firewall(s) can either prevent it completely or make it take ages. If you do notice a major difference with the firewalls disabled, try looking into that. Rfwoolf 19:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If I were you, I would get the IP addresses of all of your network infastructure (Router, DHCP server etc.) when your network connection is working. When it goes down (but still indicates that the connection is up with the green bars.), try pinging (by typing "ping x.x.x.x -t" into the "run" dialog, or a command prompt) them from inside to outside. The problem lays between the last one you can get to and the first one you can't. It could be physical hardware or software (network authentication / DHCP) though. Also, I sometimes have trouble when people turn on the microwave... 24.68.64.122 05:13, 10 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]

You may have to take out the burner and attach it to another computer to perform the upgrade. I did an LG upgrade recently, and it asked me to take off the slave disk that was on the same cable. I was able to follow the instructions, and the firmware upgrade did work. I had a lot of trouble finding a genuine firmware however. The firmware upgrade is very sensitive and if it screws up will damage the drive. GB 05:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[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]

Yeah, you need to set the overall DPI higher, because your printer is using a higher DPI than your file is supporting. Text in a program like Word automatically takes advantage of how much DPI your printer can operate at (as it stores it as vector directions, not a bitmap), but a bitmap editor like Photoshop will not automatically do that. If your laser printer prints at 600 DPI then you'll need to make your image at 600 DPI as well. --24.147.86.187 17:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also turn off anti-aliasing. Anti-aliased print looks mushy when printed. You want sharp cheap lines at 300 dpi or better. (Most inkjets can output at least 400 dpi for hard edges) For best results (and to keep file sizes down), import your 200 dpi Photoshop image and compose your text in Illustrator or InDesign. Your image will output at the optimal 200 lpi density while text will output at the printer's maximum resolution. It's what the pros do! ;) --24.249.108.133 20:53, 10 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]

As a follow-up, I got a response on the article talk page indicating that Photoshop does not have the screenshot capability, so the article has been edited. The respondent on the talk page mentioned that PSP also has the ability, so that is another option to the two that had been listed. --LarryMac 14:41, 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]

Ok, if your building it then, this is what I recomend(This is assuming you are on a tight budget and want the most bang for buck) get an AMD CPU (They range for $50 - $500, I'd get an athlon the're the AMD version of Intel's P4), for a mother there are lots of cheap ones on the market, just make sure you get one with onbord sound and video(and SATA port if possable), now for RAM most brand are the same so this a price/memory issue, get 256MB min i'd recomend getting 512MB, now onto hard drives 20GB min, 40GB rec, 80GB if you can afford it when buying your hard drive try and get a SATA drive insated of PATA. On to the issue of optical drives, DVD-ROM is a min(just about all linux distros come on a DVD, you'll thank me later when you see that they come in packs of 6 CD's and 1/2 of them are broken and have to be sent back), if possable get a DVD-RW. Onto the topic of case one word formfactor amke sure the formfactor maches you motherbord's formfactor. Good Luck. For more nfo on building I think there is a wikibook on it if not take a llok round the net there's lots of great tips. --Lwarf 07:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Yea, this machine is just gonna get 256 ram. It's just going to be running an ssh server at my house. Do most motherboards come with built in networking? I just need 1 ethernet port. THanks again for all the help everyone.--Ryan 15:19, 8 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 somewhat easier to learn than Python. I would recommend that language 83.254.160.182 08:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd go with perl, I find it's great for writing up small tasks to do (I made one program that does my algebra for me). Beware becouse perl compiles at run time I've found you have to go to a lot of trouble to get it to run on windows (I've got around this problem by using Perl Edit but that cost money) so I'd recomend using linux. --Lwarf 10:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Windows versions of both Perl and Python can be had for free and with similarly easy installations from ActiveState. --TotoBaggins 13:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bottom line: you are never going to get a complete, direct, unbiased, and useful (to you) answer to this kind of question. It's like asking whether Spanish is better than French. If you can learn a little of both then do so. If you have a specific project or some other constraint, ask specific questions in a forum like Perl Monks or Usenet. Better yet, if you have a friend who knows both, and is not a partisan of either, but simply uses them as tools to get a job done, learn as much as you can from him/her and ignore everyone else who tries to sell you on one or the other. dr.ef.tymac 15:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm of the opinion that if you can learn to program in one language, you will then be able to program in any language. I'm especially firm in this opinion if we're discussing languages that all have "familial resemblence", so any C-like language including C, C++, Perl, Python, Java, Javascript, PHP, etc. Among the C-like languages, I also don't think there's a clear "better first language". Learning to program in Java (or Python?) will probably teach you the best habits while Perl may lead you into sloppiness, but you'll probably be maximally productive fastest in Perl and that may give you a better sense of success in your early endeavors. I say this because Perl really is good at DWIM; this is good for a beginner but won't help you when you get to a pickier family member that is more strongly typed or has less intuitive I/O operations.

Atlant 00:17, 9 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]

I had a monitor which was making clicking sounds before; after sending it to maintenance some times, I decided I'd end up wasting more money fixing it every few months, and bought a new one. Your monitor is probably broken too. --cesarb 17:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah you need to determine if it's your monitor your computer (and the monitor cable would count as being 'the monitor'). Try a different monitor. One thing I can offer is that in my experience, if some monitors just get power, but no signal, their 'power light' will be 'on' but will not be 'green' to indicate that they are not receiving a signal (such as when your PC is off but the monitor is switched on, or such as when you unplug the monitor's cable). The unfortunate thing is you may not remember if your monitor did this. Another thing you should try do is verify that your PC is outputing a signal, usually you just make sure your computer is indeed booting up - when you power on your PC your keyboard lights should change at first, and you should hear your harddrives firing up - but ultimately try plugging in some headphones or speakers into your sound card, and wait a while and try log into windows - looking out for any sounds/noises generated by windows such as the 'log in' sound or an 'error' sound (if you type in the wrong password). If you're sure your PC is indeed booting up, then you can only point your finger at the monitor itself, or its cable, or the video card (which should be showing SOMETHING). At this point you'd check if your video card is seated properly - and if there's power to it. Good luck Rfwoolf 19:39, 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]

That's right. I like the noise :) It does that to ensure that the picture is as free as magnetic artefacts as possible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 10:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks, I guess that's it. It's just a lot louder than when I press the "degauss" button, but I guess that's due to it being off and accumulating bad juju. --TotoBaggins 23:53, 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]

More specifically, it runs on Gnutella (pronounced like the hazelnut spreat, Nutella). The person who created WinAMP (I have no idea who) wrote it. (wait... Limeware?)-HuBmaN!!!! 15:38, 8 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.

Try running file on it and posting the results here, or if it doesn't return useful results, do an hexadecimal dump of the first few bytes of the file; it's probably not a normal WAV file. --cesarb 17:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I used the online file service (Because I'm using Windows) to check the file and the results are:

RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft ADPCM, mono 16000 Hz

Since I already have the necessary data, I made an attempt to import it into Audacity but the Import button becomes greyed out when I select Microsoft ADPCM. For the Hex Dump, I couldn't do so since I don't have a proper Hex Editor. I just used Notepad on the file and I got this on the first line:

(First 16 chars)RIFFÿÿÿÿWAVEfmt (At the end before the long blank space) INFORock fish

That's all results I got. Regarding the attempt to open the file using Audacity, I learnt about the "patent restriction" thing that prevents it from opening specific files when I tried to open a WMA file. That's the reason why I can't import the file. Are there any other options on how to open the file? --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 07:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then it's ADPCM instead of PCM. Most programs can only understand the common PCM WAV files. You could try using something like sox to convert it to the standard WAV format (use 16-bit samples when doing that to avoid loss of quality). --cesarb 15:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Finally I managed to extract the file noise free (Although the warnings were "Premature EOF on .wav input file"). This proves that to listen to WAV files recorded using a Chinese MP4/MTV Player, the recorded file needs to be converted first to the proper WAV format before it can be listened to on the computer. Many thanks for helping me out! --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 08:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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]

That's something implied when you redimension an image to a higher resolution, unless it's a vector image. To actually reduce and/or avoid the blurriness you could try a combination of Lanczos filter and sharpen tool, both avaliable on the free Irfan View. --Sn0wflake 12:19, 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]

Image:School_ip.svg

Hi, I recently created this vector image using inkscape(i'm not that familar with inkscape, I created the image to get the hang of using inkscape) but I'm having trouble making the background transparent. Can any one help me? Thanks. --Lwarf 09:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've done it for you. I uploaded it as plain svg rather than inkscape svg which did the trick. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 10:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think Lwarf wanted to know how it was done. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to say this Theresa knott but your upload was reverted by someone (take a look here), something I've found though is that when I open up the image in my image viewer(gthumb) the image viewer says it had a trasparent background, also I thought in inkscape the white background is by default transparent. --Lwarf 00:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What I think is going on ( and I'm no expert) is that as inkscape svg is not standard so browsers are not understanding it. Whereas plain svg is standard. As far as I know the difference between inkscape svg and plain svg is inkscape preserves things like canvas size, layers etc that are useful when you are in the process of drawing the object but aren't really needed afterwards. I always habitually upload images as plain svg (which you can set when you save the drawing) because I really don't think that we should stray from the standards when we are on the web.I've no idea why I was reverted.Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 07:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I wasn't reverted. He uploaded some other versions , decided against them, reverted back to me then deleted his versions. So it looked like he reverted me.Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 08:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good point it could be browser problem, however it might be a bug in thw iki meta severs, worth looking into? By the way thanks for all the help. --Lwarf 11:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah could be, I never thought of that. I left a message on the village pump (technical) for a developer to come look here and see if it can be fixed. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 12:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Either one of the developers fixed it up or it's a browser problem, I just loaded up in firefox and it looks fine (try looking at it here, I'm going to see what it looks like IE 7 insted of IE 6. --Lwarf 01:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unknown virus

I am positive I have a virus on my computer, but my antivirus (which I update daily) can't seem to catch it. It keeps deleting the ntoskrnl.exe file from my system32 folder (for some reason, every 48 hours) and now it deleted my windows profile. Any advice on how I should deal with it? —LestatdeLioncour t 10:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's a site (http://www.trendmicro.com/en/home/global/enterprise.htm) that lets you scan your computer online. I use it and it is generally very good at finding things. ny156uk 11:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hm... foremost, "ntoskrnl.exe" is a vital system component, so you should use the Windows XP boot disk's "repair" function to install it again. Second, related viruses could possibly be: [5]. --Sn0wflake 12:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC) PS: Fix your freaking signature.[reply]

Yes, I know how important ntoskrnl.exe file is. Luckily I have a linux partition, and I keep a copy of the file there. So, every time the file is deleted I mount the windows filesystem and paste a new copy in the system32 folder. The related virus doesn't seem to be a match. I'm very intrigued by the selective nature of the "virus" and it's periodicity, which I never saw in a virus before. How can I report my problem to people who develop antivirus software? —LestatdeLioncour t 13:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might want use Task Manager to monitor your processes when the virus is again due to delete that file. If you can get the name and location of the program that starts up at that time you will then be able to get more help. StuRat 01:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Vista Sleep

When you click start in windows vista and put the computer into sleep mode, the internet connection is automatically disconnected, is there any way to stop that from happening? I want to quickly resume working when I wake the computer up. Thanks in advance —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.79.61.119 (talk) 13:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

If you have a laptop, you can set your computer to do nothing when you close the display. If you do that, the only thing that will happen is that the monitor will turn off, saving some power. Your computer will stay connected. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:27, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How do you do that in Vista? Sorry but I'm relatively new in Vista!

