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June 2

Keeping music on an iPod after removing the music from the computer

Hello, my question comes from the fact that I have a 60GB iPod but my computer's harddrive only has 20GB of space. Using the "manually manage music" feature, would it be possible for me to have music on the computer, drag it on to the iPod, and then delete it from the computer? Would the iPod know to keep the music on there once I re-connect it to the computer and the music has been deleted from the computer? I don't want to use it as a portable harddrive; I want to be able to listen to the music I put on there, and I would like to be able to take advantage of the 60GB that my iPod has. I hope this isn't too difficult to understand. Thanks. NIRVANA2764 (talk) 01:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, you can put music on your iPod and delete it from your computer. It's just when you plug it back in, it'll ask you if you want to transfer it back to your computer. Don't say don't transfer, or else it'll delete it from you iPod. Just say transfer and delete it afterwards. --Randoman412 (talk) 02:36, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

What if the OP transfer if (s)he has 40 GB of songs on the iPod and just 20 GB in the computer? Kushal (talk) 03:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Randoman, you're slightly mistaken — iTunes will only transfer content purchased from the iTunes Store from an iPod back to the iTunes library (see the penultimate paragraph of iTunes#Synchronizing_iPod_and_other_players). There's no way to copy imported (ripped, usually) media back to the computer, without using third-party software. So it depends on how much purchased music the user has as to whether it will be a problem. --alien2k (talk) 12:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, just manually manage it. Once you've copied it to the iPod you can delete it off of the computer and it will stay on the iPod. Note, though, that it's tricky (but not impossible) to copy music back from the iPod onto the computer. So for example I've copied all my own CDs to the iPod and deleted them from my computer, because if something happens (the iPod fails) it won't be hard to re-copy them again since I have the original CDs. Music that I don't have any easy way to replace, though, I kept on the computer. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. No I do not really have any intention of importing music from the iPod back to the computer. You bring up a valid point however - if the iPod fails, the music is gone forever. So maybe I will want to import music from iPod back to computer if I get a bigger harddrive. NIRVANA2764 (talk) 20:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup, hard disks are cheap. For example, this piece of *rap will set you back by less than USD 100.00 Kushal (talk) 00:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Seeding

Please don't say it's illegal and not answer my question. I only use torrents for free stuff. I made a torrent and i want to know how to seed it for the first time. Again, don't bash me for asking. --Randoman412 (talk) 02:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Randoman412, I don't know why anyone would be bashing or anything. BitTorrent is just a transport protocol and it is 100% legal. To answer your question in just a word, it would be "Depends." If you are using uTorrent, I believe there is an option under file menu to seed your own torrent (other clients should have similar options too). Just be sure that you either use a public tracker and/or ensure that the swarm catches the complete file so that the file continues to be available in case you need to turn off your computer. I am pretty sure you have read BitTorrent and associated articles. Hope that helps, Kushal (talk) 03:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't have uTorrent, and i'm using Azureus for torrents. Can you seed with Azureus or was it too late since i uploaded it onto a diffrent tracker? --Randoman412 (talk) 19:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can seed with Azureus. The Azureus wiki is a good resource- seeding is listed on the FAQ. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

laptop USB power

I'm trying to get a USB mouse working thats plugged into a PCMCIA usb/firewire combo card . Unfortunately no life from the mouse - i've tried an SD card adaptor and it works ok; mouse works on another computer . Do PCMCIA connections supply a low-current thats not powering the mouse ? Or something else ? Boomshanka (talk) 09:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure but I don't think that the power sufficient for the sd card reader to function properly is insufficient for a mouse. I agree that the situation is rather strange. We know that both the computer has a functioning usb port (tested using an sd card adapter) and the mouse is working (tested on another computer). The thing that comes to my mind is "Does the computer recognize the Mmouse and can they talk to each other?" If you are on a Microsoft Windows, you could open Device Manager and look for anything that needs attention (with the mouse attached physically prior to booting). You have probably done that already. In that case, please ignore this edit. I am sure other wikipedians will come up with other [hopefully, better] answers. Kushal (talk) 14:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

To check, go to control panel/printers and other hardware/mouse/hardware and check if the mouse is listed there; then you can fool around with troubleshoot and/or properties. Gzuckier (talk) 14:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Import avi/wmv files into iTunes so works in FrontRow

Hi. I am trying to find a program that will convert or make it possible to add .avi (or dvx) format video so that I can add them to iTunes. The "import" doesn't allow it, and neither does add to library. I assume it will mean converting to an iTunes friendly format so is there anything free out there to do this into an iTunes friendly format. I am a mac-user on a intel-mac using Tiger (I think tiger - the one before the current operating system). Any help greatly welcomed. 14:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

ffmpeg can convert files from a bazillion formats though I have found it to be pretty buggy at times (like most open source software). VLC can transcode to and from a bunch of formats as well, but it's also mondo buggy (like, sigh, most open source software). Anyway, what you're looking for is a transcoder to MOV or MP4 format. You're going to lose some file quality while doing so but that's your decision to make. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the info - will give it a whirl tonight, hoepfully that'll work! Thanks again 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, MPEG Streamclip can convert AVI to MOV, I believe. I've had better experiences with it in the past than those other programs (it is easier to use, less buggy). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

replacing dell laptop lcd screen

can anyone direct me to an article regarding dell laptop lcd screens breaking for no apparent reason and cost to repair? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kplossl (talk • contribs) 15:36, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Breaking for no apparent reason? Not quite as bad as exploding batteries but if I see it correctly, someone at Dell would beosleepless if this were true. I know that LCD screens can be replaced at home with some some money, some googling, price comparison, an online merchant, and a lot of patience and free time. Kplossl, I don't understand how an lcd screen would spontaneously break. If you are aware of such an incident, could you alert Dell and also write here about it? Kushal (talk) 01:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

When I typed replacing a broken lcd screen on a laptop in the search engine, the result was Notebook review¹. Google also gave me another website². The replacement unit should cost you between USD 100 to USD 300. Make sure you equate the cost of a broken lcd screen vs buying a new laptop. A price comparison website will come handy as well. Kushal (talk) 17:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

KDE4 Dual Head Display

I have been using my computer's on-board ATI chip with a dual-head SVGA display for a long time. The ati driver no longer supports mergedfb. Instead, xrandr is used - which means that I cannot do dual 1280x1024 display. I can only do dual 1024x768. I'm interested in getting a dual-head AGP board to correct this problem, but I cannot find a dependable page that lists which cards work with Linux without any weird issues. I'm using KDE4 on the latest kernel, so I'm leaning towards an nVidia card. Any suggestions? -- kainaw™ 18:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Office Forms Server 2007 with WSS 3.0 without MOSS - Is it possible?

Okay, I'm at my wits end with this. I've searched for this answer everywhere and some places say yes, some say no. If my question was unclear I am asking if it's possible to run the free Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with Office Forms Server 2007, which I understand to be a separate component of the Office Suite, without having to purchase the grossly expensive Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007 Enterprise Edition. I am trying to run web-based InfoPath forms and, to my understanding, the Enterprise Edition of Sharepoint is the only one able to do this. --Ouzo (talk) 18:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

How can you create your own photoshop filter?

I would like to create a simple photoshop filter, I know it is possible to make a photoshop plugin that you can import, I just have no idea about e.g. what software to use... would notepad be suffiecient? 85.233.178.213 (talk) 21:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's a good page describing what one needs to do and how. Basically to do a real plug-in you have to know how to program C++, as well as have a good knowledge of bitmap graphics and color theory—not easy stuff, even if what you want to do is "simple" (is it programmatically simple, or conceptually simple? With things like graphics the latter does not equal the former—often what is very easy for a human eye to see or a human mind to imagine is VERY hard to turn into a reliable computation, because machines have nothing like human sight capabilities) In my opinion, you might find it easier to use the Photoshop "Actions" menu which allows you to build basic "macros" out of existing Photoshop commands. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

where would I find the actions menu? I'm using elements 3.0 . I can code in python, would that be useful? I wouldn't know how to refer to the pixels though, since there are no guides for coding a filter... If I could see an example of one it would probably help, I just want to get started by creating one that brightens or darkens an image, I can go from there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.233.178.213 (talk) 12:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Python won't help, I'm afraid, though you can, I think, write plug-ins in GIMP with Python, but that's a whole different program. But if you're game for it, I'm sure it's better documented than writing Photoshop plug-ins, and is totally free (and more powerful than Elements, anyway).

I don't think there is an Action menu in Elements—it's only in the full Photoshop. Sorry... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I tried to use GIMP but its interface was too clunky, I really can't get used to having a seperate window for the tools, and why the selected colour is in the background while the inactive colour is in the foreground, still, I started followeing a tutorial athough I doubt I will go though with it, thank you anyway... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.233.178.213 (talk) 17:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

"why the selected colour is in the background while the inactive colour is in the foreground" I use both Gimp and Photoshop and I have never noticed their behavior. I assume you're talking about the two overlapping square swatches that indicate your current working "foreground" and "background" colors? In both programs the square in 'front' of the other is the foreground. APL (talk) 19:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Removing Partition

I have two partitions on my computer. One with windows and one with Ubuntu. How can I format the Ubuntu partition and merge it back with the windows partition. (sorry fanboys) --69.127.64.22 (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd recommend using a GParted LiveCD. If the Windows partition is not a system partition, Window's built-in Disk Management should be able to nuke the other partition and then resize the Windows one, but otherwise you'll want something you can launch outside Windows (such as a GParted liveCD) -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

May I recommend Wubi (Ubuntu) for your next attempt at scaling the Unix-like architecture? Kushal (talk) 01:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

June 3

Internet Problems Following Failed Ubuntu Installation

Hello, I'm having problems accessing the internet which are pretty strange to me. Here's the situation:

I attempted to install an 8.04 Ubuntu release using a CD and got a short ways into the installation before I got a few error messages and a lot of lagging. I already knew my system only had a little under 256 mb of memory when more was generally required, and I was going to install Xubuntu instead so I didn't give it much thought. I unfortunately did a hard reset (which I know is always a stupid idea, but I couldn't get the system to pause or close by combinations of escape and other keys) and tried to start up Windows. This was generally fine except for Windows asking to check the disk, which I allowed. This also went fine, but there was some message following the 3rd step that I couldn't really follow because it closed quickly.

When I signed back on to my account, all my files were in order but the internet was, and still is, acting up. I'm pretty sure I can access sites without a problem- given enough time. As I type this the icons for different buttons are still loading, and internet browsing in general seems to be rather slow to work. At first it was, strangely, only Wikipedia that didn't load. In fact, quite a few sites are still rather quick to load, but others just hang for a long time almost without rhyme or reason.

My real question is, what could a hard reset during the attempt at installation (I should note that I chose to install Ubuntu without changing the existing configuration) mess up that would leave internet access, files, and the like, while slowing down only certain sites at certain times? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.54.42.126 (talk) 00:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Request for more informationHow are you connected to the Internet? Dial-up? Ethernet Cable? DSL? Wi-Fi? Are you a poweruser (admin) on Windows? Are you sure it is the Internet connection, and not the web browser, that is acting strangely? AFAIK, if you are not a poweruser and some of your browser files accidentally got corrupted during a hard boot, Windows XP SP2 would not allow the browser (most probably, Mozilla Firefox) to set it correctly. Of course, I could be off a tangent with the question, too. Kushal (talk) 01:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry that I wasn't specific:

1) I have a cable connection and I'm using a router, but it hasn't been changed at all by the setup, and a computer in another room actually seems to be fine.

2) I'm pretty sure it isn't the web browser (Firefox) because I tried accessing sites on Internet Explorer, too.

