Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

August 13

Fireworks Cs3 Transparency

Does anyone know how to change the color of the transparent background pattern in Fireworks? The white and light gray checkerboard pattern is difficult for me to use.

Oh, this was me - AMP'd 18:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Physics on Graphics cards

I'm pretty sure that nvidia's newest graphics cards (8800 series) have built in physics capabilities. Will Blender automatically use this extra power for fluid and soft body animations? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.124.101 (talk • contribs)

Yes, it probably does utilize the physics, as well as everything else the card has (it'll run just about anything). · AndonicO ^Talk 00:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

HTML <object> with a transparent background

I am trying to embed some audio files in my webpage, but I can't get the object's background to be transparent. I used the following code, and the object rendered with a transparent background for a split-second before the plug-in (In this case QuickTime player.) loaded and apparently overrode the transparency and put a (dreaded) white background instead.

<object width="500" height="45" allowtransparency="true> <embed src="audio/somefile.mp3" autostart="true" type="audio/mpeg" allowtransparency="true" width="500" height="45"></embed></object>

does anyone know how to override the QT override? Note: I have asked questions relating to this problem before, and some of you have mentioned using Adobe Flash to embed media in a webpage. It's a great idea, but at 17 years old, I can't really afford to buy it. Thanks for the idea though.69.205.180.123 14:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

You could always use the embed tag instead, which works on Firefox and I'm pretty sure on IE (example from my website):

<embed src="filenameofmusic.mp3" width="0" height="0" loop="true" autoplay="true" controller="false" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"> </embed> -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 23:27, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

That is extremely bad practice as you have no way of stopping it if the controls doesn't exist (0 height and width). There ARE pre-made MP3 players in Flash out there, like this (CC-by-nc-sa license) which you just need to tinker with the xml file to play your own MP3 on your own site. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Unicode usernames

I'm developing a simple user login system for my website. At the moment the database stores usernames in UTF-8 encoding, and using the various multi-byte functions in PHP this seems to be working well so far.

Is there any reason why allowing unicode in usernames would be a bad idea, or otherwise are there any precautions I should take? I'm using PHP 5.2 and MySQL 4.1. ~Inkington 15:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The only real problem I've seen is that users can pretend to be someone else by using unicode for letters that look practically identical to standard ascii letters. It can be difficult for users to type in unicode - but if they used unicode when creating their username, they should be able to type it again. -- Kainaw^(what?) 16:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Better to use unicode as this supports all types of foreign languages and characters, rather than a single-byte character set (or even worse, 7-bit ASCII), where your data would be impossible to convert/correct later on. UTF-8 (UTF8-AL32) is recommended in Oracle's latest RDBMS. Sandman30s 17:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Nuh uh. I'd say stick with strict ascii for identity-information like login name. As was brought up before, it's easy to impersonate other users or even screw up your administration backend by using control characters. International support really isn't that necessary, and you're certainly not alone if you say "I don't think so" to the supporters of unicode-ization. Support it in the rest of your application so your users aren't frustrated by characters that don't work, but force ascii text for the login name. People won't mind such a reasonable precaution- international users are used to it anyway --froth^t 20:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If so do so, offer "display names" that are customizeable, similar to WpA's difference between usernames and signatures. 68.39.174.238 22:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The simple solution is to offer a subset of UTF8 and exclude characters that can be potentially confusing/less useful/insecure.

I have heard of, but never actually seen implemented, systems that color letters from different character sets different colors (and possibly highlight them with different background colors.) This makes similar characters more obviously different 69.95.50.15 20:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking of limiting it to a subset of UTF8, as mentioned above, but so far I haven't found an easy way to do this in PHP, apart from using some very ugly (and limited) regular expressions... ~Inkington 17:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

Where can I find pics like the ones shown on these menus. I was planning on making my own menu and wanted pictures that have that "digital" look. I already asked at the Help desk but they misundersstood and told me to copy and paste. I'm guessing they'll be on the commons. Please answer on my talk page - Pheonix 23:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's called the "crystal" icon look. Try here? --froth^t 00:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

also --froth^t 00:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

August 14

Trackballs

Why did the trackball die out? I always found it far easier and more accurate than the touchpad. Sure it was a little bulky, and you had to plug it into the side of your laptop, but I still found it a pleasure to use. Our article seems to account for its decline by "the replacement of mouseballs by direct optical tracking", but from an ergonomic point of view this doesn't seem to tell the whole story. Has any research been done comparing the speed and accuracy of trackball use vs. touchpad use? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 07:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You can still buy them, they haven't "died out", they just didn't really catch on in the first place. Like dvorak --Lucid 07:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I didn't know you could still get them. Will they work with today's available laptops? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

They use a standard USB connector and mouse drivers, so yeah, afaik. I don't know if they still make the type that 'clip on to the side' like our article talks about, but they definitely still have trackball mice, even WalMart has a few --Lucid 09:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, the moving parts mean it is more subject to failure. I prefer the SpaceBall, which used strain gauges to detect how you were attempting to move the ball, even though you didn't actually move it. StuRat 07:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about that. The trackballs I see nowadays are optical, so the only real extra moving part is whatever keeps the ball from rolling freely. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

They typically use a roller for that. Just like an old-style ball mouse, they can get hair and other debris stuck around the roller and start to move in a jerky motion. StuRat 17:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Vista Sound card problem

Hello I recently installed windows vista on my Sony desktop(came with XP) and cannot play audio. I checked the hardware and it appears the system doesn't recognize the sound card, or see it at all. I don't know where to get the drivers and have lost a lot of the papers that originally came with the pc. All I can remember is that Yamaha made it. How do I get sound to start working again

Thanks, Robert

You might need to go to the manufacturer's website, and download drivers for Windows Vista.

Rechargeable CR2032 button batteries

Does anyone know where I can get the batteries and charger ? StuRat 08:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I buy them at Walmart or KMart next to the watches. They are very cheap, so I've never considered recharging them. -- Kainaw^(what?) 14:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I want to use them in key finders, where they go dead in a month or two. If I have 10 units and replace each battery once a month, that's 120 batteries a year. If they cost $5 each, that's $600 a year. Now perhaps you see why I want rechargeable batteries. StuRat 16:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I buy similar batteries in bulk over the internet from dedicated battery supply companies (the same guys who supply small watchmakers). For CR2032 Google finds me someone who'll sell me 20 for £10, so that's about 1 US dollar each. I really don't think they make rechargable batteries that small. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

FrontPage html

Is there a free downloadable program to clean up a frontpage html file in order greatly to reduce its size? - Kittybrewster (talk) 11:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

See HTML Tidy for cleaning up bad HTML and HTML Tidier for removing redundant HTML. -- Kainaw^(what?) 14:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Youtube search

I'm probably revealing my wanton ignorance of Youtube, but does it allow uploaders to specify a copyright license? If so, does Youtube have a search-by-copyright-license feature - that is, results returned are tagged with a certain copyright license, ala flickr? Raul654 14:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've uploaded a few videos to YouTube and they have never presented me with such an option. I'm almost certain that it's not possible. Also, when you do upload your content, you basically agree to give YouTube a full license for them to do whatever they want with it (there was some bruhaha about this on a bunch of blogs when someone realised this a few months ago). The actual text is this (from the TOS):

For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website...

Makes the GFDL look pretty good, doesn't it :) --Oskar 16:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Knowing the age of a computer

Is it possible to know when a computer was first switched on? Maybe somewhere in the BIOS? Or does it sound rather unlikely? Thanks. --Taraborn 14:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

There may be circumstantial evidence by checking the dates on the files on the harddrive. You can get a guess, but keep in mind that dates on files can be altered. Also, the drive could have been filled with files from a master system and then put in the PC at a much alter time. Also, the harddrive could be reformatted, losing the files with the original date. -- Kainaw^(what?) 15:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Most modern operating systems keep a boot log. Assuming it never gets cleared (and this is probably an unlikely assumption), it should have a record for the first time the machine was booted with that OS installed. Of course, other than OEM machines (where the HD is pre-imaged) you have to boot the machine to install the OS Raul654 15:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing that you meant not the first time 'ever' but literally when it was first switched on in a day/period (if it has been on a few days). I expect that there will be something to let you know this but a relatively short search on google found nothing. Perhaps looking for an audit trail of the windows account (presuming windows) would help...This (http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Auditing-user-accounts.html) seems to suggest such a thing is possible. ny156uk 16:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

There's no definite standard, but a lot of PC manufacturers will run a "burn-in" test in the factory, which is when it was first turned on. It might even be logged in the service log, or stamped on the case. -- JSBillings 18:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting points. Thanks to all. --Taraborn 23:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the BIOS, the BIOS version will sometimes include the date when it was made. Assuming the BIOS has not been upgraded, it gives a good indication of when the computer was made. --Spoon! 13:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

SharePoint vs. wikimedia

My employer recently decided to create an internal wiki for us to share our knowledge base. It was decided to do it with SharePoint, and nobody seems to know who decided it, or why. The documentation available for SharePoint, official and general Web-stuff, isn't too helpful. Can somebody play the devil's advocate and explain the great advantages of SharePoint as a wiki site so I won't feel so screwed? TIA. 206.213.209.31 18:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to hazard a guess that your office is using a whole bunch of Microsoft products. That's almost certainly why your managers choose it, they like Microsoft a lot and they are pretty much bound to it. Many businesses look at open source products (like MediaWiki) with suspicion. As for the advantages, you should probably look at the article, but I assume that it integrates very well with Office and other Microsoft products. --Oskar 18:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

A question about DDR RAM

I have two RAMs working together in my computer (one 512 MB RAM and one 128 MB RAM). They have been fitted into adjacent slots. I used a software called CPU-Z which gives all the information about the computer when installed. It has a section called as TIMINGS TABLE. This table is in the following fashion for the 512 MB RAM.

Timings Table

Frequency               166 Mhz      200Mhz
CAS# Latency             2.5           3.0

And various other values have been given which I cannot understand but I am sure would not be relevant to my question. Now the problem is that in the above table there are two frequency values. I have given the exact reproduction of the table and hence there is no heading for the last two columns of the table. For the 128 MB RAM the timings table has 100 and 133 Mhz instead of 166Mhz and 200 Mhz respectively. Is there a frequency mismatch here? If so, is it still good to have the two RAMs working together? What will happen if they have a frequency mismatch and they are made to work together? In the computer properties I still get a total memory of 512+128=640 MB RAM. Please explain. Should I keep them together or not? Thanks for whoever answers this question. I will be very grateful to you.

Email and Applescript

Can anyone please show me the code to send an email with Applescript?

A beginning relational database application?

I'm interested in creating a relational database of spells from the System Reference Document.