If you have a laptop, go to start. Click "Control Panel". Then click "Mobile PC". Then, under the "Power Options" section, hit "Change what closing the lid does". Then select what you want. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't really answer the question. The fact is putting the computer in any sort of "sleep" mode will cut network connections. Changing what the laptop does when you close the lid doesn't mean that putting the computer in "sleep" mode won't cut network connections -- it just means that the laptop isn't going to "sleep". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 06:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Icon when image is loading in browser

You know that icon in your web browser that appears in the upper left corner of where an image is supposed to be before it has loaded? Usually, in both IE and Firefox, I remember it to be an assortment of shapes (triangle, square, etc.) of different colors. However, recently, in Firefox, it's been a red dot/diamond that appears in a white box. What is the name of this "placeholder" icon, and why has mine been a red dot recently? Thanks in advance. --JianLi 17:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In IE if you go to Tools - > Internet Options - > Advanced Tab, under the 'images' settings section, there is a setting for "Show Image Download Placeholders" - so I think to answer that part of your question, I believe they may be called "Image Download placeholders".
Unfortunately I don't know the answer to your second part of the question because I'm not familiar with Firefox - although I can confirm that in earlier versions of IE the image placeholder icon was indeed a small picture of a square, circle, and triangle featuring the colours red, green, and blue. One possibility for your case includes that your version of Firefox uses that different image as an image download placeholder. Rfwoolf 19:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure it's not a matter of which version of Firefox it is, since right now it's back to the "normal" assorted shapes placeholder that IE also has, while when I wrote this question just a few hours back it was the "red dot" placeholder that had been puzzling me. --JianLi 23:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox, Thunderbird trying to act as servers

Why does my firewall tell me Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are trying to act as servers? Why do I sometimes have trouble connecting when I block them from doing so? I connect to the Internet through a LAN, and I'm on Windows XP Home. I have no Thunderbird extensions, and my Firefox extensions are: ChatZilla, Clustybar, DOM Inspector, Showcase, Google Notebook, Google Toolbar, Google Web Accelerator, IE Tab, McAfee SiteAdvisor, Talkback and Web Developer Toolbar. Neon Merlin 17:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's trying to send more data that just the destination, which is picked up by the firewall as trying to be a server. I'm assuming ZoneAlarm is what you're using. At least, that's what I always assumed it does. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, Wirbelwind, I'm not trying to pick on you here, but I'm trying to help you out. You might want to ask yourself what you think is "the destination" and how is the firewall supposed to know about it? When would the firewall know when the application is not sending data to "the destination"? There may be a viable definition of "the destination" for some applications, but I'm not seeing one that matches common sence reasoning about destinations. When Firefox requests some service, the destination could be anywhere. Now, I suppose we might consider "the destination" to be a port range instead of some IP address on the internet As in, if there's some request to port 63000 ~~on server xxx.evilbotnet.ru~~ from Firefox, which should only (hypothetically) use https, http, or ftp, we might want to note the problem and have the firewall do something as a reaction. In reality, though, that may be far to limiting for personal use. Root⁴(one) 00:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ChatZilla is possibly the problem. When your firewall says Firefox is acting like a server, it means the execution instance is actually listening for and accepting connections, not just asking for connections on other servers. Several messaging protocols appear to need "server" access (If I recall correctly Trillian won't work with ICQ if it doesn't act as a server.) IRC (servers) also often requires ~~usage of some sort of AUTH protocol.~~ usage of the IDENT protocol for some reason. Root⁴(one) 23:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quicktime, itunes in vista: lot'sa issues

Does anyone know of a way to get Itunes and Quicktime to work properly in windows Vista? Ive get the latest versions installed (i check for new ones about once a day)but they still don't work. Itunes wont play any sound (this makes lightening to music incredibly difficult). Quicktime also refuses to play any sound. I can get sound in all other applications and I know my sound card drivers are up to date. Ive tried running both app's in windows Xp service pack 2 compatibility mode but they still wont play sound. Apple and Microsoft downright refuse to be helpful (Microsoft tells me its Apples fault and to switch to there music player and Apple tells me its microsofts fault and tells me to switch to there operating system). Can anyone help me? IsaactheNPOVfanatic 17:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...I have no problems. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 17:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok now ive tried a complete uninstall and reinstall of both programs. Please im gonna drive my slef mad if i dont get this fixed!!! *slams head into wall while curseing apple and microsoft*IsaactheNPOVfanatic 17:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

you're gonna have to wait until enough people are complaining at apple about vista being mean to itunes that they release a newer version for vista. did you try to run the programs in compatibility mode? 68.162.29.63 18:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MACs and MP3s

I have a small problem. Everytime I delete data from my MP3 players using my MAC (by dragging to the bin), all the icons are gone and, of course, there is no music to play, as I expect. However, my 'available space' does not go up, and now I have an empty MP3 player with only 4kb available space, which is a bit of an embuggerance. I just borrowed a friend's MP3 to transfer some music from one PC to the MAC, and ended up with the same problem. What is happening, and how do I get all the memory back?

Cheers in advance.CCLemon-ここは寒いぜ！ 20:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried emptying the trash? Sounds like a dumb question, but USB drives wont show their full amount until the binned items are actually deleted. Sorry if thats not much help

Yes, I have tried emptying the bin both on the MAC and the Win PC I have. I still can't get my MP3 to be blank. (Signature changed ->)ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What type of mp3 player is it? What program are you using to delete the files? And are you sure you've emptied the trash on the Mac while the mp3 player is still connected? --24.147.86.187 01:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a Rio MP3. I was using no program to delete the files, just dragging to the bin, but, now you come to think of it, I don't think it was still connected..... So, what do I do in that case? ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 01:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe mac stores the trash on the storage device from which you deleted the file? Sounds stupid, but nautilus does that. If so, just do a simple rm -r . --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Plug the mp3 player in and empty trash.--Ryan 15:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Macs store "trashed" items right on each volume, in a hidden directory/folder called .trashes (IIRC). So yes, to fully recover the free space you must first trash the files to be deleted and then empty the trash.

Atlant 00:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hard Drive (And More) Question

Hey. Some of you might remember me as the hapless fool who asked about fixing an internet problem. The "solution" has been to get a new (luckily free) computer. Unfortunately, I had a number of useful files on my old computer, and it stopped working after an acquaintance of mine fooled around with it. In the end I decided to try and move the hard drive to the new computer, which has been successful. My problem now is that the computer doesn't seem to be able to read Windows from my old hard drive, coming up with an error message. I have tried all three safe modes (Safe Mode, w/networking, and another) as well as restarting to the "last specifications" and trying to start Windows normally. Both computers (hard drives, rather) have Windows XP.

I should specify that the new computer is a Gateway, while the old computer was a Dell. The old hard drive was apparently an IBM, and I am not sure what the new one is. Everything is hooked up as it should be. I initially assumed it was a compatibility problem, but then thought it might

My questions on this problem:

1) Is it a compatibility problem? 2) Is the data just corrupt? 3) If the data is corrupt, can any of it be salvaged?

This isn't a life or death situation for me, but it certainly would be nice to get my data back. Thanks for your input. Robinson0120 21:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've no idea to the answer to any of your questions above but one possible solution worth a try is to get a live linux disk such as knoppix and boot it from the cd drive, if it can see the contents of your old hard drive you can copy them onto a memory stick. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 21:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You need not boot the drive to access the files on it. It might seem inconvenient at first to find the files, but persevere. Start by looking in X:\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents where X is the old drive, probably D or E, which you can find under My Computer.

Booting windows from a drive which was set up in another system usually doesn't work. In the old days (~1995) this was probably due to differences in the hardware installed and the way drivers were configured for them, but modern Windows might be detecting what it assumes is fraud.

If you want to recover data on the drive, resist the urge to change anything on it, including deleting stuff. Various forensic and data recovery programs are then in a better position to find and salvage the data. —EncMstr 21:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(After edit conflict...)

It's unlikely a compatability problem - and yes some of the data could be corrupt and certainly windows could be corrupted on that drive. If you can't get Windows to boot up you can look at doing a repair using the Windows repair consol - technically by inserting your XP disc and booting with it - and it's actually an advanced operation, takes a long time, and if your hard drive isn't working so nicely I would not consider this option til later.

The best thing to do with this Windows that you want to boot up is to reinstall Windows. Unfortunately, that means reformatting the drive. So let's look at recovering your data before we resort to that.

To recover your data, you'd need an operating system (much like Windows XP) and a place to put the data. This means two options: 1) You do the repair thingy on the corrupted hard drive (not recommended in this case) or 2) Connect the corrupted drive to the working PC but this time as a slave or secondary drive - so that your PC won't attempt to boot from the corrupted drive, but will instead boot from the working drive (which should be set to be a "Primary Master" (as opposed to a "Primary Slave" or "Secondary Master" or "Secondary Slave" -- as you can see there is a hierarchy of drives and the one that is set highest is the one that your PC will try to boot from first)). Righto, so, you boot from the working drive, but have your corrupted one connected as a drive lower in the hierarchy. So now you have your operating system (Windows on the working drive) and you have your place to store the data (your working drive). Once you're in Windows, you'd go into My Computer and you'd try to access the corrupted drive - and this time it will show you everything it sees - and you just copy over whatever is salvagable. Once you've done that, you can look at either throwing the corrupted hard drive out the window, or you can format it and try use it.