3) Someone in my house said it might be a system settings problem too, which I'm starting to think it is. I tried to quickly fix the internet connection by doing a Windows repair but nothing changed...

Is there any way I would be able to figure out the source of the problem and fix it? On another note, when I tried to access this page to edit it I opened another tab, assuming that it might load faster. When the page in fact loaded, both of the windows reached the website at the same time. Could this mean that the internet is working in bursts or something?

Also, I am connected to an instant messaging program with absolutely no problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.54.42.126 (talk) 01:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, Internet access always works in bursts. Kushal (talk) 03:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Are you a poweruser (or administrator) on your computer? Kushal (talk) 04:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

IPhone or IPod touch?

I'm not sure if this is the right section but anyway... I'm thinking on getting either and Iphone or an Ipod touch. Which one do you think I should get?

The Iphone has more app. (like the phone, camera ect.) but, the Ipod touch is faster, cheaper and comes with more memory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.66.12.129 (talk) 02:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If you want a phone, consider the iPhone, otherwise the iPod Touch. Or just get a Razr or some other cheap/decent phone and a Touch. Or whatever your heart desires. Though some might criticize the Touch's low capacity, I know one guy who loves his. It fits more than a day's worth of music anyways, you just need to swap it out every once in awhile (and if you had a particularly huge collection you would be doing this anyways) -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if a 3G (HSDPA or otherwise) iPhone with 16 GB or more storage capacity is coming this July. I agree with Consumed Crustacean. If you do not want a phone, save the money that you would spend on a phone. If you need a phone and not an iPod, get yourself a phone. Before you decide the iPod Touch over the iPhone, make sure you understand that there are certain things that current generation iPod Touch devices can never do (and that do not seem to matter yet, vibration may be one of them). There are many rumors, and according to one, you might get an iPhone for as little as USD 200.00 as an initial payment.

Oh, by the way, have you heard of Android (mobile device platform)? maybe that could be your next phone in two years time after you get your iPhone 2 this fall? Kushal (talk) 03:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

What to learn next in programing

I've been on and off with programming - a little PHP and HTML, and some Perl from a while back - like loops, variables, functions. I worked a lot with Visual Basic and access, and I know a good amount of how do use: databases, OO programming(with VB- easy stuff), using IDEs, and well, basic stuff in VB). A couple of weeks back, I picked up PHP again, and I've learned quite a bit with PHP/MySQL: arrays, function, databases, post/get, cookies, date, and file manipulation. I was considering on taking up a project with PHP and MySQL, but I've been having second thoughts about it, because It's a really time consuming one, requiring AJAX (javascript + php - really a pain to use), which might teach me a lot about AJAX, but I don't think it would teach me things any deeper than I know already.

So, I'm at the point in programming where I feel that I could do a lot of things in a programming language (using tons of reference), but I'm not sure exactly what to learn/pursue next, however, if it makes sense.

So, I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind (sorry to make it so long!):

1) Would I still be considered "new" to programming based on the stuff I learned?
2) Should I drop my PHP project, and learn other stuff?
3) Is it bad to be skipping from programming language to programming language?
4) What should I learn next (Java/C++/Python, etc.)?
Thanks!
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.238.80 (talk) 04:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It is more a software design approach than straight programming, but I would suggest learning UML and Design Patterns if you haven't (doing both together would probably be a good combination, but start with the basics of UML to help make sense of Design Patterns). Using them to design your Javascript -> PHP -> SQL project would be a great help and a perfect learning experience in my opinion. And as far as the actual programming goes, I wouldn't say jumping between languages is a bad thing as long as it doesn't confuse you too badly, so that'll have to be your call. --Prestidigitator (talk) 05:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If you're interested in doing more with web programming, Django is a beautiful system based on Python, which itself is a nice language to learn. Django is object-oriented and deeply integrated with SQL, and it has some modules that do AJAX for you, so this could solve your PHP woes. Of course, there's also the ever-popular Ruby on Rails for that purpose -- it has more AJAX magic, but I've been burned by its inconsistency.

It's also never a bad thing to skip from one programming language to another -- it will eventually let you spend more of your brainpower on general, useful programming patterns and less on the mundane specifics of each language. On that note, if you want to become really good at programming, you could try a language that's very different than the ones you've learned, to expand your repertoire. A functional language such as LISP or Scheme would do well for that purpose. (I was almost going to suggest Haskell, but I realized that it is frankly a difficult, mind-bending language, and would be prone to making you give up and return to the comfort of PHP or VB.)

Finally, here are some good programming books that you can read online for free:

• How to Think Like a Computer Scientist -- teaches Python, along with design patterns from basic to less basic.
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs -- teaches Scheme and how to understand programs at a high level and (later) at a low level. Only a bit dated.
• Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby -- ridiculously entertaining. Perhaps not as useful as some other books because it spends so much time being ridiculously entertaining, but that's not entirely the point. It may never be finished.
• The Django Book, for writing nice web applications.

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 09:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)\

Thanks for your replies! So, I'm wondering which language to move onto. C++, Java, or Python. I'm not really sure. I liked the "How to think like a computer programmer", but i was thinking about doing Java/C++ also. Would you reccomend OO/GUI programming for me? I'll be sure to check out some of the other links everyone has posted. Thanks again.

At the risk of being a bit too opinionated and starting a Wiki flame war, I'd say there's currently no reason to learn C++ unless you have to work with other people's C++ code. It's a language that tries to do everything with nothing, and ends up just doing everything in confusingly idiosyncratic ways. For example, C++ was designed to add the object-oriented paradigm to C, but we have a much better understanding of object-oriented design now than when C++ was created, so its templates and pointers look and feel positively hackish now. C++ will bite you in unexpected ways, because it has so many unexpected things in its specifications, which themselves fill a 1500-page book.

Java is fine. It's a very practical language, especially for the business world. It's the most portable of any of the languages you've mentioned, so if you want to write things for other people to run on all kinds of computer systems, it would probably be your best choice. But I have also found that it makes some aspects of programming quite dull. You may find yourself typing the same lines of boilerplate over and over and generally feeling like a corporate drone.

So, if you're programming on your own terms, I would definitely recommend Python out of those three. Python can be very intuitive to learn and fun to use, and once you've learned it, you can also learn Django and start making web applications with it. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 22:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to step in here, I agree with the above, but I'd put Java above Python. Depends a lot on what you want to do, but Java sticks to the c-type syntax that PHP uses (which makes the syntax easier, at least), and will force you to learn OO. OO is one of those big steps you really need to pass through in order to get good skills at software design. Python uses it, but Java insists. :) We teach Java, and my argument is that we don't teach it because Java itself is a good language (it is ok, but there are better languages) but because of what it forces you to learn and because of its application. Get some better OO design skills, and your Python/PHP/.Net etc programming will leap ahead. :) But, as Rspeer mentioned, Java is a hoop you should jump through for professional programming, while Python is better for hackers and others who want to code on their own terms, and is a beautiful language in its own right (noting that Python is used professionally, but not to the level that Java is). I'd add that knowing some C or C++ will help career-wise, but depending on where you want to go it might not be essential. - Bilby (talk) 04:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks! Between Scheme and Lisp, what do you recommend I learn? Are there any good IDEs/interpreters worth noting for either of them? I now plan on learning Python(most probably), along with Lisp or Scheme (basically, any low level languages), to get some experience with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Legolas52 (talk • contribs) 23:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ultimately, you will probably want to turn your talents into a career. I suggest you take a look at some IT recruitment websites and see what programming language skills employers are looking for. Astronaut (talk) 01:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Scheme is more modern than LISP, and DrScheme is a good interpreter for it. But neither Scheme or Lisp would typically be considered low level, as in running things on the bare hardware, since modern computer hardware is really designed for C-like languages. So if you want to squeeze raw speed out of your programs, you probably want to know some C eventually. (Using C and Python together can be a particularly powerful way to program.) I recommended Scheme because it's useful to see a different perspective on programming -- Scheme is based on a paradigm where the fundamental unit is the function rather than the command. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The only thing I had to use Scheme for was a course based on recursion. Other than that, I've almost forgotten about it. I'm not sure I'd recommend it myself though, because although it is very good for some things, it's also a very small slice of the whole, imho. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Go for the theory: The art of computer programming.GoingOnTracks (talk) 23:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Python sockets - sending from a specific IP address

I'd like to send some data in Python from a specific IP address, but want to let Python automatically choose a port to send from (because I could have many of these running at once). This is what I have so far - this sends from the IP address fine:

from socket import *
s = socket( AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM )
s.bind(( 'x.x.x.2', 2020 ))               # Sending data from a specific IP address, using a specific high port
s.connect(( 'example.com', 80 ))
s.send( 'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: example.com\r\n\r\n' )
while True:
	d = s.recv(100)
	if d:
		print d
	else:
		break

But if I bind with an IP address only with s.bind(( 'x.x.x.2' )) it sends it from the default IP address (x.x.x.1), not the one I specify. Is there any way of automatically allocating an IP address but not a port a port but not an IP address? --h2g2bob (talk) 11:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Just like in straight C sockets, binding to port zero means "choose a port for me": s.bind(( 'x.x.x.2', 0 )) --Sean 13:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

When I do that, it goes back to the default IP address too :( Is there any way to fix the IP address but have the port allocated automatically? --h2g2bob (talk) 14:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It works for me on my Linux machine, using the following server and client scripts to verify what IP the client is coming from:

# Server:
from socket import *
s = socket( AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM )
s.bind(( '10.2.1.148', 9001 ))
s.listen(5)
print "Waiting for clients ..."
while True:
        cli = s.accept()
        print "Got client:",
        print cli


# Client:
from socket import *

server_ip  = '10.2.1.148'

client_ip1 = '10.2.1.148'
sock1 = socket( AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM )
sock1.bind(( client_ip1, 0 ))
sock1.connect(( server_ip, 9001 ))

client_ip2 = '192.168.2.1'
sock2 = socket( AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM )
sock2.bind(( client_ip2, 0 ))
sock2.connect(( server_ip, 9001 ))

# Running gives:
# Waiting for clients ...
# Got client: (<socket._socketobject object at 0x4037a2d4>, ('10.2.1.148', 60709))
# Got client: (<socket._socketobject object at 0x4037ee8c>, ('192.168.2.1', 60710))

If it doesn't work for you, I'd suspect something wrong with your underlying sockets implementation. What system are you on? --Sean 19:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S., the following C client will do the same thing as the Python one above. If it does not set your client interface correctly, your sockets implementation is borked:

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>

#define die() do { perror("error"); abort(); } while (0)

int main()
{
    char *client_ip = "192.168.2.1";
    char *server_ip = "10.2.1.148";

    int fd = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
    if (fd < 0)
        die();

    struct sockaddr_in server = { .sin_family = AF_INET,
                                  .sin_port = htons(9000) };

    if (inet_pton(AF_INET, server_ip, (void *)&server.sin_addr) < 1)
        die();

    struct sockaddr_in client = { .sin_family = AF_INET,
                                  .sin_port = htons(0) };

    if (inet_pton(AF_INET, client_ip, (void *)&client.sin_addr) < 1)
        die();

    if (bind(fd, (const struct sockaddr*)&client, sizeof(client)) != 0)
        die();

    if (connect(fd, (struct sockaddr*)&server, sizeof(server)) != 0)
        die();
    return 0;
}