Each spell would have to consist of the following fields:

• Name — single-line text
• School and subschool — pointer to a school-and-maybe-subschool object
• (optional, any number of) Descriptor — pointer to a descriptor object
• (any number of) Level — pointer to a class object or cleric domain object, plus an unsigned integer
• (1 to 5) Components — any subset of "V", "S", "M", "F", "DF" and "M/DF"
• Casting time — possible values are "See text", "1 free action", "1 standard action", "# rounds", "# minutes" or "# hours", where # is a positive integer.
• Base duration — possible values are "See text", "Instantaneous", "Permanent", "# rounds", "# minutes", "# hours" or "# days" where # is a positive integer.
• Extra duration per level — possible values are zero, "# rounds", "# minutes", "# hours" or "# days".
• Range — possible values are "See text", "Personal", "Touch", "Close", "Medium", "Long" or "# feet".
• Targets — single-line text
• Saving throw — possible values are "None", "See text", "Fortitude/Reflex/Will negates/half/partial".
• Spell resistance — yes or no
• Harmless — yes or no
• Object — yes or no
• Material component cost — unsigned integer or "See text"
• Focus component cost — unsigned integer or "See text"
• Description — multi-line text that should ideally be able to include hyperlinks to other spells.

Ideally, the database should know when sorting by duration or casting time that 1 day = 24 hours = 1440 minutes = 14400 rounds, and that "Instantaneous" and "1 free action" should be treated as zero, "1 standard action" as 1/2 round, and "Permanent" as positive infinity.

Would this be possible in OpenOffice.org Base, and how much skill would it require? I have very little experience with relational databases. NeonMerlin 18:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing unusual about the type of DB that you are describing, I don't see why any DB application would have a problem describing the model as you outlined it. In fact, most likely any tutorial that you find about programming a basic DB will end up with something close to what you require. Vespine 01:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Where's the "relational" part of this? It looks like a single table. A relational database requires multiple tables so there can be some field shared between them. For example, you could have a School table with all the schools and save the school's ID in the School field of the Spell table. -- Kainaw^(what?) 02:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You could do this in OOo Base though in my opinion it is a bad program to start to learn DB programming on — aside from being relatively unused, I have found it to be extraordinarily slow, incomplete, and sometimes buggy. As someone with a LOT of relational database programming skill (MySQL, MS Access, etc.) I find it almost impossible to use productively at this stage (I hope that someday this will not be the case, because it would be great to have an open-source alternative to Access that worked well!!).

As has been pointed out, this isn't really a relational database, because you have only one table. Some of your fields are somewhat complete datatypes, but they could be easily abstracted as numbers (i.e. "None", "See text", etc. could be 0, 1, etc.).

As it is basically a flat database, something like Filemaker Pro would probably be the easiest way to approach it, if you had access to it. Otherwise you could think about programming the data structure in MySQL and the code to handle it in PHP — it is an ambitious first project but not one that would be insurpassably difficult if you got a "learn PHP in 30 days" type book, which usually deal with how to use PHP with MySQL databases. --24.147.86.187 02:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• With any database design you need to take a whole list of things into consideration, one of these many things is what do you intend to do with the database once you've created it? Why this is important is because presumably OpenOffice is going to have its own data format. That means if you ever wanted to try and connect OpenOffice's Database Management System (DMBS) into a program you might write, you may encounter problems. Also, don't forget that what you're putting in your table is just data, with very little or no intelligence. The only intelligence it has is data constraints - it knows when it's dealing with a date or a number or a character string, etc. But for example if you want it to say "infinite" it would depend on how your program/software is ultimately going to interpret "infinite" if your field is for an integer. You could for example enter in '0' as infinite, or '-1'. My point being, is that to add intelligence to your data you're going to have to write software that goes with it -- all depending on what it is that you're trying to do. Finally, just in case you don't know, a database is a very generalised term, but these days refers to a collection of tables (and can include other metadata info like schemas etc) - and what you've provided is only one table. In order to call your database relational you'll need more than one table, and frankly, if you're going to be doing what I think you're going to be doing then you'll definitely need more than one table. You'll need ones like "Players", "Schools", "Subschools", "Gamedata", "Cast spells" etc. One more thing, it's also a good idea to give your table a primary key - that is a field that will always have unique values - you could for example have your Spell's name as its primary key - unless there's any chance you might have to spells with the same name (in Magic: The Gathering for example, cards with spells were sometimes re-released in a new edition with different artwork, and sometimes different wording). That's why you might consider giving each spell a unique ID, such as "SpellID". Okay I'll shut up now. Rfwoolf 13:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hard Drive System Conversion?

Hello,

I'm not sure if my Hard Drive is FAT, FAT32 or NTFS, but I want to convert it to NTFS if it's not. Is there any way to check, and if it's FAT, would changing it have any adverse effects? Would there be any file deletion or the like?

Thanks,

Perfect Proposal ^{Speak out loud!} 22:09, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Recent versions of Windows have a utility called "convert" for this - see this Microsoft article. But make a backup of your valuable data regardless. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Partition Magic is a commercial utility focused on manipulation of hard disk partition data, including changing file system types without data loss. ERobson 23:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

webcam capture/basic editing.

So I recently happened upon a webcam, I'm thinking of making a few "you tube" style clips, musical in nature. I suppose I need to do two things, one: Is there a good program to capture the webcam into a file, something that lets you chose the bit rate would be nice. Also, I'd then like a SIMPLE program to do very basic video clip editing, things like cutting and splicing, doing simple fades and audio mixing, the audio will probably be recorded not through the web cam. Thanks. Vespine 23:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

for the editing part, the easiest thing to do would be to use windows movie maker, its really easy to use + its free.

Reverse image search

Is there any such thing as a reverse image search? For example, with Google, a subject can be searched not only by websites but also by what images come up related to the query. Is there a search engine that allows you to enter an image, such as a picture of a person or bird, that then attempts to identify the subject by finding similar images? If there is not such a search engine, is this idea even feasible? --Joelmills 23:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so, but I've also wanted this feature occasionally.

Feasible as in possible to set up, somewhat, facial recognition software is basically a 'people search engine'. As far as setting it up on a website, there is a 'family tree' gene site thing that will find faces in pictures, and then match them to celebrities, so it's somewhat possible. Having a large amount of people, and managing the server load from all that though would be a logistics nightmare. Something like this might make more sense in 10-20 years, when computing power is significantly cheaper, or as a client-side application, as already exists in places like casinos --Lucid 01:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Headway research into this type of application is being made in the field of Artificial neural networks. You also may be interested in Photosynth, not really what you are after, but related to the topic. Vespine 01:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

IBM's Journal of Research and Development [1] wrote about such a system a few years ago (4? 5?). I don't know what's become of their research, though.

Atlant 12:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

In theory a search engine has to first 'crawl' its pages so that it knows what's on them and then feeds this information into its database. When you then do a search, it doesn't go back to those pages, first it goes through its databases and sees what matches. For the type of search that you speak of, the search engine would have to either put a lot of images into its database (think of the huge amount of space - but that's becoming less of a problem) - or, it will have to come up with some kind of data off of the images, like "number of pixels" + "dimensions" + "size" + "contrast" + "number of colours" + "format" etc. etc. I believe that might be possible, but probably would be a significant challenge to create -- all for a very simple search utility that few people would use

I'd also like to comment about the face-matching people were talking about. To my knowledge, these computers take a source image, and then almost literally try match the image with images it already has in its database. So once again the database would have to hold the images (major space). Then, it would specifically trained at faces. For anything else it would probably not be very useful.

So in short, I do believe we have the technology to do something, but it's just not very feasible. Perhaps you should write to google on this one, they might look into developing it. If they do, please come back here and let us all know, so we can call up our lawyers ;) (jokeing). Rfwoolf 13:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses - it was all very interesting. --Joelmills 03:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You might be interested in CBIR and the links contained therein. skip (t / c) 07:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

A reverse image search engine now exits: TinEye

August 15

Vista "Run" and "Run as administrator"

I have UAC disabled (of course). But now any time I manually start a new process through the "Run" dialogue, or the New Task option in the task manager, it says "this task will be created with administrator privileges." Now hold on there cowboy, if I wanted cmd to be running with administrator privileges I'd use Ctrl+Shift+Enter. Is there any way to get "Run" to start programs with normal admin-level-but-not-really (the vista equivalent of a 'sudoer' I suppose) privileges? For that matter, am I automatically running everything I click on as an administrator since UAC is disabled? --froth^t 04:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't quote me on this because I'm not positive, but I assume that yes, everything you do is run as administrator privilages, unless your user has a different configueration. Hopefully someone that's certain can come along and confirm. Rfwoolf 13:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

It is possible to keep UAC enabled but have it automatically say "Yes" to all of it's permission request dialogs. Goto Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy > Local Policies > Security Options > "User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode" and then "Elevate without prompting". Reenable UAC and restart and check. 68.39.174.238 21:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

10-Key SPM

Hello. I am trying to fill out an online application as a cashier and I have been asked what my speed in 10-Ket SPM is. The exact question writes, "Please note your speed in 10-Key in SPM:". Could somebody graciously clarify what 10-Key SPM is? Google finds nothing, and other search engines do not either. Thank you. -- Wilhelm Von Hortzweneger Über der Hügel [ 216.178.50.184 04:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC) ]

10-key is a ten key number pad, like is on calculators, your keyboard's numpad, or in this case the number controls on the register. SPM is "S" per minute, I'd assume Sales, or how fast you can ring it up. I'd just be honest and tell them that you don't have any prior 10-key experience. --Lucid 04:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you muchly. --Von Hortzweneger Über der Hügel [ 216.178.50.184 04:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC) ]

Also SPM is an academic certification in malaysia :). But seriously if my last 2 summers of work experience as a cashier is of any value let me tell you that not many sales will be made in one minute unless you're working at CVS or something and they pay in plastic every time. Maybe sales per hour.. but I doubt it. I'd say 's' has to stand for something else and PM as a standard "per minute" is a good enough guess. But "10-key" seems an awkward way to refer to a keypad- do some cashiers work in hexadecimal for extra efficiency or what? I think we're way off track --froth^t 05:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Aha I think I might have an answer. 10-key is apparently a typing test and I'm betting SPM stands for Strokes Per Minute! Better change that resume because it's probably not a good idea to advertise the fact that you have no prior experience in typing. --froth^t 05:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Froth, 10-key is just a retail way of referring to a numpad. Saying you have prior experience in typing when someone is asking how proficient you are at 10-key is like saying you're a great driver when someone asks how you handle a Harley. The tests on google are just that- tests for 10-key typing, not QWERTY typing we're all used to. --Lucid 05:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hm ok, well I'm still convinced it's strokes per minute --froth^t 06:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You're probably right about that, but it's referring to strokes per minute on a numpad --Lucid 06:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

vista in-place upgrade

I hear that vista performs abysmally after an in-place upgrade from XP. File locations are unreliably virtualized to different locations, settings are lost or misplaced, it's a mess. But how about upgrading from one version of vista to another? I'm not talking about the streamlined Anytime Upgrade but rather a full Upgrade installation to ultimate. I know it's possible but messing with windows setup is a big deal and I want to know if vista will weird out on me if I try it --froth^t 06:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

where to buy .fr domain name?