Some possible obsticles in this solution:

You will need to know how to set your drives up in their hierarchy to keep the working hardrive as a "Primary Master" and make the corrupted harddrive something less in the hierarchy - if the working harddrive is configuered properly and is using the correct ribbon cable you probably won't have to do anything
If your corrupted hard drive is using a FAT32 filing system, and the working hard drive is using an NFTS filing system, there's a chance your working hard drive won't be able to read anything off the corrupted one. When you install Windows XP it formats the drive and it will have asked you if you want to format it to the NFTS format system or the FAT32 format system.

Well, that should give you some idea of what's involved - it's actually not that difficult, hopefully it's as simple as connecting your corrupted hard drive to your new PC, booting windows, and copying the files across - but make sure you know how to 'undo' each thing you do - make notes if you have to. Good luck Rfwoolf 22:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What I had tried to do was use the cables attached to the hard drive, using them instead on the new hard drive. You said something about using the "correct ribbon." Would this cause a problem? I do have the old ribbon still- should I try to use that instead?

The XP CD boot idea looks good to me (even though you said it is advanced) because I don't want to fool around with the hardware as much, but the XP on my old computer is different from the XP on my new one. Would this cause a problem, or would I still be able to use XP to simply boot it? Robinson0120 19:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The ribbon itself is only important in the following areas:

a) if it's damaged or not,
b) if it can plug into your hard drive on the one end and plug into your motherboard on the other end (some ribbons have more pins than others, and similarly some drives use more pins and some motherboards use more pins - but most of them are all the same),
c) the place the ribbon plugs into on the motherboard -- look at the motherboard you are using, it usually has 2x or more ribbon cable plugs right next to eachother, and usually each ribbon cable furthermore connects to 2 drives - this is your typical 4-drive setup (which can include CD roms as drives). These 2x ribbon cable plugs on your motherboard, look closely to see if they're labelled 1 or 2 (or 'P1' and 'P2' etc) - because one would be a Primary and one would be a Secondary - once again this is all used to set up a hierarchy of hard drives so that your PC will boot from the most senior one. Then going down a ribbon, if the ribbon has 2x drives attached to it, by default the PC will see harddrive that is nearest on the ribbon as being senior to the one that is further away on the ribbon. To top it all off, a lot of this can be overridden by things called jumper pins on the hard drives themselves - and that is a difficult thing to adjust), oh and

Based upon the above, I wouldn't stress too much, in fact for now ignore (c) altogether - just use a ribbon cable that is not damaged and has the right pin-holes to connect your hard drive to your PC

I'm not sure what you meant at the last part of your question there - but if you go and plug your bad hard drive into your new PC and boot up using your good hard drive, it doesn't matter that the two XP versions are different between the two drives - in fact the bad drive needn't have XP installed at all. What does matter is that they use the same file system like I mentioned earlier (both FAT32 or both NTSF) - if they don't use the same file system then the bad drive just won't appear to have anything on it.

With regard to repairing the Windows XP on your bad drive, aside from being slightly advanced and all that, if you're certain the hard drive is corrupt or experiencing hard drive failure, then more often than not it isn't a good idea to keep the drive. But on the other hand it could be an okay drive that somehow got Windows corrupted and maybe you want to try it all again. So you can try look at a guide on repairing Windows XP here or do a google for "Repairing Windows XP" - and you also have some further options if you still want to use the bad drive: Like I said if you install Windows XP it has to format the drive it's on, but what you can do is insert your Windows XP CD and go into setup, and try to create a drive partition on the bad drive, which will actually 'separate' it into two drives - one that is full of data - and one that is empty, and then it will try install on the empty one - this will technically keep your data where it is and maybe copy it over to your other partition. The downside is once again, if the bad drive is failing, or is prone to data errors, why keep it? Maybe you still have a warranty on it - go and swap it for one that won't mess up your data.

Good luck. Rfwoolf 20:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

HDD Question

(Sorry, I usually make a point of not asking two questions at once, but...) Why is it that occasionally (about twice or three times a day) my WinXP PC's HD suddenly gets really busy (for a very long period of time), thus stopping me from working, as the PC just gets too slow and does nothing unless I go into the Task Manager and quit everything (and all applications say 'no answer'). I can understand this would happen when a scheduled application is meant to run, but it happens even when there is nothing. Can anyone help here? CCLemon-ここは寒いぜ！ 21:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check your swap settings. Start | Settings | Control Panel | System, select the Advanced tab, push the Performance button. Click on the Advanced tab. Press the Change button at the bottom in the Virtual memory section. The bottom of this dialog should show a recommended value and actual values. Your description suggests there is way too much paging memory configured. Or it could just be that the CD/DVD is having a hard time reading the disc which—on my computer—pretty well shuts down other operations until it is concluded. —EncMstr 22:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some anti-virus applications run periodic 'background' scans of all or selected files on a partition. The anti-virus program wouldn't likely show up in the application list, but should show in the process list of the task manager. Depending on the speed of the machine, the amount of fragmentation on the hard drive or the efficiency of the anti-virus program, these scans could slow your machine quite substantially. Defragmenting the partitions on the drive could also lessen the impact of the seemingly random activity. In relation to what EncMstr was saying, the task manager displays a graph showing your 'Page File Usage History' which would be worth checking after one of those periods of activity. See Commit Charge for more info on that. Johnnykimble 22:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, both of you. My PC is WinXP Prof, and doesn't have the 'Settings' in the Start Menu. I looked in Control Panel itself and found 'System', but there was no 'Advanced' tab. I was thinking that it might be something to do with the RAM and the Virtual Memory/Swap File, but could not really imagine why, as I am not using multiple applications at once (most of the time). I've defragged the PC twice in the last week or so (as I usually do), so I cannot think why it would be a problem with files being fragmented. The 'Page File Usage History' I will look into. Thanks again! ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 22:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My Linux machines do this periodically, too -- the culprit is a cron job which is indexing the disk for use by the locate program. Since Windows machines (and Macs) have optimized, index-based file search programs, too, it wouldn't surprise me if they also fall prey to periodic slowness due to background indexing tasks.

Obviously a well-written and well-tuned operating system will not permit a less-important, batch-oriented or background task to usurp so many machine resources that foreground, interactive tasks are affected. Somehow, in my experience, Unix and Linux are absolutely stellar in this regard, Mac OS X somewhat less so, and Windows absolutely bletcherous. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I actually bought a MAC about 6 months ago and put OS X on it (after getting used to OS 9) and found that it was considerably slower, and, furthermore, started playing the same game as my Windows machine, only with a multi-coloured spinning top as a cursor. I started thinking I was just incompetent with PCs after a while. Having said that, getting a MAC was a good idea, even though, nevertheless I will also use my Windows PCs. By the way, Steve Summit (talk) , is there any way I can get Linux on my Windows PC, without getting a CD, without having to burn downloaded files onto a CD, and only by single-clicking (everything you need all at once rather than lots of files) on a button on a website? We are going way off topic here, but I also wanted to ask this anyway.ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 23:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to subsection below. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC) [P.S. The computer manufactured by apple is a "Mac". A "MAC" is a Media Access Control address, or a Message Authentication Code, among other things.][reply]

From the fragmentation point of view, typical linux file systems usually do a much better job at keeping things in shape compared to file systems often used with Windows. So, when a background task does run, it completes quicker because the system is less fragmented. Johnnykimble 00:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

one-click Linux download?

...is there any way I can get Linux on my Windows PC, without getting a CD, without having to burn downloaded files onto a CD, and only by single-clicking (everything you need all at once rather than lots of files) on a button on a website? ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 23:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of one, but I wouldn't be surprised if one exists. On the one hand, a CD seems to me to be the right way to do it, and a one-click web download sounds like a bad idea securitywise, but on the other hand, given how much else you can download and install from the net these days with a single click, why not? —Steve Summit (talk) 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, I'll keep looking. The reason I'm asking is because my CD drive is playing up too. Not having a good month with this PC, am I? ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 00:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually there may be a solution. You could run Linux as a virtual machine under Windows XP using something like VMware. You might want to look under its "See also" section if VMware is too expensive for ya. That's probably not a "single click" solution, but it may be possible that you could download a CD or DVD .iso and whatever Virtualization software you choose might be able to read from it BTW, I've never used it, but I've certainly thought it might be fun for some experiments. Root⁴(one) 00:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is exactly something you want, but I forgot what it's called. There was this beta software that can install Ubuntu while running Windows, without using any new partitions (it uses a loop-back mount as a file on an existing partition). --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[Found IT] [6], called Wubi for some reason... --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

look at Instlux --Spoon! 01:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check out the ZipSlack distro. A 100mb version of Slackware Linux designed to fit on a ZipDisk (or USB pen). Haven't tried it myself, but just beware because I notice it only mentions FAT and FAT32 partitions in the installation section of the site, so if you are using NTFS for your Windows partitions it might not work. Johnnykimble 09:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you can isntall SUSE with somthing like this, not sure but it might be worth looking into. --Lwarf 07:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

blocking ip ranges

Do you need to install any programs on a website for administrators and syops to block whole ranges of ip addresses such as 213.5.0/0 or 4.xxx because on paleos.org and evo wiki it wont allow administrators to block whole ip ranges.--Fang 23 22:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you own the server and running linux on it (otherwise go run linux on it), this is very easy to do with iptables. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or even .htaccess file can block IP addresses. These methods are not very graceful towards the blocked addresses though. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could use Apache's rewrite engine [7] in your .htaccess, to redirect an IP range to a page that exlians the situation. risk 12:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Custom Equalizer Changes In Songs

OMG I JUST HAD THE BEST IDEA....

ok so you know how you can't a custom equalizer for the ipod, BUT I thought maybe you could convert the files themselves using a certain EQ setting. This is certainly possible. Theres only two issues: What program would do this and could this program do all the files at once? Any ideas?

also would be good if it didnt just convert mp3s, also converted m4a's*

152.7.20.253 00:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)name[reply]