Amazon

Why doesn't Amazon have an Australian version? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 11:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

maybe they are waiting for a strategic partner like you who sees long-term value in the online merchant beyond the fact that Amazon has not been able to generate a lot of profit since the dot com bust. No kidding. 67.173.249.88 (talk) 13:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Your comment doesn't make sense. Amazon.com was unprofitable during the dot-com boom, and only became profitable after the bust. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Amazon.com is profitable? Sign me up for 100 shares! Just kidding, Amazon.com's cumulative profits continue to remain negative. There is a lot of long-term value in Amazon, I agree. Many people idolize its customer service and Amazon Prime is a great idea. I also agree that the future looks bright for Amazon. Amazon Prime in Australia would probably make as much sense as it would in a small town in Wyoming. I don't care what happened during the dot com boom. Anything that happens in a crazy boom, stays in the crazy boom. :) Kushal (talk) 17:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I think I'm using "profitable" in the most common way, considering a year (or a quarter, etc.) at a time. This is how it's used in our article, and in this sense, Amazon is profitable, and General Motors is not. While you certainly can integrate over the lifetime of the company, I don't think that's how most people define profit or loss. The impact of Amazon's past losses would be reflected in its outstanding debt. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Coneslayer, I think we can agree that in a few years, Amazon could be "profitable" from either point of view. Kushal (talk) 23:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I can fully appreciate why you would like to see an Aussie Amazon; the postage from the UK or USA is quite high. My friends in Oz, will order books, etc and have them sent to my place here in the UK. I them post them on, in exchange for them getting me something from home (eg boxes of Cherry Ripes) or often Australian releases of DVDs are way ahead of those that come out in the UK and are often superior. I have obtained a full set of CountDown DVDs this way.--80.176.225.249 (talk) 19:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean Amazon.com overcharges for shipping for its downunder customers? 80, is it cheaper for your friends to have you ship it to them instead of have Amazon ship it directly? I thought it was something that only the cheapskates at the auction website did that. If this is true, it is very sad. I thought Amazon.com tried to do things right. :( Kushal (talk) 23:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It may be that by going through a friend you avoid declaring the item's proper value or avoid paying tariffs in some other way. APL (talk) 01:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You will always get cheaper postage from amazon.co.uk to the UK than to Australia. Sometimes I can post items to Australia cheaper than amazon. For instance, it you purchase a talking book, amazon will charge you a book rate rather than a CD rate. Also, I can mark the item "gift" and wrap it in pretty paper which removes tariffs. Finally, I can get things from home (Oz) that I can't get here in the UK. Everyone wins, apart from the taxman! --80.176.225.249 (talk) 23:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought book rates are cheap. Huh. I think I need to look at the postal service's list of fees. Kushal (talk) 00:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Matlab Question !

In Matlab How to save and retrieve a multidimensional array from a text file? --203.199.213.67 (talk) 13:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

According to this and this, it would be something like:

multi_array = cat(3, [2 8; 0 5], [1 3; 7 9])
save my_data.out multi_array -ASCII

to save it, and:

multi_array_again = load('my_data.out','-ascii')

to load it back in. --Sean 14:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

When i tried what you gave i got the following error -

Warning: Attempt to write an unsupported data type to an ASCII file. Variable 'multi_array' not written to file

I tried it without -ascii i got the following error while loading the file.

??? Error using ==> load Number of columns on line 2 of ASCII file <filename> must be the same as previous lines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.199.213.67 (talk) 06:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yahoo mail

I use Yahoo mail, and also subscribe to the en.wp mailing list. The problem is, the mailing list is ass-trociously huge and I get ~7 e-mails a day from the list. I usually end up moving them all to a designated folder, but surely there must be an easier way to do this. Can I automatically move all e-mails with subject X or sender X to a certain folder? Ziggy Sawdust 16:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yahoo! Mail has a filtering feature that does what you want. In Yahoo! Mail Classic, filter configuration is under Options -> Mail Options -> Management -> Filters. --71.162.242.23 (talk) 17:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, I tried that before and then all wikien-l messages didn't get through at all. Ziggy Sawdust 18:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, just to give it a try, please add a new filtering criterion. Maybe the subject line? Maybe the sender domain? Do you have Yahoo! Plus? Kushal (talk) 23:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

You said that no WikiEN-l message got through at all. What filtering rule did you use? --71.162.233.13 (talk) 12:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Populous: The Beginning demo install error

I recently tried to install the above program and got the following message: "An error occurred during the move data process: -1" I googled the message, and came up with a bunch of different sites discussing similar errors, only every site listed a three digit number, instead of a just -1. I checked my temp files and hard drive space as suggested, and both have room to spare. Any help? Thanks in advance for your efforts. You may reply here or on my talk page. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 16:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The number is usually an error code, that the program spews out if something goes wrong. The programmer can then debug by looking up what the code means. (e.g. ran out of hard disk space, etc) -1 sounds like a generic 'unknown error', though, so it isn't helpful. I can't really think of any advice than the usual. Run a scandisk? Make sure everything else is switched off? Check the place you are installing to, and delete anything left in it?--Fangz (talk) 22:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I've tried the above ideas to no avail. Thanks for the effort.--136.247.76.213 (talk) 04:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

IP address of sender in google group

Hi, I am a part of a google group.. Is there a way to trace the ip address of another member of google group who has replied to a posted message on google group?? If yes , how?? Its important for me to know somehow..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.132.3.7 (talk) 17:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

No. You don't get the actual sender's IP info in the message. At most, you get the email address the sender is claiming to be using - which may or may not be true. Google purposely masks that information and you'll have to take Google to court to force them to hand over the IP address. Even then, it will likely be a dynamic IP that doesn't belong to the user anymore after you go through all that trouble. -- kainaw™ 19:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, then many "Google groups" are just mirrors of usenet. If someone has posted to usenet directly, the message headers may contain some usefull information, if not an exact IP address. APL (talk) 19:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

even then, what if the user in question is using proxy or something like Tor? If you think the person is genuine, please write to him/her/them/it directly. If you suspect malice, expect that they have taken steps to hide themselves from you. Kainaw, if Google were to give up personally identifiable information without a fight, we would not have a template that lets us search Google like {{Google|this}}. Kushal (talk) 23:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

AT&T early termination

If I have a wireless plan with AT&T for about six months and I have to cancel my contract, I will need to pay the early termination fee and any monthly fee due. However, do I need to return my cell phone? I am pretty sure I don't have to. Please let me know if you have been in such a situation. Kushal (talk) 17:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

That depends on what kind of an agreement you have made with AT&T. Did you lease the phone from them? What does it say in the paper you presumably signed when you signed up for the plan? Really, all you need to do is call up their customer service and ask them, they can undoubtedly tell you how it works. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 18:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I dialed 6-1-1. It appears that all I need to do is to call them on the day I want to have the service canceled and tell them to IMMEDIATELY cancel the contract. The representative said that my contract would then be canceled. I would not need to return anything. My bill would show the early termination fee and the prorated monthly fees. Kushal (talk) 18:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Versace typeface

What typeface is the word "VERSACE" in this image written in? Also could you please give me instructions on how to download the typeface and apply it to Windows Live Messenger --Hadseys 21:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It's Radiant URW T Bold. I'm pretty sure that fonts applied to Windows Live Messenger conversations only show up on the other end if the other person has it installed too (so if the other person doesn't have Radiant they'll see Arial or some other font). — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 15:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

(could also be Radiant RR Bold - they're very similar faces) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 15:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't seem like it's Radian RR Bold. If you look closely at the letter "E" in that font, you'll notice that the horizontal lines are slightly tapered. They don't seem to be in the image the OP pointed to. --71.162.233.13 (talk) 13:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well spotted. It's probably Radiant URW then. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 13:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

iTunes: flag mp3 as audiobook?

Is there a way to tell iTunes 7 that an arbitrary mp3 file is an audiobook and should be classified in the library as such? I've at least tagged it as "remember playback position" and have it filed as "books and spoken", but iTunes still sorts it as music. Only Google references I've found have been for legacy versions of iTunes. — Lomn 22:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, for MP4 files, you could change the extension to .m4b (the default is .m4a) and re-add them to library. But MP3 files are of different format, so renaming them to .m4b probably won't work. But you can convert your MP3s to MP4. --grawity 12:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Google Pages

Hello. Can a website master implement RSS Feeds into a Google Page website? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 23:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why you cannot. You have a fairly good access to the underlying html code. I think it is very possible. I need to do more research to find out how to do it, though. Kushal (talk) 00:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

June 4

MediaWiki Page Protection

Suppose that there are three users 'Alex', 'Bob' and 'Chad' whose user pages are 'User:Alex', 'User:Bob' and 'User:Chad' respectively. Is there any way to configure MediaWiki such that only Alex can edit the page User:Alex, only Bob can edit the page User:Bob and only Chad can edit the page User:Chad? That is, no one can edit a user page except the user who owns the user page. As I know, users in some group have rights to protect/unprotect arbitrary page but it doesn't work for the case I described. Does MediaWiki provide such advanced protection? Or any extension available? Thanks! - Justin545 (talk) 02:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The extension UserPageEditProtection ([1]) does that —Dvyjones ^{(t • c)} 20:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

opengl crash

Hey I started off opengl programming recently but I got a crash in my first program itself -

glClear( GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);

Commenting this line makes another crash at glFlush(). I have already created a render context and activated it using wglMakeCurrent() which returns a TRUE. I have also set the clear color to black and clear depth 1.0. Please help. 59.93.175.90 (talk) 05:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to have the code you are trying to use. Leeboyge (talk) 08:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I have a question in ADVANCED COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE.

MY QUESTION IS : (1) EXPLAIN DIFFERENT PAGE REPLACEMENT POLICIES WITH EXAMPLE. (2) WHAT IS BLACKPANE BUS SYSTEM? (3) WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LINEAR PIPE LINE PROCESSOR & NON-LINEAR PIPE LINE PROCESSOR? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.98.57.143 (talk) 06:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like homework. You will find some relevant information in the following articles: page replacement algorithm,backplane (note spelling !), pipeline (computing), instruction pipeline. And please do not type everything in capital letters. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

ScanDisk

In Windows XP, why doesn't ScanDisk pop up when you turn on your computer after improperly shutting it down? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 06:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

See journaling file system. NTFS is journaled. FAT isn't, and Scandisk probably will still pop up for FAT partitions. -- BenRG (talk) 09:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Australia ripped off with internet.

