Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Please help us write the Reference Desk guidelines

We are currently drafting a proposal at Wikipedia:Reference desk/guidelines.
Please discuss those issues on its associated talk page, Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/guidelines.

April 23

Google blurbs

Anyone know where Google get their page descriptions from? Have a look at this discussion and then let us know there how to get the Google display for this search to change from "over two million" to the right figure. Thanks. Carcharoth 00:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It's from Google Directory --h2g2bob 02:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Mp3 files that display very long running times

Hello, I'm sure many of you have seen mp3 files for songs that should be normal length but for some reason have very long running times, possibly due to somebody tampering with the files or something like that. Today I opened up an album (Black Mountain's self titled) in iTunes and the track lengths ranged from 20 minutes to almost an hour - in a playlist the running time for the 8 songs total was almost 5 hours. I assume that in most files with incorrect running times, the file plays and then there is silence for the duration of the song or something like that. However, with these files, they actually played for the entire running time. There was no silence - there actually was 5 hours worth of music. I then opened the files with Windows Media Player. The files were a few minutes longer than usual and still displayed the incorrect times, just not as excessively long as when opened with iTunes. Now upset, I opened the files with a sound editing program called Audacity, and it displayed the songs at their correct running time.

My question is - how is it possible that when I open the songs in iTunes, they magically play for 40 minutes? The beginning and ending of the song is the same no matter what program I play it with, and as I scan through the song with iTunes I can hear the same melody throughout the song. I'm extremely confused because it seems like when I play the file with iTunes, I somehow unlock an extremely lengthy, jammed out version of the song. However, when I open the file with Audacity, it shows the sound wave file at the length that it's supposed to be. Also, with iTunes, it says the bitrate of the song is 32 kb/s. With Windows Media Player, it says it is a 350 kb/s+ VBR file. What is going on!!?!? NIRVANA2764 00:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This only happens with variable bit rate files. The reason is because in a constant bit rate file, it takes the first bitrate it is encoded at and using the file size, it can figure out how long the song is with simple division. However, with variable bitrate, the first chunk might be encoded with a really small bitrate, such as 32kb/s, because it is mostly silence. Programs such as iTunes would see that 32kb/s, and the file size, and figure out the incorrect song length. However, programs which analyze the entire file will have the correct size. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Laptop Screen and Magnet

I have a Dell Inspiron, and I was playing around with a strong magnet near the screen, trying to see if it would distort it as it does CRT monitors. This didn't work, so I ran the magnet along the top edge of the keyboard, where it meets the plane of the screen. As I moved the magnet back and forth along this line, the screen dimmed as I passed over the middle. Finally, as the magnet passed over the middle again, the screen blacked out (though I could barely see it in a very dim form). I hibernated the computer and turned it back on, after which point the screen was completely restored. Does anybody know the mechanism for this effect? --Gujarat10 03:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Speculation here, but the ELP backlight used on many laptop screens involves an itsy bitsy high-frequency high-voltage power supply, which is often located about where you describe. It wouldn't surprise me too much if a strong external magnetic field could somehow collapse the magnetic field inside the HF HV PS's itsy bitsy exotic transformer. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Some laptops use magnets in order to determine when the screen is closed (as opposed to using a mechanical switch). If your laptop is set to only turn off the backlight when the screen is closed, rather than turning off the display as well, that could be it. Or not. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Nope - I have it set to activate standby when closed, which did not happen. --Gujarat10 06:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a word of advice (forgive me if you already know this). Waving a strong magnet over your laptop may not be the best idea, especially if it ends up near your hard drive. -- mattb 14:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

And that's why you never bring your computer through the airport metal detector :) The TSA tell you to put it in a bin anyway though. --TeckWiz is now R ^ParlateContribs_@(Let's go Yankees!) 01:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Your desktop uses an old little technology called LCD. You could have waved it over a cheap calculator and verified the same fact. Root⁴(one) 01:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Huh? LCDs usually don't contain materials that exhibit strong magnetic properties. You can wave a stack of strong rare earth magnets over any TFT LCD you like and you're unlikely to observe any visual response. What's more, the OP described an effect that obviously affected the backlight (which most calculators do not have), not the LCD itself. -- mattb 01:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Right, the original experiment was an experiment with the LCD display itself, which I was commenting on (sorry for being vague). THEN continuing his experiment he found something which brought about the unexpected results, although rather interesting, the knowledge could have come at a hefty price. I was just trying to say, if one feels like monkeying around with some item, he or she should make sure that the item can handle the abuse or that the item is easily replaceable. There's nothing wrong with experimenting in itself, but it must be reasonable. Experimenting with magnets on a relatively new laptop, well, you draw the conclusions. Root⁴(one) 14:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with putting a magnet on a laptop or, for that matter through the airport detectors? There are neodymium or samarium rare earth magnets in every hard drive. [Mαc Δαvιs] ❖ 02:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Conveniently oriented sufficiently away from the platters so as to avoid problem. Try taking that same neodymium actuating magnet and place it on top of the disk, right over the platters. :) -- mattb 02:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Video Problem

I downloaded some videos that are apparently in .avi format. I've tried playing them on what I feel to be everything -- Realplayer, Quicktime, DivX, WMP, VLC, InfraView, -- and they just wont play. They are certainly video files. They are about 350 mb each, and I have read online reports from others that they're viewing the videos just fine. What could be going wrong? What should I do? To give you better details, most media players say something to the effect of "Error: ____ media player cannot read this file. Make sure it is a valid media file type." VLC, on the other hand, opens it, but rather than playing the movie, for about five seconds the progression bar (the thing that moves slowly when listening to a song or watching a movie) moves as if something is being played, but nothing can be seen or heard and the clock of the VLC player shows no length to the file being played. Bizarre. Help? 70.108.191.59 04:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

If even VLC doesn't want to play it, the file is probably corrupt, or it's some weird format that is very rare. Try checking the CRC? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 05:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but what do you mean by "try checking the CRC"?

Assuming you downloaded the file, thus the other people can play it, then you can get a program to check its crc (such as quicksfv, see sfv), and see if it matches everyone else's copy. Or if you got it through a torrent, check with the torrent file. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 05:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Check what video codec the file uses and whether you have the codec. I use AVIcodec for that check. Then google to see if there is a newer version of the codec. Weregerbil 08:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Or open the video up in VLC and go to View > Messages - usually if you Google the error messages you will be able to deduce the problem. x42bn6 Talk 14:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Try Media Player Classic and all the assosiated codecs which come with it. That plays *everything* for me :) JoshHolloway 18:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Ugh. I downloaded a codec pack with Media Player Classic, and MPC says it can't "render" the file. What does that mean? Any ideas or should I just give up. I did download it by torrent, and saw no complaints on the torrent comment page. 70.108.191.59 19:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Get Gspot to identify the codec it needs...i use that and it gives me info...it did for the Matroska pack... Ag for MemTech —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.12.231.42 (talk) 21:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

Jesus. This is the file from hell. I used the G-spot thing and it said that it knew neither the file nor the MIME type. 70.108.191.59 21:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It's possible that the file is actually corrupt. This has happened to me in the past! Try downloading another copy of the file, or from another torrent tracker. JoshHolloway 22:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

You could try removing the file extension and then using VLC or MPC if that does not work try using one of those mass video file converters...Look on this website http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html this has a converter for almost anything i've ever tried to use and it's free so just look into it.Have you tried opening it in Video Editing programs? Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Windows Movie Maker? What about the option to look for the proper codec with the new Windows Media Player? 200.12.231.42 23:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

It's also possible the file is a fake. Are you sure people are talking about the file you have not some other file with the same name? Nil Einne 00:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I think thats most likely. If GSpot cant divine its nature, its a fake. Shinhan 13:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

As crazy as this sounds, could it be compressed? I've downloaded files before only to learn that they were gzipped or zipped up but the original file extension remained. It was very weird, maybe a Firefox bug or but in the web application I downloaded it from. Root⁴(one)

Sync Byte

Why Sync Byte always posses 0x47 value? Why Sync Byte are inverted for every 8 packets?Barani pdy 18:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I am assuming you are asking about digital television standards. The information in this document might be helpful, although it's a little outside my sphere of knowledge. --LarryMac 18:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

computer ideas

Hi, I'm about to build a computer.

Does anyone know of any lists of parts with the best bang for the buck? My limit is about 1200 dollars. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.61.127.37 (talk) 20:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

I don't know about the US, but in the UK Scan is good. It may also give you ideas if not pricing. JoshHolloway 22:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It really depends on what you are doing with it, if you want to game then I just built a computer for about that much, but that's excluding a monitor and peripherals. If you build a system based on the intel CD2 e6600 processor, a gigabyte ds3p motherboard and a 8800GTS you'll have a great system and it should come in your budget. All you need extra is some ram, a hard disk, a power supply (550W will be good for that)and a case, doesn't matter what you get but I would recommend not to get the very cheapest, get the "next to the cheapest" and you'll be fine. Vespine 01:48, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm building a PC a little over that budget (at 1600$), 8800GTS and such. Could easily cut it down a few hundred dollars by skimping on case, CPU, and RAM. Try newegg.com- best site i've seen -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 06:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

For good prices try pricewatch and take a look out for an AMD CPU they are the best when it comes to bang for buck. --Lwarf 10:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

who made the first computer game

Who made the first computer game? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mhalldorsson (talk • contribs) 20:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

What do you consider a computer game? -- mattb 20:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Many very early computers were programmed to play games such as Nim and Tic-tac-toe. One of the very first video games on a computer was Spacewar. There is some background for all this, including some names, in our article History of computer and video games. --LarryMac 20:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

See also our article on the first video game. --h2g2bob 03:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

April 24

Anyone know about Adobe Photoshop Elements?