Yes this had been around for quite a few years now. It is very easy to do with mp3's but a lot harder with m4a's because of the DRM. Anyhow, you don't need EQ. The CD's are mastered according to the music, and any EQ will just worsen it or be used to mask imperfectness in the earphones. You should try and get a better pair of earphones instead of fussing about EQ settings. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok first: my m4a's have no DRM so that is not an issue. Second: I have $400 shur earphones so thanks for telling me what I should do but thats not an issue either. Tell me why then do most mp3 players (including ipods) come with the ability of changing EQ settings if natural EQ's are really desired. But anyway that's unrelated, ALL I want to know if there are any programs that do this. (Professional expensive programs to Cheap freeware, does not matter) 152.7.20.253 00:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)name[reply]

Ok, in that case, use foobar2000, open the files you want to EQise, select all of them, right click, convert, tick DSP processing, pres the "..." button, find "Equalizer" and move it to the left, select it, configure selected, move the sliders to whatever you want, ok 3 times, go to the place where you want to put them and wait til it's done. This is how you do it with MP3's and FLACS and stuff like that anywyas, and no guarantees it will work with m4a. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, it's a personal preference thing. I find high pitched sounds annoying, so turn down the treble. Others may like them and turn it way up. I wish we had the individual tracks available from which the final songs were mixed, so I could turn up a decent singer and turn down an annoying drum machine. StuRat 01:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok thank you sooo much antilived thats all I was looking for ;)152.7.20.253 01:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You should know that this probably doesn't come free. mp3's and the like have lossy compression, which means that from the original to the mp3, you lose information (and thus quality). Any kind of change to the sounds in the file means uncompressing it, modifying the sound, and then compressing it again. This means you lose quality again on the recompression. The effect may be negligible for just two recompressions (depending on the settings), but then again, if you're used to $400 earphones... risk 12:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah i know, the program warned me of this also. But after I converted all my songs (mp4s included) they didnt seem to be a noticable decrease in audio quality, while at the same time the EQ change was evident. So I think this was a success...The only problem is the program takes roughly 24 hours to convert 6000 songs.152.7.20.253 23:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MP3 players and cars

Why is it so hard for car manufacturers to make cars iPod/walkman compatible by merely having line-in jacks directly to the audio system? I don't know much about cars, but this seems to be easily possible for externally powered speakers, so why not with those of a car? It seems that the most common solutions right now are needlessly complicated, such as iPod specific adaptors or tape adaptors with line-in jacks. --JianLi 23:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many automakers are finally starting to come around and do this, my 2006 Nissan Sentra has a line-in port, and I'm pretty sure I've heard it advertised for other makes/models as well. Cyraan 00:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, there is still the issue of the jacks becoming obsolete over the life of the car. Remember those huge jacks that headphones used to have ? Would you want to buy an old, used car which accepts that type of jack ? Maybe the same will apply to the current jacks in the future: "What kind of old, piece of crap car is this ? The jack doesn't even have the bandwidth to transmit standard holographic info !". StuRat 01:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Those 1/4 inch plugs are not really obsolete, just inconvenient for the average consumers. 3.5mm plug t 1/4inch plugs are still very common in these days. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Multi-touch

Where could I purchase a Multi-touch tablet PC? -68.193.147.179 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... not sure what that is, but you can look at Ebay, but if it is what I think it is, then you'd have to look at companies that supply the retail point-of-sale trade, you know, where in the supermarkets they can use their screen to press the buttons they want. Rfwoolf 04:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unix and shells

Are there certain types of shells that cannot be installed on a given UNIX variant/OS? If so, are there any reasons in particular? Thanks.

137.99.165.83 01:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anything not expressly written for POSIX? eg., Windows shells. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 03:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Display contrast

(I posted the monitor question above) - I bought a new monitor for my computer and it is supposed to have really high contrast resolution (3000:1). All I adjusted until now was screen resolution under display properties to the max. The sharpness of my screen is somewhat better but when I watch a video it's in poorer condition that it was on my old monitor. What else should I adjust? Hiilp 02:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just an idea: in your Display Settings, try lower your DPI to 96. Or of course try different numbers. Rfwoolf 04:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would spend some time changing each of the monitor's settings until you get each to the optimal setting. For example, just because your monitor can support a max contrast of 3000:1 does not mean it's currently set that way. StuRat 04:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what 3000:1 means and how good the picture is supposed to be. Can someone explain this to me please. Hiilp 17:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm presuming it's a TFT and not a CRT monitor? If your new screen is bigger than the previous, it could be that the native resolution of the two screens are different. This means that the image could be stretched, resulting in an ugly blurry image. You'll have a similar lack of sharpness if the image is bigger than the new screen's native resolution. Check the manual of the new screen, or search for it on the internet, and you'll easily find the native resolution listed (it's one of the most important things when setting up a new screen). Ideally all applications you run on the TFT should be run in the native resolution. However, this doesn't necessarily explain your issues when watching video. Johnnykimble 20:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it depends on the context. It probably means 3000 pixels per 1 inch (unlikely) or perhaps it means 3000 pixels per 1 foot. Another context - although extremely unlikely - is the format of your monitor, where for every 1 inch high your monitor is, it is 3000 inchs wide. -- so I'm not sure. Rfwoolf 19:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does the 3000:1 contrast ratio not mean the brightest colour is 3000 times more luminous than the darkest? Johnnykimble 20:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That would indeed make more sense. But having a screen with the ratio of having its width 3000 times its height was a close second I'd say ... ;) Rfwoolf 20:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My monitor is LCD flat screen 19" and on the corner it says "3000:1 Digital Fine Contrast". My old monitor wasn't flatscreen, but it was also 19". I don't know what the 3000:1 means, and I was wondering if someone knows if I am supposed to activate some option or adjustment, because the picture is fine when its still, but any video is poorer than my old monitor's. Hiilp 20:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC) One more thing, is it normal that as you change the angle from which you look at the picture on a LCD monitor, the color also changes - because this doesn't happen on older monitors.Hiilp 21:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If still pics look good but motion looks bad, perhaps the refresh rate is too low. If you have an option to change the refresh rate, try setting it higher. StuRat 03:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh hang on, it's probably a poor panel response time you're noticing. Forget about the contrast ratio, you don't have to do anything to adjust that. Check the manual for the response time specification. Ideally it should be about 8ms or 12ms. In the early days, response times of 25ms were common, which meant for any moving images, even moving a window across the screen, you would see blurriness and 'trails'. If your old monitor was a CRT monitor, then you'll be even more likely to notice the response time issue with the LCD as CRTs don't suffer from any problems with response time. Fast action or panning scenes in films will be most likely to show up the problem. Unfortunately if your new screen has a high response time, there's nothing you can do to improve it. Johnnykimble 10:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And to answer your other question, yes, the viewing angle is an important factor for LCD monitors. Again, like response time and contrast ratio, this is a pretty important specification when deciding which screen to buy. The large the viewing angle, the more you'll be able to look at the screen from an off centre position without noticing any change in the image. Both horizontal and vertical angles should be considered. Johnnykimble 10:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Starting program

When you open a new file it automatically opens with a certain program. How do you change that default program (for .Pdf for example). Because my Adobe reader is not responding and I can't open the necessary files (as "open with" is not available in this case). Hiilp 02:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Explorer, go to Tools->Folder Options, select the "File Types" tab, and you should see a list of recognized extensions (jpg, pdf, etc). Select the type of file you want to configure, and then click "Change" below it, there you can select the default program to handle it. Cyraan 02:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had quite a few issues with Adobe Reader, from the huge update sizes, to frequent crashes when opening files - not to mention the occasional paralytic effect it had on my browser when viewing PDFs online. If Adobe Reader keeps crashing on you, you'll need an alternative program, and for that I'd recommend Foxit Reader. I've found it much more reliable than the Adobe one, and much much quicker. Johnnykimble 09:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, This solved my problems with default programs and now X-Adobe.Hiilp 17:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Load up

Last question - My computer is pretty fast, but it takes 8 sec for a program window to open up when I double click on it (ex. Microsoft word - but every program does this) - and then it takes less than a sec to open lets say file/open. Can I somehow load up programs faster? Thanks Hiilp 02:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can purchase & install more memory, or possibly a faster hard drive (SATA if your PC supports it). You can also free up some of the memory you already have by disabling startup processes you don't need, MSConfig can do this (Start->Run, type "msconfig" without the quotes, click the startup tab. Do not mess with the other tabs in it, especially if you don't know what they are). Many programs nowadays load one or more processes at startup you don't necessarily need to have constantly running and consuming resources, but be careful what you disable, when in doubt, google the filename, or leave it alone.

Also, a format & fresh install of windows can often speed things up a bit. Cyraan 02:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can try defragment your hard drive - "So that your programs run faster" !. In windows, click Start -> Run, and type "dfrg.msc" and press enter.

Here's another helpful hint: Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc. This will bring up the Task Manager. Click on the "Performance" tab, which will show you on top how your CPU is performing, and on the bottom the size of your page file. The CPU of course handles all the tiny calculations your computer needs to 'compute' all the time, so when it's handling a zillion different processes your CPU usage will end up quite high. So the interesting thing is, if you boot up your computer and get into Windows, wait for it to finish, how high is your CPU performance? How high is it now? If it's excessively high all the time (when you're not really running any difficult processes) then you could have background programs that are stealing all your thunder. So go into the 'Processes' tab, and look for suspicious processes that are using up a lot of memory - and then, google their names to find out what they are and what they do - and if it's something you don't need or it's spyware then end the process. (Note: ending processes is considered only something advanced users would do - so exercise some caution but fortunately there isn't much you can do that a simple reboot of your PC won't fix - but more importantly you don't want to terminate your antivirus software or some important documents you were working on).