I've heard from people visiting here in Australia that in their countries they pay a flat rental fee for broadband access, whereas we pay more money the more we download. I'm fairly new on the internet, but I remember using it a few years ago and it wasn't like that here. It seems to go against the whole idea of the web - it's as if you had to pay more to a public library the more you visited it, even if you didn't borrow a book! Not very progressive, especially for children of struggling families. My question is: Is it true that Australia is unusual in this way, and how did it happen? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikwot (talk • contribs) 07:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Here in the UK Many people have a bandwidth limit on their broadband connection. I used to pay £18 a month for broadband and that got me 20gb of transfer activity. I could have paid £25 a month for 'unlimited' bandwidth, or £13 for 5gb. Obviously the package gives different users different price points. Almost all providers work on this same sort of system of either a set monthly bandwidth or unlimited amount. On old dial-up connections we used to pay a per minutes-online price (like a phonecall) but that's pretty much gone these days with broadband takeup in the UK being so high. Your way may be the same, or it may be that you pay $2 per GB or something - which would be similar and perhaps (for many consumers) actually a better deal. I'd be surprised if you can't get the same setup in Oz as you do in the UK (and vice-versa) - I guess there's a large number of providers to choose between? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:18, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Nobody gets truly unlimited bandwidth. You pay for bandwidth. In an "unlimited" plan, you are actually limited by the maximum bandwidth of the connection. To get a higher bandwidth connection, you have to pay more. Using your library example, you pay more for more just the same. If you want a tiny truck with a handful of books that parks down by the grocery story to be your library, your taxes to support it will be minimal. If you demand a four-story marble building with every book, movie, and music album ever made and a coffee shop and a cafe and a large supply of high-bandwidth internet connections... you will pay a lot more in taxes to support it. -- kainaw™ 12:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Then there is the advertisers concept of unlimited broadband with a "reasonable use policy", i.e. it is unlimited but you are not allowed to use more than a certain amount! -- Q Chris (talk) 07:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This is normally related to how far you are away from a world tier 1 ISP and also how monopolistic your local tier 1 telecomms provider is. It is also normally related to the policies and ethics (yeah right) of your Government Department of Communications. Here in South Africa we get royally ripped off; we pay among the highest rates in the world. It is due to our government-owned "Telkom" owning the local infrastructure as well as the lease on the undersea cable running across the Atlantic to AT&T infrastructure in New York (I think). Sure, other providers own satellite portions but they still have to pay Telkom for something (like upload bandwidth) down the line. Our government has the moronic policy of not allowing foreign competition to Telkom. There has only been one competitive tender awarded in the last (forever) years, and they (Neotel) are at the mercy of Telkom too. Unbundling the local loop has been pushed forward to 2012. The minister owns shares in some comms companies. It goes on and on, and who suffers? We the consumer, while Telkom shareholders smile. Yet there could have been a simple policy to subsidize bandwidth in our developing country, where education for the masses is sorely needed. Not to mention business growth and innovation. Do the politicians care? Line their own pockets, and to hell with their comrades, where just over a decade ago they were all in the fight against apartheid. Sorry for the bleak comments but this is reality over here. And, you are not alone in your gripes against the high cost of bandwidth. Sandman30s (talk) 19:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Australia's pipe out to the rest of the world is pretty damn narrow, which doesn't help prices, and much of the infrastructure is owned by one company. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

When I first started using the internet the pipe from Australia was 256K, and guess what, international access was sluggish. Nowdays one user would not be satisfied that that for themselves. A 9600bps permanent link cost several thousand dollars per year. It has improved. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Mac G4 question

Will my Mac G4 be enough to run Sonar 4 or do I have to get more sonar applications? Will I need two computers or is one sufficient? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.57.94.131 (talk) 09:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see Sonar as being a Mac compatible program. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 20:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Perl regexp

This is pretty close the first thing I have ever tried to do with Perl so it might be obvious, but with

 $str =~ /<li><a href="(.*)" class="option" title="([^"]*)"/;
 print "Option 1: $2\nAddress 1: $1\n";

what should I do if the $str can contain more than 1 match for the expression? --212.149.217.163 (talk) 11:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

As written it will just match the first one. You can also do:

while ($str =~ /<li><a href="([^"]*)" class="option" title="([^"]*)"/g)
{
    print "Option 1: $2\nAddress 1: $1\n";
}

to get them all (note the 'g' modifier at the end). Note that you want to do the '[^"]*' thing rather than '.*', or you could get a single match starting at the first 'href="' and ending at the last one. --Sean 13:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

PROJECT TOPICS

I NEED SOME INFO ON TOPICS FOR A FINAL YEAR PROJECT.ASAP!!!IM STUDYING COMPUTER SCIENCE —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.229.90.43 (talk) 14:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Please don't type in all capital letters, it is perceived as shouting. We'll be happy to pool ideas for you, but you have to give us a little more information about what you in particular are studying, what languages you know, what type of school this is, what the requirements for the project are. Realize that everyone on this desk comes from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, countries, etc., and your idea of what it means for a "final year project" might be something totally different than ours. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Here is a list of enhancements people want to the software that runs this wonderful website. Choose one of a suitable scope for your time and abilities, do a great job implementing it, get an A, and be a Wiki Hero! --Sean 16:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

If you are looking for a programming project, how about developing an AI for strategy games. Start with 3x3 noughts and crosses - very simple case. Then generalise to 4x4, 5x5 noughts and crossses, 3-d noughts and crosses, Connect 4, draughts/checkers, Reversi/Othello or even, if you are really ambitious, Thud. Plenty of scope for many projects there, and lots of fun too. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking for a special image applet

Hi, is there an applet that I can add to a website, that will let me add captions to the images, and show a new random image everytime the page is refreshed? Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 15:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You can do this very easily with Javascript (better than an applet).

Here's some sample HTML page that demonstrates an easy way to do this:

<html>
<script language="javascript">
<!--
var filenames = new Array (); //image filenames
var captions = new Array (); //captions

filenames[0] = "image1.png"; 
captions[0] = "This is image #1.";
filenames[1] = "image2.png"; 
captions[1] = "This is image #2.";
filenames[2] = "image3.png"; 
captions[2] = "This is image #3.";

function loadimage() {
	var new_index = Math.floor(Math.random() * filenames.length);
	document.getElementById("img_filename").src = filenames[new_index];
	document.getElementById("img_filename").title = captions[new_index];
	document.getElementById("img_filename").alt = captions[new_index];
	document.getElementById("img_caption").innerHTML = captions[new_index];
}

-->
</script>

<body onload="loadimage()">

<div style="float: right; text-align: center; border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;">
<img id="img_filename" src="image1.png" border=1 alt="This is image #1." title="This is image #1.">
<br>
<span id="img_caption">
This is image #1.
</span>
</div>

</body>
</html>

So what are we doing here? First we have a javascript block that creates two arrays (collections of items), one full of image filepaths and the other full of captions. Make sure the array indices are numbered sequentially from 0 onward as I have done above (from 0 to 2 in this example). In the HTML, we have one of the images and captions displayed by default (it will be displayed even if Javascript is disabled). In the BODY tag of the HTML, in the ONLOAD attribute we have a reference to a function that will pick one of the images in that array of filenames at random and then replace the default image and caption on the page with the information from the array. (It finds the image and caption in the HTML based on their ID attributes, so make sure you take note of what those are). It also changes the ALT and TITLE tags of the IMG element to the caption.

I put the image and caption in a DIV element (with some CSS applied to it) just so you can see an easy way of adding captions using just HTML/CSS. The image and caption will be surrounded by a black line in this example and is made to "float" on the right side of the page but that is not mandatory.

Make sense? It should be pretty easy to modify as you might need it. Let me (or others here) know if you have any questions about it. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, holy crap? :) Thanks, I'll see what happens with this. Kreachure (talk) 19:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

bash script

Is there a way to run a fragment of code for each line in a given file?

eg for i in $(each line of foo.txt) do ... done

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.110.174.74 (talk) 15:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Try something like this:

while read i ; do
    ...
done < foo.txt

(untested, sorry) -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:18, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

This works:

$ cat /etc/passwd | while read; do echo "The line is ($REPLY)"; done
The line is (root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash)
The line is (daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/sh)
The line is (bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/bin/sh)
The line is (sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/bin/sh)
...

--Sean 16:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Some software needed

I'd like to ask for a few recommendations. I need a couple of software for 1) converting .wma, .m4a (and some other Apple formats) and mp3 (and some other formats) files, like Easy CD-DA extractor 2) shutting down my pc automatically (freeware would be ok), 3) something that can be substituted for Peer Guardian (I don't why, it often crashes!), and 4) something that can download everything of a web site, like Teleport Pro.

I hope I haven't exhausted the list yet. :)--61.92.239.42 (talk) 16:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

audacity, scheduled tasks and %windir%\system32\shutdown.exe, ProtoWall, DownThemAll! .froth. (talk) 17:18, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Awesome. You surely deserve a barnstar for this one, Froth! Kushal (talk) 01:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I also recommend MEncoder. It'll run on pretty much any OS, if you're not scared of a command line.

annoying high pitched sound

Please help. I have annoying high pitched sound coming from my computer speakers and headphones. It only there when I use hard drive with Serial ATA. When I use AT Attachment it not there. But I only now have Serial ATA hard drive with windows on so I get the noise all time. Nothing rids me of it, I tryed volume controller and it only go when I mute sound but then I no hear my music. How can I make it go away? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.156.95 (talk) 19:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this will help, but usually when I have seen that problem, it is the "line in" channel that gives the problem. Muting that channel usually solves the problem. Leeboyge (talk) 07:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Script for X-chat

Hi there. I use X-Chat Aqua 0.16.0 on Mac OS X running 10.5.3. I put the script in ~/.xchat2, quit and restarted X-Chat, but no love when people send a wikified link to the channel. Might anyone be able to assist? I also tried loading it as a plug in and got syntax error messages. Thanks. P.S. Might you be able to reply on my talk page as well as here? Sincerely, Bstone (talk) 20:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

replacing the MOD function

I am using the MOD function to decode each primary color value of pixels which are stored as base 256 bit integers by adding using the following formulas:

color_integer = blue_integer x 256^2 + green integer x 256^1 + red_integer * 256^0. 

The primary colors are decoded using the MOD function as follows:

First pixel:

r = pixel1  Mod tf6
g = (pixel1  \ tf6) Mod tf6
b = (pixel1  \ tf6d) Mod tf6

Second pixel:

R2 = pixel2  Mod tf6
G2 = (pixel2  \ tf6) Mod tf6
B2 = (pixel2  \ tf6d) Mod tf6

The difference in primary color values is then compared with a tolerance value for each primary color using the following formulas:

rc = Abs(r - R2) - Tolerance 
gc = Abs(g - G2) - Tolerance 
bc = Abs(b - B2) - Tolerance

A decision is then be made based on a positive or negative value resulting for each primary color.

My question is whether I can use logic functions instead of the MOD function to get the same results? -- Taxa (talk) 22:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

In C, you could do:

r =  pixel1 &     0xFF;
g = (pixel1 &   0xFF00) >>  8;
b = (pixel1 & 0xFF0000) >> 16;

(It took me a moment to realize you're using tf6 = 256 and tf6d = 65536.) --Bavi H (talk) 23:55, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I added some parentheses above. And just to clarify, & is a bitwise and, >> is a logical right shift. --Bavi H (talk) 01:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Seems like VB6 does allow something similar but its 3 times slower....

j = Hex(i)
b = Val("&h" & MidB(j, 1, 4))
c = Val("&h" & MidB(j, 5, 4))
d = Val("&h" & MidB(j, 9, 4))

-- Taxa (talk) 05:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Another way may be to redefine the variable as an array of bytes and then access it as an array element. This is easy to do in C. I have no idea about VB6. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

VB6 only offers the HEX function to convert an integer to a byte string. -- Taxa (talk) 10:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

translation of the C code to VB would be

r = pixel1 and $FF
g = (pixel1 and $FF00) shr 8
b = (pixel1 and $FF0000) shr 16

Although the VB6 AND function will process and convert and integer value (pixel1) and a hexadecimal value (&hFF) the only way to do a bitwise shift is by using the leftb, rightb or midb functions. -- Taxa (talk) 17:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Will work in VB-v2008 but is 1/3rd slower than using the MOD function. -- Taxa (talk) 23:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

software for speakers-to-mic

Does anyone know of a software that will take any incoming sound that is playing on my speakers and play it on my microphone? i.e., people that play music on Ventrilo music channels must have something like this software. Thanks, 75.66.58.122 (talk) 22:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Audacity has a Preferences > Software Playthrough "(Play new track while recording it)", that's what I usually use, but there's certainly other ways. --Underpants (talk) 23:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. 75.66.58.122 (talk) 20:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Font containing Sogdian and Middle Persian glyphs

Does anyone know of a font that contains glyphs for the six characters in the Syriac Unicode block for Sogdian and Persian? Specifically, these are the characters U+072D, U+072E, U+072F, U+074D, U+074E and U+074F. -- Gareth Hughes (talk) 22:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

June 5

Windows Vista or DOS?