What's the cheapest registrar to buy a .fr domain name?--Sonjaaa 07:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Europeregistry is reasonable but probably not the cheapest. Djmckee1 - Talk-Sign 09:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

To avoid your question, why not buy a .com instead? - Kittybrewster (talk) 10:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Because A) almost all the legible .com names have been taken, and B) some people want their website to be identified as 'French'. But I admit I'm assuming here - the OP might have a different reason, but my point is that as great as a .com is, good luck finding a good one. Rfwoolf 16:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thunderbird folder display

Back in golden times of yore Netscape Mail would display (for each mail folder) both the total number of messages in that folder and the number of unread (in the left-hand panel. The display would look something like:

• inbox (103/4)
• work (944/16)
  • project X (16/0)
  • project Y (330/1)
• private (1/0)

Now Mozilla Thunderbird just displays the total unread, and if none are unread there no number at all after the folder name. Is there an option (or failing that an extension) which restores this welcome behaviour? Thanks. Harmonation 11:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Another sadly lost feature of Netscape Mail is links upthread. —Tamfang 18:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

TDEncypt Application

when ever i ask my laptop to hibernate there is a error reported, saying the TDEncypt Application is not functioning properly. why does this problem arise and i tried gaining information about this kind of Error, but i could get nothing. Can you please hepl me out solving this problem.

• What operating system are you using? Are you sure you got the name right, is it not "TDEncrypt" ? If you're running Windows XP, press Ctrl + Alt + Esc to bring up the task manager, click on Processes, then click on the "Names" tab, and it will show you all the currently running process - see if you can find anything called "TDEncypt" or "DEncypt" or "Encypt" etc. If you find it it will give you a little more information about the process, and you can try end the process, and then try your hibernation. I would also do a search for it. Click Start -> Search, and type "Encypt" (you can leave off the TD because Windows will still find it - in fact you can even do a search for "ypt" or "enc"). This might leave more clues that you can use to try to find out what the process is, what it does, and when it is run. Rfwoolf 16:34, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

i tried this i could not find anything like that nor did i find it in when i did 'alt' 'crlt' 'esc'. i dont no what to do!!! help!!1

How exactly do you get the error? Does a dialog box come up with it? 68.39.174.238 21:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no info on TDENCYPT on the web. A clue may be that I ceased getting an error for tdencypt when i removed my logitech s510 cordless keyboard

The TDEncypt Application (filename TDEMon.exe) is an application that autoruns from a Trek Thumbdrive (USB Flashdrive). It is a U3-like application which "installs" a virtual CD-ROM drive with pre-installed software. (I have yet to find a way to remove this from my Thumbdrive, because it is very annoying on startup and it takes up a lot of space on my Thumbdrive). I assume you also have a Trek Thumbdrive, or perhaps you only used one in the past. You will probably find TDEMon.exe in your C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Trek, and for some reason it messes things up on your laptop.

ChartXL by Harvard Graphics

I am looking for charting software, specifically stock charting software. I am looking for something that is easy to use with pre-made templates. The built-in stock charting options in excel are good but of no comparison to the best charts available thru subscription or for free over the internet which are copyrighted (i.e. yahoo/finance beta & bigcharts.com). I know that ChartXL has a few options but I cannot get samples or examples of what their software offers. Any ideas? --Gungnir 19:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by John Bragdon (talk • contribs)

Can't enter BIOS

On reboot, I get in order: no signal, then a screen with it telling me the hardware configuration (Core 2 Duo, hard drives, optical drives, etc) then it boots to windows. I've tried tapping F1 and F2 but have not got into the BIOS, and it seems like there's no way to do so. Motherboard is a MSI P6N SLI Platinum. Should I just keep tapping random buttons, or have I missed something? -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 20:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

According to the manual I found ([2]), you press DEL to enter BIOS setup. --LarryMac | Talk 21:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Looked for it but couldn't find it. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 22:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure all MSIs (or all recent ones) are Del to enter the BIOS. Pity it hasn't been standardized by someone. 68.39.174.238 21:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Maximum size for iPod?

Is there a theoretical maximum size for an iPod or other digital audio player? So far as I understand it an ipod is basically a hard disk with an amplifier. Does this mean the maximum size would be dictated by whatever size the largest portable hard disk would be? I realise this is an open ended question - portability depends on the person doing the carrying - but obviously in commercial terms the kind of weight carried by an infantryman (45 pounds theoretical maximum of 88 pounds according to this) would not count as portable. According to this boomboxes could weigh up to 30 pounds. Stroika 22:59, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the general use of the expression "theoretical limit". You're sort of right, the theoretical limit to TODAY'S iPod would be how big you can make a hard disk. The theoretical limit to the size of a hard disk is how dense they can get the medium. But an iPod doesn't rely on a hard disk, theoretically it can use any memory, so the theoretical limit to a magnetic spinning platter hard disk isn't the theoretical limit to an iPod's size. When someone comes up with denser memory then a hard disk, no doubt they'll stick it in an iPod or whatever is around at the time. I would say, there is no theoretical limit to the size of an iPod. Vespine 23:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand your question because there is no limit to how big you could make anything. One could make an mp3 player the size of a freight train, but what would be the point? -- Diletante 01:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

If we want to keep things able to fit in a backpack or cargo pants pocket, you could easily take a standard 3.5" HDD and then just tack a processor, memory, screen and controls for the MP3 player bit. This could be done by hand if you're good with hardware and messing with linux to run it, and could be done now, and build a decent MP3 player with 500GB of storage for only a few hundred dollars. If we're going with boom box sized components, this gets much easier- 50$ speakers from Logitech, make a box for the PC, and have 8 of those 500GB drives in RAID0, for 4TB of storage, good sound, and basically a portable computer. --Lucid 02:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that Lucid. Very informative. And the fact this HDD would be in motion, jogging up and down wouldn't be a problem? What is stopping Apple producing a 500 GB iPod? Simply a design imperative that it has to fit into a shirt pocket? What's the largest capacity using technology currently available that could be achieved to make a DAP that could fit in your shirt pocket (that's 4.5 inches for those who keep tank divisions - or freight trains - in custom made shirts ;-))? Stroika 05:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about jogging with it. Modern computers should be fine with the hard drive being jiggled a bit, since the music is probably in RAM anyway, but I wouldn't go out running with it spinning full speed. A 500GB hard drive is stuff made for desktop PCs, it probably takes a bit more effort to make one that can take the jogging and stuff, as hard drives are rather delicate machines (A book I once read described a hard drive's precision, to scale, as being somewhat like the Sears Tower laid down on it's side, a few inches off the surface, and circling the planet every three seconds.) but I'm not sure what that entails. There's really nothing keeping anyone from building something about the size of a GBA or original Game Boy that would store and play 500GB of music, but it probably wouldn't be the best for music on the go. Personally, I'd go with flash memory if I wanted to make an MP3 player, but there's definitely the technology out there to make something with that much storage. As to apple, they like all their products looking sleek, and something bulky like this (you have to consider it would be around the size of AppleTV or Mac Mini, which are fully fledged PCs) would probably not be up their aisle. --Lucid 06:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

OK so I won't go jogging with my iRucksack (note to Steve Jobs, I got that name first). I thought that flash drives were prohibitvely expensive at larger capacities? But that's all my questions answered now. Thank you. Stroika 09:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Please remember that there are, basically, two different "streams" of iPods: the hard-drive based iPods and the Flash ROM-based iPods (currently, the "Nanos"). Right now, price is the constraint for the Flash ROM iPods. For the hard-drive iPods, it's physical size. People actually have taken their hard drive-based iPods apart and hooked them to much more capacious drives, but those drives aren't in the 1.8" form-factor that is required to re-assemble the iPod; these mega iPods are used as stationary music players. (Surely the software has some upper bound on capacity, but I've never read what it is; I'd imagine it's still "large" compared to modern disk drives.)

Atlant 12:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

What is the data-link protocol used between the routers on the Internet

I think that the heading is sufficient, however if you would like more surrounding text. I am familiar with TCP/IP on Ethernet on a LAN, and I know that we use PPP whe we are attaching to the Internet (ISP), but I cannot find anything authoritative as to what is used under TCP/IP when going between routers on the Internet 64.214.121.138 23:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I would imagine they use the cheapest practical technology of the time, right now I think that's that's gigabit ethernet. I guess its not very authoritative, but the third paragraph in Internet_exchange_point has some good info, it says that 95% of isp exchanges use ethernet.. -- Diletante 02:07, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Diletante's answer is quite correct for peering (where two or more ISPs have equipment in the same exchange building) and for datacenters and colos. But for long distance communications we have to go into the wacky world of Telcos. Long distance internet connections used to be IP on frame relay (or ATM) on a copper (and later optical) T-carrier. Now they're switching (or switched) to IP on Packet over SONET/SDH on SONET on Optical Carrier (e.g XO Communications' backbone is OC-192 (ref)) on an optical fiber physical layer. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

August 16

What Are The Different Types/kinds Of Browsers, wap browser, mobile browser, mini browser etc

As far as I know, there are three types of mobile browsers. 1)Wap browser (ones found in low end colour phones) 2)mobile browser (ones found in smartphones) 3)mini browsers (like opera mini)

My question is 1)Is there any other type of browser? 2)I have used opera mini and mobile browser in my moto ming. But where do I get a wap browser for motoming? what wap browser?

Your phone comes with a WAP browser, it's simply the internet function (or whatever it´s called) on your phone. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Printer ink cartridge

I need to put a black ink cartridge and a color ink cartrige into my Compaq inkjet printer. Does it matter which one goes and the left and which one goes on the right?

When it does matter, they will normally only fit on one side or the other. When it doesn't matter, they fit on either side. That little circuit on the printer cartridge tells the printer which one is color and which is black. -- Kainaw^(what?) 13:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It should say something about what cartridge should go in on the cartridge holder itself (my HP one has the cartridge number on the holder). --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Top IT companies in Israel

This is driving me nuts....does anyone know where I can find a list of the top Israeli IT cos? The type of classification (ie, by size, by revenue, etc.) isn't that important - I'm just wondering if this info even exists...?—Wasabe3543 13:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange might list something like that --h2g2bob (talk) 02:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Wireless-N backwards compatibility

I am looking into purchasing a laptop computer, and I was wondering...
At my home, we have a Linksys wireless-g router. If I get a laptop with a wireless-n card, will I still be able to access the wireless-g network at my home?
Thanks for the help...69.205.180.123 17:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Probably yes. Splintercellguy 19:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Refer to IEE 802.11 --PhoenixQc 13:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

VOB (DVD files) to any other format

I have a DVD (that I'm legally authorized by the creator and publisher to copy) that I need to extract a clip from. What (free) programs can do this? I need to convert it to Quicktime, MPG, or Flash. -- Zanimum 18:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

VLC can covert VOB to MPG and many other formats. --24.147.86.187 01:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

ffmpeg can do the job as well if you're at ease with command line programs. --PhoenixQc 13:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Find / replace

Using regex or grep or something else, how would one do the following advanced find and replace:

If I have a document that contains this code:

* foo
* bar
* apple

how could I tell the computer to find everything between the bullet (space) and the line break and put it into a format like

* This sentence is new: foo.
* This sentence is new: bar.
* This sentence is new: apple.