If your computer is still struggling, then look at upgrading your RAM or your processor. Good luck Rfwoolf 04:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks guys, this helped me a lot and solved many of my problems. My computer is now faster, as well as my long problem of having to close twenty programs upon a start up is now solved. Thanks Hiilp 17:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know you came right. How did you end up solving the problem? Rfwoolf

I "End Process"ed many programs because it turned out that many programs/updates/and so on were running at the same time. And now my computer performs faster (I hope it lasts). (Also, the disabling of programs to activate when I start my computer saves me the trouble of manually closing down ten icons in my right down corner). But, I didn't go through the dfrg because it seems that I have 60% free space.Hiilp 21:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Backup problems

Over the past few years I have been backing up my PC to a 250GB External HDD. This has resulted in a massive mess. All my family files have mixed with my work files and resulted in a great big problem. In total the HDD has 240GB of my files on it -many files a duplications but their are also many originals. I have no idea how to attack this problem. Any suggestions? May Software that will aid in the sorting process? Many thanks for any help :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by I.scheme.a.lot (talk • contribs) 02:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I don't know how to sort out this mess but I would suggest you to use a better method of backing up such as rdiff-backup. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would be interesting if there was some software that can do this - I'm sorry I don't know about that - but here's just a suggestion in the spirit of helpfulness:

In windows Explorer, you can right-click on the column-headings which gives you a list of extra headings - make sure you've got "Date Modified" and "Date Created" open - as you'll need either of theses, and of course "Size" and whatever else. Then you could consider going into your mass of files and taking a chunk of it and -- in the case where all the files are in the same folder -- sort the files by "Date Modified" to determine which files supercede the others. Of course if you have two files with the exact same name then you can't put them in the same directory - but indeed that's another strategy altogether: it involves taking one folder, and copying its contents into another folder - when there are duplicate filenames, Windows will prompt you and ask "Do you wish to replace MYWORK.XLS (Size: 40KB, Date Modified: 25/12/1998) with this version: MYWORK.XLS (Size: 63KB, Date Modified: 06/08/2005) - and of course you must say "no" if it wants to replace the newer file with the older one! All in all this can get very complicated.

Another solution is to simply leave it as is, and whenever you need a file approach it on an ad hoc basis - you can push F3 and do a search (you can search *.xls for all "xls" files or you can type "week" for all files containing the word "Week" - and so forth.

Good luck. Rfwoolf 03:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you are going with Rfwoolf's approach you might find Subversion (SVN) with TortoiseSVN (http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/) is useful as a tool (it can run on most platforms e.g Windows). If used properly, the SVN system will help you keep track of all the file structure changes that you make as you try and sort the mess out. Once set-up, this means that you DO NOT have to agonise over the "Date Modified" or "file size" attributes etc to determine which files supercede the others. As an extreme example, you could just go-with-your instincts and don't worry about the consequences of ANY cut/copy/move/paste you make as you tidy up the situation. Using tortoiseSVN you could,for example, delete a whole folder of files if you think they are duplications of another folder and do this WITHOUT the dire consequences. If in 6 weeks time, you suddenly notice that you shouldn't have deleted 3 particular files in that "deleted" folder, you could revert your deletion and bring them back. If space is an issue you could even use the internet in combination with a "Subversion server hosting company" as a place to store your "tidied up repository of files". NOTE: This is an over-simplification to get the point accross. Read the software's manual first and learn the basics of Subversion, before you use the software! See: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.intro.html#svn.intro.whatis

By the way, do not get put off and think its all too technical - Subversion is really easy to learn, and there is alot of help on the net from people who use it. (Its useful for anyone who stores digital data, which these days is pretty much everyone. I think it should be taught in schools like 'home economics for your computer')

Subversion is, if you like, a "Wikipedia on your computer". E.g Where your files are like peices of wiki content, that are susceptable to be modified, but it doesn't matter even if they are deleted because they could be brought back. In this analogy there just happens to be a smaller set of collaborators (you and your family).Ronnystalker 10:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another path to follow, (slightly more bizarre thinking here), might be to offer your self as guinea pig for researchers on "The MyLifeBits lifetime store" project. Or just pick their brains via email. They seem to have spent many research-hours on this problem. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=The+MyLifeBits+system Ronnystalker 11:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MSAccess2000 problem with running wizards

I used to use Access a lot when I was in the IT profession, but I haven't had occasion to for several years. Two years ago, after I'd quit using Access, I reformatted my compy and reinstalled everything. Since then, I haven't had to do a DB until last night, when I discovered that none of the wizards worked. Thinking they just weren't installed, I spent about 2 hours doing supplementary installs, using the repair feature, etc etc to no avail. When I try to run the wizards it doesn't even show a dialog box or notice or anything. I would rather not have to uninstall Office and re-install it; any ideas? If not a fix, at least a good place where I could go to ask? I haven't gone to the MSKb yet, I'm hoping to try a couple of quick things before slogging through it. Anchoress 04:15, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... yeah, I don't know if there is going to be a quicker way than uninstall office and reinstall it. Sounds like something has borked and doesn't want to go back without a struggle. --24.147.86.187 15:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, it's time in a way I guess. Not the time it takes to re-install, but the time it takes to reset all my customisation. But actually I did a bit of looking and it looks like a fairly common problem which re-installation doesn't seem to fix, so maybe it's better that I don't try it anyway. Anchoress 20:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What does "mount a network drive" mean in Unix/Linux?

What does "mount a network drive" mean? I am new to Linux and have viewed my #history on my new dedicated server via SSH and i see the first line has the command

mount /somethingimnotgoingtosayincaseitsasecurtityrisk/

I've looked it up and everyone explains this command by just saying it mounts a network drive. BUT what on earth does that mean to a human being??? Arrgh. please help my head hurts. Thanks in a dvance Ronnystalker 04:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look at your /etc/fstab to see the mount table associations. /somethingimnot...' is a name there, and probably has a filesystem type of nfs (if it's a "network drive"). —EncMstr 04:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. However, i'm not too worried about the particular filename/folder/drive. I'm just trying to work out what "Mount a network drive" means. Does it mean, say, "copy all files from that drive to here" or does it mean "whenever i say x i mean the-network-drive-being-mounted". As far as the dictionary goes mount, means either a "mountain" (i don't think that applies here :o), to "get on top of" and so on... But, none of the dictionary definitions seem to explain exactly what happens in a "linux sense" when a "drive is mounted". I hazzard a gues to think that "one thing is being put on top of another thing". So, is one thing copying onto another thing. Or is one thing physically on another thing? or being Symbollicly linked to another thing, diverted to another thing. Any way hope you can help. P.s thanks for making me explore a bit more my linux anyway. I have now seen my /etc/ folder. ;o)

Nothing is copied, it's like defining an alias. That is, you are telling the computer "whenever I say /home, I really mean the hard disk in the primary master position on my PC". StuRat 05:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I didn't answer the question. It means "make the file system available for access". It derives from the old days where disk drives nearly the size of clothes washing machines used removable disk packs (the size of a medium size wedding cake). An operator "mounted" the desired disk pack when a program requested access with a resource mount command. Under Unix/Linux/etc., it's still the case for tapes, DVDs and floppies, unless some automount software is running. The opposite—umount—disconnects the association between the mount point and the filesystem ("unmounts"), finishes up pending i/o (sync) and takes the file system offline, making it inaccessible. —EncMstr 05:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Except that I always got the error "Can't perform the unmount because the resource is currently in use", and I wasn't able to figure out what was using it. StuRat 06:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For me, the most common user of the disk I can't umount is me, having cd'd to the volume and forgotten that fact. lsof can probably help determine who/what's using a volume.

Atlant 00:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't you wish the unmount command was actually named 'unmount' instead of 'umount'. I make that mistake every time :) Johnnykimble 09:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently, Pike (was it Pike?) stated that if he had his time over with Unix, he'd add an "e" to the creat system call ;)

Looks like it was Ken Thompson. Not that that old posting is a reliable source, but notice the code comment... Johnnykimble 09:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that StuRat and EncMstr, it really cleared it up for me. As always, it seems, once the good folk of Wikipedia have answered my question here, I end up finding the answer was already waiting for me on this vast resource. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_%28computing%29 I hereby promise to invest some time in learning how to search this site more effectively. (Lol at the "scale references", I checked to see where you were from to see if you were American or not. Cakes and washing machines tend to be bigger over there).

On a side note, I have just read a book on Subversion http://svnbook.red-bean.com/ and been introduced to the whole concept of Revision Control Systems. "Aaahh I geddit! Wikipedia is a gigantic revision control repository for managing knowledge... ding!" - I'm now looking at this site in a whole new light. Ronnystalker 07:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Backup .bkf file with Vista

My PC died, but fortunately I have a recent backup of the entire drive c: on an external hard drive made with the Windows XP Backup utility, which creates files with the .bkf extension. However, Vista "Backup Status ad Configuration" on my new PC doesn't seem to recognize the file type when I try to restore. What can I do? Thanks. --Halcatalyst 05:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I have Vista Home Premium --Halcatalyst 05:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Vista supports the old backup format... And anyway, if you tried to restore your whole backup then you would overwrite heaps of system files. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check out the Microsoft article which describes how to 'Restore a backup created on a previous version of Windows'. Johnnykimble 09:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I got the utility working and have restored some documents. Now the problem is to figure out which files (besides documents) I can transfer without breaking Vista. For example: can I restore applications? How do I find and restore my Microsoft Outlook data (outlook.pst?). Thanks in advance! --Halcatalyst 14:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as applications go, you can consider them 'lost', i.e. you will need to reinstall them. Any application specific data, for example an Outlook address book, account data, or folder store, can often be 'imported' once you've installed the application again on your system. The procedures for restoring this data will vary between applications, but for Microsoft programs they should be well documented. Searching the Microsoft Knowledge Base should give you the answers you need. Johnnykimble 15:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Program to change the keys on a keyboard.

I remember PC World magazine once recommended this program which lets you change the keys on a keyboard. For example, you could change the Enter key to the spacebar, so that when you press the key labelled Enter, it acts as if you pressed the spacebar. I am looking for this program because my spacebar is spoilt. It does not affect my typing, but it does affect my gaming. Where can I find and download this program for free? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.189.64.225 (talk) 14:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I don't know of a program to remap keys in Windows, but in most games you can change keyboard key assignments. If you look in the options for the game, you should be able to reassign whichever function was controlled by the spacebar to the enter key (or any key of your choosing). Johnnykimble 14:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some games let me remap the controls if the default is the arrow keys, but for games which need me to use the spacebar, they don't offer options to remap.