I use Adobe Photoshop Elements a lot. Just recently, it started having a problem. Whenever I try to open certain types of vector files in Elements, the program shuts down. This happens with .pdf] files and .ai files. However, .eps files open fine. And it doesn't even list any of my.svg files in the drop-down, so I don't know what happens for those. (Also, if I happen to have a pdf or ai saved to the clipboard, even if it just happens to be the last thing I saved there, Elements won't open at all — so I go to any website, right-click on a .gif or .jpg, and then with that now in the clipboard Elements opens fine.) Elements only just started doing this. Until a few days ago, all of these formats opened just fine. What could have happened? — Michael J 00:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess no one knows. Thanks anyway. I'll check around other sources. — Michael J 11:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Check Adobe's Forums http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/ --24.249.108.133 23:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

windows vista and msn messenger

hi guys..basically my windows vista won't let me use my msn messenger...it won't let me sign in...it says there is a thing that potects the compute from progams running and i tried to deactivate it , but it says MSN can not function ith that sot of firewall deactivated...it HAS to have it... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.69.194.105 (talk) 03:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

The MSN Service status seems to be OK, so it should be your computer not Microsoft. Make sure you've got the latest MSN messenger - that is Windows Live Messenger 8.1. Can you say what Firewall, Anti-virus, etc you are running? Are you connecting through a home bradband connection, or through your uni/school/work? --h2g2bob 13:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

This problem was caused by a compatibility problem between Windows Live Messenger 8.1 and Acer eDataSecurity. Acer eDataSecurity was created by Acer, Inc.. yeah i guess its my comp. :(

i think i have it solved, thnx :D

Smart Keystroke Recorder

I hope you can help me, I have no idea where else to ask about this.

I just became aware of a program called Smart Keystroke Recorder on my computer. Although I never noticed it before, it says it was created on my computer in January. After Googling it seems that this is a professional program used by people to record Internet activity and not a spyware program like I thought. Since I live alone, I know nobody went on my computer and installed it manually.

Can somebody remotely install a program like this on my computer? Is this someone trying to hack me or someone maliciously targetting me? Is there a way of finding out where the information is going to? (I already uninstalled it, but there seem to be files left over)

Please let me know, I'm very very concerned. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.118.254.142 (talk) 04:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

a) There are ways to install GUI programs remotely. b) It takes about 30 seconds of physical access to a computer to backdoor it.

You could attempt forensics (on a separate machine) and watch all inbound and outbound traffic with a packet analyzer (on a separate machine). After you are done analyzing, you need to fdisk and format that machine. Any executable on that machine is potentially backdoored, and needs to be reinstalled from clean media.172.131.17.62 04:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

DDR error simple explanation

Hi Wikipedia,

I was advised to send this question to you for a better result although i did get an answer from your miscellaneous desk. I just wanna know in a simple term what does DDR SDRAM at DIMM (s):1 error means. I sometimes got this error when I open my PC then I will restart again and click del tab and set up then when I go back to boot , everything went fine. Then again next day when I open the same error occurs-DDR SDRAM at DIMM (s):1Does this mean that I need to replace my memory? I cannot contact any manufacturer because my computer was set up by a Computer graduate and he cannot be found now. I spent over a thousand bucks for this computer. Please help. Thank you so much...!

Keilah Reyes 07:16, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably a simple stick change for the #1 slot will do. Splintercellguy 07:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

simple term please

Oh I'm so sorry, the more i do not understand your reply to my query about ddr sdram at dimm (s):1 error that says "Probably a simple stick change for the #1 slot will do" I do not know what stick ad slot are. Are you reffering about the set up? Please be patient with me as i really want to know what's that error means. Thank you so much and God bless.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing" Keilah Reyes 07:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The error is a general error, and a specific meaning can not really be given from what you have mentioned, it simply means some type of error is occurring. "Stick" is a term used for a Module of RAM/Memory. The RAM article has a picture showing this at the top. "Slot" is where the Module is placed inside your computer. Your best bet to have this fixed is to have someone test and maybe replace the Module for you (a friend with computer knowledge, or a local computer store). gorffy 10:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

(Question continues from #DDR error simple explanation, above) --h2g2bob 13:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Computer components can sometimes just wear out, but computer memory (RAM) is quite cheap, generally UK£50 or less depending on type. Is the error a bluescreen or some other error? DDR and SDRAM are specific types of RAM. --h2g2bob 13:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

computer

heys am plannining to buy a new computer in a weeks time.what are some things to check on to get a great computer.i want a pretty fast comp and all the latest softwares.do you know any free sites i can download any impressive softwares.any cool things i can pimp my comp on wud be of help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.24.124.23 (talk) 09:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Well, that's a pretty open ended question. What do you plan on using the computer for? What operating system are you going to be running? Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Linux? Help us out here. Dismas|^(talk) 10:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

If your looking for free software there is lots of good open source on the web for windows here's a quick list of stuff that might be useful:

• OpenOffice.org - Office Suit can read and save most MS office files and look at lot like Ms Office

• The GIMP - Free Image editor does most formats .bmp, .jpg, .gif

• Inkscape - Vector Image editor, looks a bit the GIMP

• Super Tux - A cool free game based on Super Mario, with Tux instead of Mario

If you are looking for anything else take a look on Free Byte it's got loads of free stuff. Good Luck. --Lwarf 10:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want eye-candy there's Compiz or Beryl which are way cooler than Vista, only runs on Linux though. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Like most things new and Linuxy, setting up Compiz or Beryl requires a bit of doing, and probably shouldn't be the first thing that a user tries. grendel|khan 17:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, setting up Compiz on Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu 7.04) isn't much of a hassle. Just sudo apt-get install compiz-tray-icon, and it works out of the box a lot of the time -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 02:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

If you're looking for something to show your computer off with (i.e. bragging), some Demoscene stuff might work. [1] and [2] are the main sources for those, and fr-041: debris is a pretty good recent one that's got plenty of eyecandy. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

PrefixSpan Algorithm

(I've posted this also in the mathematics reference desk... not sure if it's more appropriate here)

Hello, I have a question regarding the PrefixSpan algorithm. This algorithm can be consulted in the following paper "Mining Sequential Patterns by Pattern-Growth: The PrefixSpan Approach" by Jian Pei, Jiawei Han, Behzad Mortazavi-Asl, Helen Pinto.

My problem is with this sentence: "To avoid checking every possible combination of a potential candidate sequence, one can first fix the order of items within each element. Since items within an element of a sequence can be listed in any order, without loss of generality, one can assume that they are always listed alphabetically."

Furthermore in the definition of a prefix say that among other things a sequence A is only a prefix of B if each item of the last set of items of A is alphabetically before every missing item of the corresponding set of items in B. Then they go on how to define a suffix of a sequence given a prefix an then that a projection of a sequence database with regards to A is a the set of suffixes given A as prefix.

I don't understand how the assumption of alphabetical ordering does not result in loss of generality. For example given a database like:
a(abc)bd
a(ac)bdef

A frequent pattern with minimum support count 2 would be a(ac)bd (i.e. article a, followed by article a and c together then article b then article d. If we follow the lexicographical ordering within itemsets assumption we will fail to find this itemset since a(ac) is not a prefix of both sequences ? Or am I misreading something in the article.

Kind regards and thanks for your time.

62.48.159.19 10:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

networking

i have two networked computers in an office and both use windows XP, they can both access internet using the same switch but they cannot share printer how can i configure for the two to share the printer? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.49.91.100 (talk) 11:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

The first step is making sure you can ping one machine from the other. --TotoBaggins 16:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Also make sure they aren't running any software firewalls that might be interfering (XP SP2 comes with one enabled by default), if both PCs are behind a router, chances are you don't even need a software firewall. Cyraan 17:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, many security folks recommend having both a hardware firewall and a software firewall. The firewall capabilities in most routers prevent inbound attacks, but if a PC is already running some piece of malware, a software firewall can help prevent unauthorized outbound traffic. See here for a more info.

For the original question, although the title of this article refers to a "home" network, it may be of some use in getting printer sharing to work. --LarryMac 18:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

catergorization

i cannot catergorize a page even though i used the guideline the link isn't the same as other pages with the same catergory. Kingspoon66 11:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to this? It needs to be in curly brackets ({{ }}), not square brackets ([[ ]]), and you misspelled 'category'. I've fixed it now. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Erm, but it is supposed to be in square brackets. Mis-spelling category was all there was to it I think. --h2g2bob 12:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, my bad. Fixed. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 13:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

np - both seemed to work, which is quite interesting. --h2g2bob 22:27, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I've just had a play - using square brackets (the correct way) results in "Category: David Eddings characters", while curly brackets results in "Categories: Novels by David Eddings | Characters in written fantasy | Fictional characters by author". Turns out I was transcluding the category page (which contained references to other categories) into the article. D'oh! — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

JPEG Image Files & Animations

Can the JPEG image format be used for animation?

Alex Brannon Digital Imaging Student —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.159.166.49 (talk) 13:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

No. Gif files are for that

Well, yes, but MPEG files might be a bit more analagous to JPEGs.

Atlant 14:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

A GIF file (of the flavor GIF89A) can contain multiple images with associated control information, meaning an animation can be contained in one file. A JPEG file can only contain a single image. Of course, individual JPEG files can be used as frames with an animation; for example, see Motion JPEG. --LarryMac 14:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Information Systems

How can information systems building blocks serve as a framework during system development?

Tuks,

Thank you —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.54.202.218 (talk) 14:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

We don't do homework, sorry. It's for your own good. --TotoBaggins 16:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

iptables firewall

hell0 everybody

i've tech seminar on firewall and demonstration of it using iptables anyone please guide me ....how to install iptables on redhat and how to demonstrate

thank you very much —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.65.133.3 (talk) 14:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

It depends on what you want it to do. Here are some resources about setting up iptables on redhat: [3] [4] [5] grendel|khan 16:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

FirstClass On Linux

Hi I use Firstclass for windows but am making a personal move to Ubuntu I know that there are several versions of firstclass for linux First class for linuxwhich version should I use??? And what do I do when It comes to the installation process the company has been very unhelpful .....

Thank you in advance

--Nerdd 14:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Ubuntu is based on the Debian distribution, so you can usually grab the .deb file and go from there. Download this to your machine, and run "sudo dpkg -i fcc-8.315-2-Linux-i686.deb" on it. After that, you can probably run it from the "Network apps" menu, or just type "/opt/firstclass/fcc" in a shell. --TotoBaggins 17:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Where would I put in the adress for the mail server?

Nerdd —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.68.30.140 (talk) 23:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Is DjVu an open format?

Our article doesn't say either way. Some Googling reveals that DJVuLibre has complete support for decoding, but only partial encoding support. Would it be accurate to say "Djvu is a commercial image format...", or should one say "DjVu is an open image format..."? grendel|khan 17:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Our article on DjVu does actually say that it's a free file format, in the first paragraph of the History section. It's pretty easy to miss though... Maybe it should be added towards the start of the article? --saxsux 20:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Word Ques.