Cheers. --MZMcBride 18:46, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I would use sed, as in: sed 's/\(^\*\)/\1 This sentence is new;/' yourfile.txt -- Kainaw^(what?) 19:07, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

More simply: sed 's/^\* /&This sentence is new: /' yourfile.txt --Anon, August 17, 04:08 (UTC).

Note, too, that sed does not edit a file in-place; it operates on a stream (which is what the s in its name stands for). If you do want to edit a file in-place, you can use a two-step procedure:

sed 's/^\* /&This sentence is new: /' yourfile.txt > tmpfile.txt

mv tmpfile.txt yourfile.txt

Make sure you do not try the "more obvious" simplification:

sed 's/^\* /&This sentence is new: /' yourfile.txt > yourfile.txt

If you have a bunch of different files you want to do the same find/replace on, there are various ways you could automate the sed-to-tmpfile-and-mv-back idiom. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Are there any online or downloadable tools that make a find/replace like this simpler? --MZMcBride 20:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by simpler. Sed is downloadable and the above is simple - it just looks weird. If you mean you want something that is more readily understandable then use some form of basic.

open "file" for input as #1
open "result" for output as #2
do until eof(1)
  line input a$
  if left$(a$,2)="* " then
    print#2, "* This sentence is new: ";mid$(a$,3)
  else
    print#2, a$
  endif
loop
close

But this is actually a lot less simple that the sed script. -- SGBailey 21:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a program with a GUI that's able to perform this kind of find/replace function (with or without using sed). Something that would be simpler to use (for a regular user). --MZMcBride 21:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You can find "* " and replace with "* This sentence is new: " in just about any word processor. The difference being it will also replace "* " that are not at the beginning of a line, unlike the other suggestions above. iames 21:46, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I know, but that only works for this specific (simplified) example. --MZMcBride 21:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

What other sorts of (maybe not so simplified) examples were you thinking of?

Strictly speaking, there are two separate questions here:

Is there a nice user-friendly GUI for the find/replace function, or do you have to use a CLI?

Does the find/replace function support fixed strings only, or also regular expressions?

However, it often seems that these two questions are linked; it's often assumed that the user who wants the simplicity of a GUI has no need for (and would be put off by the apparent complexity of) a regexp option. So finding a non-gearhead tool that does support regexps is somewhat unusual. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

OpenOffice comes with a word processor that allows regular expressions. I'd have to look at it to remember if it provides a little more help for "regular" users. iames 21:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

If you want such functionality on Wikipedia, you may wish to install the Replace user script (or possibly wikEd). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I was hoping someone had created a nifty and handy online tool that wouldn't require actual code writing. A bit like using this tool instead of a UNIX command like sort. I may just be out of luck. --MZMcBride 22:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting site. What sorts of options might a similar find-and-replace web tool have? What would it do that the ordinary find/replace tool in any text editor or word processor couldn't do? See below. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC) [edited 16:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)]

Vim has versions available for most platforms. Just go to command mode and enter and enter Kainaw's regexp preceded by a % (percent sign means execute the following command on every line) -- Diletante 00:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Just for fun, I threw together a proof-of-concept of a web-based sed. See http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/cgi-bin/sed.cgi. (Note: I'll be taking it back down in a week or so, as it's not production-quality code, and probably isn't even adequately secure.) —Steve Summit (talk) 16:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Firewall again

well i asked a question a while back about a FortiGate F60 firewall and i wanted to know how to do load balancing and fail safe type things with the 2 wan ports it has

i am working with windows 2000/server 2003 which are the 2 computers that are basically directly connected to it or can be i have been looking for 3rd party software to do this..but i have no domain server nor central server (the servers we have are used for other purposes) our schematic is 2 LANS-->SWITCHES-->FIREWALL-->INTERNET i want to use the 2 WAN ports not to make it faster, but to asign per say, 1 LAN to 1 WAN and 1 LAN to the other WAN...

any way to do this with the firewall itself and not using a server.?

THx in advance

Roger @ IntraRed 19:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Fluctuating router

I own a PS3, and sometimes, when I am bored, I just scan the wireless environment around me to see if any new networks have been put up. Each time, the PS3 detects our family's router, and each time the PS3 puts a different strength for our signal. It has, on occasion, been as low as 47%, or all the way up to 100%, even though it is normally around 74% (steel floors...). Before you make all your comments about doors and such, there is only one door between the PS3 and the router, and it is always open. Why would there be such a huge fluctuation even though neither the router nor the PS3 have been moved, and no new obstructions (or thunderstorms) have been put in the way?69.205.180.123 21:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
EDIT Maybe I should move this to the science desk? 69.205.180.123 21:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Computing is right. This site gives a few more reasons for a varying quality of signal, including interference from another radio-frequency source. iames 21:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Mozilla Thunderbird

When I print an email from Thunderbird, I get vast quantities of header dross. What do I have to do to make it only print Subject, From, To, Cc, Date and the message? I have asked this on Thunderbird's suppport forum and never gotten a useful reply. Several replies said "It prints what you see on the screen, collapse the data on the screen" - but this isn't the case. I get the dross no matter what I display. -- SGBailey 21:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I downloaded Thunderbird 2 (The green one that holds the pods?) and that appears to have fiuxed it. -- SGBailey 11:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Free video streaming from input

Is there any free software for the mac that will take video input from a camera, and stream it live over a network? Preferably open source.

What you're looking for is VLC Player, http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

I can not help you about using it on a Mac but I know it should do the job.

--PhoenixQc 13:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

VLC for mac can't use live video from a camera though...

Vista and takeown

Infurated at vista for not letting me replace a mysteriously-changed ntoskrnl.exe with a backup, I just ran

takeown /F c:\ /R

It got caught in a loop around Application Data since c:\documents and settings\*\application data\application data\application data\application data ... ad infinitum all redirect to the real application data directory. I'm worried that since I let this run for quite awhile, I have a gigabyte sized permissions file somewhere filled with useless information. So how does NTFS work- is the metadata stored right in the file (which would be good for my case since it's just chowning the same folder over and over) or is there a list somewhere? And is it a bad idea to 'takeown' the entire filesystem? Only system level code has access to protected files, but the only difference is that now I can give myself access whereas before it was impossible to even change the permissions. --froth^t 23:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

August 17

Dual monitors and fullscreen games

When I play a full screen game on one monitor and have, say, an MSN conversation or a browser window on the other, I can read the conversation or text on the browser fine. However, upon switching to inputting (clicking the window on the other monitor), Windows switches to that window as active and minimizes the game on the other monitor (even though I have both monitors configured in Windows). Does anyone know of a utility or something that can overcome this stupid, stupid UI flaw? -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 02:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I have exactly the same problem, never found a way around it. I think the problem is that the game is still tecnically "full screen" even though you can see what's on the other monitor, it's as if the other monitor is letting you peek behind the game, but as soon as you change focus from the game to any other application, the game says "well I don't have full screen anymore, so off to minimize I go." Vespine 04:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, what's even odder is that when I use a command line switch for Rise of Nations to play it windowed, it STILL minimizes it. Windows' focus system is sort of messed up as far as dual monitors go, I guess. I just want to use my dual monitors for what I intended them to do - be able to talk in another window between Counter-Strike rounds or something without using stuff like Xfire. :/ -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 05:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I find it very hard to believe that there isn't a fix for this. Hmmm Capuchin 08:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Dual monitors + full screen apps = hell, I don't care what your OS is. This is why I intend to buy a Big Ass Monitor^TM for any gaming computer, or use something like synergy --Lucid 08:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but I got both of these for about $150 each, and they're 19" with a 5 or so ms refresh rate. Can you get a 40" LCD with a under 5ms refresh rate for $300? ;) In addition, a big monitor wouldn't help you much anyway, because you'd still have to worry about running everything in windowed mode at weird resolutions. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 09:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

40 inch monitor is more than four times the size of your 19 inch monitors... --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Uh, the side panels take up about an inch on either side at the most. I have about 17" total screen real estate x 2 = 34" then. Price challenge still on. Unless you're talking about the extra space vertically which is thrown off by the fact they're wide screen anyway. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 01:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The area of a rectangle is proportional to the square of the diagonal so if you have two screens with same aspect ratio, the one that has 2x diagonal length will be four times as big as the one with x as the diagonal length. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Question and issues concerning software/hardware firewalls

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have recently installed Zone Alarm Pro (version 7.0.362.000) along with PeerGuardian (version 2.0 Beta 6C) on my computer. Considering my network was already and currently still is protected by the hardware Firewall of my U.S Robotics router (model USR8054 802.11g wireless turbo with 1.67 firmware), have the previously mentioned applications actually strengthened the security of my computer or I should consider proceeding to uninstall them ?

Furthermore, I don't know which application is at fault, but I have experienced the following slowdowns since the installations (I am quite sure that my router is not at fault, it had already been previously configured and I had no issues with it for years): 1) MSN file transfer protocol is presently faster than the rise of democracy in North Korea. 2) The µTorrent no incoming connection triangle o' doom appears in the aforementioned program's tray - files are still downloaded but the speed seems at first sight limited (false positive?).

I made an half-arsed (I hope it's no too confusing) collage with the steps I undertook to unsuccessfuly remove the no incoming connection triangle o' doom warning.

Sincerely,
Thanks in advance considering I expect the Wikipedia help desks to be as useful than always,
Matt714 06:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

First question - nay. I think you'll see that if you open up ZA Pro, it will say something on the order of five or six intrusions stopped, and those intrusions are usually just programs trying to call home. I've ran my computer with no AV software and no firewall except for the router's for at least two years now (on a open network, no less! I like to surf dangerously) vwithout a single "hack attempt", virus, spyware, etc. Running no firewall is a quick recipe for disaster but being behind the router's should suffice. Uninstall your ZA.

I have had both of your other problems before as well. MSN file transfers are always slow. I have heard MSN throttles large file downloads over Messenger - I would not send anything important and large over it simply because if someone signs off you're screwed anyway. Instead of MSN, why not use a file host like MegaUpload or Yousendit? It's probably not your problem, it's Microsoft's.