Hello. I was considering replacing my operating system. I have narrowed it down to two choices: Windows Vista Ultimate and MS-DOS, version 1.0. Which is the better choice? Thanks.--O4irtj (talk) 01:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Go with Linux, sir. You can't go wrong! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duomillia (talk • contribs) 01:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

What is Linux?--O4irtj (talk) 01:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Here you go, it's the best of both worlds! --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

To answer the original question, which is best depends on hardware and requirements. -- Q Chris (talk) 07:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's safe to assume that the original post is a joke of some sort, but I'm not sure what the point is. If it is that Vista has a bucketload of issues, then yeah, we know. But I'd bet so did MS-DOS in its first version, and it is clearly inadequate for most forms of modern computing. Even if the OP insists on a minimalistic, no-nonsense platform, I'm sure there are much better possibilities (MS-DOS 6.22 comes to mind, as well as Unix-like command-line builds). Ultimately, the joke is on the OP, since he allegedly "narrowed it down to two choices" without really being aware of the possibilities (e.g. Linux, the BSDs) and ignoring those he probably knows (Windows XP, Mac OS). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 08:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. That "Linux" Duomillia mentioned looked good, so I decided on the first version that I could find: Slackware. So, I installed it and it's working like a charm! I ported all of my Windows applications over to it. I never knew that I could be so productive. Thanks again guys.--O4irtj (talk) 08:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I was considering this (DOS or XP) on an old computer with no working hard drive, but a working floppy, DOS started looking attractive. Is there a linux that can boot off a 1.44 meg floppy on a PC? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Coyote Linux. BTW- I have MS-DOS 3.3 on a 5¼ floppy. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The OP found a hyperdrive across the learning curve and got productive in using Slackware Linux (GNU/Linux) in seven hours and a minute [my bad, cut that down to less than six hours and fifty seven minutes] from not even knowing what it meant. I want to recommend that the OP for the Guinness Book of World Records. (jk) Kushal (talk) 13:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Sniff, sniff, I smell troll. Sandman30s (talk) 14:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

At best he's looking back through rose-tinted glasses: DOS version 1 is dire. Forget all the nice features you get in cmd.exe - command history, concurrent pipes, even tab completion. Hardware support is through the impossibly difficult config.sys; sound cards are problematic and hard drives use FAT12. Security and networking are non-existent. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

??? MS-DOS is a disk operating system, not a hardware abstraction layer. Why would it provide sound support? That's the job of applications that need sound. Config.sys and autoexec.bat aren't too hard to work with, unless you're trying to fit a great many TSRs in while still leaving enough conventional memory for large applications. Security is only a concern if you're running a multi-user system or if you're running server applications, neither of which you're likely to be doing on MS-DOS 1. I admit the lack of support for FAT-16 and network drives is a problem, as it also makes CD-ROM support impossible.

MS-DOS was designed around the philosophy of "get out of the way and let the application do what it wants", as opposed to the managed environments of modern operating systems. --Carnildo (talk) 20:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Way to track info of person viewing the web page

Is there any way to track the information (location or ip address ) of the person visiting my homepage ? If yes, how? I have learned that there is a way to keep track of number of persons visiting the homepage.But don't no if the other thing is possible.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.132.250.10 (talk) 04:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there are ways of tracking the ip/location of visitors. I can't tell you how exactly, but people have already written code that does just that. A simple google search gave this, this and this. Leeboyge (talk) 07:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

If you want really nice and pretty statistics, Google Analytics is a lot of fun and easy to use. It can draw a whole map of the world and show you how many visitors come from what country, what pages they look at, how they find your page in the first place, etc. For my own use I installed BBClone on my server (need to have PHP on the server), which is a simple little way to look at individual users (shows you how they get to the page, where they go on the site, etc.). It's harder to use and set up than Google Analytics, though. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

If you are running your own server, yes: look at your server logs. If your page is hosted by someone else, then it entirely depends what facilities your host makes available to you. --ColinFine (talk) 21:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Google

I dislike Google's new feature: when you enter a phrase with quotes and if there are no results, it just shows the quoteless results. How can I turn this feature off? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 23:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Your observation that "it just shows the quoteless results" is not accurate. It displays a warning icon and a message indicating that the search returned no results. The unquoted results are displayed below the warning message. I do not know of any way to turn it off. -- kainaw™ 00:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you can turn it off. Google says it did not find the results you wanted and tried its best to come up with the results that seemed most relevant. Kushal (talk) 15:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

A possible workaround is to append something like -madeupwordthatgetsnohits1234dfsdsdtgdc to your query; it shouldn't affect the results (assuming the word you pick doesn't get any hits, which this one of course will as soon as Google next indexes this page), but it confuses Google enough that it won't automatically remove the quotes even if there are no hits. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 04:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

madeupwordthatgetsnohits1234dfsdsdtgdc does not give any results ... so far. Kushal (talk) 03:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

However since the reference desk is indexed it does now Nil Einne (talk) 13:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You could also try adding a trivial word like a or the to get much the same effect, so long as your target pages contain any reasonable English text. A silly but more reliable workaround is to use the OR operator: "foo bar" OR "foo bar". --Tardis (talk) 20:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Please just tell me how to turn this feature off. The -madeupword strategy is silly - how am I supposed to know that there will be no results until after my first try? And the "this" or "this" one - it don't work neither. Please help me turn the frigging feature off - I don't need "help" finding results with those words "scattered" across the page. Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 11:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

What makes you believe that the Google developers answer questions here? This is a reference desk. The answer to your question is not in Google's online instructions. Therefore, nobody here can provide a reference to the answer. The answer you seek is at Google. You have two sane choices: Stop using Google or call Google and try to find someone there to give you an answer. You have many insane choices, such as demanding that people who don't know the answer give it to you. -- kainaw™ 12:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Try the Google Web Search forum at http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

How DARE you personally attack me!?

• "What makes you believe that the Google developers answer questions here?" I believe nothing of the sort.
• "This is a reference desk." Yes, and just about anything can be asked here, except maybe questions whose answers no RD users know. As far as I know, this is no such question.
• "Therefore, nobody here can provide a reference to the answer." As above, maybe one person can.
• "You have two sane choices: Stop using Google or call Google and try to find someone there to give you an answer." 1. Google is the most recognisable search engine. No way are you stopping me from using it. 2. What is Google's phone number? Besides, since I'm from Australia, it'll probably cost heaps to call Google. And I'm 15 years old, for God's sake. I'm not the type who is supposed to talk to a bunch of high adults.

Unless you do not want to use a proprietary protocol that probably has security holes the size of football fields, you can use Skype to call Google's 1-800 number. (Maybe Goog411 will help you find Google's number.) However, I don't think you can get an answer to your question on the phone. Kushal (talk) 13:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"High adults"? Is the implication here that Google employees are all stoners that answer their phones high? This is an amusing, but unlikely image. APL (talk) 15:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

• "You have many insane choices, such as demanding that people who don't know the answer give it to you." As above, I'm not addressing anyone in particular, just hoping that there is someone here who does know the answer.

Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 12:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Both of you— please stop. Either someone will come up with an answer or the question will go unanswered. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why is this feature a problem anyway? As it tells you it's done the quoteless search, what possible harm does it do? ~ mazca ^talk 14:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I hate to admit to agreeing with IFE, but this 'feature' bugs me too. I often don't notice the warning. (Who reads the text before the results?) Since I sometimes google for something just to see if it exists, this is very slightly annoying. Nothing to get angry about though. APL (talk) 15:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You'll need to substantiate your claim that my suggestion (the "this" OR "this" one) doesn't work, because I have evidence that it does (as of this writing). Perhaps you didn't know that (unlike search terms) Google's "OR" operator is case-sensitive? I gave it in the correct case in my suggestion. For that matter, my "trivial word" suggestion also seems to work. Please realize that I would not have suggested these things if I hadn't already tested them myself; I wouldn't need to speculate about the behavior of a publicly available service. I also fixed your quote of the previous post to be legible. --Tardis (talk) 15:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a handy trick. I notice that it also works when the first string is a null string. (Compare "" OR "The anyone Encyclopedia" "" OR "The Free Encyclopedia" "The Anyone Encyclopedia" ) I may have to look into modifying my Firefox search box so that it always does that when I search for something quoted. APL (talk) 15:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You don't even need the quotes: OR "The anyone encyclopedia". Algebraist 15:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

From Google's suggestion that you use "OR" as an operator when you send that search, I surmise that you're actually using my other trick of including a trivial word. I realize now that Google actually entirely ignores those words; you can use "+or" to require such a tiny word, but it's hard to even find an example where that changes anything. But that's good: the trivial-word trick will thus never hurt you (by missing a page that happens to lack the addition). --Tardis (talk) 17:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems like you're absolutely right. I just edited line 43 of the XML file for Firefox's google widget to say <Param name="q" value="the+{searchTerms}"/> instead of <Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>. Now this won't ever bug me again. If IF Expert uses Firefox I recommend that he do the same. Thank you, Tardis. APL (talk) 19:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't use Firefox. I use Internet Explorer. Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 09:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Join & split videos

I need a good free or open-source application to join and split video files, mostly AVI format. At work, I use Adobe Premiere on occasion, but this is a home project and I don't need anything that heavyweight. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 11:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You might try VirtualDub, but it's a bit weak for any sort of editing. APL (talk) 13:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems that I cannot import more than one video at a time in VirtualDub. Any ideas? Kushal (talk) 19:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I've honestly found Quicktime Pro to be the best tool for quicky little video editing like splicing together files, removing bits, etc. It's not free or open source but it's cheap. There are number of open source NLEs but I've never been able to get any of them to work at all to the degree that would be useful for me. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Threading on talk pages

Why doesn't MediaWiki have any better system to auto-indent discussions on talk pages? It's easy enough to prefix a paragraph with a colon, but counting out four or five colons in threaded discussions gets tedious. You can outdent, but you might not want to, and if you do you should probably indicate such to show that your comment is meant to be nested under another one. Am I missing something? It seems like a button could be added to the toolbar or some such to indent your comment under the one above. Fletcher (talk) 14:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I think questions like that are better suited for WP:Village Pump, but when I am writing an extremely indented reply, I just highlight the colons from the prior section and copy/paste them to the start of my reply, then add a single colon. --LarryMac | Talk 15:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The Wiki format is not primarily intended as a "discussion forum"; here on Wikipedia we use it extensively as one, with talk pages, ref desks, etc. Unfortunately this secondary use has some usability issues (as compared to, say, PHPBB, which is far less versatile but makes for cleaner messageboarding). Perhaps you could discuss or contribute to the MediaWiki development platform? Nimur (talk) 15:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

A threaded system is probably the best solution, see mw:Extension:LiquidThreads, although I believe there's opposition to it. x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Best solution... for what? "If ain't (that) broke, don't (try to) fix it." The beauty of the Wiki system is that we can fix someone else's indents if we did so want to, or do something totally different, or whatever. Structured systems (including hardcoded threading) will just lead to inflexibility. (And do we really need just another Javascript button on the already cluttered and frankly useless toolbar? It would be simple to write a function that would just add a hard return and indent one more than the previous, but how many people would think to even look for it, much less use it?) To me the idea of adding hardcoded threading sounds like a programmer's idea of what is "best", not necessarily a user's solution. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with 98 on this one. Kushal (talk) 19:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

See the universal problem solving flowchart (BTW, as an aside, where did that thing first come from, and does it deserve an article?). --Prestidigitator (talk) 19:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't map network drive

When I try to map my who.hasfiles account to a network drive (in Windows XP Pro, SP2), I get this error:

The drive could not be mapped because no network was found.