Is there a way for Word to automatically fill in forms? ex: [StreetAddress] fills in to 123 Sample St. 68.193.147.179 21:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about the context? Are you looking to fill a bunch of table cells with the same text? Or is it some other application? Do you mean fill-in forms like the ones for mail merge etc? Anchoress 22:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

fill-in forms like the ones for mail merge 68.193.147.179 19:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Flipping text upsidedown in Microsoft Word

How do I do it? Thanks... Adambrowne666 22:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

In my version of Word (2000) it can't be flipped upside down, only 90 degrees in either direction. There are other ways of doing it though, if you don't get help from another editor. Anchoress 22:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but that's all I can get it to do too, but I need it upside-down Adambrowne666 23:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Set the text as Word-Art?

Atlant 23:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps try and put the text in a text box and try and flip that? Or WordArt it or stick it in Paint and flip or something. x42bn6 Talk 23:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I wanted the text to be just normal times new roman, not one of the fancy word art fonts. I tried putting it in a text box, but the flip option isn't applicable to it.Adambrowne666 00:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Someone sent me this link [[6]] - probably the best way to go about it, but horribly fiddly and inexact, the results are only visible in print view, and what's on screen varies from what prints out... Argh. Adambrowne666 03:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's a great site. But I think one of those applications should work well for you, depending on how you want to use it; the one where they suggest changing the paper direction to landscape and then using the flip function. Would that not work for you? It doesn't seem too fiddly. Anchoress 04:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

thanks for the answers, everyone. Anchoress, I feel like an idiot, but I can't find the bit where they suggest changing to landscape etc. (PS, a friend sent me this site too: http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ingrimayne/upside-down/) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Adambrowne666 (talk • contribs) 11:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

Power consumption.

If a graphics card lists a 400 watt PSU as one of its system requirements, would I be correct in assuming that the graphics card could eat up to 400 watts? I'll be running three fans (2x 12cm + 1x 8cm, not counting the ones in the PSU and on the CPU), two to four hard drives and a PCI soundcard (not integrated) in addition to my 8800GTS -- too much for a 430 watt PSU to handle? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Froglars the frog (talk • contribs) 23:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

No it just mean you need a 400W+ PSU for your whole computer. Depends on the PSU quality, it should be able to, but be aware that a lot of the no brand ones aren't what they say: 500W may as well mean <300 watts in some cases. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

And you need to be certain of more than that, namely the amperage that it can deliver on the +12V power rail. From [7], "NVIDIA recommends a minimum of a 400 watt power supply to operate a GeForce 8800 GTS, with at least 26 amps on the +12v power rail.". -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

April 25

Internet in Qatar

Would a site like [8] be aviliable in Qatar. (I read about internet there, but not sure about a site.) 24.10.79.27 00:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC) (User:Teak the Kiwi on IP)

Unless Qatar uses a big national firewall like china, yes it would. ST47Talk 01:40, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

And funny enough, it does (Image:Qtelblock.gif). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

At least they openly admit they block them... All you see is "host unreachable" or similar error messages behind the Great Firewall. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Second (its me again), I have a friend in the USAF, would they use that (USAF connection) or internet qatar? 24.10.79.27 02:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Most likely they wouldn't be bound to the state's internet, but why don't you just have you friend check? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Feba (talk • contribs) 06:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

The thing is he isn't on base right now and he's not in Qatar (he is just using normal US internet) Also, my friend and I really don't think the military would care about something like cybernations. Teak the Kiwi 13:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Mbps settings

I want to use a Wi-Fi service but my Mbps for my network is too high and I want to change it to 1 or 2. How can I do this? Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.189.57.235 (talk) 01:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

You don't need to, a huge pipe can still pass 1 litre per minute, but a small pipe cannot pass 100 litres per second. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Im trying to limit it so I can make it enough amount for my Nintendo DS to procees for Wi-Fi. Right now my Mpbs is 54.0 and I was told to change my Mpbs to either 1 or 2 or 1-2 or something but I dont know how to change the settings can someone PLEASE explain to me how? The router is built-in the laptop not wireless

Why would you need to change? Am I missing something? Splintercellguy 02:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Well this is what was said at nintendowifi.com: "The Nintendo DS has a transmission rate of 1 to 2 mbps (megabits per second). Most routers transmit at a much higher rate, but are able to adjust for devices that transmit at a slower rate. Your router may have this as a setting that might need to be adjusted.

Look through your router settings for anything that indicates transmission rates. If the router is set to accept high transmission rates only, this will need to be changed to accept all, or for some routers, changed to specifically accept the 1 to 2 mbps range."

I just want to know exactly where do I go to adjust the settings to a suitable transmission rate.Where do I find the router settings? The router is BUILT IN the laptop by the way. Do I have to go to the Control Panel or something?Thanks

I don't think "the router is built-in the laptop". You would probably access the web configuration page for the router. I'm pretty sure this isn't applicable to you. Splintercellguy 04:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Word 2004 sporadic crashes

I use Word 2004 at work, and for whatever reason, it will crash on me every so often. The only pattern there seems to be to it is that it usually crashes when I try to save or print, but it's random as to when it crashes. Sometimes it'll work happily for days at a time without crashing, other times it'll crash multiple times in one day.

I'm using an iMac G5 1.6Ghz with 512MiB of RAM running Mac OS X Tiger (either 10.4.8 or 10.4.9, I think). Can anyone explain why Word keeps crashing on me? --Lumina83 02:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's made by Microsoft, isn't it? More seriously, there are a lot of patches for the Microsoft Office, whether on a PC or a Mac. Are you patched up-to-date? (It's relatively easy and painless to have Office automagically update itself from time-to-time.)

Atlant 12:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I think so; it's version 11.3, if that's what you mean. --Lumina83 12:30, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft current offers a patch to bring Office/Mac to 11.3.4 here. I'm not sure what version of Word that creates, but it sounds like you might benefit from updating. (You'll probably need earlier updates as well, but they're linked from that page.)

Atlant 15:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I just checked: Word, allegedly patched up to date on my PowerBook, says it's 11.3, build 070131.

Atlant 22:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly what mine says. Version 11.3, build 070131. --Lumina83 10:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Then I can't be of any further help to you; sorry! If you can pin down one or two actions that seem to provoke the crashes, you could always try Microsoft's support groups. You might also want to see if the problem is known in the PC versions of Word; one of the interesting things that occurred when Microsoft started building Mac/Word and PC/Word from the same(ish) code base is that they started sharing bugs in common. I used to have a (big) document that had a lot of the same problems whether edited on a Mac or a PC.

Atlant 12:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

What computer should I buy?

My current computer is frustratingly slow, and I want to get another one eventually. I'm looking to use either Ubuntu or Mac OS X, as Windows Vista doesn't appeal all that much to me.

I mainly use the computer for web browsing & email, playing music, viewing pictures & videos, and playing the odd freeware/old DOS game. Also, I mainly prefer to use freeware and/or open source software.

I don't want to buy a computer that's overkill for my needs, but I also don't want a computer that'll be slow and laggy like my current one is. Any recommendations? --Lumina83 02:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably a Sempron and 512MiB ram would do, plus a motherboard with builtin 6100/6150 graphics or the ATI ones (duno about drivers though), and that should do the job well. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Would a Sempron be fast enough? The Sempron article states it's only comparable to a Celeron D, and my current system is already a 2.66GHz Celeron D--although it only has 192MiB of RAM after the integrated video takes its 64MiB share. --Lumina83 04:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I have a Sepmron 3100+ (got it when it first came out, 2 and a half year ago) overclocked to 2.3Ghz, NF3 motherboard, 1.5gigs of ram and a 6600GT. And I still can play any game out there with at least medium quality on at least 1024×768, run Beryl (beware of the black window bug though) on Ubuntu and I'm very satisfied with it. As long as you don't do 3D rendering or transcoding video all the time you should be fine. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:37, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to use ubuntu and don't want to go through driver hell, don't use an ATI graphics card. ST47Talk 04:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I recommend making your own computer from parts (newegg.com is the cheapest and most reliable source i've found), as it is much cheaper, and allows you to have much more control. From the sounds of it, you don't need much, so you should be able to go fairly cheap. The laginess from your current computer sounds like it's to do with multitasking, so go with 512MB of RAM and a multicore processor, such as the Core2Duo. a 1.8GHz C2D is probably suitable for your needs. You probably don't even need a graphics card unless you want to mess around with Compiz and Beryl (the former is very much worth it, the latter i've heard good things about), so go with something low end, like a GeForce 5200. As the person above me said, never buy an ATI gpu for Ubuntu, or linux in general. Their driver support WILL make you cry. If you need help, check the contacts info on my user page, i'll be happy to chat about it with yah -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 06:37, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Newegg's no good for me, as I live in Australia and they don't ship internationally. I don't think I'd have enough know-how to build my own computer, anyway.

I was thinking of just installing Xubuntu on my existing machine, but the two things stopping me are the ATI graphics chip and the wireless card (Acer IPN2220 or something like that, it's only supported in Ubuntu via ndiswrapper and doesn't work out-of-the-box. --Lumina83 08:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Other than a slight increase in RAM, I do not see why a 2.66GHz Celeron D wouldn't be plenty sufficient for the uses you listed. Maybe you need to format and reinstall the operating system. Often times Windows will get bogged down by numerous background processes and such and run slow. So rather than spending money on buying a new computer, try formatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows (along with all the other programs you use on a daily basis).--152.23.204.76 13:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Is your computer slow because it has relatively slow CPU and RAM, or is it just that your hard drive needs a reformatting. --Russoc4 14:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

You need to add some more ram and keep everything else the same. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.63.35.15 (talk) 18:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

A small note: ATI and Linux are happy again. I finally got everything working and open source on my 4 year old Radeon 9200! Something to do with AMD being so desperate. --Zeizmic 13:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Innertube on cbs.com

Whenever I try to watch any of the CBS videos at http://www.cbs.com/innertube/, nothing comes up. My PC won't play the videos, and in fact, my DSL modem drops my Internet connection and I have to cycle my modem and turn off my PC in order to get my connection back. I'm running IE 7 on an NVIDIA HP 19 inch GeForce 6150 LE. I'm running Windows XP on a Compaq Presario AMD Athlon 64 3800+, 986 MHZ. Corvus cornix 03:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Compaitibility of Sports Car GT with Windows XP?