Now uTorrent. First, shut off/uninstall your ZA to make sure it isn't that. Second, go to preferences -> network (or connection or whatever it is with the port) and make sure the port there is the one you opened in your router. Also, make sure the 'randomize port' checkbox isn't checked. Restart and try again, post results here. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 09:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Web accelerators

At home I have a slow internet connection, and I was wondering: if i download multiple download accelerators onto my computer, will they all have a cumulative effect on each other? So will downloading 4 accelerators increase my download speeds by 2^4 times? I've tried this on my computer but it doesn't seem to be making much difference after the first one, can somebody please explain this to me? Thanks

"So will downloading 4 accelerators increase my download speeds by 2^4 times?" No. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 10:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No, your best bet for better performance is a better Internet connection, and if that's not the issue, perhaps an AV/spyware checkup? Splintercellguy 12:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

With internet speed, you get what you pay for. It's all about bandwidth. No "accelerator" can squeeze more speed out of your line if you are downloading compressed files. Accelerators can help if you do a lot of web browsing for example, but only one will help. You cannot get an accumulative or, heavens forbid, an exponential benefit with accelerators! Sandman30s 13:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The first constraint is the speed of your line. For example if you're on a 56K modem then you'd be lucky to get more than say 6KBps download speed. No matter how many accelerators you use, or no matter the quality of the connection between your computer and the webserver you connect to, you won't be able to exceed that speed. The same is true for much faster connections like cable or ADSL. So consider that your upper limit. Download accelerators won't have a cumulative effect, especially considering that each download accelerator manages its own downloads, and has no way of knowing what the other download accelerators are thinking. You should consider a faster connection. Another hint for you is to use google's cache of websites and webpages sometimes for faster loading (when you search on google click the 'cached' button next to a search result (if it appears) and that will load a copy of the page that google has in its memory, usually on your country's server. Rfwoolf 15:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

A "web accelerator", if it works at all, is probably a lot like a file compressor. And no compressor/accelerator can improve everydata stream/file, just some of them. Among the ones that won't ever be improved are those that have already been compressed/accelerated/whatever.

If it were possible to accelerate an already-accelerated web connection, or compress an already-compressed file, then it would be possible to apply arbitrarily many compressors or accelerators in succession to achieve arbitrarily (infinitely!) great compression or aceleration. But that's clearly impossible (except in the eyes of "snake oil" compression vendors). --Steve Summit (talk) 17:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

CD Drive exploaded with cd spin

Recently I was using my friends PC to burn one CD using his samsung CD-RW drive.Using nero I burned some mp3 files, but unexpectedly it happened that the disk inside the drive was broken into several pieces with loud sound after some 10 to 15 seconds since it started burning disks...Didn't expect in my dreams..The drive never ejected...We replaced it though....I guess this isn't any software problem, but it couldbe some exceedings in physical limits while spin up\down..The drive was a new one purchased less than a month... What could've gone wrong?..Any idea?..Thanks

Look for reruns of Myth Busters. They covered this specific topic: CDs breaking at high spin speeds. The conclusion was that a wobbling CD could hit something inside the drive and break up. -- Kainaw^(what?) 12:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This happens occasionally with weak/damaged CDs (the easiest way to weaken them is probably to leave them in sunlight or heat, such as inside of a car) at high speeds (40x+ usually), It's not exactly common, but it's not unheard of. They just don't have the structural ability to cope with the stresses from spinning that fast, the above mentioned wobbling. It's just something that happens, just take care of your disks and hope for the best --Lucid 12:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Expanding on what L said, the centrifugal force imposed on CDs by high-speed CD-ROM drives is near the theoretical breaking strain of the discs. As a result, discs with minor pre-existing damage will often fail explosively when run at high speeds.

Atlant 12:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no centrifugal force. :p --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I didnt believe the above until I found this: [3]--SpectrumAnalyser 02:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

MSN Messenger

Is it possible to pause the webcam when I lock messenger using MSN PLUS!? Thanks

In short, no. JoshHolloway 16:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Password protecting VLC http interface

How can I password protect the VLC http interface?

I'm not sure if you can, though I suppose if you're planning to access it over the Internet have the HTTP interface listen on loopback and SSH in to connect? Splintercellguy 00:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice. Thank you, great solution.

Yeah that was a really good idea, props to splinter --froth^t 04:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

looking for a blank, dual-layer, double sided DVD

do these even exist? I know they sell single sided, but I can't find a double sided for sale.

As best I can tell, there is not such thing (yet). DVD-18 has been used for some commercial releases, but it looks like for blank media, you can have either dual-layer or double-sided, but not both. This article seems to support that theory. I also checked at a couple of manufacturer's sites, and found no trace of such media. --LarryMac | Talk 20:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Recursively compare files in two directories on Linux

I'm sure someone has done this before (or it's in a system utility I don't know). I want to be able to compare two directories, a and b, which, in theory should be identical to find any differing files between the two of them. Any pointers on this? I'm not simply looking to see what files are in directory a and not in b (or vice versa), but also files which might be in both, but have differing contents. Donald Hosek 18:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Use diff with the -r option to recursively compare directories. -- Kainaw^(what?) 18:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

and -q to show only whether the files differ, rather than the differences themselves (which may be voluminous). —Tamfang 18:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

A far quicker comparison might be on the sizes and possibly creation and lastmod dates, if those are supposed to match. Of course, some very suble diffs, like a single bit error, might escape this quick check. StuRat 21:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

That's only "far quicker" if there's a standard or readily-available program for doing it, but there's not! Also, as you noted, it's only reliable in the case where it disproves your hypothesis that the directories were identical.

In practice, most of the time, plain old diff is quite adequately efficient. —Steve Summit (talk) 21:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Launch external process with ruby on windows

Windows script host has a function something like this:

   ShellRunWait("calc.exe");   //  run external app
   WScript.Echo("all done");   //  indicate we are done

The example above will run calc.exe, wait for the user to close the app, and then continue on with the rest of the script.

The next example does the same thing, except it doesn't wait for the user to close the external app.

   ShellRun("calc.exe");        // run external app
   WScript.Echo("app started"); // execute this immediately after running the app

Question: what is the Ruby (programming language) equivalent to the "ShellRun" command? It seems I cannot use system, because that operates the same way as "ShellRunWait". NoClutter 18:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, but do you need to fork and exec?

Kernel::system("calc.exe") returning true or false for success or failure. The Kernel:: part is not needed because the Kernel module is in use everywhere, so system("calc.exe") works just as well. Documentation here. --h2g2bob (talk) 04:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Game Networking Shop

Sunnypabla 18:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)Hi, I'm new to wikipedia its helped me a lot.Could U b kind enough to let me know the basics of how to start , setup a game networking shop or where could i get this information from??, any links or advice would be highly appreciated. Thanks. Sunnypabla 18:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

help with recommending an improvement to the wikipedia front page

Hi - I was wondering how to contact your technical people?

I would like to suggest an enhancment to the front page

- namely the focus of the "search" box - so that we can all start

typing straight away?

Hi, welcome to Wikipedia. There's a sort-of-relevant discussion on this over at the MediaWiki bugzilla here. Apparently the search box doesn't get focus when the page is loaded as this would remove the ability to scroll with the up/down arrow keys (at least until the user removes focus from the textbox). If you don't need that functionality, giving the search box focus might be possible with a Greasemonkey script if you're using Firefox (or user script if you're on Opera). — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 19:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

More relevant discussions are here and here, which offer more potential solutions. Algebraist 00:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

http://www.wikipedia.org/ has the search box ready focused. Or you can add Wikipedia to your web browser's search box, if it has one. --h2g2bob (talk) 04:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Need a program to take a bunch of jpegs into a movie

I've been taking captures of a webcam once per day for a year or so, and I'd like to combine all these into a movie in avi or flash format. What would be the easiest way to merge them all into a video file? Corpx 19:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I've used this shareware before, pretty simple, not fancy. designed for GIF, but I think it takes jpeg too

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,3499-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

If you have mplayer you can run a command like mencoder mf://*JPG -fps 15 -ovc lavc -o file.avi -- Diletante 19:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Security on an open wireless network

I just started at an university which has a campus-wide wireless network - but one which has no security and is intentionally kept open for all users. What's the best/most practical way of securing my internet use while using this network? Are there any encyrption programs etc? (I'll have a Mac laptop, if that's of any relevance). >Thanks very much!!

VPN? Use HTTPS if it's available? --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec)You may want to ask your university's help desk, to see what they provide. The problem with "securing your internet" is that it can't just be one-sided. If you hit a website which uses https, your connection to that webserver is encrypted, even though your physical network connection is not. Similarly, if your school provides VPN, this could secure your connection to the other end of the tunnel. Your question is a bit vague, so depending on what exactly you're trying to do, there may be other answers also. Friday (talk) 23:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There are a bunch of answers, depending on what you're using the internet to do.

Me, just about everything I do that needs to be secure, I do over ssh connections. I'd be using ssh anyway, because I don't trust the open (wired) Internet, either. Since I always use ssh anyway, I can use unsecured wireless access points with impunity. For some things, and as User:Antilived mentioned, I use VPN, and again, this is just as good (and appropriate) for wired and wireless networks.

There are some other things you might worry about:

1. reading your email
2. browsing the web
3. logging in to websites where you have accounts (such as Wikipedia)
4. any other net services that involve private information such as passwords

For #1, your security depends on which of several protocols your mail software uses to connect with your mail server. Some of them have their own security built in, but if not, you'd be better off using VPN software (if applicable) to secure that channel. If you read your email via a web form, see #3.

For #2, the only concern is that snoopers might see which websites you've been visiting, which google queries you've been submitting, etc. If you're not worried about that, then, well, you don't have to worry about it.

For #3, if the website account you're logging into is at all sensitive, find out if you can use https. (Me, I don't tend to worry about this -- for example, I log in to Wikipedia over all sorts of open and unsecure networks, without using https -- but this is likely to be more of a concern in the future.)

For other net services, the issues are similar. If you don't want people seeing what you're doing, either make sure the service you're using has its own encryption, or use it only via a VPN, or else don't use it on unsecured networks. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest tunneling all your Internet connections through SSH. SSH dynamic port forwarding can tunnel any application that can use SOCKS. --Spoon! 01:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Could you use Tor? I think that makes all HTTP to HTTPS. Also, see if your email supports encryption. See man in the middle attack for information on this type of problem. --h2g2bob (talk) 03:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yep, tor uses SSL --froth^t 04:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Web logins are pretty much secure (NOT ftp, telnet, irc) since they're sent over SSL but once you're logged in your session cookies can be intercepted and they can log in to your account and possibly change your password. This is the best way to handle it IMO:

• Set up an external server with a line to the ISP (for example at home) and get a good service plan.
• My campus's draconian net admins have 'blocked' the pertinent documentation but I believe you can use stunnel on top of privoxy. Install privoxy and stunnel on your home server, and have stunnel listen on port "X" and forward to port "Y". Have privoxy listen on port "Y". Set up the privoxy configuration to just forward all requests to your ISP.. this is a very easy 1-line configuration.
• If you don't have a static IP address, get dyndns.
• Set up your browser to use homeIPorDYNDNS:X as a proxy server. .. for example 123.123.123.123:4567

It'll slow down your browsing considerably but unless you want to use HTTPS on every single website (and not a lot of them offer it) VPN is the only way.. --froth^t 04:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, I thought HTTPS was used for connections from client to the Tor relays? Once it leaves the network its still plaintext. Splintercellguy 06:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The concern is that it'll be intercepted by someone else on the open wireless network.. once it leaves tor it's wayy away --froth^t 07:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for all the answers... um, is there an dummy's step by step guide to these solutions?