Here is one option. I don't know anything about it, just found it during a search. --LarryMac 16:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could also get a new keyboard? They are not terribly expensive. --24.147.86.187 17:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Return of the Stickiness

Some of you might remember that I posted a question here earlier, about cleaning some coke out from some electronics, and I was directed towards isopropyl alcohol, rubbed in with a q-tip. Well, it worked great! But there are some more issues to take care of. When this coke can burst, it got into some really hard-to-reach places. The q-tip can't quite get into the "L" and "R" buttons of the Game Boy micro, or the "Start," "Select," and volume buttons, for that matter. There's also the issue of the game slots. Would it be safe to use the isopropyl inside the slots on the GBm and the Nintendo DS Lite (the GBA one)? And the "plug" for the DS Lite's second slot...it seems to have the pins necessary for a game, even though it's empty. Would anything happen if those pins were damaged? Thanks for all the help.--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 15:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that the game slots are a touch too sensitive, and could have been permanently damaged. Your best possibility would be seeking the help of a professional, as I doubt any "home" solution would be 100% effective. --Sn0wflake 05:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest taking it apart: the plastic parts (and any screws and such) can probably be simply washed in soapy water, and the button sensors (which may be just thin film contacts) wiped with water or alcohol. If there's any of the gunk on the circuit boards themselves, which there might or might not be, use the alcohol. Just take care not to damage the boards with static electricity while handling them, and make sure you know how to put everything back together again after it's clean and dried. (A useful trick, in these modern days, is to use a digital camera to photograph everything you're going to take apart while it's still together — that way you can later use the photos to check what goes where.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, too bad about the pins. Both systems themselves work perfectly well, it's that there's still some sticky stuff around the GBA slots, is all. The digital camera would make taking it apart a lot simpler, true, but I'm probably too much of clutz to mess around inside. I'm going to see if I can possibly smash the end of q-tip to fit into the smaller nooks and crannies. So, just to be sure, the isopropyl will hurt the pins? Thanks.--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 20:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think it should harm the pins at all. I was wondering how you were going to clean the slots without dipping the whole device in the alcohol if you couldn't fit a Q-tip inside them, but then I reread your question and realized that you probably weren't saying that at all. So, yes, I'd expect cleaning the slots with a Q-tip dipped in isopropyl alcohol to be OK. (CYA disclaimer: All this is just my guess based on personal experience. Don't sue me if it voids your warranty, makes the problem worse, explodes and destroys your house, or whatever.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

synchronization

confusing about which synchronization primitives is the best and why? i know about monitors ,semaphores,synchronization h/w.....etc . so i would like to know about it as i am new to this concept and what is the first operating system . help pls thanx in advance.Chakrirajini 17:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"US Server down" for over 24 hours now

After calling through to my Internet Service Provider's technical support, they informed me that everyone's been having trouble accessing domains from certain countries such as the UK or South Africa - and they said the reason was that a US server was down (since over 24 hours now already), and believe it or not I think it's still down 'cos I'm still having trouble! Anyways, I'm not sure I still quite understand. Do they mean that a DNS server is down - or what? If major DNS servers go down, does anybody know where this would be reported? Isn't there like a DNS organisation that could give me some more information?
(If you're bored: Just for interest's sake, I'm having trouble accessing sites like www.madamandeve.co.za and www.iol.co.za - if you wanna try them and report back to me)
Thanks as always Rfwoolf 19:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can get on both of them - you could try proxying your way around if you are really desperate. Either way, I have experienced some trouble with my forum but not sure if it is the host's problem or a general network issue. Either way, I use this for a quick overview on whether there are any serious issues at the moment, looking for spikes. As for information, I have no idea and would like to know too. x42bn6 Talk 19:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update:
Thanks. But all South African 'co.za' sites don't connect - I end up getting google's results on them - and even www.bsalsa.com (not South African) doesn't go through. One site that worked was iss.org.za but not even the South African government information portal is accessible! I'll just have to wait, but I'd really like to know WHY. Rfwoolf 19:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try doing a traceroute, it'll show you where your connection is hitting a snag. --24.147.86.187 21:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to see if it's DNS, try their IP addresses directly (which would require that someone with a working DNS give you said IP addresses). i.e. [8] and [9] are the two you provided. If they work, even if they don't lead exactly to the expected website, it's probably a DNS problem. In that case, you might be able to use OpenDNS or something as a replacement. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update:
Just called service provider again, they say they're still working on it - something about a router system or whatnot - the previous consultant I spoke to said it's not a problem with the service provider and its not their fault - but this time this consultant said it is 'a problem with [them]'. Information seems very very minimal - they can't tell me what kind of server, what I can google, what's wrong with it, where I can get more information - zip!
Doing a tracrt on one of the sites lists one IP address before timing out: "10.40.160.1" - which when I type in just gets me to a google search for that term.
Thanks for all your help anyways - when I get to the bottom of it I'll let you all know. Rfwoolf 21:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a local IP address, presumably on your ISP's network. That means you're probably not going to find out much about it except from your ISP. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Well, after using a proxy I was able to access a lot more sites - even certain google caches that weren't working before were finally working. Then a few hours later I took off the proxy and things were back to normal. Rfwoolf 03:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Batch generation of SVG files

Over at Category:Images which should be in SVG format (or more specifically here) we have about 200 images which are simply Unicode characters (U+2100 to U+21D4). Obviously the requested conversion (well, recreation) should be easier to do with a batch script than doing 200 by hand. Is anyone able to write a script that can do this?

I'd imagine a possible sequence could be something like:

Construct PostScript/EPS file containing just that character in a font that has it
Set bounding box (somehow) to be tight to the edges of the character
Use pstoedit to convert PS to flat PS with beziers.
Use pstoedit again to go from flat PS to SVG
Bot upload to WP or Commons, add {{vva}} to the .gif file, replace instances of files with SVG version. (Needs someone with a bot account, presumably.)

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to write any of these stages, and don't have a bot account. Cheers, Stannered 23:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Skills for user interface design

What is/are the most useful programming language(s) for someone interested in user interface design to study? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.42.111.47 (talk) 23:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Until someone who is more sure comes along, I would venture to say something in the lines of .NET programming through Delphi or MS Visual Basic or C#. Generally speaking when you create an application you can use components that help you with the interface design - or with some skill you can create your own. So it is possible to do nice interfaces (GUIs) with very little experience, just having the right components - assuming you are referring to Object-Orientated programming. Rfwoolf 23:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

.NET Progaming is very easy when it comes GUI design, how ever the software is quite costly, for a cheap c++ GUI try Trolltech's Qt, It's very similare to .NET and you can port it to Mac and Linux (which you can do with the .NET's via MONO, but I've found you can spen days getting it to work). --Lwarf 01:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To get started in Windows UI design, Microsoft offers the free express edition of Visual Studio. You should be able to get a UI up and running really quickly with it. For someone starting off you don't have to code a thing to study the general layout of UI's. For Windows, I'd say this is definitely the way to go. Johnnykimble 01:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Though not a programming language, why hasn't anybody mentioned HTML, which is probably the most adaptable markup language for user interfaces? XUL may be interesting to research as well. Heck, many programs including the McCafee (sp?) virus scanner appear to use html/IE as part of the front end interface. Root⁴(one) 04:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

XHTML + CSS, and any number of extra things (i.e. SVG, JavaScript). Good fun to be had. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MAC vs. Mac

This may be better suited to the language desk though it's computer related so I'm trying here... Why do people, who in my experience are generally not Apple Mac buyers/users, call Macs "MACS"? It's not an ~~abbreviation~~ acronym and never has been. So why do people capitalize it? Dismas|^(talk) 02:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking it's three letters (like file extensions) and doesn't seem to mean anything at first glance, so it sounds to them like it should be an ~~abbreviation~~ acronym. And I've seen a few Mac users call them MACs :P -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about them, but MAC capitalized means MAC address to me, so the computers are Macs. Maybe they think it's like IBM and HP etc. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not supposed to be capitalized, whenever I se it I think MAC Address, too.--Ryan 16:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am both a MAC and a Win user, and I capitalize MAC, probably for the reason that Wirbelwind says. I don't capitalize Win, though. ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 00:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hooking up N64 to PC

I have question. You see, I have a site for a Nintendo 64 game. The only problem is that it has no game pictures, and it wold be unethical to steal images of Google Image search. So I thought I may hook my system up to my computer to take screenshots. But how do I do this? Ftw I have both a MacBook Pro with Vista and Leopard beta. I also have an HP Pavilion a814x desktop computer (which I would prefer to use). How do I hook it up, or if that not possible, how do I take screenshots on it in general? Thank you. --TV-VCR watch 04:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You need a TV / video capture card that can accept composite or coaxial or whatever type of video output you have from the N64. That, or an emulator along with the appropriate ROM. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My desktop has NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000. Laptop has ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256 MiB GDDR3. Or if neither work, where may I find a free emulator? Thank you. --TV-VCR watch 04:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The best N64 emulator currently is Project64. Concerning ROMs, you are on your own, but in theory it's not illegal to own ROM copies of the games you phisically own, in case you are wondering. --Sn0wflake 05:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You would probably know if either of those were the TV tuner versions; it would say somewhere, and they might have come with an input cable or have extra ports for input. As for ROMS: there are (somewhat expensive) devices to copy them off of the carts, and there are websites/P2P networks/"etc." that distribute them. The legality of the latter method is, indeed, not happy. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does ROM mean the game cartridge? If that is so, I own the game in question, San Francisco Rush 2049. :D --TV-VCR watch 05:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It refers to the data on the cartridge, which you need off of the cartridge and on your computer to use with an emulator. It's possibly legal to download the ROM file off of some site if you own the actual game, but I can't provide legal advice here :P. It's not ethically wrong. (And as an aside, I used to own that. Fun game :D) -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will download the P64 program, and contact if I have any questions. Thanks. --TV-VCR watch 05:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well now I have a question! How do I get the ROM onto my computer to use in in Project 64 v1.6? --TV-VCR watch 05:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again, you need either to use a somewhat expensive device to do so, or simply search for and download a ROM that someone else has ripped. The latter is of questionable legality, though it may or may not be okay if you own the actual cart. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am confused! Where may I find a ROM to download of SFR49? Or what is this device you speak of? --TV-VCR watch 05:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I lol'd! I searched for one and found one instantly! It is downloading as I type this, but my, it is 16.2 megabytes, and I am still using dialup while waiting for my DSL to activate! This may take a while. T_T --TV-VCR watch 05:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's common misconception that you can dl a ROM if you own the cartridge. In reality, the only ROMs you can legally own are those you ripped yourself from cartridges you legally owned and still legally own. Although we are not supposed to give legal advice here, I figured making you more worried as opposed to less could never hurt. ;) Chris M. 14:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is likely to depend on the jurisdiction, and in many if not most of them, on the specific interpretation a judge might arrive at when and if such a case ever came up. The specific circumstances, where a person in possession of a legal copy of a work would find it more convenient to download a second copy off the net than to simply copy his own are sufficiently recent, and even today sufficiently uncommon, that there are likely to be few precedents or statutes explicitly addressing the issue. In any case, in practice the legality might end up depending on secondary issues, such as what purpose the copy was downloaded for, whether the downloaded copy was identical to the original, whether the original was deliberately copy-protected rather than merely incidentally difficult to copy, whether the user had accepted any EULAs, whether said EULAs actually are legal and enforceable or not, and, perhaps most importantly, on whether the download was made through a file-sharing application that would simultaneously upload the content to third parties. In short, "it depends." —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would nice if people just accepted that the final user is allowed to have a backup copy of a legitimately owned game. There will certainly be no legal case made against somebody due to the person merely owning a ROM version of a N64 game that ceased being produced over a decade ago, and if by some disturbingly impossible event that actually happens, I highly doubt soke kind of header check of the cart versus ROM or whatever will be made. So to the person who started the question, legalese aside, just go ahead and download the game. We cannot point you where, though. That would be ilegal. --Sn0wflake 06:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Movies in ppt