SCGT seems to run into issues every time I try to start it. To start, can anyone confirm that it is compatible with XP? Guroadrunner 06:37, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried right clicking, going into properties, and running it in WinXX Compatibility mode? -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 06:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

DDR SDRAM at DIMM (s):1error continues

Hi again. This is regarding your question ". Is the error a bluescreen or some other error? DDR and SDRAM are specific types of RAM. --h2g2bob 13:13, 24 I do not know the color. What appears on the screen is generally white letter print in black and white monitor. When i see that i immediately reset computer, click del tab and set up. I also try fixing the thick belt like that connects the parts inside my computer and some wiring then goes perfect. Windows XP will appear. I just hate to see DDR SDRAM at DIMM(s):1 that sometimes appear. It makes me freak out because i do not know if i will replace my memory or bear with it. You know i can't call technician or whosoever beacuse of my long hours in work and I am just living alone. Reason why i depend on you answer guys so i will not be fooled by any computer knowledge person. Follow up question: Can i use the memory in my compaq Pc to replace my athlon PC? Thanks guys! Keilah Reyes 07:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The error probably occurs during POST. If the mobo in the Athlon can handle the memory from the Compaq, then sure. Splintercellguy 21:32, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

My computer can't reach Google

Distress call! Suddenly yesterday, my Windows XP computer could no longer reach Google. It doesn't even get ping responses, but I can reach the map and news sites and similar. The hosts file seems to be in good shape, the firewall is deactivated and my other computer has no problems. I am most grateful for ideas. —Bromskloss 08:04, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest a few pretty basic/obvious things that I always forget about when this stuff happens ;). First off, clear cookies and cache in your Web Browser. Next, try clearing XP's local DNS Cache by going to Start > Run. Type "cmd" into the box and click okay. At the command line that open type "ipconfig /flushdns" (without the quotes). You may want to give your computer a scan for malware which may be interfering with this (not common but I've seen it happen). gorffy 18:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

You should try to isolate the problem. The first step I would take is to check the DNS service. Can you resolve the hostname www.google.com to an ip address? You can use ping to check that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.187.49.35 (talk) 16:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

A program to "undirectorize"

Is there some kind of program (for Windows, Im not asking for some exotic bash scripts) that can move all files from subfolders to its folder. Example:

Books
 Book001
  Book001.opf
  Book001.prc
  Book001.nfo
 Book002
  Book002.opf
  Book002.prc
  Book002.nfo

I would like to move all .opf, .prc and .nfo files to the "Books" directory. Actually, I need only .prc files but anything better than manually visiting each folder to grab its .prc file would be nice. Of course, Books directory usually has a lot of subdirectories.

Shinhan 11:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't expect there to be a ready-made program that does precisely this – that is what bash scripts are for. However, you could do a search (with the built-in Windows tool) for the files you want so as to get them on a single list, then just drag and drop them where you want. —Bromskloss 11:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

D'oh. I could've just searched for *.prc inside the "Books" directory. Thanks for reminding me :) Shinhan 13:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes... and what would happen if your search comes up with several files of the same name. That's all cool when they're in separate folders, but putting them in the same folder would cause problems. I hope the search solution worked for you though. Rfwoolf 13:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia largest reference in what languages

Wikipedia is the largest singular work in the English language, as well as in Esperanto. Does anyone know what other languages it could hold this title? A reporter is wanting this info for their article. -- Zanimum 13:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

While probably not directly answering your question, WP:STATS may be helpful. -- Atlant 16:35, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I do need comparison to the largest works other than the 'pedia. -- Zanimum 18:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Sizes of all Wikipedias are at meta: - see meta:List of Wikipedias. --h2g2bob 04:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, thanks, but I was hoping for comparisons of "The largest Swedish reference publication is X, which is still twice as large as sw.wikipedia". -- Zanimum 13:30, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

map

Is there a program similar to Google Maps that can enable me to print a map showing a route through various cities?Ipmin 18:04, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

By program I'm taking it that you mean a stand-alone computer program and not other websites, if so there are lots of the around and the granddaddy of them all is Microsoft Streets & Trips otherwise known as AutoRoute if you're on the European side of the Atlantic. - X201 18:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I did mean online things.Ipmin 18:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

With Google Maps, once you have asked for directions from Point A to Point B, there is also an "Add Destination" link which will allow you to add additional places. You can even drag and drop the destinations into any order you want. For example, you can get directions from New York to Miami, and then add Chicago in the middle if you want. Or am I missing something in your question? --LarryMac 18:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

No, that answers it. Thank you.Ipmin 18:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Boot computer

When I boot my computer, programs come up, how do I stop this from happening? 68.193.147.179 19:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

What programs? You can stop some programs from starting by clicking Start, going to All Programs > Startup, right-clicking the program's shortcut and deleting it. I have a feeling some programs can be set to start up in the registry too - if you let us know which program you want to stop, we can probably be more specific. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 19:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

For that matter, what operating system? If it's Windows, click Start->Run-> and type 'msconfig' and hit enter, that's an easy to use tool to control startup. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 19:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Beat me to it! JoshHolloway 20:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

But beware of what programs you stop, some may be neccessary, and stopping some may be dangerous (eg: anti-virus), - Akamad 21:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Look at the program's options and tell it not to start. If it doesn't give you an option, uninstall it using Add/Remove programs (as it's obviously worthless). You can also use MSConfig to select what starts up. Be careful - do not disable your firewall or antivirus. --h2g2bob 04:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Saving Liferay passwords.

I'm setting up a Liferay site. My browser refuses to save passwords for it; I can see the passwords in the Firefox preferences dialog, and it remembers the usernames I've entered (I get a drop-down when I click the username field), but it won't fill the password field. I recently went from Liferay 4.1 to 4.2.1, if that makes a difference. grendel|khan 19:20, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Shadow Effect

How do you add a shadow effect to screenshots? 68.193.147.179 20:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Our drop shadow article has links to tutorials. --TotoBaggins 22:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Paid screen shot software

What is a popular and high resolution paid screen shot software? -68.193.147.179 20:32, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

A resolution of a screenshot is always going to be at the same resolution as your active display. I use Gadwin Printscreen. x42bn6 Talk 20:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

If you're not in need of paid software, there's always Print Screen/Paint ;). Splintercellguy 21:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

You can just press the Print Screen button normally :-) For DirectX stuff like computer games, Hypersnaps DX does a good job )both free and paid-for versions). For movies, VLC takes snapshots quite well. --h2g2bob 04:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Reading on from your question above, it sounds like you need Photoshop, GIMP or something similar. --h2g2bob 04:11, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

IrfanView works great, too. Cacycle 17:37, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Best resolution

How do you get an image into the best resolution? -68.193.147.179 20:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

What does that mean? Use whatever resolution is best for the job... -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe he means for all computer screens? Aaron Bowen 23:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Using SVG (or any other vector graphics) allows you to draw pictures and scale them to any size without pixelation. Other than that, please can you give some context to your question. --h2g2bob 04:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

You typically want to set it to 100% zoom level. You definitely don't want less than 100%, but there are cases where you would want more. If your screen is at it's resolution limit (say it's set to 1600x1200 pixels), you might want to go with 200% zoom, especially if your pic is small. You could also go with 300%, 400%, etc., but always stick with a multiple of 100%. If you have a program which can do pixel interpolation, then go with the highest zoom level you can get. StuRat 23:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

April 26

Javascript onclick assignment

I'm having some difficulty with something I wrote (PHP is more my thing than Javascript). This script works in Firefox, but not IE or Opera:

function ActionCallback() {
	for (image in imagearray['images']) {
		document.getElementById(checkid_prefix + imagearray['images'][image]['filename']).onclick = function() {
		window.alert('Hi');};
		document.getElementById(radioid_prefix + imagearray['images'][image]['filename']).onclick = function() {
		window.alert('Bye');};
		}
	return true;
	}

Does anyone else see the problem? I've been playing around with IE's script debugger, and it's been driving me crazy (Not nearly as good as Firebug). - RedWordSmith 03:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

for ... in ... is new for JavaScript 1.7.[9] Anyone know what version MSIE supports? --h2g2bob

According to the JScript article, JScript 5.7 (released with IE7) approximately corresponds with JavaScript 1.5. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 11:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Aah, but according to MSDN for...in has been supported since JScript 5.0 (IE5). — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 11:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure for... in has been supported for quite some time, just not in that form in the Mozilla article. I'm sure

for(prop in document) { document.write(prop+"<br />"); }

works in Internet Explorer 5 and Firefox 1.5, for example. It might be that for... in in this case is also iterating over all the properties of the array (such as length), meaning imagearray['images'][image] will return undefined which will break .getElementById(). I think, anyway. x42bn6 Talk 22:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

wierd yellow box that now appears on every wikipedia page

today i have logged on to wikipedia, and every page i go on has a little wierd yellow box saying "early registration for wikimania 2007 is open. the call for particopation is open until april 30." what does this mean?--Lerdthenerd 07:56, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikimania is the wikimedia conference held each year, and the yellow box is just a notice. It shows on every page, for everyone. You can learn about WikiMania here: http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page gorffy 08:13, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

thanks Gorffy--Lerdthenerd 08:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The Dismiss to the right of it will make it go away - X201 10:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Help check over my UNIX shell script?

I'm about to submit my first. The script concerns rotation of log files: a log file will be archived with a suffix of '.1', and increase as more log files are archived until a fixed number of log files are accumulated, at which point the oldest file is pruned. Could anyone critique it and tell me if there is anything wrong with it?

http://freewebs.com/lvlarx/rotator.txt

Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lvlarx (talk • contribs) 12:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

Computer temperature

Hello, I have hardware doctor and it says that my SYS temp is 51 degrees Celcius and my cpu temp is 45 degres celcius. Is this normal temperature? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drexalot (talk • contribs) 12:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

That's within the normal range ; if anything it's rather cold. Brrr :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Why would you want it that cold? Can't even cook breakfast on that! 213.48.15.234 13:21, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

As your CPU is within the system and procuding a lot of heat it can hardly be cooler than its surroundings. Something in your numbers is messed up. They are either wrong, or there is some significant heat source right next to your SYS sensor.