August 18

windows action on highlight

Is it possible to have something done when text is highlighted, system-wide (not just in a web browser or word processor but anytime on the windows system a piece of text is highlighted) ie without further user input (such as right-clicking on the highlighted text).

Thank you!

84.0.126.202 00:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Short answer: sure. It's just a function of the window manager (it's doing the highlighting/selecting). So: if the wm doesn't do what you want, just modify it. [4] [5] [6] <ahem> Heheheh.</ahem> Saintrain 21:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

writing to a wiki, best practices

Hi:

Is there such a thing as "Best Practices" for writing to a wiki?

Thanks.

72.19.150.123 00:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so articles should generally be about encyclopedic stuff and in an encyclopedic tone. See Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. --h2g2bob (talk) 03:51, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

While Wikipedia is a wiki, wiki is not Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.49.213.95 (talk • contribs)

True, there would be different answers for PenguinWiki and Conservapedia than here. Each wiki site has it's own house rules. See wiki for differences between wiki and Wikipedia --h2g2bob (talk) 14:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Dynamic Scoreboard/Table

I'm wondering what is the best way to make a scoreboard with data that can be changed dynamically with an external file. I have done a bit of research and have found out that I could use the DataGrid component in , but I am having trouble figuring out the best way I could use it (or something else) to display that data.

The data would probably be inputted to Excel and will have a set number of columns and rows. At this stage I think saving as a CSV file would work the best, however I am having trouble displaying it on flash properly. There will probably be around 100 rows for all the different teams and the columns would be team number, name, rank and score.

I would be really grateful if anyone has any ideas. I have a moderate knowledge of Flash. Another idea I had was to use a database and make a frontend but I don't know any good resources that would should me how. I am using Adobe Flash CS3.

Thanks! Ronaldh 02:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

handicaps

If you don't have two functional hands (or long-enough fingers), how do you get Ctrl Alt Del or, for that matter, any shifted character (other than capital letters)? Presumably there have been numerous solutions over the decades. —Tamfang 03:11, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

In Windows, there's a utility called StickyKeys. Press the shift key five times, and then click "OK". It will allow you to hold down control, alt, shift, or the Windows key, without actually holding them down. I think the feature at least dates back to Windows 95 through XP (not sure about Vista, but I don't see why it wouldn't be there). –Pakman044 03:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's called Sticky Keys, and it's included in Windows. Hit Shift five times in a row fast. You can then hit shift, the windows logo, ctrl, and alt one at a time, or shift and then a letter to get the capital. (Pakman: It is in Vista) --(Review Me) R ^ParlateContribs_@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 03:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

There are also one handed keyboards in existence, although I'm not sure if they take that into the design. if nothing else, get paperweights! --Lucid 04:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Is opera mini legal?

Opera Mini I think reduces the size of images, cuts ads, cuts graphics etc etc of web pages designed by website owners. Is it legal to do that. How is it legal? How is this possible? How is this story going on?

Why is it illegal? Does it break any law? --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's legal. There's no law saying that you have to view the entire website, including any ads, in order to look at it, in the same way that you're perfectly welcome to get up and make a sandwich when broadcast TV has a commercial break. We aren't that controlled by advertising. Yet. --Lucid 12:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Web-overlords W3C strongly encourages sites not to make any assumptions about web browsers (that is, sites should be accessible without graphics, through a screen reader, without javascript and on monochrome screens). So stripping pretty much anything from the site is ok. I don't see this as an issue, but a similar story is on Slashdot today, talking about ad-blockers. --h2g2bob (talk) 14:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The questioner probably asked because Opera Mini does not directly download webpages. Opera Mini depends on a proxy server. The proxy server alters the pages then retransmits them to your portable device. The origianal questioner was probably asking about how copyright laws effect proxy servers that modify content. APL 19:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

(From the original asker of the question) I think that Opera is making a business by stripping ads. Let us take example of another issue. Most websites allow us to copy their photos and use them for private use. But we must not commercialize that. Why cant we apply that here. End users like me can strip out ads but if some company is doing that as their business, why cant that be considered illegal. I think another issue here is that most websites would like opera to serve their web pages because they get page views, and then get mindshare. And also want to know whether it is legal for proxy servers (not end user) to modify content. Imagine, if my cable operator cuts ads and transmitts programs of broadcaster. Will that be accepted? Tivo is accepted because end user is stripping ads. Cable operator is a middleman like opera here.

The cable operator has a contract with the channels it carries and must abide by certain agreements. Web browser companies have no such constraints. Web content providers put their stuff "out there" and must live with the consequences. --Nricardo 07:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's probably legal now, but it may not be so forever. An important case is where Titanic director Jim Cameron sued a company that made "family friendly" versions of the movie. Customers would buy a legal copy of Titanic, would mail the tape to the company, who would record over it an edited version (which had a nude scene and a sex scene removed). Although Cameron wasn't losing any money, he felt that the edit version infringed on his rights under copyright law to control the reproduction of the copyrighted work. He prevailed, with the court unholding his claim that, as copyright holder, he could decide the form in which his creative work was distributed, and could prevent distributions in a form which he didn't approve. This ruling reaffirmed some older copyright cases (where authors or journalists sued publishers for making unauthorised changes to their work). But how does that affect ad-removal/ad-skip technologies? - right now it doesn't. That copyright only applies to a coherent, creative work, something Cameron created when he was filming and editing Titanic, which is a single unitary work. Compare that with the way ads are added to Superbowl TV coverage, or to a web page. Those ads aren't part of that creative whole (they could just as easily be swapped for other ads and the work wouldn't really be affected). So the act of putting ads into a webpage isn't (generally) a creative act (mostly it's done automatically by a computer program that has little or no idea about the context, and clearly isn't capable of creativity). So that means, right now, the page-with-ads or program-with-ads isn't a coherent whole, and isn't itself a copyrighted work (it consists of copyrighted works, but simply composing them didn't make a copyrightable work). So, right now, it's probably legal for adblock programs to redact ads from websites, and for PVRs to skip ads. But copyright owners, fearful of such ad-skip technologies, as pushing for changes to copyright laws in some jurisdictions - changes that would make that mechanically-aggregated work a single copyrighted object. If they succeed then the protections that Cameron used would apply to them too, and copies of the whole work with the ads removed without their permission would be illegal. And, per the DMCA and its equivalents in other countries, technologies which enabled that could become illegal too. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I say "probably legal now", but it might not be as clear as that. There have been suits regarding unauthorised ad-substitution (where a web program running on the end-user's machine would substitute one ad for another). Gator was sued by large media companies for doing this; they claimed the whole page was copyright and that Gator's substitutions produced infringing works. Unfortunately the case settled out of court (ref) so no jurisprudence was established (and the settlement is sealed, so we don't really know how strong the lawyers of the various parties really think the case is under current law). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Not to politick but... (which of course means I'm about to politick :P) I'm sure this will be illegal in the near future. Legislation has been passed starting about a decade ago breaching the digital realm, deciding what you can and can't do on your own computer. The DMCA (the best legislation money can buy for the media lobby groups) is one of the worst- forbidding any kind of breach of any sort of cryptographic mechanism controlling access to copyrighted works, even if the mechanism exists in your own private computer's memory. You can no longer flip the bits you want within a computer, and now the door is open for advertisers to sue adblock.. they must lose millions of real $$$ from adblock, and with the way this country's going lately, I wouldn't be surprised if a case was held today and it became illegal to use/distribute adblock --froth^t 17:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

USB flash drive in linux

When copying files to a USB flash drive in linux (specifically slackware), how do you insure that the files have actually been written to the disk at that moment in time, rather than being stored in RAM before unmounting the drive? Think outside the box 14:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Well when you unmount it all the stuff will be written to disk. --Spoon! 16:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

But of course if you yank it out without unmounting it, it might not be.

You can type sync to force disks to be written without unmounting them. (I think sync still works in Linux, tho I'm not quite 100% sure...) —Steve Summit (talk) 17:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

graphics cards

Is there a 'human limit' on the power of graphics cards above which it becomes pointless to further improve the performance (ie taking into account diminishing returns and the limits of what people can actually perceive on a screen)?

If so do how near to that limit are we?

I'm thinking in terms of a point at which further developement on improving performance stops because there is no market for more powerful cards..87.102.92.28 14:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Even if we reach the point where no further improvement can be perceived, it's likely that some market will still exist, just because higher-than-average specs bring bragging rights (and an implicit claim to being able to tell the difference). NeonMerlin 18:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

There is also the issue of the limitations of the monitor. It doesn't much matter if you can provide 1000 frames per second to the monitor, if it can only display 100 frames per second. Personally, I can see "flicker" in an all-white screen at 60 frames per second, so I would say the human limit is a bit above that. As for color depth, 24 bits seems the same as 32 bits, to me, so I suspect we've hit the limit there. For number of pixels, 1600×1200 is the highest res I'd want on a 19 inch screen (or 1920×1080 for a wide-screen monitor). If I can get a large screen monitor, though, I'd love to have higher resolutions available on those. For example, if I could double the monitor's diagonal size (and thus quadruple it's area, to 38 inches, I'd like to have a 3200x2400 pixel standard or 3840x2160 pixel widescreen display). StuRat 21:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

24 bits and 32 bits have exactly the same amount of bits (8) to each colour, just that in 32 bits an 8 bit alpha channel is added. Some things, such as ray-tracing which are used in some major feature films to produce photo-realistic renders, is extremely computing intensive, and with new effects such as sub-surface scattering that will put even more load onto a future graphics card. Then if you want 3D vision (stereo rendering), you need twice that, and then anti-aliasing will increase it even more. In short, we are no where near the hypothetical perception limit in humans, we aren't that simple minded. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Amarok scoring

In Amarok, is it possible to have all scores decay exponentially each night so that songs that haven't been played recently will have lower scores? Also, is it possible to adjust the scores when updated play counts are loaded off an iPod? NeonMerlin 14:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Transparent Overlay

I've been designing a web page for a client, and she's worried about people right-clicking and downloading her images. I can stop them right-clicking, but as my client's on a mac she's painfully aware of the limitations of that particular approach. A friend of mine mentioned I could position a transparent gif over the image so they'd only download a useless gif - how do I position this to be on top of the image I want? Do I need to use CSS with that, and if so, what's the tag look like? I'm used to basic HTML, Javascript, Java, and Perl, but somehow I never picked up much about CSS (and I've yet to need it, it's amazing how few features people need these days). Kuronue 19:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

You should encourage your client to not worry about that so much. Any scheme you come up with will be easily defeatable at best, and screw up the delivery of the content to the end-user at worst. What is the consequence of people downloading her images to their desktops? Who cares? Why worry about it? All you are going to do is irritate genuine visitors, and anyone who wants the image will quickly be able to view the source and grab it that way, or just take a screenshot (both of which can defeat the Amazon.com/Google Books attempts, which were created by people who were REALLY trying to subvert just such an attempt. If they can't make something modestly fool proof, I doubt anyoe can.) Downloading the image should not be something to fear — if it is, don't put the image up. If you are worried about subsequent re-use of the image, put up some nasty copyright notices and then issue DMCA take down requests everytime one pops up that you don't want. This isn't something that has a technical solution, and you are doing your client a disservice if you do not explain that to her. --24.147.86.187 19:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

If you client insists on this anyway, and you feel like billing them for useless work, here's how I would do it:

<div id="container">

<img src="dontstealme.jpg"/>

</div>

Then in the stylesheet, fill the #container with a single-pixel transparent .gif as its image, have it tile it across the container. That probably will work though I haven't tested it (it might just fill the background of the div). Again, I doubt that would deter anyone from getting the image. --24.147.86.187 19:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

That will not work, since the img element is above the div and therefore it will show up above the div. You can, however, do the reverse, setting the real image as the background of the div and a transparent img on top of that div, but that's really cumbersome for you and quite useless on anyone with more than moderate computer knowledge. There is no way of actually protecting the images that's fool proof, for your methods I could just save the page and all the graphics will end up in a folder next to the html file. --antilived^{T | C | G} 02:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this won't keep anyone from stealing the image. They can always just use Print Screen (on a Windows PC) and then paste it into Microsoft Paint. Some methods that others have used to display an image, and yet protect it, are as follows:

1) Provide a low res image on the web site for free, and make people send you money before you let them see the full res image. They could still steal it then and give it away to others for free (illegally), but at least you will have gotten some money out of them first.