Hey, I'm trying to put a movie in powerpoint and it won't work! I hit the Insert>Movies and Sounds>Movie from File... and the thing won't work. I mean, it doesn't even show up on the "Undo" drop list. Is there anything I can do? --JDitto 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Laptop keyboard - stuck key

I replaced my enter key. It previously worked OK without the little metal bar but I found it today and wanted to make the edges work well when I hit them (the bar makes it so that when you hit the edges it registers with equal weight as in the center). Well I tried with and without it and the key is stuck - it pops up a fraction of an inch, works, but won't pop up all the way. Laptop is a DV1000 series. Got suggestions? -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 06:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like the tiny spring isn't able to push the key up any more, possibly due to the added weight of the metal bar. Can you find a stronger spring with the same dimensions and substitute it in ? StuRat 06:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, it doesn't work even without the metal bar! I haven't messed with the button ("nipple" is the best way to describe it) but as a last resort that's an option. I just had a thought: perhaps the force of pushing it in rather misaligned the spring inside, so it no longer is pushing back on the key. Of course, this is just a hypothesis at this point. -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 06:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's possible, but this misalignment might have bent the spring beyond it's elastic limit, in which case it will permanently be weakened. In any case, I believe you need to pry that key off and see what's going on underneath. You could "borrow" a good spring from some key you never use (like "scroll lock", in my case). StuRat 18:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are too interlocking rectangles above the key "nipple" that I can't remove. I think either I'll glue the back of the key to the "nipple" (it works fine if I don't press and click it in) or replace the keyboard, since I can't get inside. -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 23:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, sounds like a plan. In the meantime, you can probably use the enter key on numeric keypad. StuRat 05:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beginner's use of a database

I have an XML file that is a database formatted for MySQL. Each record has, among other fields, a name and three fields called HD, CR and LA. HD will contain a number (usually an integer, but occasionally a fraction with a '/' separating the sides) followed by a 'd' and some other text; the number before the 'd' is the part I'm interested in. CR will always be an integer, and LA will be either an integer or a dash (a dash is distinct from zero). What I'd like to do is create a table whose four columns are name, HD, CR and LA and copy it into OpenOffice.org Calc. Can I do this in OpenOffice.org Base, or straight in Calc? If so, how? (Base doesn't even recognize XML files as databases when I use the Open command, and there's no Import or Insert File command that I can see.) Neon Merlin 06:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could of course load it into MySQL and do an appropriate select statement to get it into a format that Calc will recognize, but a quick Perl hack might do. If the record you describe looks like:

<record name="some name" hd="42/19dSomeOtherText" cr="99" la="-">

Then a one-liner as below should give you a comma-separated values file that Calc can grok. --TotoBaggins 14:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

perl -wnle '@fields=qw(name hd cr la); for $field (@fields) { ($h{$field}) = / $field="([^"]+)"/ or next LINE } $h{hd} =~ s/d.*//; print join ",", @h{@fields}'  <  db.xml  > db.csv

Unfortunately, the fields aren't parameters, but child tags of the record tags, like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<ms>
 <m>
  <name>Example</name>
   :
   : other fields
   :
  <hd>38d10 (xyz)</hd>
  <cr>22</cr>
  <la>-</la>
 </m>
</ms>

Neon Merlin 22:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Limewire not working

Lately when I try to open limewire, nothing comes up. I keep clicking and clicking and nothing's happening! What should I do? --124.181.241.101 06:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure it's not loading behind your windows? (it doesn't automatically go on top). Also check ctrl-alt-del and make sure only one copy is running. -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 07:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Limewire plugs your computer up with lots of malware/adware. Try something else? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not true, Limewire is malware-free. -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 07:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try Phex if you want to keep using the Gnutella network. Neon Merlin 18:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey it's working for me. I have 4.9.33. Btw, you should also try Ares Galaxy. It's free (opensource), and it's good. --Hirak 99 07:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I miss the days of Audiogalaxy. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 17:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~$ on Microsoft Word documents

Hi, When I save certain documents (in Word it seems to be randomly), it creates a hidden file, the name of which is the saved document's filename but with the first two letters of that filename replaced with ~$. Does anyone know what this is or why it happens? Thanks very much, Bioarchie1234 08:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it is a backup. Try opening it to see. -Wo o ty Woot? contribs 09:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When I try to open it it says the program needs a converter to open this. When I say yes it takes ages doing nothing and when I say no another conversion thing comes up but it wants to use Japanese (Shift-JIS). If it is a backup is it safe to delete? Thanks. Bioarchie1234 09:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a temp file, not a backup. It's created when you work on a file without saving it, or when the file is so large that it needs to save itself more often than your regular saves. I get lots of them when I am working with my really big (200 pages) tables. I mean lots, like a dozen during a sitting, despite saving regularly and often. It's nothing to worry about. Anchoress 09:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's right. You can delete them after closing your Word document if they don't delete themselves. JoshHolloway 09:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's an MSKB article for this: Description of how Word creates temporary files. The '~' sign is the standard sign for the temporary file. The '$' sign indicates the file is an owner file. See the owner file section in the article. Johnnykimble 11:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LINUX open source sponsoring

Any idea how the linux community churns out latest versions and updates for their software?Are there any sponsors?Any if they are volunteers, they are really really helpful people i guess...210.212.194.209

I don't know of any distros that have sponsers. Slackware from what I've read, pays for their CDs, web site bandwidth, and other expenses with the money they get from selling hard copies of their distro, Slackware books, and t-shirts. The software, AFAIK, is written by volunteers though. Dismas|^(talk) 10:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some major developers of key projects are actually employed by companies that have significant interest in open source software. This allows these developers to work full time on the projects that said companies make revenue off of. -- mattb @ 2007-04-09T16:01Z

The people behind Ubuntu offer bounties for some development tasks, but most of the software in Linux distributions is from unpaid volunteers. Johnnykimble 08:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fedora's Core developers are RedHat employies and then I think there just a group of volunteers who help code translate and document. A lot of FSF software is used in Linux (or should I say GNU/Linux) and the FSF has lots of sponsors (I think google is one). --Lwarf 09:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DVD BURN

I burnt two sessions on a DVD-R. The two sessions can be read on the same computer, but not on my home computer running XP, and only one session on Win98.Any idea why??~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.212.194.209 (talk) 10:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I'm not sure why, but the same type of thing happens to me. StuRat 18:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tons o things come into play here, one thing could be the book type you used when burning the DVD in question. It is preferable to use DVD-ROM book type for higher compatibility, also if burning with Nero (sorry if you don't like its the first that comes to mind) then you can also check a check box for higher compatibility. Then you have to check the speed, despite how many times people may argue this, older DVD-ROM's are sometimes bad at reading new technology read: Dual Layer (DVD9), and it's higher technologies, and higher speeds come into play as well. Next some DVD-ROM's if they're not burners themselves, will have problems reading more than 1 session. If the DVD is not finalized will also cause non-burners to not pick up the info. One last tip is disabling Windows Burn feature for some odd reason cures this sometimes. To disable it Right click on the burner, select properties,and select the recording tab and disable it. Hope this helps. 200.12.231.42 22:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech[reply]

Samba asymmetrical speeds

I have a 'nix computer and a Windows XP SP2 box, with a share on the XP box. Downloads are nice and quick, yet uploading only takes place at about 15k/s. Is this an inherent Samba thing or what's going on? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 10:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

All I can say is that it should be the same both ways, whether copying from the 'nix box to XP share or the other way round. It certainly shouldn't be as slow as 15kB/s (kilobytes). You are talking about transfers over your LAN and not the Internet? Obviously if you were talking about internet transfers, 15kB/s is a pretty normal upload speed. With many cable\DSL services, the upload is often ~15kB/s (128kb/s), ~30kB/s (256kb/s) or ~60kB/s (512kb/s), while the download speed can be as high as 2mB/s (16mb/s). Johnnykimble 11:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is indeed over the LAN. I've noticed from a little Google search that I'm not the only one with this problem and that there aren't any real solutions posed, so the question is still an open (and interesting) one.

You could take a look and see if there's any odd looking traffic in a trace when you're uploading. You will of course need to know what to look for (and what you're looking at), but if you're familiar enough with network protocols it might be useful. You can use Ethereal to get the trace (it's possibly already on your *nix box). Johnnykimble 11:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The XP box is running NAT for the 'nix box, but I doubt the overheads incurred by NAT would be so great as to swamp the Samba upload.