It's celsius, so I doubt it's hotter than that in the room. Recury 17:42, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I think they're saying the inside of the case is hotter than the cpu -- but the cpu is a big hot thing in the middle of the case so should not be cooler. I suspect the numbers are swapped over, which would be quite normal temperatures. Cpu can go up to 60-70 before you need to worry, I think. --h2g2bob 20:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Program to print a conversation-view summary of an email folder

The work I do sometimes involves the forensic analysis of large collections of third-party emails (back-and-forth exchanges). In order to gain an overview of the conversations (which sometimes reach positively Byzantine degrees of complexity) I'd like to be able to print a summary of a mail folder, with threads indented. While most current mail clients will display a folder in threaded-view, I don't know of any that will print the folder window (the top-right pane in Firefox, for example). There seems to be no way in Firefox, Evolution, or Outlook 2003 for this to be printed (bar some naff printscreenery).

I've considered doing something like trying to wedge the email archive into something like GNU Mailman (producing nice output like [10]) but that seems like overkill (and will be rather too hard for the nontechnical users I'm trying to help).

Does anyone know of a program or email-client-extension that can do this. XP or Linux would be fine, and while mbox, maildir, live IMAP, and .pst archives are all desirable, I'll take what I can get. Thanks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

/boot-equivalent for Microsoft Windows?

The BIOS of a computer does not recognize an external drive. Linux on the external drive can be booted by copying its /boot to an internal drive. What is the equivalent method for Microsoft Windows? --Masatran 12:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Booting XP is done by NTLDR, which reads boot.ini. NTLDR is really only intended for booting MS OSes, but googling for "NTLDR boot linux" finds lots of tutorials. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Clarification: I need to boot Microsoft Windows located on the external drive, by copying some small utility to the internal drive. How can I use NTLDR for this purpose? --Masatran 14:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

That seems to be the purpose of this tutorial, where the GRUB configuration determines which drive it finally boots to. But I've never tried it, and reading the tutorial rather makes me not want to. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Computer display transfer

Skipping the long details, let's say I'm trying to run a display from a desktop or laptop into a projector and sound system. How should I go about doing this? Price isn't an issue. Thanks.--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 15:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Until recently, most computers put out a VGA output using a very standardised connector and essentially all video projectors accept input using the same connector. Fancier setups interpose an amplifier/signal splitter box so your computer can drive both a CRT monitor and the projector, but you don't need this if you're using your laptop; just put the laptop into "mirror" mode where the laptop display shows the same thing as the projector.

More-modern computers have different video ports such as a DVI port. Most of these can still output "VGA" video through a very inexpensive adapter. Some modern projectors may also accept DVI directly.

Sound is equally easy; get a cable that has an 1/8" stereo miniplug on one end and the appropriate connectors for your sound system (often, RCA connectors) at the other end. The miniplug plugs into your PC's "headphone" jack.

If the sound system and projector are far away, you still may need an amplifier near your PC; such gadgets are available from computer shoppes. Sometimes, the sound system will experience a buzzing due to the existence of a ground loop. If you have a laptop and your presentation isn't too long, try unplugging your laptop from its power supply (so it runs just on its battery). Otherwise, you'll need some audio isolation transformers.

Atlant 15:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

As Atlant said, any projector system made in the last 10 years or so should have both a VGA in port and a stereo "headphone" jack. Usually you don't need an adapter for the sound at all; for video it depends on your laptop (many have VGA ports, some have mini-VGA or DVI ports which require $20 adapters, see your computer retailer for those). --24.147.86.187 22:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

An alternative way to do the sound is through the S/PDIF port if you have one. This has better quality and only uses RCA cords, and is worth doing if you have a compatible amplifier. Hope this helps

Mix Lord 00:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Recently I've had the join to interface a newish laptop (no VGA, only DVI port) and projector (also no VGA only DVI port) using VGA extension cord. Which meant using two DVI/VGA converters. Since those are pretty small be sure not to forget one when you need it... To connect computer with sound system you will need still more converters, like Atlant said, maybe even RCA to XLR converterters. (The wireless microphone I'm working with requires 3 converters to plug into the mixer) Shinhan 12:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Shinhan, if you'll forgive me, I've added a Wikilink to your reply.

Atlant 15:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The Ugly Bug Called

I have Smitfraud-C.toolbar888 in my PC and wonder if it is possible to get rid of it. I have tried several commercial 'solutions' (that weren't!) Specifically I would like advice from someone who has experienced the problem and cleared it - permanently - if that's possible. Richard Avery 16:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

(http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=9190) is a site that has someone with the same problem. I don't have experience of the bug, but hopefully the link will help. ny156uk 16:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, ny156uk, that site looks very encouraging. You could be my friend for life. Very many thanks for your suggestion. Richard Avery 18:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

It's the forum for Spybot Search & Destroy, a very well respected scanner for nasties that get onto your computer. Very much worth a download if they still do a free version. --h2g2bob 20:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for your suggestion, unfortunately I have tried this one and though they (Spybot) seem to think it will clear Smitfraud it certainly didn't in my case, although it did clear a couple of other critters that my usual anti-spyware hadn't picked up - so it wasn't a wasted exercise. Thanks h2g2bob for your time and thought.Richard Avery 21:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Usually the best way to kill viruses is Hijack this in safe mode, but if you don't feel comfortable messing with your registry and potentially having to reinstall windows, I don't recommend it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Feba (talk • contribs) 22:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

Often, when something like Spybot detects a baddie and tries to remove it, but fails, it was because the baddie was running at the time so could recreate the deleted files and registry entries. Before running Spybot, you first need to use your Task Manager to kill every process that isn't needed to run Spybot. Hopefully Spybot will then succeed. StuRat 23:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Safe Mode job would work too. Splintercellguy 02:03, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

What I love to d-o is from time to time go into the "Addons" in internet explorer and simply disable the ones I don't trust - this doesn't uninstall them, it just disables them. In Internet Explorer 7, click Tools -> Manage Addons -> Enable or Disable Addons... and go through the list disabling the ones you don't want. It is also worth mentioning that sometimes the professional remover programs need you to be in safe mode to work completely. Good luck Rfwoolf 13:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everybody, I seem to have a heap of stuff to work with here. what a great place this is Richard Avery 19:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

changing keyboard layout

I downloaded a program called Keyboard Remapper to change four keys in Windows. Every program I've used so far reads these the way I want them to, except some Flash games which now refuse to read those keys as either the changed or original values. Is there a way to fix this? 172.144.83.53 21:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like the flash games are reading the actual keys and not their values (i.e. looking for "the first letter key" rather than "the q key", which can be remapped). I doubt there is anything you can do except complain to the game designer that that's a poor way to do things, one which doesn't appreciate the user's intentions. --24.147.86.187 22:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

a place do download colors schemes for windows XP

There is a website where i can download colours schemes for windows xp (I am not talking about themes, just colours schemes).
PS: I want colours schemes that don't need more programs to run. Exdeathbr 23:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

By themes I guess you mean things like WindowsBlinds but without the programs. Microsoft has some things here: [11]. But for Windows Classic, I'm not quite sure where they are. x42bn6 Talk 23:37, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I was talking about this: http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/4272/imageuo2.jpg , there is a way to change this with non-microsoft programs (you have more options with them) and there is the normal way that you just download a new colour scheme and put in the right folder and you can choose this colour scheme on the list of colour schemes list. My question is where i can find a site that I can download new colour schemes on the second way (that don't need external programs) Exdeathbr 03:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Ubuntu 7.04 on a Macbook Pro

I'm trying to run Ubuntu 7.04 on my Macbook Pro. Once it boots, it works fine. Getting it to boot is the problem. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I tried holding down both the c and option keys, and Ubuntu boots about 1 out of 6 times I try it. Any suggestions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.195.124.101 (talk) 23:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

What happens the other 5 out of 6 times? --24.147.86.187 00:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The CD ejects then OS X starts up. Please help people! I'd really appreciate it!--71.195.124.101 01:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

But you can still boot the liveCD 1 out of 6 times right? So then what is the problem? --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I want to know why it is happening! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.135.36.225 (talk) 22:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

Why are you running the live CD, instead of installing it to the PC? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Feba (talk • contribs) 00:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

It's no longer booting into the LiveCD. I can't get it to install! Please help!--71.195.124.101 15:12, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

First off, you need to be MUCH MORE CLEAR in your question, we can't help you if we don't know what's going on. secondly, use ubuntuforums.org -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 01:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

this should help you How to install ubuntu on a mac

--Nerdd 21:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

April 27

Viewing deleted page content in a PDF file

Acrobat Professional tells me (through the Examine Document function) that a PDF file contains "deleted hidden page or image content." How can I undelete or view this deleted content? NeonMerlin 00:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Creating an exception to the Windows Firewall for Mac/PC networking

I'm currently using a desktop Windows XP Home Edition, SP2, and an Apple MacBook at home. They're connected with a basic wireless router. I was easily able to configure the PC to connect to the Macintosh and access its files, but I have a harder time getting the Mac to find the PC. The only way I've been able to achieve it thus far is by disabling the Windows Firewall. Is there any way to configure an exception to the firewall to allow my Mac to easily access the PC's files? Thanks! --McMillin24 _contribs^talk 03:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

-Try clicking Start -> run and enter "wscui.cpl" and press enter. A Security Centre page will load, Click Windows Firewall and then the Exceptions tab at the top. In here tick the File and Printer sharing box and click OK. Once done windows will happy share your files to the network, but make sure you have a router which doesn't share your netbios port (port 139) or anyone on the internet who knows your IP address will be able to browse your hard disk. A good way of checking this is by visiting http://www.grc.com and use their Shields Up firewall tester for free. Hope this helps, Phill Upson (support@expertrepair.co.uk)

Sticky Excel/Access 2000 problem regarding importing DB with URLs hidden with anchor text

If anyone can either answer my question or direct me to where to get more info, I'd be most appreciative.

I have a large flat file database in Excel2000 which includes a bunch (2000 or so) hyperlinks with anchor text. I'd like to upload the whole thing into Access2000 but it turns the hyperlinks into plain text (showing the anchor text, not the web addresses), and changing the field type from text to hyperlink isn't available in the import.