What should I do? By the way, it worked just fine before I reinstalled Windows. (Reason for reinstall was corrupted %windir%\system32\config\system file, if you're interested.) Do I need to install an update or something? --grawity 17:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Addition: While trying to add the folder as a "network place", I get:

The folder you entered does not appear to be valid.  Please choose another.

The "official" mapper tool says:

Cannot map the storage. Wrong name and password, or network problems.

No proxy set in Internet Explorer (7). (Which can access the site just fine, by the way.) --grawity 18:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Addition: Windows eXPee inside a VirtualPC does exactly the same. I even tried disabling the firewall (KIS 7), nothing changed. HALP! --grawity 18:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so it sounds like after you reinstalled Windows, your network drive doesn't work anymore. Does this sound about right?

Also, are you saying that from Internet Explorer, you can access the computer that the network drive is on?

Finally, can you ping the other computer? (Start->Run->cmd->ping the-other-computer's-name) Indeterminate (talk) 22:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Sort of. The "network drive" is my who.hasfiles.com account, [2], which I try to map using WebDAV. It's not on the LAN.

I can open the account ([3]) with Firefox 3 (rc2), Opera 9.5, Internet Exploder 7, telnet and netcat. And I can ping it. But I can't mount it as a network drive in Windows Explorer.

In case you didn't understand it yet, I try to connect over the Internet using WebDAV, not over LAN. You can sign up at who.hasfiles and try it yourself. (Free account = 100 MB space.)

By the way, I installed XP SP3 -> no change.

--grawity 10:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Addition: I can't even map http://127.0.0.1 (nc -vvlp 80 shows no signs of activity). I can connect to \\think\* (think is my computer's name), but that's all.

Addition: D'oh. net start webclient. Add the "resolved" template. --grawity 11:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Booting an Intel MacBook from a USB drive

Is it possible to boot an Intel MacBook from a USB drive if the drive is made bootable? If so, how does one doing so without first booting into OS X? --213.140.21.227 (talk) 23:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not an important question at the moment. However, I do have some questions. How would you make the flash drive bootable? and so on. Once these issues have been resolved, we can work out the details (maybe press option when booting?). I wish I could be of more help. I will try to do some googling and let you know. boot from USB drive on an Intel mac Kushal (talk) 19:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Ted Landau posted a note at MacFixIt about booting Leopard from a USB flash drive [4], but it looks like it's no longer available to nonsubscribers. If I remember right, he found that it'll boot normally from a system installed on a flash drive provided the drive is at least 8GB; smaller than that, it refuses to recognize the drive as bootable. Also, I seem to remember that the first generation of MacBooks didn't support booting from USB (although this might've been changed by subsequent firmware updates).

As for how to boot from the drive: hold the Option key as you power the MacBook on; this this will select the firmware's Startup Manager [5][6], which gives you a list of bootable volumes to select from. Speaker to Lampposts (talk) 06:24, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

A script that searches out and responds to certain elements in a website?

Hi all. I'm only medium in the field of programming, but I was wondering if anyone could give me some resources, or some terminology to search for in, say, google, about a script that would:

• Go to a website

• Search out (in its source code, preferably), certain sections of text, ie words or phrases.

• Depending on what they were, would then act accordingly.

Just for an example, say a webpage contained the word "fuck", then the script could create a frame that says "This website uses profanity." Or if a website is an e-book, with a certain page number, it could search through the text until it finds, say, "Page: 34" and then, in a frame, print out the links for page 33 and page 35 accordingly. Just examples, so you can figure out what I'm trying to ask here.

Again, any ready-made scripts (the simpler to understand and experiment with, the better) would be best, but also any resources towards learning how to do so, or terminology for such scripts so that I can search out and learn at leisure (my current searches are failing horribly) would be great!

Also, please do not direct me to Greasemonkey -- that is a third-party software, and requires firefox. I was thinking there could be something internet-based (ie, php, javascript or whatever), or something downloadable that would do it, not an extension of a piece of software that requires a certain internet browser.

Much help appreciated ! -=- Xhin -=- (talk) 23:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not quite sure what you want, but my best guess is that you mean you want to intercept all outgoing web connections and add stuff to each page, depending on the content in it. Personally, I would probably use a proxy like squid (software) with perl to manipulate the text. For an idea of what I'm talking about, take a look at this [7]. If you're using Windows, you might be able to find caching web proxy software that will let you manipulate the html, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. Indeterminate (talk) 00:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

There has been a lot of work on querying web pages, such as WebSQL and Twig Queries. The goal is to create a simple syntax for querying content in web pages and performing proper functions, such as making a list of items or creating a new web page of results. In my opinion, the current work simply stinks. I was forced (in college) to study and implement many forms of this web querying thing. What I found was that all the existing methods were developed by math majors, not computer majors. So, while mathematically sound, they were not designed with a working knowledge of computers. In the end, they look pretty on paper but aren't worth the effort to implement. I'm considering describing a better standard for a thesis - a simple mix of standard SQL, RegEx, and HTML/XML. Since all three are already standard, users won't have to learn something weird. If you know all three, it wouldn't be hard to use. For example, if you know SQL and RegEx, you can already figure out what the following "web query" does: "select dob, count(*) as cnt from google:"john lennon birthday" where dob=/[0-9]{1,2}\/[0-9]{1,2}\/[0-9]{4}/ order by cnt desc limit 3" -- kainaw™ 02:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

From what I understand of what you are asking, you want to get the content for a web page, parse it, and act on any key words found. If you want to get down to the lower level stuff and do it yourself, you will want to look up sockets and the HTTP protocol. This will allow you to request a web page and receive its contents. Most languages have support for sockets, PERL being one of the easiest to use. If you don't want to do this yourself, you could probably find a package that would do the request for you. Leeboyge (talk) 05:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

June 6

Best website builder?

I'm disapointed that the article on website builders is so short and brief. Couldnt there be a comparison of website builder software, as with other software? I do not know how to do this myself. Website builders include: BlueVoda Piczo Moonfruit mobi Web Piston and others.

And what is the best free website builder that does not tie you in to a host please? 80.2.205.84 (talk) 00:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you know enough to improve that article. Please go ahead! But do make sure that everything you put in it is referenced, not original research. (Hint: if it makes any attempt to say what is the 'best', it's probably OR. If it quotes several published sources as saying that something is the best, then it is not OR) --ColinFine (talk) 21:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

USB flash drives

±—Can the average USB flash drive hold more

than 80 billion characters?

63.3.12.2 (talk) 02:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

A character is easily stored in one byte. A gigabyte can easily store 1 billion bytes, regardless of if you are using the real definition or the marketing definition of "gigabyte". To store 80 billion bytes (characters), you need 80 gigabytes. There are many USB flash drives that are over 80 gigabytes. They aren't those tiny ones you can slip in your pocket though. -- kainaw™ 02:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Really? Where are there USB flash drives that can hold over 80 gigabytes? (Were you thinking about USB hard drives, most of which are not flash based.) And for nitpicking, 80 billion characters is technically 74.51 gigabytes cause of the whole 1024 thing, and that's only if you don't use multi-byte characters. But short answer is, no. (Addendum) Of course, this is not taking into consideration compression either. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

This one is about 10 GB short (using the above 74.51 number), but is actually a "USB flash drive". Chris M. (talk) 03:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

kainaw has already specifically addressed the 1024 issue. I don't really agree with the way he addressed it, though - Gigabyte is ambiguous in common usage, and according to this, $10^{9}$ (which I believe is the "marketing" definition) is the correct definition. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 08:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

What kind of characters, and can we use compression? --Prestidigitator (talk) 19:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Assuming standard English text and a decent compression algorithm, you should be able to store 80 billion characters on a 20-GB flash drive: Data compression#Comparative. --Carnildo (talk) 20:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

PDMan98

I recently Came across this peculiar error while packaging a vb6 code. The packaging wizard doesnt respond after the step of including certain drivers and when i close it using a task manager, it says microsoft closed this program due to a recursive program PDMan98. What does this mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lokthegreat (talk • contribs) 06:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Importing MPEG files

Why does the error 'The file C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Pictures\12-16-2007\20070630200825.mpg cannot be imported because the codec required to play the file is not installed on your computer. If you have already tried to download and install the codec, close and restart Windows Movie Maker, and then try to import the file again.' appear whenever I try to import mpeg files into Windows Movie Maker v2.1? What codec do i need to install? Where to install the codec? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Invisiblebug590 (talk • contribs) 06:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

One tool you can use to find out which codec was used for your MPG file is GSpot. Some others are mentioned in the Video codec article. After you have determined what is missing, you can then search for and download it, or you can download and install a client such as VLC media player which comes with a large selection of codecs. --LarryMac | Talk 20:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

If that didn't work, you can try these free codecs Sandman30s (talk) 21:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Recovery from a CompactFlash card

Yes, I screwed up the content of a 1GB CF card.

Briefly, I plugged the CF card into a Mac (new version of OS X) and selected a pile of photos for copying into a directory on the desktop, but must have mistimed my mouseclicks or something as the swirly icon (Apple's Tibetan replacement for an hourglass?) started up and I waited and waited and waited and waited while I suppose the OS tried to display the whole lot simultaneously. After a very long wait I got a message saying that I shouldn't have unplugged the device (I hadn't unplugged it, and for that matter the access light of the any digicam-card-to-USB-adapter was still on) and a pile of messages each saying that file such-and-such wasn't displayable.

According to Mac OS X, the CF card has retained its previous directory structure but the directory that should have the goodies has a single, zero-byte file, with a gibberish name and dated 1904.

According to Winvista, the CF card has the directory structure and the directory that has the goodies has three files each named "P", two of which are zero-kilobyte and dated 1980, the third 1312KB and not dated at all.

I have access to a Linux machine but I don't suppose that KDE would work miracles. Clearly vital info has been scrambled.

Does either Winvista or Mac or your average Linux distro come with a utility that attempts to rebuild screwed up FAT32 (is it?) filesystems? Is there worthwhile free (speech/beer) software for the job? Whether or not I get anything off this card, should I then bother to reformat it and use it, or does the fact that the access light was on for ages imply that it has been thrashed beyond its reliable life?

Thanks for any tips. These might of course include links to a good discussion somewhere else. (Of course Google is my friend, but I find it hard to google for any practical computer info; there's so much promotion and chitchat and not much disinterested lucidity.)

Incidentally this card is branded "pqi" and was rather cheaper than other brands. Perhaps wrongly, I'd assumed that differences where merely in branding and marketing, and perhaps also in access speed (but only a matter for concern if I took lots of photos in quick succession). Did I make a false economy? Morenoodles (talk) 08:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

See PhotoRec. --212.149.217.163 (talk) 09:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yay! Got it, it's working right now on another machine. Thank you! (Can I award "barnstars" here?) Morenoodles (talk) 10:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

PS Perfection. The whole lot restored.