2) Add an annoying "watermark" across the image, with the name of your web site, for example, and only show them the good image once they have paid for it. The same comment applies to them stealing the image after they pay to see it.

3) Only show them a part of the image at once. There are programs that will let people stitch them together into one big image, but that's a lot of work and most people won't go through that trouble. StuRat 20:52, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Also — if you restrict my ability to right-click, or anything else that has to do with my browsing, I'm going to be pissed off, as an end user. Maybe I want to view the layout source and don't give a damn about the images? Maybe it is how I am used to reloadin a page? Maybe I am viewing the page in a way that doesn't normally have forward and back buttons and I need to scroll in this way? Etc. etc. I would heavily advise against restricting user input or anything like that if you want to have good relations with your client base — all it does is throw up barriers that impede people who might actually be interested in the page, and have a high chance of going wrong (incompatibilities with old browsers, possibility that your javascript will crash the browser, etc.). --24.147.86.187 22:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

If the enduser has access to the HTML source, they can simply download the image by snipping out the image URL and manually entering that in the browser, as well.

It's not always quite that simple. Some sites check the HTTP-Referer and only serve up images if they appear to be on behalf of the page they're supposed to be part of. In that case, you need a way to fake the referer. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not that more difficult to fake the referer, though; create your own HTTP request with a faked referer and then capture the output. It is, however, more difficult than manually downloading the image.

Referer checking doesn't do anything to prevent people from downloading the image from the web page itself. --antilived^{T | C | G} 02:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The only reasonably effective scheme I've seen used to prevent someone from saving off a copy of an image is one employed by a sports event photography company (one of those things where you ran in a mass event and afterward typed your bib number into a website; they found all the images that contained you, showed you them, and offered to sell you paper prints). They mandated that you download a (windows only) plugin. The plugin downloaded the images in an encrypted format (breaking sniffing and saving-proxy attacks) and it displayed them using a DirectX surface (breaking the print-screen attack). Short of someone taking a lot of effort to reverse engineer the plugin there wasn't a way to save the images. But in the process they'd alienated a great proportion of their customer base - only Windows users could access the photos, and many (most now, I'd hazard) will just refuse to download and install a plugin for this one purpose (or couldn't, because it was a work machine or they lacked the technical confidence to do so). So while they'd succeeded in their goal of not having their images copied, in the process they'd taken their business model out behind the chemical sheds and shot it. The more effective a DRM scheme is, the more inflexible it becomes, and the more the customer feels like you're treating him like a dirtbag. For these cases I always say to people "upload the image at only a modest quality and size, say 640x480 (which will give a representative view of what the final product is like without giving away the farm) and sell your multimegapixel images from that". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, guys. I've told her multiple times that there's no real way to get around image-stealing, and suggested that she watermark her images instead (low-res and pieces of images don't work because this is her online portfolio she uses to attract customers to her photography business, so she needs it to look good), but if the client wants an almost-useless overlay image, then that's what the client gets, as I bill by the hour and am more than happy to spend extra time and thus get extra $$, and on the plus side that'd let me remove the annoying anti-right-click script which never really worked that well anyway (anyone on a mac, or using firefox, can still manage to snag the images, but in firefox you get an annoying popup that still doesn't actually disable anything, but she surprised me by emailing me the script and requesting it be put up, so I did). Kuronue | Talk 15:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What is the ruby syntax construct with a colon and square brackets

Take a look at the following Ruby code:

       rhash               = {"color"  =>  "red"}
       rhash[:color]       = 'blue'    ### <- what is being assigned to here?
       puts rhash["color"]             ### "red"
       puts rhash[:color]              ### "blue"

Where can I look to find the documentation for this syntax and what it's doing? rhash[:color]. I see this notation in ruby sample code, but I can't find the documentation for it. NoClutter 19:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It's called a symbol. Using :a_symbol as a reference is like using "a_quoted_thing". Using symbols is encouraged, as it only stores the text of the symbol in one place and just provides pointers to it; rather than storing the same text string over and over. As you see using :whatever and "whatever" is different. Google for "ruby symbol" for all the salacious details --h2g2bob (talk) 23:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Can't play starcraft

I installed StarCraft on my laptop, which runs on 1280x800 widescreen and has windows vista. I opened starcraft and it said it was 'unable to switch video modes. to correct this problem, please set desktop area to 640x280 and color palette to 256 colors.'

How do I do this? the lowest my monitor goes is 800x600

See if you can run the game in windowed mode instead of full screen. It is usually a rather hidden command-line option. -- Kainaw^(what?) 21:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Windows Vista has this feature, but you could try running it in compatibility mode. To do this in Windows XP (likely the same if Vista has this feature), right click, go to properties, click the "Compatibility" tab, and select your settings. MalwareSmarts 21:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

VMWare question

Hi:

If I run Linux in VMWare on Windows XP. Can I access my Winmodem from Linux as a ordinary /dev/modem serial driver which is mapped to the emulated COM3 port provided by the Winmodem driver running in Windows?

Regards,

74.116.223.48 20:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it should work. (It possibly might map to something else than /dev/modem) -Yyy 10:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Yyy! 74.12.36.60 16:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there a freeware equivelent to Adobe Flash?

Just wondering. Has to be compatible with Windows XP. MalwareSmarts 21:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Nothing that really works yet, no. SVG as a format could someday compete with Flash in some respects, but as of now, it really can't. And personally I doubt it will ever really be able to replace Flash, unless they are going to built up something as comprehensive as Actionscript inside it. And I don't think there are any freeware Flash editors—the closest thing might be OpenLaszlo, which uses it own format but can convert to SWF. --24.147.86.187 21:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Gnash and OSFlash[7] are available as open source SWF players, but often (in my experience with them) fail to work correctly, especially with video. These are reverse engineered: Adobe release the specs for SWF for creating SWF files only (hence OpenOffice.org can create them), but not for reading (which means no players. Adobe release Macromedia Flash Player for Windows, OSX and Linux, which are all good for playing SWF <= 8. See also SWF. For web applications, a mixture of CSS and JavaScript can replicate some functionality, depending on need. Alternatively, make it an executable (there must be some vector graphics libraries out there). --h2g2bob (talk) 22:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I didn't mean a flash player, I mean an animation software similar to Adobe Flash MalwareSmarts 01:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikiwix

hum.. Wikiwix - so what is the relationship? if any? --Fredrick day 22:02, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

ok that is gone, so this might be useful for some context. --Fredrick day 22:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

According to their FAQ page, "(c) Linterweb 2007 - Wikiwix is a search engine that provides a comprehensive search within Wikipedia articles developped by Linterweb. Linterweb is a French company specialized in search engines, and is also the publisher of the Wikipedia 0.5 DVD". So it is a Wikipedia search engine by a company which is working with the Wikimedia Foundation to publish Wikipedia on a DVD. So there is some connection, I guess—Linterweb redirects to the History of Wikipedia article and discusses the deal. Heavens knows Wikipedia could use a better search engine. --24.147.86.187 22:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

What does "www3" means in web address like www3.nationalgeographic.com?

What does "www3" means in web address like www3.nationalgeographic.com?

It probably means they have multiple web servers, either to share the load, or to distribute different parts of their site. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

www3 is a subdomain of nationalgeographic.com. Different subdomains are often (but not always) on different physical computers (web servers). This technique can be used to divide a domain name into parts, such as wikipedia.org into en.wikipedia.org and fr.wikipedia.org. It is often used to reduce load on any one server by placing different parts of a site on different servers. For example, images on Wikipedia are located on the server upload.wikimedia.org, so if the image server crashes or runs slow then the rest of Wikipedia is unaffected.

Your computer matches web addresses with IP addresses - the actual computer's location - by asking special severs what name matches what address. This is the internet's domain name system (DNS).

www.nationalgeographic.com is at IP address 207.24.89.108, while news.nationalgeographic.com is at 207.24.89.110, indicating they are two separate computers. www3.nationalgeographic.com is also located at 207.24.89.110, so is shared with "news". "www3" responds to my HTTP requests with a redirect (HTTP 302 Found) to "www". --h2g2bob (talk) 23:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

August 19

The moment of truth: Windows Vista

After many questions regarding Windows Vista, it's time to install! There are just a few things that I need to go over before installation. Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor pointed out some problems, but I'm not sure how to resolve them. It said I needed a new driver for "Realtek High Definition Audio," but I had trouble getting one from the link provided. The task list also said that before upgrading, I needed to uninstall "DVD-RAM Driver," "Bluetooth Stack for Windows by Toshiba," and "TOSHIBA ConfigFree." For one, these names don't exactly stick out in "Add or Remove Programs" in the Control Panel. Secondly, how am I supposed to uninstall the DVD-RAM Driver before I install Vista? Third, if I do a clean install, then why does it matter to uninstall programs? Won't they just be wiped out by the installation process? Also, a quick re-briefing of what I need to back up...all documents, make sure I've got the programs I need on hand...anything else? And one final thing...my license for Microsoft Office 2007 still has two installations left on it. Is there any way I can reinstall it on my computer after upgrading, while not re-using the license? It seems like an awful waste, a $110 devaluation...thanks for all the help!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 03:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That's the reason why many people hate Windows Vista, such as those guys from BadVista.org. I could have sticked to Linux if only they had more hardware support. Blake Gripling 04:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The upgrade advisor is going to tell you to remove stuff because it is an upgrade advisor. If you wipe everything and install (using a non-upgrade version of Vista), you might be OK, but you might need those drivers to have functionality on your machine. The DVD-RAM driver is OK to temporarily remove as that only deals with the DVD-RAM flavour of DVDs -- Vista is a DVD-ROM. Your Office 2007 license should be fine as you aren't changing machines, you're changing your version of Windows. If the authorization process gives you trouble, Microsoft will gladly help out as you're not contravening the license (afaik).