So... I'd like to figure out a way to do this. The way that seems most obvious is to remove the anchor text in the excel file so that I can upload as html, but I'm open to other solutions. So, how do I remove the anchor text to reveal the URLs? Or how do I do this another way? Thanks in advance. Anchoress 03:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

My untested guess is that it would be easiest to write a little VBScript that will go through and separate the links into two columns, one of links and the other of anchor text. Now unfortunately I don't know anything about using hyperlinks in VBScript and imagine that will take a little hunting around to get right — potentially in the Hyperlinks collection but I don't really know. I see a lot on a quick Google search on adding hyperlinks but imagine there must also be ways of accessing their properties as well. Then it's just a matter of iterating through the recordset and putting the links into a new column or something along those lines, which will take a minute or two but should work fine. --24.147.86.187 03:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

If your input file is a comma-separated values file like this:

 thing1,thing2,<a href="http://some/url">some anchor text</a>,thing3

then a bit of Perl like this:

 perl -pe 's#<a href="([^"]+)">([^<]+)</a>#$1,$2#' < input.csv > output.csv

will turn your rows into this:

 thing1,thing2,http://some/url,some anchor text,thing3

--TotoBaggins 04:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers you guys, but it's not as simple as that. The data was copied from web pages as anchor-texted hyperlinks, so there's not two sets of data to separate in the .xls file; the actual typed contents of the cells is the anchor text. It's going to have to be something to do with a dynamic paste or something, I have no idea. I've fiddled with a bunch of paste specials, and looked through the installed formulas, but I don't know. Anchoress 05:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Saving (or exporting) the spreadsheet as a .csv file will presumably turn the hyperlinks into their natural <a href="..."> state, and you could then do the text manipulation above. I don't have Excel, so I'm somewhat out of my element, but it can't be so daft as to just discard the URLs when exporting. One hopes. --TotoBaggins 05:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

No, it didn't, unfortunately. It just exported the anchor text. I was able to paste the plain URL as a hyperlink to another cell after copying, with a particular paste function, but it only worked with one cell, not a range. Anchoress 05:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Here is some VBScript that will cycle through all hyperlinks in the file and display their name and link. I wouldn't run it on a large file, but it should give you (or others) and idea of how to go about extracting the link information.

For Each h In Worksheets(1).Hyperlinks
 MsgBox h.Name
 MsgBox h.Address
Next h

I'd do more but I'm on the run... --24.147.86.187 12:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's a link to a similar request. --TotoBaggins 12:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Toto and 24, checking the solutions out. Anchoress 22:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried the "Replace all" function - but I understand that it won't help you with the part of the URL code that you want to replace that changes with each one - instead you'd need something more dynamic to do that - where it could say "Delete everything after the '>'". Check the link above from TotoBaggins which seems to take care of what you're looking for. I'd be able to help you otherwise by writing up some code, but I battle a bit with VB - so worst case come back here and I'll write it for you. Rfwoolf 13:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

That won't work, it doesn't store them as HTML code it stores them as Hyperlink data objects. --140.247.240.159 16:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's another solution: I think that Access allows a hyperlink data type, no? It might only be in later versions than 2000.... --140.247.240.159 16:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it does, but as I said in my question, it isn't available as a field type in this import, and by the time the data is imported, it's already been delinked. I'm going to try a lazy solution suggested on the Access Developers yahoogroup, and if that doesn't work I'm going to try the VB solutions proposed here. Anchoress 22:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

XML alternative: One approach may be to save the file in "XML Spreadsheet format" (if it is supported by your version of Excel). What that will do for you is convert the "hyperlink objects" into readily-modified text that you can then extract with an XML parser or script or whatever. If I remember correctly, Access also has an XML format that it understands for import, so you might not even have to mess with the XML before importing to Access. (See e.g., Microsoft_Office_Excel#File_formats apparently, XML output is not supported in excel 2000? :( .dr.ef.tymac 04:23, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds good, I'm going to try it. Anchoress 09:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks dr.ef.tymac, your many suggestions and the work you've put into helping me has been very helpful. Unfortunately I just checked and my version of Excel doesn't support the XML format, as you feared. I'll check some of the other solutions, I'm just feeling a bit discouraged for now and I think I'll take a break from this whole thing. ;-) Anchoress 04:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

UDL alternative: Another approach may be to specify an OLE DB connection using a UDL file that uses the OLEDB data provider for msft excel. Then use a script to pipe that from excel into access using regular SQL queries. dr.ef.tymac 18:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for clarification:
If you want me to come up with the VB code, please clearly explain what you want. Is this correct:
The cells in Excel contain hyperlinks and the raw code for each one reads

<a href="http://www.example1.com">Example1</a> 

and you want to extract it to say

www.example1.com 

Is that correct?
Rfwoolf 08:15, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

You certainly don't need to do anything for me, but no, that's not at all what it's like. As I've said a couple of times, it's an embedded object, so the actual contents of the cells is just the anchor text. There's no <a href> stuff at all. So if for instance the text is copied and pasted somewhere, or if the file is saved as .txt or .csv, or if it's imported into access, the URL field shows just the plain text representation of the anchor text. Anchoress 09:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Running a website anonymously

I want to make an adult website, but don't want anyone to be able to trace it back to me. Is there any way to get a website without giving out my name, credit card numbers, or phone numbers? I wouldn't want to necessarily make a profit, and I wouldn't want one of those "payment required in order to view the site". Banner ad support is okay because I need to no go into debt because visitors. I guess I should also say- I only want to be anonymous because I'm very shy-- i'm certainly not trying to be criminal or anything, so I'm don't care if the police or FBI or legitimate authorities have the ability to trace the site back to me, I want to make sure that nobody else can find out who I am. Monoceros —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Monoceros144 (talk • contribs) 04:46, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

Try Zoomshare my dad made a great art web site to host pics of his paintings and it's free (Note: There is a paid version of zoomshare that has bigger storage and removes the adds). --Lwarf 10:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Well if you want your own domain you basically can't do it. You have to somehow pay them and you will need to provide some personal information for the record. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to let you know that some "hosts" do not allow such content on their servers. Typically you might be able to get away with it for a short period of time, but ultimately if it's not allowed then your account may be suspended - so just a tip, you might want to read over the terms and conditions of any given host -- just in case you didn't know.

Also, when you register a Domain name, you provide a variety of information about who owns the domain, their billing address, their contact details, the webmaster name, the server person's name, etc. but I've seen quite a few hosts offering to "hide" this information from the general public - but charging you to do so - that might be an option. Of course all you need to do is look at a way to obfuscate this information when you register the domain - that's not to say you must do anything illegal, but you might look into whether you can get your host to use their details and not yours - although that would mean that they own the domain name and not you. My advice is to look for some "Adult hosts" or just for hosts - and talk to them about your request and see what they can do for you.

Good luck Rfwoolf 12:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if this sounds a bit like advertising, but ComputingHost allow you to register domains and keep your information completely private in WHOIS searches. They also allow you to host adult content. --saxsux 18:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure they're real? A lot of these deals that say they're webhosting are scams—that's why I like to go by word of mouth. Most hosts do not allow adult content and will end your service if they find you with it up. [Mαc Δαvιs] ❖ 11:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yup. They host several of my websites. --saxsux 12:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I got given a "take-away" website domain, wherein you enter the name of your website i.e. www.adult.com and then you can edit it how you want, all you have to do is buy it again every year, for about $3. not sure how you do it though i haven't even opened the box.

Nebuchandezzar 14:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

what is the architecture of a core 2 duo processor?

---

what is the architecture of a core 2 duo processor? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.177.158.106 (talk) 06:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

The Intel Core 2 Duos are X86 Architecture CPUs. The Core 2 Article has information on this, as well as the instruction sets the processor uses. These processors also get called "X86-64" sometimes (in reference to them having a 64bit instruction set). gorffy 06:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

RDBMS

Where the relational data base management system really works...?

See relational databases and relational database management systems. --h2g2bob 11:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Hard Disk Partitioning Query

Hi All, Could anyone please explain me,In the partitions, which one is better (state the reasons):

• Create one drive.
• Create two drives.
• Create three or more drives.

Thank you in advance for any help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.188.105.228 (talk) 12:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

That sounds awfully like a homework question. The answer is, of course, "it depends". Without more information about the intended usage, it's like asking how long a piece of string is. --Robert Merkel 13:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

hi, well,it is a homework question,and I googled for the answer too but couldn't get any useful information. to be more specific,this partioning is for Windows XP's FAT and NTFS file systems. so plzz provide me with the answer.

He did; the answer is "it depends". --TotoBaggins 14:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

42 of course. Seriously, what are you trying to do? Splintercellguy 15:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Tell your teacher, from me, that that is a dumb question. But anyway, take a look at the disk partitioning article. Partitions are most used to allow more than one operating system to live on a single computer disk drive. The general rule is one OS per partition. Linux normally uses an extra swap partition, so a Windows-Linux dual-boot would be 3 partitions total. Partitions can also be used for encryption (an encrypted disk) or to use a different disk format for part of the disk. --h2g2bob 15:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

An answer from a practical point of view - I would say 2. I normally create a small partition for XP (say between 10 and 25 gig for XP depending on how many programs you are going to install). The remaining space of your drive is your other partition and could be used for data/binaries/source/documents/etc and installing large programs that store data. The reasons for this are: 1. XP's partition gets very fragmented as your swap and temp files are here, so you can defragment often. 2. If XP goes kaput, which happens often, you can reinstall without bothering to backup and restore your data on the other partition. Sandman30s 18:27, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Unless you need to keep your data separate as said above, partitioning a single drive doesn't offer any huge benefits. If you suffer a physical disk problem, all your data is on a bad drive and there aren't really any performance gains. Separate disks in a RAID configuration however offer all kinds of benefits. For reference my linux box uses a boot partition, root, data, swap and a separate disk for backups, so 5 partitions in all, i only do this to ease kernel and other software updates. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Phillip.upson (talk • contribs) 16:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

Rogue television streaming

a somewhat-recent edition of the wall street journal featured an article that talked about rogue sites posting television broadcasts and the like ... in order to bypass all the advertising one has to sit through in order to watch the same content on the "official" network sites. Two men were named. Does anyone remember the names of the men, also is there a link to the article somewhere on the net for free? I dont remember the publication date and i dont have the paper anymore. NoClutter 14:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

del.icio.us for windows XP (tagging local files and folders just like you can tag links)