This is my kind of software: unpretentious, effective, and free. I vote Christophe Grenier for god. Morenoodles (talk) 10:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Windows

Why is Windows 98 more successful than the later and more graphically improved Windows ME? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 09:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean more commercially successful? If so, I'd guess that rumors of ME's bugginess had something to do with it. Morenoodles (talk) 09:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Must admit I never understood this "Windows Me is crap" from everyone else. I used Me for a long while and had very few problems with it, though I do wish I hadn't upgraded to Internet Explorer 6 - now that really was a buggy pile of crap :-) Astronaut (talk) 16:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Windows 98 was a huge functional update to Windows 95. Many programs required you upgrade to Windows 98 very shortly after it came out (which is why I stopped using Windows. I refused to buy Windows 98.) Windows ME looked prettier, but I didn't see anyone being forced to upgrade in order to run the latest programs. So, since the upgrade wasn't required, not many people did it. It is kind of strange that the XP-Vista is going the opposite way. People are being told to hold off on Vista because their programs won't run on it. I'm not sure why Microsoft didn't do a "98" again and get all the software to be Vista-dependent, forcing everyone to upgrade. -- kainaw™ 18:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Easy. Because, if they did that, everyone would switch to OS X or Ubuntu. It's not like the Windows 98 days, where all the non-geeks used Windows because there were no reasonable alternatives. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 01:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Wubi makes it so easy to get going with Ubuntu. I did not even update my backups before I went ahead and installed Ubuntu on top of XP^SP2 the Wubi way. Kushal (talk) 05:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I experienced the crappiness at first hand. Having pulled the secretary's brand new Windows Me laptop out of its expanded polyester packaging, tossed the "EULA" in the trash, etc., I turned the machine on and then went straight into "Sounds" in order to turn them all off. When I tried to save the new settings, Windows froze. Great start! Morenoodles (talk) 05:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

DLL

I am trying to use an emulator. Everytime I try to run the emulator, an error message pops up saying that a DLL file called "burutter" was not found. How can I fix this problem? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 09:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

forums.ngemu.com Morenoodles (talk) 09:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I looked at that very site earlier today and it didn't help at all. Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 09:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could say how it didn't help. For a start, have you downloaded the file and put it wherever your particular version of Windows collects DLL files? Morenoodles (talk) 10:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Where does it collect DLL files? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 10:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. Isn't there some directory of C: called WINDOWS or WINNT or similar? (You might start by saying which version of Windows you're using) Morenoodles (talk) 10:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

What version am I using? Are you kidding? Ha! I am using XP! Why do you think I would be using, for instance, 95 or 98? Though I do have to admit I like those old Windows versions better... Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 13:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, you could be using Vista. The more information you give us, the more quickly we can answer your questions. In your original post, you don't even specify it is Windows—one has to figure that out from the fact that you are using DLLs at all—and you don't bother to tell us the name of the emulator (so we have to figure that one out too). If you put too many hurdles in front of answering the question, it won't get answered. Remember, we don't know you, or your computer, at all. The more information you can give us, the fewer assumptions we have to make. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:05, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

He could also still be using 2000,it still has some popularity and is still largely computable with current software. --APL (talk) 03:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried just downloading the dll and putting it in the ePSXe directory (I'm assuming that's what you use, the anon above me really is correct, more information give the better answers you'll get)? You can find it here, for instance. Put it in the directory of the emulator executable, and see what happens 83.250.202.36 (talk) 16:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You could always search your PC for other DLL files and see where the OS has put them. The error message might give a clue as to where the program is looking for the file. Astronaut (talk) 07:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Most DLLs in Windows XP are placed in the C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory. Sometimes application-specific DLLs are also placed in an application's folder (e.g., C:\Program Files\[Application]\[file.dll]).--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 07:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Macros in Word documents

Hello all. I've been using a Word template (.dot) that someone created for me ages ago, that contains about fifteen complex macros. I want to start using it on a different project, which means I want to change the header, the footer, a few words on the document, and so on. However, when I change these headers, and save the template as a new template, the macros have all disappeared. How can I edit the template without losing the macros? This is on MS Word 2002. Thanks. Neıl 龱 13:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Reparing damaged file: inserting DWORD

I know that I have to do the following (to repair a file):

In the first position a NULL DWORD(4 bytes) is needed.
In the second position two NULL DWORDs are needed.
After I inserted those values Flash 8 opens the file successfully.

But, how can it be done? I have UltraEdit Professional Hex Editor. Do I need other programs? GoingOnTracks (talk) 16:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Any hex editor should work. The problem is the instructions: are they asking you to insert four 00 bytes at the first position, or overwrite four bytes at the first position with 00s? Same with the second step: is it inserting eight 00 bytes, or overwriting eight 00 bytes? --Carnildo (talk) 20:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Remember to create a backup first :) --h2g2bob (talk) 21:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all so far. Well, when I open the file with a hex editor I get this:

00000000h: D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A (...); ÐÏ�ࡱ�á
00000010h: 00 (...)

What is the DWORD? Just D? or the ÐÏ�ࡱ�á at the end? Or something else? GoingOnTracks (talk) 13:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

In your initial post it was defined as four bytes (Intel and AMD also use this definition), so it is "D0 CF 11 E0". See Hexadecimal. MTM (talk) 15:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

To further clarify, a "NULL DWORD" would be a DWORD - 4 bytes - of NULLs, basically binary 0s. So if the "first position" in the instructions is the line you pasted from your Hex Editor, you need to either insert or overwrite 4 bytes with hexadecimal 00 - as Carnildo says, it's not clear which.

So you'd end up with either:

00000000h: 00 00 00 00 A1 B1 1A (...)

or:

00000000h: 00 00 00 00 D0 CF 11 (...)
00000010h: E0 A1 B1 1A 00 (...)

(The text representation on the right-hand side of your Hex Editor is just for reference - if this was a file intended to interpret as text, you'd be able to see it there; what you need to edit is the pairs of hexadecimal digits, each of which represents one byte of the file) - IMSoP (talk) 17:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all!GoingOnTracks (talk) 20:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

what speed gear should i use for stick arena and what is the best browser to use for stick arena?

i have vista and i really need one that will work,thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gothmafia (talk • contribs) 17:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Is this the XGen Stick Arena we're talking about? If it is, then have you thought about not cheating? As for the second question, If found IE works just fine, but anything else should be just as good. Paragon12321 (talk) 18:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Bjarne Stroustrup' name in the list

Why the name of Bjarne Stroustrup was not included? 68.145.74.166 (talk) 18:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)Raveendran

You're going to have to give us a clue about which list you're talking about. This is the Computing Reference Desk for all of Wikipedia (and beyond). --LarryMac | Talk 18:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

June 7

The night sky in Gimp

I took a photo of the night sky. But the stars are too faint. How can I use Gimp or ImageMagick Convert to brighten the stars? --Masatran (talk) 00:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if GIMP has it, but in Photoshop, there's a contrast editor and adjust curves (see here). (addendum) And looking around a bit, it seems like GIMP has a curves feature too. See this page too. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Another method :On the menu for that image click Tools/Color tools/Levels. You'll see a histogram and below That a color line. Try sliding around The Three arrows pointing to The color Line. Especially the middle one. You may want to first use a selection tool To Select The sky. --APL (talk) 03:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

You may also want to make the stars appear larger, by blurring or fattening them out a bit. In reality the star surface will be as bright as the sun, but you won't get a monitor that bright! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Playing around with the tools in the Colors menu. Brightness/contrast may be all you need. It's probably the simplest way to edit a photo while still maintaining its genuineness. --Russoc4 (talk) 01:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Power DVD

A DVD that previously played on my laptop now only prompts the message, "A problem has caused Power DVD to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is found." The problem is not the DVD; it works fine on my TV's DVD player and on my sister's laptop. The problem is not my laptop; I got other DVDs to play just fine. The problem is this particular DVD on this particular computer. I can't make any other program play the DVD; they all switch over to Power DVD, which promptly gives me the aforementioned error message and shuts itself down. Any ideas? Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 01:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like PowerDVD might be the problem. Try disabling autoplay if you have it on, if it's automatically opening PowerDVD when you insert the disk. Instead, open some other program like Windows Media Player and playing the DVD from there (in WMP10, you go to the "Play" menu and select "DVD, VCD or CD audio"). --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

How do I disable autoplay? That does seem to be happening, because when I open it on WMP, it automatically shuts down and opens up Power DVD. How can I change that? Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 01:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

A free, old program called Windows Media Player Classic is really good for playing DVDs that other software won't play. One way to get the classic player (which I have to use to watch the Gilligan's Island seasons on my PC), is to download K-lite Codec Pack. The codec pack is free, just Google it, and the classic player should come with it. Useight (talk) 02:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked great! Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 02:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Palatino font

1. Where can I get a free copy of Palatino font in TrueType format?
2. It is classified as serif; what would be a more specific classification?

--Masatran (talk) 02:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

It is old style serif. As for locating it... I don't think you can get a (totally legal) free copy of the font called Palatino (but it is often bundled free with operating systems), which is specifically a trademark font name of Linotype systems. There are many look-alike fonts, though. Book Antiqua is a common one. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The article on Palatino lists some lookalike fonts. You can't get Palatino for free, but you probably have something nearly indistinguishable already on your computer. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Windows has Book Antiqua and Palatino Linotype since XP, both in TrueType format. URW Palladio is available freely for non-commercial use in this format at [8] and in Type 1 with GhostScript. A better (more glyphs, better Polish diacritics, small capitals and old style numbers) one is TeX Gyre Pagella in Type 1 or OpenType CFF. Mac OS X probably also has included Palatino lookalike. MTM (talk) 15:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

sound card in Ubuntu

Hello dears! I have a problem with my sound card in Ubuntu (all versions)my sound card didnot work it is ESS Audio Drive es1868f I know it is old but how can i make workable it , You people will help me thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.125.143.78 (talk) 06:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

If you've tried running alsaconf, what did it say? If not, what have you tried so far? Put more information in your query. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 07:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Please excuse us for being terse. You can learn more about alsaconf and the AlsaProject at http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page . Please come back if you have any questions. Kushal (talk) 13:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Kushal for the useful link but i am new user of linux and nothing know about tarz files etc i have downloaded the driver in the mentioned link but didnot know how to install it and second after installing alsamixer and running alsamixer as sudo it says(alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or director)and by running alsaconf it says no commond found.so please tell me more what i do next .thanx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.125.143.75 (talk) 16:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

You're doing that the hard way. The driver and the alsaconf program are almost certainly included in Ubuntu (I know they're included in Debian) so you should not have to download anything separately. Just use the package manager to install alsa-utils. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 19:53, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

202, tcsetattr is probably right. You should try the package manager (under applications menu). If you cannot find it there (which would be really weird), you can always do apt-get install alsa-utils. Please feel free to hit back with any questions. Kushal (talk) 01:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I am once again here Kushat!i cant find way to configure my sound card and by doing apt-get install alsa-utis it says (E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable) E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?)thanks in advance if you help me more i will be very thankful to you.because i hate windows and this is me usmanzia1 prevously forget my passwd ,sorry —Preceding unsigned comment added by Usmanzia1 (talk • contribs) 11:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back, Usmanzia (sounds more like a person than 202 does) Did you try installing from the graphical user interface (point and click rather than type in terminal). Does the list not show alsa-utils? Lets try this one more time. Please try sudo apt-get install alsa-utils. You will be asked for your root (administrator) password. Just a quick reminder, you should not run any command if you are unsure what it means or if you suspect the source. If you use Internet relay chat, channel Ubuntu on Freenode might be of help too. Kushal (talk) 15:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)Í

Creation date

To my horror I discovered too late that by using the file system object in VB6 the original file creation date has been changed to reflect the date when the file was moved or copied to a new location rather than the actual creation date being retained. Is there anywhere in a Windows XP file that the real original creation date is retained? -- Taxa (talk) 08:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Both FAT and NTFS filesystems store creation and modification dates only in the file table. (My English isn't creative enough to explain why storing two creation dates would be useless.)