Do other protocols work correctly? For example, have you tried FTPing between the machines? Johnnykimble 08:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Full Screen

Hey guys, how would I exit fullscreen in a computer game (Starcraft-I know its old, but its still good) if that option is not available in the game option menu? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.93.133.10 (talk) 12:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Usually Alt-Tab will get you out. Or you could try Winkey or Ctrl-Esc. If not, on Windows XP, you could try Ctrl-Alt-Del or Ctrl-Shift-Esc. x42bn6 Talk 12:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alt-Enter is a common combination to toggle full screen mode in Windows. Johnnykimble 13:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just plain ESC (escape key) works for some games. StuRat 18:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question about bibliographic management software

How do programs like EndNote extract bibliographic information from online databases & library catalogues? 68.40.198.80 12:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Susie[reply]

Ummm... have you tried EndNote#Operation? --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 16:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DVD burner not allowing the burning of DVDs

I have a DVD burner and I never used it to burn DVDs until today. I have a case of 50 blank DVDs and I've tried several. What happens is I put the DVD in the drive, then when I go to move a folder into the drive (as I would when burning a CD), it says "windows encountered a problem when trying to move this folder, what do you want windows to do?" I'm not completly sure if the drivers are correct but I'm also not completely sure where to find the make and model of this drive without opening up the system and unplugging stuff (if that would even work). If that is the only course of action I'll do it but I imagine it's somewhere on the computer, if that is the problem. Not sure what to do, so if someone can give me a hand, I'd appreciate it, thanks! Chris M. 14:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I use Nero Burning ROM for burning, works better for me. Splintercellguy 14:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any tips on how I can get that? Chris M. 15:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah me too it works nicely. Here, But it's a Trial. I can give you some pirate copies even, but I think promoting such on Wikipeida is not a good idea. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 16:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure that your DVD burner is compatible with the DVD blanks that you're trying to use? Aside from the question of DVD-R and DVD+R (different media!), there's also the question of burning speed.

Atlant 16:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, I have a +/- R/RW 16x burner and have 16x discs. Chris M. 17:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Nero suggestion above is good, but I also wanted to mention why the drag and drop copy doesn't work. I believe some of the older current operating systems (like Windows 98) were written back when computers either didn't have any DVD drives at all or had read-only DVD drives. Thus, the O/S didn't include drag-and-drop DVD burn drivers. This is why you may need to run a separate software product, like Nero, to do copies to the DVD (even though you can copy from the DVD using Windows). Incidentally, I would have expected the DVD burner to come with the required software, such as Nero. You might want to check the box. StuRat 18:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for your error is what StuRat says, windows cannot address anything after the 80 mins on a normal disc. Even WinXP which is slightly newer cannot burn onto DVD's with it's built in burning engine. I do believe Nero now makes Nero Express Lite or something like that for free. You might want to look into that. 200.35.168.129 22:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech[reply]

I have winXP and I was burning Data on the CD, not movies, so the time limit isn't an issue, but I'm looking into the Nero Express Lite you mentioned. Chris M. 05:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

acceptance testing

why is acceptance testing important? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 122.167.149.144 (talk) 15:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

We have an article for the Acceptance testing. Read it yourself, it will better than asking from someone, isn't it :-) --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 16:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do your own homework. The reference desk won't give you answers for your homework, although we will try to help you out if there's a specific part of your homework you don't understand. Make an effort to show that you've tried solving it first. JoshHolloway 16:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure this is homework, so I will assume good faith and answer.

[Oh, come on, it was clearly a homework question! —Steve Summit (talk) 01:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)][reply]

Acceptance testing is important because it has the potential to find bugs not found in testing done by programmers. There are many reasons for this:

1) The most ominous is that programmers may intentionally hide a bug they know about.

2) Programmers inevitably see things from a programmer's POV, which often is different from what the customer wants. As a result they may not consider something to be a bug which the customers do. A programmer might say "You wanted the supplier list sorted in alphabetical order ? Why would you want that when it's already sorted by the hexadecimal supplier index number ?".

3) During acceptance testing, realistic use of the program is more likely. While the programmer might have tested the program alone, on a high-end computer, the acceptance tester might have other programs running which they normally would run along side the one being tested, and might use less powerful computers in different configurations, with a different operating system, etc. Some of this is also encountered in integration testing and cross-platform testing, but those tests still may not have the same combo that a real customer is likely to use. StuRat 17:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Content Based Image Retrieval

What is the current state of content based image retrieval?

Annevbast 18:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)annevbast[reply]

It is possible to reliably retrieve porn by telling the CBIR to search for images with skin tone color. All joking aside, I wouldn't use any content based image retrieval solution unless your images are a very specific and small image domain. CBIR may be useful for retrieving particular fonts with qualities that you want, for example. But my experience has been that most CBIR systems are pretty much useless if your trying to organize random images semantically.

Source: (I did a lot of reading on this kind of stuff for my CS master's thesis 2 years ago). Root⁴(one) 18:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is some very promising recent research. Even got picked up by slashdot. risk 18:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Free Video Edit / Subtitle

Hi,

I have a video taken from Sony handycam. I need to add subtitle to it. How can I do that?

Thanks Slmking 20:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Slmking

this is normally a dvd site but feel free to look into it for it provides subtitling info and tutorials www.doom9.org http://www.doom9.org/subtitle_guides.htm i would recomend substation alpha,vobsub, and subrip

Also most editing software for videos has subtitle options in them, i use Sony Vegas for example or sometimes Premiere you can usually get trials for this software to see which best fits your needs. Hope this helps. 200.35.168.129 22:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech[reply]

Free tools for creating PDF file from HTML file with inline TIFF images?

Are there free tools available that can convert an HTML file with inline TIFF images into PDF? A requirement is that the tool must recognize some kind of size specification for the TIFF images. That is, the tool must recognize some form of specification, be it HTML or CSS, or something else, that specifies the scaled size of inline TIFF images (e.g. 4 cm x 5 cm).

(Converting the TIFF images into another format first would be an unattractive option, as the file size penalty would be substantial. The input to the process has a simple structure, so if a freely available tool does the job but takes a different source format, that would be OK, so long as it's relatively easy to convert the source document into that format.)

Thanks. --64.236.170.228 20:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well this may help - cutePDF appears as a printer on your PC, and anything you send to it to get printed it will convert to PDF and ask you where you want to save the file to. The nice thing about it is that it's freeware, opensource, and doesn't watermark itself on any of the documents. So in other words, if you're happy with a PDF of how the page would look like printed, then that's the solution to look out for. I'm not sure about TIFF image support - but if TIFFs can be printed from whatever program you're viewing them in then rest assured it can PDF it. Rfwoolf 03:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Connecting my computer to my TV

My video-card has an S-Video out plug. Can I just connect that to my TV (using a SCART converter, for instance) to use my computer to show video on my TV? Obviously I would have to make a separate connection for the audio, but would it work other than that? Can I use any resolution (which is downscaled to PAL), or will I have to use some special resolution when doing this? --Oskar 20:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and by the way, I'm using Ubuntu --Oskar 21:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've no experience of this on Ubuntu unfortunately, but this link looks pretty promising. You don't have to use a scart converter if your TV has a composite connection. In this case you can get an S-Video>Composite cable. On your TV, next to the composite-in, there should be two phono connections, for L and R audio. You can get a lead for this that connects to the 'line out' jack on your sound card. Composite is lower quality than S-Video though, so the converter might be a good idea (but get one that has audio connections on it if possible). Johnnykimble 21:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I actually have a SCART-converter, so that's not really a problem. It has audio-inputs on it (that is, it has a composite video input, a S-Video input and two audio inputs). But is that all it takes, it just works? --Oskar 21:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, yea. That's all you need as far as hardware is concerned. The hurdle is the software though. If you follow the instructions in that link I mentioned, and make the correct changes to your xorg.conf, it should just work. As far as resolution is concerned, you can just pick the one that looks best. On a 28" CRT TV, this is typically 800x600, anything bigger can look too small and blurry. Johnnykimble 21:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I just read that link you provided the second after I posted. I guess it's not that easy :) I looks doable anyway, so I'll experiment with it. Thanks! (I do have windows installed although I almost never used it, so that's a last resort, I guess) --Oskar 21:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, one more other thing I forgot to mention was Macrovision. You might have some issues with the desktop displaying correctly, but any video overlays not showing up on the TV. This is usually to do with the Macrovision protecion on the TV-Out so that you can't record to a VHS tape or other media. In most cases however, you can get software to disable this. Johnnykimble 21:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recommender system

How does the recommender system in Amazon work to provide recommendation to users?

I don't know the exact mechanics but it records the products you buy and those you just look at and then it finds products which are similar. For example if you buy a copy of Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica then it will recommend Season 2 to you. Recommendations normally come with information on the exact reason it's been recommended to you.

The exact algorithm is no doubt a well guarded secret, but considering the amounts of data involved, it would have to be a very fast system. Something that only needs a couple of passes over the set of customer purchases. This is one way: http://www.sigmod.org/vldb/conf/1994/P487.PDF . A very basic method would be to estimate the probability that someone who bought product A, will enjoy product B, P(A|B) by the number of people that bought product A, B and both. The definition of Conditional probability tells us that P(A|B) = P(A and B) / P(B). The probabilities can then be setimated from the number of people who bought the items. So if you bought a Battlestar Galactica DVD, the system can check if you would like an Alias DVD, by calculating P(A and B) = the number of people who bought both DVD's / The total number of customers. And P(B) = the number of people who bought the BSG DVD / the total number of customers. Divide the first by the second, and you have an estimate of the probability that you want to buy Alias. Simply return those products for which that probability is the highest. This is all oversimplified of course, but I would guess that that's the basic principle they use. risk 22:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC) (NB: The first paragraph is an unsigned comment, not mine)[reply]

I agree completely with you risk, it's highly probably and likely. Also they do take into consideration key words such as directors,actors,and genre those are used as multipliers i would assume at the final product of risk's formula. it would increase the likelihood of you wanting to purchase it by lets say 1.25 if it had the same actors. that's my 2 cents 200.35.168.129 22:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech[reply]

Climate Change

I am making a research on the environment for my personal use and will like to know some of the basic things such us climent change and things that can be done to save the environment

Manay thaks Benjji

Try typing climate change in the "search" box and clicking on "go". You will quickly find a very good answer to your question. --Kainaw ^(talk) 22:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

14 inch widescreen or 14" ordinary resolution

I mostly use the laptop for reading only. should I go for a 14" widescreen laptop or should I go for ordinary resolution (1024 * 768) 14" laptop? which would be conienient for me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.124.223 (talk) 04:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]