Is there anything such as del.icio.us but one that is usable on the desktop instead of just for web pages? NoClutter 14:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. del.icio.us is a Social Bookmarking website for sharing bookmarks to other web sites. What would you share on your desktop between different users? Are you wanting to share files or internet shortcuts to other websites on your WinXP desktop? —Mitaphane _?|! 23:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

No. I mean the ability to "tag" local files and folders on my own machine the same way one can "tag bookmarks". (be able to manage tags, tag groups, and descriptions on individual files locally, exactly like the social bookmarking site, without having to use the internet at all). NoClutter 05:06, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha. I know XP you can put metadata on files by right clicking them and hitting properties. However you can't put your own user-defined fields in these properties (as I presume you'd like to do) or manage them in a easy way in Windows Explorer. Had Microsoft, went through using WinFS for Vista it might have been able to accommodate what you'd like to do. The only thing else I could suggest is searching the internet for something like windows file metadata manager. Good luck. —Mitaphane _?|! 20:42, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

"blind group" email

Is there a general way to send an email to a group, with the group members thinking that they are receiving it individually? In other words, the recipient's address will be the only one on the email, but it will go out to a group of people. Thanks. 150.174.104.137 14:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

You could try using blind carbon copy. Other than that, it's whatever your email software or email service provides for you. --h2g2bob 15:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. 150.174.104.137 15:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

As said above, sending using the bcc field is easiest. Other options include using a mailing list manager (mailman if you are a linux user), creating a script for your email client which processes one email per address book entry in a loop (e.g. Outlook would support this approach). Finally if you wanted a mailing list your users could manage, try reading up on PHP, you could let users subscribe and unsubscribe via a webpage, their details get stored in a database (could also be a text file) and then you can use a php script to loop through the address book sending mail on your behalf. Mail me if you need more help. Phillip.upson 16:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Installing a Windows XP MBR

I have two hard drives: we'll call them Drive 1 and Drive 2. My installation of Windows is on Drive 2. For historical reasons, the boot drive is Drive 1. Presumably (bootloaders confuse me, so I might have something wrong) when the BIOS starts it looks for a bootloader in the MBR of Drive 1, which then boots the NTLDR on Drive 2, which in turn boots Windows.

Setting the BIOS to boot Drive 1 works fine. Setting it to boot Drive 2 leads to an error message, presumably because there is no Windows bootloader in the MBR of Drive 2, so naturally nothing can boot.

Now, I want to format Drive 1 so I can install Linux on it (yes, yes, hold the cheering), but presumably formatting Drive 1 would remove the MBR and stop me being able to run Windows. I know GRUB should be able to boot Windows, but in case of any problems I'd rather that I could just boot Windows off Drive 2: but I have no idea how to install a Windows bootloader on the Drive 2 MBR.

Any ideas? Sum0 16:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

If you have your WinXP CD this can be done from the recovery console. Boot from the CD and enter the console at the appropriate time. Then, use the fixboot and fixmbr commands as shown: fixboot and fixmbr gorffy 16:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I have tried FIXBOOT, which seemed to work fine, but I'm not sure that that was the problem. I ran FIXMBR too: it said I had a "non-standard or invalid master boot record". After some consideration, I went ahead anyway, and it said it completed successfully - but it didn't solve anything. Which I don't understand, unless possibly it wrote to the Drive 1 MBR by default (I didn't specify a drive). I'll try specifying Drive 2. Sum0 17:03, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

No luck with that... Sum0 17:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe Hiren's Boot CD has MBR tools that can fix your problem. Splintercellguy 22:03, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I think all XP MBRs are created equal, so you can use dd to copy the MBR from the working drive to the other one:

• boot into knoppix or another liveCD (personally I found Ubuntu's install/liveCD to be very satisfactory)
• dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=512 count=1

that's assuming /dev/hda is drive1 and /dev/hdb is drive2 : you should change these as appropriate - if you get the above wrong you'll copy drive2's bad MBR over drive1's good one, and thus be doublescrewed - so test mount them both to make superultramegasure. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:12, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll consider that. That just copies the boot code, right? It won't screw around with the other MBR stuff (I'm pretty hazy, but I believe the stuff there is Important)? Also, one drive is FAT32 and the other is NTFS. That won't matter, will it? Hiren's Boot CD looks worth a try too. Sum0 22:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

No tool can get you fired faster than dd, so you're wise to be cautious. That 512 will copy all of the MBR, which Master boot record notes does include a partition table - copying 446 bytes instead should copy just the code (but it's not clear that this will be sufficient for you, as we don't really seem to know what the condition of your drive2 MBR is. If you're nervous (wisely) you can save drive2's MBR to a file on a USB flash drive with dd if=/dev/hdb of=/media/usbdisk/drive2_old_mbr bs=512 count=1, so you can always restore it from there (by exchanging if and of) later if things go bad. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Progress! Before trying anything drastic with dd, I decided to open up XP Disk Management. Right-clicked on Drive 2, clicked "Set as active partition" and now when I boot up, I get "NTLDR not found". Obviously not quite fixed but I think I can solve it from here (installing NTLDR shouldn't be too hard, I hope!). Thanks everyone. Sum0 19:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

compilers and interpreters.

hi ... i have doubt abt the difference between compilers and interpreters and assemblers..pls help me thanx in advance chakradhar 17:43, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

A compiler compiles source code into machine code that the computer can run directly. An interpreter interprets code as it's run, changing it into 'directions' for the computer as it goes along. That's the best I can explain it, someone else can probably do better. The articles on both topics cover differences between the two and advantages to each. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Though a lot of "interpreters" these days use a form of compilation to increase performance. As was stated, read the articles. -- mattb 17:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Bytecode, Just-in-time compilation. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

A compiler turns a portable high-level language like this:

int square_it(int x) {
    int squared = x * x;
    return squared;
}

into machine-specific assembly language like this:

       .file   "foo.c"
       .text
.globl square_it
       .type   square_it, @function
square_it:
       pushl   %ebp
       movl    %esp, %ebp
       subl    $16, %esp
       movl    8(%ebp), %eax
       imull   8(%ebp), %eax
       movl    %eax, -4(%ebp)
       movl    -4(%ebp), %eax
       leave
       ret
       .size   square_it, .-square_it
       .ident  "GCC: (GNU) 4.0.2 20050808 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.0.1-4ubuntu9)"
       .section        .note.GNU-stack,"",@progbits

An assembler then turns that output into a series of bits that you can feed directly to a CPU with no further changes. It's not readable by (normal) humans, but looks something like this for the file above:

457f 464c 0101 0001 0000 0000 0000 0000
0001 0003 0001 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
00c4 0000 0000 0000 0034 0000 0000 0028
0007 0006 8955 83e5 10ec 458b 0f08 45af
8908 fc45 458b c9fc 00c3 0000 4700 4343
203a 4728 554e 2029 2e34 2e30 2032 3032
3530 3830 3830 2820 7270 7265 6c65 6165
6573 2029 5528 7562 746e 2075 2e34 2e30
2d31 7534 7562 746e 3975 0029 2e00 6873
7473 7472 6261 2e00 6574 7478 2e00 6164
6174 2e00 7362 0073 632e 6d6f 656d 746e
2e00 6f6e 6574 472e 554e 732d 6174 6b63
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
...

Traditional interpreters are programs that just read the high-level language and follow its instructions as they go. A modern example is bash. Many modern languages (like Perl and Java) do something more like the compiler example above, except in the last step they interpret the binary file and do what *it* says, rather than feeding it to a CPU. --TotoBaggins 18:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It's incumbent on me (as a fatally flawed nitpicker) to observe that assemblers rarely if ever produce something "you can feed directly to a CPU with no further changes", and indeed the binary example you show is such a case. An assembler generates a binary object file (in this case ELF - the first four bytes, in Intel byte order, are [DEL]ELF). That has to be sent to the linker to have any external references resolved. And even then the file is still ELF (or whatever), and that's still not executable. Finally the code has to be loaded (or "located"), where fixups are resolved, .bss sections wiped, and .data sections initialised from .text. In the case of a "real OS" this is done by the ELF loader, or its equivalent, when you exec the code, but in the case of embedded systems this is done explicitly by the locator, the last element of the tool chain. As a long-time systems developer it vexes me some (and this isn't a dig at anyone posting here, honest) that CS departments spend ages in compiler class on lexical analysis and syntax handling, wave their hands a bit at code generation, and make no mention at all of the latter half of the compilation chain. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, good followup! I thought about mentioning loading, but decided it would get too far afield for the OP, so stuck with a lie to children. --TotoBaggins 04:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

See also Cross-platform, and Write once, compile anywhere for additional insights on some of the points mentioned above. dr.ef.tymac 00:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Installing Software on XP

Is it possible to install, say a web browser, onto a single user account on a Win XP PC with multiple users, so that only that one user will be able to use it?

The reason I am asking is because certain software become defaults and open themselves for certain file extensions. Is it possible to make it so that it will only 'exist' on one account?

Thanks in advance. Skumbag - 酢薫バッグ 18:43, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

In some installers it will ask if you want to install the software the current user or all users. --Lwarf 10:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

You can just as well bind the file extensions differently after the offending software was installed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.187.18.197 (talk) 16:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

April 28

Protecting illustrations from Acrobat OCR

When I perform OCR in Adobe Acrobat Professional and choose Formatted Text & Graphics for output, part of an illustration will sometimes be recognized as text or white space. How can I mark off an illustration and tell Acrobat not to OCR it when it's doing the rest of the page? NeonMerlin 00:22, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh crap

I just received this message on my browser (FF): http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/241/ohshatoe2.jpg

Which is almost exactly the same as this: Image:Winantivirus.png

Ironically about a week ago I had read the WinFixer article here. Before pressing any of the buttons I shut off my internet and then pressed the Cancel button, although I am still very worried. I did what the WinFixer article had directed me to, but am I safe? Please re-assure, I don't want to suddenly find my computer going haywire. --TV-VCR watch 04:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Err, you're not in any danger. That article is pretty poor. It seems that WinFixer either utilizes some exploit in IE to install itself, or just tricks the user into downloading it. So long as you didn't download and execute it, you're not at risk. I'm not aware of any major code execution exploit in the latest Firefox release, and certainly not any that are in the wild... -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:30, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Things like that generally don't cause your PC to go haywire, just become slower and pop up windows like that. Before you do anything, make sure it was from malware on your PC instead of a popup. Since you're on FF, chances of it being a popup aren't good, especially if you use AdBlock and filtersets. If you don't, I recommend you install those right away, as they will help not only keep malware off your PC, but also make your internet experience much more enjoyable (I actually forgot that banner ads existed on the internet until I got my Wii, and even then it took me like five minutes before I realized what the hell they were doing there). After that, (assuming you're using Windows XP or Vista, chances of this happening on Linux or OSX are extremely low), download and install Spybot Search and Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html) and Hijack This (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php). Run Spybot S&D. It will probably bring up a lot of stuff, check it over before you delete it, as they are occasionally false positives. If it says you cannot remove the program, or it comes back, then you get into the dirty stuff.