Interesting...I bought the upgrade version, which means I can still do a clean install, right? And if I temporarily remove the DVD-RAM driver, then how would I re-add it? Where would I find a compatible DVD-RAM driver? This is such a big change that my computer knowledge is scarce to none here. Thanks again.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 16:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Flagging Youtube users

I've been pissed off at those spammers at Youtube, that post comments linking to porn sites. I've flagged several users before, but I lost the URL for reporting unwanted users. Any suggestions? Blake Gripling 03:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

There are links which say "(spam)" next to every comment posted, and a "flag as inappropriate" link next to every video. --h2g2bob (talk) 14:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Accessing Wikipedia

hi, i'm not quite sure where i should post this query, and i thought 'computing' may be a suitable category... basically, i love wikipedia but my school has blocked it for some unfathomable reason, so here is my question: are there any other ways (like other websites) through which i might gain access to wikipedia (the encyclopedia and the reference desk)? n i don't mean hacking the system... thanks in advance!

Mm, you could try a proxy, but keep in mind Wikipedia's policy on blocking editing privileges of open proxies. If you're not planning to edit, any random Internet proxy should do it. Splintercellguy 05:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Cell access is via http://wapedia.mobi. Some web browsers (like Opera) are able to render the WML pages. --Mdwyer 05:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Try getting in contact with the IT admin at your school. I did that a few months ago after Wikipedia was blocked at my school and it turned out it was entirely accidental.Mix Lord 07:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

response time

What's a reasonable response time on an lcd screen for playing counterstrike? what would be the upper limit that good gamers would consider playing with?

If you don't get an answer here, try asking at the PC Gamer podcast [8] --h2g2bob (talk) 14:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

ATRAC3 Plus

Hi. I am planning on converting some of my MP3 files into the ATRAC3 plus format, for use on my PSP. However, whenever I try to do it in SonicStage, it comes up with a message saying that it cannot proceed, as file playback is in progress. However, even when there are no tracks playing and it is the only media app that is open, it still has the same message. Does anyone know of how to fix this problem, or if there is an open source alternative to SonicStage out there? Thanks Mix Lord 07:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

MP3 player won't use USB port

I have a Samsung YP-U1 MP3 player that I used to connect to a USB CardBus host controller on my laptop but now if no longer connects. I formatted the player but it still does not connect. The controller easily handles my other USB-related devices and flash drives but not the MP3 player. What do I do? --Blue387 08:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding Image Overlays Remotely in Google Earth.

I want to make a game that would be displayed on google earth via a downloadable kmz file. I will be collaborating with a friend who knows the C programming language. What we need to be able to do is find a way to make image overlays, and adjust the following properties from a remote program:

1) the actual image being overlayed
2) the manual location of the image (eg: 4°0'0" N 6°0'0" W being a corner)
3) the alpha setting

We surmise that there are two ways to do this:

1) DDE - I guess we dont know if google earth is capable of responding to DDE.
2) Web Updates - It seems other users have been able to creat things like markers that indicate the locations of all airplanes in flight in the united states live.... i dont know how this is done, but thats another option i suppose.

Does anyone have an idea how we should do this or any other methods that may be available? Thank you very much for your time!

172.165.22.98 08:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can do this, and it's actually pretty easy. Instead of an image overlay, you want to add a "Network Link". Basically, a Network Link is just the URL of a server somewhere which Google Earth will query. The server returns some KML (via HTTP, natch), and Google Earth displays it as usual. Google Earth transmits the corner coordinates of the user's current display along with the HTTP request, so the server knows where the user is looking.

I've used this feature to dynamically display placemarks, but as far as I know, there's no reason why a network link couldn't serve up image overlays, too. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Can two or more people register a domain name?

I am wanting to know if two or more people can choose to have a domain name registered in their names, thus they would all have shared legal ownership of it. Currently the only way I suspect it can be done is through creating a shell company that everybody has equal shares in, and then that company registers the domain name. This is far too much legal stuff that I'd want to bother with however, so is possible to simply register the domain name in multiple people's names? Thanks. 202.89.38.70 08:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Could one person own it and offer the other a contract outlining rights and responsibilities? --h2g2bob (talk) 14:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Diablo II crashes when starting game

I don't know what's going on, but lately my Diablo II has been crashing at startup, generating the following error message:

Assertion failure Location : C:\D2\Source\D2Direct3D\Src\d3dTextureCache.cpp, line #82 Expression : tCache->nMaxNumItems

First of all, can someone explain what that "location" even is? I don't have a directory C:\D2, and I've tried searching for the file "d3dTextureCache.cpp" but with no avail. The thing is that it used to work, so I don't know what's going on. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game. And I'm not running a cracked version of the game; even when I download the trial version from the blizzard website, and install it, I still get the exact same error. So I'm assuming that .cpp file, independent of the game, is corrupted or something. How do I fix it? I'm no C++ programmer, so can someone tell me how to fix it? Or is there something else I am missing? Thanks.--Funnyguy555 11:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Never mind: lol. --Funnyguy555 11:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

But I'm still curious: what's with the "location"? --Funnyguy555 11:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

d3dTextureCache.cpp is one of the source files for the game. Once the source files have been compiled to an executable, they're not normally needed, so they're not provided to the customer (except, of course, in open source projects).

An assertion is a debugging tool used by programmers. An assertion records an assumption that has been made, such as that a certain resource is available, or that a certain pointer is non-null, or that some other necessary condition is known to hold. If, somehow, the assumption is false, the assertion is violated, and this is a "can't happen" error. When an assertion is violated, a message (such as you have seen) is printed, and the program shuts down.

In a C or C++ program, an assertion looks like this:

assert(p != NULL);

This is basically just a shortcut for what could have been written as:

if(p == NULL)

{

fprintf(stderr, "Assertion failed\n");

abort();

}

Wise programmers know that "can't happen" errors sometimes do happen. Usually, catching them with an assertion is better than just letting the program continue, because the result of a program trying to continue when its assumptions have been violated like this is usually a segmentation violation and/or a core dump or a general protection fault or a blue screen of death.

As I mentioned, assertions are primarily thought of as debugging tools. It's a matter of some debate whether assertions should be left enabled in the released, production versions of programs. As you've seen, failed assertions can be bewildering to end users, almost as bewildering as GPF's and BSOD's. Theoretically, once a program has been thoroughly tested and debugged, it will in fact be the case that none of its "can't happen" errors can happen. Traditionally, therefore, assertions were usually removed from production versions. However, the more complex a program gets, the more likely it is that it will have obscure bugs which weren't caught during development and are lurking there for an unsuspecting end user to find. Therefore, some developers choose to leave assertions enabled.

One problem with assertions is when programmers mistakenly use them to catch a "can happen" error. Assertions should only be used to catch conditions which represent fixable logical bugs in the program. An assertion should never be used to test whether a certain file or other resource is available, or whether a user has done something wrong, because it's quite possible that those things might happen. Normally, the absence of a critical resource (and, obviously, every mistake the user can make) should be tested for and diagnosed with a proper user-friendly error message, not a cryptic assertion failure. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info =)

By the way it seems to be a hardware issue, something is wrong with my driver. But apparently all other programs run fine. And it works on my other computer, yay =).

Wait but I have a question re your code. Now I'm a Java programmer, but I'm not totally ignorant when it comes to C or C++ code. When you wrote:

In a C or C++ program, an assertion looks like this:

assert(p != NULL);

This is basically just a shortcut for what could have been written as:

if(p == NULL)

{

fprintf(stderr, "Assertion failed\n");

abort();

}

The first part is a method named assert, right? and p is some system resource?--Funnyguy555 14:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

P is just a pointer (in java, a "reference") to something. But really this assertion isn't going to help you fix your problem - assertions are only of use to people who have full access to the source code - they're not intended for the ordinary end user. All we can infer from this one (from the name of the C++ source file in which the assertion triggered) is that it just might have something to do with Direct3D, so making sure your D3D install is correct and the video driver is up to date and working. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Problems with "locked" documents on microsoft word

Ever since I opened this one document on my computer, every single document I try to edit comes up with the message "This modification is not allowed because the document is locked". This happens to every single document! Even when I try to start a new document I can't type anything in it! How do I fix this? --Candy-Panda 11:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You could try uninstalling and reinstalling it, or uninstall it and install OpenOffice. --Seans Potato Business 18:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Bittorrent ?

What's the best way to hide your IP address while using bittorrent to legally download, files that aren't illegal or copyrighted?--172.163.113.245 12:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Not knowing the full details of how these systems work on an IP level, I understand that your IP address is vital to Bittorrent to be able to work its magic by downloading 'bits' from many users, and anybody seeding/downloading will need to be available to other clients via their IP in order for the system to work efficiently. Could well be wrong though! ny156uk 16:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

If other people couldn't see your ip, they couldn't send you data.

Beginner's class for Senior Citizens

I am a member of a Senior Citizens Club and am planning a computers class for rank beginners. My own literacy level is quite low but am willing to try to instruct other seniors on basic computer skills. Is there a course outline somewhere that I could download? Or a Web site that I can develop my own ourline from? Thank you for any help.

It's nice that you're taking some time to help people with their computer skills! I had a look on google and found:

http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/BC/BeginnersComputing.html

http://www.ocdsb.edu.on.ca/teacher_res/pcbasics/defaulta.htm

The second one is very basic but includes handouts (you needn't print them off, if you can get everyone to read it from a computer screen). --Seans Potato Business 16:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Protection afforded by DMZ?

The Demilitarized_zone_(computing) article says that the DMZ would be a dead-end for hackers, but if that was the case, wouldn't all companies properly implement a DMZ and you would never hear of customer details etc getting stolen? --Seans Potato Business 16:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

voice recognition / AI

Weird question but; Does there exist somekind of AI program for p.c's. i.e, voice recognition or something. Or a program that you can interact with, and responds logical? I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for myself, so. Any help would be appreciated. -- 84.16.197.184 17:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Voice recognition software has existed for some time (speech recognition) but they're still working on artificial intelligence. Opera, the internet browser has speech recognition built in for doing various web-browsing things, but I've never tried it. Take a look at the articles and see what you can find. I know that there are some IM bots that you can talk to, but they're generally pretty useless and repetitive. --Seans Potato Business 17:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

monitor connection

I bought a new lcd flatscreen VGA or DVI input. My Radeon video card has both VGA output and DVI output. Right now it's on the analog VGA, and I lack a cable to even try the DVI. Would my high-end games and the DVD's I play on my PC look better using DVI?

no. --froth^t 20:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)