!!WARNING!! Before you do any of this, you should back up your media, and make sure you have a windows install disk, as you CAN mess up your PC with this. Be prepared to have to format and start over. First, you need to turn off system restore, as this WILL keep the virus around. Go into your system restore settings, and choose to disable it. !!WARNING!! This WILL destroy all your previous system restore checkpoints, so if you mess up after this point, you're reinstalling. Turn your PC off and boot into Safe Mode. In safe mode, run Spybot S&D. After it's done scanning and cleaning, run Hijack This. CAREFULLY delete entries. If you don't know what you're doing, post the Hijack This log to people that do (most forums will request this, I believe HT has a forum you can use). These entries are mostly GOOD things, or even necessary. Delete the malware entries (or whatever ones the forums tell you to delete), close and restart. Should work after that. Again though, if you don't know what you're doing, be sure to request help, and be sure to ALWAYS archive your data before messing with your registry or anything delicate. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 04:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Err. If that message was due to spyware already on your computer: worry (and get rid of it). If that message was just from a website trying to trick you into downloading WinFixer, as it looks like, don't worry. At all. Just ignore it, never visit the crap filled site again, and live on. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, don't mean to make you panic. Like I said (Probably should've put more emphasis on it), you're probably OK. I still recommend downloading Spybot-S&D and HT though, they are very useful. Also, download Adaware. Run lavasoft's Adaware and Spybot-S&D every few days and your PC will be among the cleanest a Windows computer can be and still be connected to the internet. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 04:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

If you use Firefox and/or are clever about things, you don't need to run an adware check every couple of days. Heck, since reinstalling Windows a couple months ago, I haven't even installed a single security program. Things have never been faster. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:54, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

That's only a confirm box - very easy to do in JavaScript. There is no risk - any web page can make an alert box pop up like this. See this w3schools page for an example of this in action (together with the code which goes on the web page). I use the NoScript extension, which blocks JavaScript. --h2g2bob 05:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I personally would never block my javascript use, just maybe for certain sites. You probably shouldn't mess with that if you don't know what you're doing, since you might lose features on some sites, like Wikipedia for instance! I love my monobook.js. :) [Mαc Δαvιs] ❖ 12:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

That's why noscript lets you whitelist a website easily. Right click the noscript icon, click the button to "Allow wikipedia.org", and you're good. I like it personally; keeps Java, Javascript, and Flash crap from bothering me. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:54, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Question about this computer font style? older computers used it

What is it called when you make large letters out of capitalized letters? a capital "A" is made by using the capital A to make the shape of an 'A'

there must be some program out there to generate these automatically??

if this doesnt remove whitespace, the A, B would look like:

     A       BBBB
   A  A      B   B 
  AAAAAA     BBBBB
 A      A    B    B
 A      A    BBBBB

whats this called? thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bradz1234 (talk • contribs) 04:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

ASCII art? -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 04:53, 28 April 2007 (UTC) And "Figlet" can generate these--71.195.124.101 15:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Why can two anti-spyware programs happily co-exist on the same computer...

...but two anti-virus programs, if installed together, will lead to endless conflict? --Kaypoh 06:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

likely because, one, anti-spyware programs typically are ran once, and then turned off, whereas antivirus are running constantly, and because anti-viruses try to modify things that set the other one off. Why would you want more than one anti-virus though? If you need that level of security, you're probably better off using a more secure OS, such as a Live CD -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 06:53, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

DDR2 backwards compatibility?

I know DDR2 isn't backwards compatible with DDR, but if I plug a 1066 DIMM into an 800 slot, will I have any problems other than the RAM being slower than it could be? I somehow missed this, even though I must've checked over the parts for this PC a dozen times =/ Should be an easy question, thanks -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 06:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It would work perfectly fine. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

That's what I thought, thanks -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 08:23, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Percent encoding of forward slash in Firefox gives 404 error in Wikipedia

I have a Firefox keyword search bookmark set up so that when I type 'wpgo pagename', it will bring me to the corresponding Wikipedia page, e.g. 'wpgo User:Harryboyles' brings me to my userpage. However this doesn't work for subpages. Firefox converts the forward slash to %2F, which then causes Wikipedia to give a 404 error. I filed a Bugzilla request (bug 9204) but Brion said that it was a low level 'feature' in Apache and couldn't be fixed from them. Is there a way to make Firefox pass the forward slash as normal? Harryboyles 08:26, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I have a similar feature in Opera and I've just tried it and it works fine with /s. This indicates that it is Firefox's doing rather than an Apache feature. I wouldn't know how to get Firefox to do what you want though, sorry, though you could code a workaround if you so required (and had the knowledge). JoshHolloway 08:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Use the Go search box:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s

as a keyword bookmark. This comes by default as keyword "wp". It uses the search with the Go button. Works for me with slashes and everything else. --h2g2bob 11:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Now why didn't I think of that! I guess I'm used to typing the exact address in the address bar so I assumed it would carry over. The answer was staring at me all along. This is mighty helpful. Thanks! Harryboyles 11:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Hiding my ip address

Hi, im looking for the safest and most reliable way to hide my real ip address. How would i go around doing this? just software? or more than that? THNX for any help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by I.scheme.a.lot (talk • contribs) 10:33, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

The easiest way is to not use the Internet. Your IP address is fundamental to doing anything on the Internet -- how else would a web server know where to send you a web page without an address? It's like asking: "how can I send and receive letters without telling other people my home address?" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.49.243.244 (talk) 10:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

Actually, you can send and receive letters without telling people your home address. Just use a post office box, and if desired I guess have a friend or courier take your mail to and from the post office. NeonMerlin 16:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

See dynamic IP, proxy server, and anonymous remailer. Dynamic IPs work by changing your IP a lot, proxy servers work by using a third party to put information through instead of kind of "direct" to you, and anonymous remailers work by emailing an email to a, well, proxy server, and then they anonymously remail your email. [Mαc Δαvιs] ❖ 10:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Note that if you use an anonymous proxy (e.g. Tor (anonymity network)) many sites, like Wikipedia, will already be set up to block you, knowing that such sites are easily abused by vandals. --24.147.86.187 11:26, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Internet radio

How do I use Sam Broadcaster to put an internet radio on my friends website? --Candy-Panda 10:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

You'll need to rent a SHOUTcast or IceCast server to stream to. Google found this as the first result, though I'm sure you can find cheaper. I also note that you're in Australia (from your userpage) so you may want to search for a host in Australia itself to make the connection better (smaller ping).

Once you have got the host, you'll need to configure SAM to do this. Look around the help forums and/or the SAM help interface to do this :). JoshHolloway 11:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay thank you! :) --Candy-Panda 11:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

OR you could serve it yourself by installing SHOUTcast server. 99% uptime and high bandwidth recommended :) Shinhan 13:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Music making program

Does anyone know a free user-friendly program that lets you make music without the use of music instruments? --Candy-Panda 12:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know any, but it would help others if you specified an operating system first... --saxsux 12:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

How about GarageBand for Macs or Adobe Audition for Windows? JoshHolloway 13:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

ACID Music Express, from Sony, for Windows, is free to download from their website. --LarryMac 15:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

ExpressCard and USB

There's mention that ExpressCard can use a USB 2.0 interface somehow. I don't quite understand what this entails. Does this mean that there exists an adapter that can take an ExpressCard and plugs into a USB 2.0 port and will then optimally run? What does this entail, exactly? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.49.243.244 (talk) 15:01, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

It means that the device has the hardware to talk to a USB 2.0 controller, so there shouldn't be any dongle or adapter :). Splintercellguy 15:26, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It means that the ExpressCard receptacle (the "slot" you put it in) is connected to your computer both over the computer's PCI-express bus and over a USB 2 connection. Unlike cardbus there is no controller chip between that slot and either of those busses - the connector just passes through both sets of wires to the card (pinout table). The ExpressCard device can talk either PCI-E or USB2, depending on the needs of its designers; the computer has to know how to talk either. The data rate on USB2 is a lot lower than PCI-E, and an ExpressCard that only talks lines will only be able to talk at USB speeds, and is in effect just a standard USB component with a funny form factor and a different connector. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you recommend a group discussion website?

Hey there wikifolks, I'm looking for a group discussion website to set up a uh... discussion group. I was thinking of just using Google Groups but I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for alternatives? (it has to be free and online and has to allow private group discussions). Something which would allow some kind of visual mapping of member clusters would be ideal. Thanks very much for any suggestions! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.127.72 (talk) 20:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

You didn't really need to add the question 3 times. See internet forum, it has a few links that might help. I'm not really big on internet-forums so couldn't suggest, sorry. ny156uk 21:20, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Can WinXP be installed on a laptop with a Turion 64 X2?

I have a bit of trouble finding out if XP can be installed on what is supposedly a 64-bit motherboard. Can anyone tell me? Specifically, this computer: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10086139&catid=22496&atab=3&logon=&langid=EN

Thanks! Richardmtl 22:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure can! Windows XP Professional x64 Edition was designed to run on 64-bit x86 CPUs. —Mitaphane _?|! 22:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

April 29

Flash Drive 1

What is the largest flash drive? 68.193.147.179 00:42, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Flash Drive 2

How do I use a flash drive to run my computer? 68.193.147.179 00:43, 29 April 2007 (UTC)