But if it's a Microsoft Office document, the creation date is stored in the metadata, which you can view in the "Summary" tab of file properties. (Click "Advanced >>")

--grawity 10:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Useless? I don't think so. Besides one date would be the actual and original creation date while the other would be the move or the copy date.

Why is this important? If you have a group of video files from several different cameras and want to view them in proper sequence or merge them at the end of the day according to creation date then you are screwed if Windows changes the original creation date when you move or copy the file. In plain English the reason this does not make sense is because the reason net time sync exists is to allow images recorded at different locations to be viewed in their proper sequence or merged accurately. Yet another reason why Windows sucks and Yahoo wants nothing to do with Microsoft. -- Taxa (talk) 16:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Unix does the same. Besides, there's a thing called EXIF, which allows dates (and much more) to be stored inside photos. (JPEG, that is.) --grawity 21:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

computer

need tutorials for the following topics

compiler writing tools , sort programs (a software tool) ,merge programs(software tool),iocs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.1.232.192 (talk) 13:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Some tools useful for parsing are lex and bison. Sorting can be done by sort. Merge is an operation of most version control systems. All of these programs are described in Wikipedia and their articles lead to useful documentation. MTM (talk) 15:14, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Graphics: drop of some liquid

How can I create an image of some drops using graphical programs (like Gimp or Fireworks)?GoingOnTracks (talk) 15:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Fedora 9 Live on USB stick

So I finally managed to install Fedora 9 into my USB drive. (The previous version of the Windows tool, 2.4, didn't like my FAT32 formatted drive.)

After messing with Fedora a little (DSL, Firefox), I got "I/O error" while editing ~/.ssh/config with nano. On next try, it said "Read-only filesystem".

After switching to first terminal (tty1), I saw these errors:

EXT3-fs error (device dm-0): ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read inode block - inode=26305, block=98671
EXT3-fs error (device dm-0): ext3_find_entry: reading directory #82040 offset 0
EXT3-fs error (device dm-0): ext3_find_entry: reading directory #82040 offset 0
EXT3-fs error (device dm-0): ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read inode block - inode=86808, block=327987
EXT3-fs error (device dm-0): ext3_find_entry: reading directory #141311 offset 0

After reboot, it just dropped me into shell.

Ideas? --grawity 16:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

IMDb

Has anyone been able to get through to IMDb.com in the last 24 hours? I keep getting "server not found". Dismas|^(talk) 16:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Just checked and it works for me. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 16:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... Does now for me too. It hadn't for the last day or so. Dismas|^(talk) 17:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

New computer...architectural scheme?

So my computer is starting to get old, and although it still gets the job done, I'm thinking about getting a new computer. I briefly read through the 32-bit and 64-bit articles and it seems that 64-bit is better, despite having less software compatible with it. Is that assumption true? Also, what does "Platforms : x86-32, x64-64, EM64T...Version : x86/32bit | x64/64bit" mean? Because those are two options for the system I'm considering getting. Thank you for the help! --71.117.39.109 (talk) 19:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Unless you intend to use 4GB or more of RAM, the difference is relatively minor. All mainstream contemporary processors support 64-bit, so your choice is only with regards to the OS. This is not really a choice, as there are essentially no disadvantages to 64-bit (32-bit software runs on a 64-bit system; the only possible drawback is if for some reason the 64-bit version of the OS\software is more buggy). 32-bit architectures will have names such as x86 or x86-32. 64-bit architectures will have names such as amd64, x86-64, x64 or EM64T. The phrase you quote is difficult to decipher, if you found it online perhaps you can provide a link. We may be able to help you more if you specify which hardware and OS you are considering. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

ia32 is also seen referring to the 32 bit version. .froth. (talk) 05:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

But keep in mind that ia-64 is not the ordinary 64-bit architecture. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

New video card issue

Hi, I just installed a new and improved video card -Geforce 8600 GT - but for some reason now when I play Counter Strike: Source at the optimum resolution the screen looks way different than it did with my old video card... The resolution on my desktop looks great, but now in CS: Source at maximum resolution the graphics seem way bigger/zoomed-in than they were before, and I can't change it to any better resolution. Any reason why this might be? 76.22.123.202 (talk) 20:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's too obvious, but did you install the Nvidia drivers after putting the new card? If not, any number of things can go wrong. Also, I don't know about the particular game, but many games allow you to choose the zoom level, with the mouse wheel, through a menu or otherwise. Try to see if you can set it to how it was before. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I did install the drivers and also re-installed the game. I'm honestly perplexed by it, the current highest resolution rate looks like a lower one on my old card in terms of the size of everything - even though the new card is better and my frames per second are better and all the textures look better... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.123.202 (talk) 21:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

In your Nvidia Control Panel, are your 3D settings set to default or do you have specific settings for CS:Source? Sometimes it's better to keep the default settings. Unless you're a gfx card fundi, let your software decide. If this is not it, then I'm out of ideas. Sometimes an older game will just refuse to work with a newer gfx card. I suspect there might be some older DirectX features that might be omitted or 'disabled' in newer cards. Sandman30s (talk) 21:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Default settings. Directx is up to date. Same issue with a newer game. Changing in-game resolution to my monitor's native resolution makes the graphics look a little better but in terms of size everything seems oversized like it's still at 800x600 instead of 1280x1024...I'm at a complete loss as to what the issue could be. 76.22.123.202 (talk) 02:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you have an LCD, so setting your game resolution to the same x:y ratio would make it look sharper. However you have a really weird problem there. Try your card on another machine if you can? Sounds like a stuffed up graphics card. Or it could be a conflict with something in windows, very hard to say. I used something called ClearTweak once that made all my OS graphics larger - very annoying. Sandman30s (talk) 07:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Come to think of it, sounds more like a problem in your old card than with the new one. It makes sense that the game would want to keep your field of view constant (for balance reasons), with higher resolutions making stuff more detailed rather than smaller. Try once more to find a setting in the game for zoom level or field of vision. If none is found, take comfort in knowing that what you have know is probably what was meant to be. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 10:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Developing Flash in Flash 8/9 or with Eclipse

What is the difference between developing Adobe Flash with the Adobe Flash IDE and in Eclipse (software) with the plug-ins? I need to start learning ActionScript 3 and I have the Flash 8 version but don't feel like buying the Flash 9 version. Is Eclipse too much different?GoingOnTracks (talk) 21:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

You can compile ActionScript for nothing with the Flex SDK but it's not the same thing as working in Flash (you don't have a timeline, etc.). If you don't need Flash, just use Flex Builder. If you need Flash specific things, like being able to edit Flash files or need to use a stage (e.g. don't want to do everything programatically; in some cases, things like Tweening, fading, etc., are much easier to do as objects on the stage than they are through AS3), then you'll need Flash. So the answer depends, I guess, on what sorts of projects you're going to use it for. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Automatic Update for Windows XP - How to stop it?

I have a very old and very slow laptop which I am using until my other one gets fixed. However, the slowness is exacerbated by the fact that it is getting inundated with Windows Updates. It does it automatically and then asks me to restart. If I click 'later', then 5 minutes later it asks me again. It is very frustrating, and I end up restarting. I do this very reluctantly because it takes a long time to get to a point where the PC is usable again. It has taken me 40 minutes to get from the restart to writing this post. How do I stop these automatic updates? While we are on the subject, how do I stop the ones for Java Script (the most annoying and power consuming programming language ever) and for iTunes, Quicktime and whatever the other one that is bundled with it is? They all require restarting, and I can't be spending hours each day just doing that!--ChokinBako (talk) 22:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Start - Control Panel - system - automatic updates - turn off automatic updates (this is for windows). If your computer is so slow it might be best to get rid of quicktime and iTunes running in the background as they will be hogging your memory. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Javascript itself won't be doing automatic updates, but Java might. Virus scanners will be doing updates too. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:14, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

While I sympathize with your problems, it won't do you any good to be running a machine with gaping holes. If you are inclined, we can help you with tweaking your "very old" computer so as to get the most out of it. Kushal (talk) 00:43, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Startup sounds on Windows and KDE

I've been thinking of customizing Windows XP's default sounds such as startup, logout, battery failure, etc by replacing them with sound messages recorded by my girlfriend. I figured it would be much more pleasant to log into my machine and be greeted by her voice than having to put up with that annoying tune.

The issue is this: I want her to say "Good morning", "Good afternoon" and "Good night" according to the time of the day. I could schedule those tasks using the task scheduler and a batch file, but I'd rather find a way to do it differently.

Or rather, I'm fine with Windows, but would like to make some changes to Mandriva Linux (which I use most of the time). I'm running KDE on my machine. I'd like to know if it'd be possible to write a small piece of code (I suppose it'd have to be in Python, because I don't know C) that'd modify whatever part of the system is responsible for setting those events by getting the OS's time and use it to choose the appropriate sound. How does KDE do it? How are events associated with sounds? Sorry for the bizarre question! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.132.220.63 (talk) 22:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

finding my post on the RD

What is the easiest way to find my post on the RD? GoingOnTracks (talk) 23:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

If it's recent, using the browser's search feature. If it's older, using Google. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 23:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

For best results, go to your contributions to find out the exact header, then plug that into a google search. Or just check the date/title in the archives, but google is normally faster. Algebraist 23:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

June 8

Program to save audio (micro and headphone)

Do you know a free one? GoingOnTracks (talk) 00:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Audacity. Its audacious! It is free as in free speech AND as in free beer. It records audio and much more. Cheers, Kushal (talk) 01:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll try it.GoingOnTracks (talk) 02:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

awesome mozilla tools

I was checking out stuff like this and this.. I assume these are php apps or something.. where can I download them? .froth. (talk) 02:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The first one is "User Agent Switcher", a Firefox extension. Open [9] and click "Add to Firefox". --grawity 12:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Uh no I mean the app that lets you browse the source of packages.. not the package itself. .froth. (talk) 19:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Messenger: Personal Messages

Hello. Is there an automatic feature where I can have a personal message when I am signed into Windows Live Messenger (e.g. Hello) and a different one when I am signed out (e.g. I'll respond to your offline message ASAP)? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 04:04, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Google

I dislike Google's new feature: when you enter a phrase with quotes and if there are no results, it just shows the quoteless results. How can I turn this feature off? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 23:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Your observation that "it just shows the quoteless results" is not accurate. It displays a warning icon and a message indicating that the search returned no results. The unquoted results are displayed below the warning message. I do not know of any way to turn it off. -- kainaw™ 00:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you can turn it off. Google says it did not find the results you wanted and tried its best to come up with the results that seemed most relevant. Kushal (talk) 15:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

A possible workaround is to append something like -madeupwordthatgetsnohits1234dfsdsdtgdc to your query; it shouldn't affect the results (assuming the word you pick doesn't get any hits, which this one of course will as soon as Google next indexes this page), but it confuses Google enough that it won't automatically remove the quotes even if there are no hits. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 04:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

madeupwordthatgetsnohits1234dfsdsdtgdc does not give any results ... so far. Kushal (talk) 03:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

However since the reference desk is indexed it does now Nil Einne (talk) 13:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

You could also try adding a trivial word like a or the to get much the same effect, so long as your target pages contain any reasonable English text. A silly but more reliable workaround is to use the OR operator: "foo bar" OR "foo bar". --Tardis (talk) 20:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Please just tell me how to turn this feature off. The -madeupword strategy is silly - how am I supposed to know that there will be no results until after my first try? And the "this" or "this" one - it don't work neither. Please help me turn the frigging feature off - I don't need "help" finding results with those words "scattered" across the page. Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 11:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

What makes you believe that the Google developers answer questions here? This is a reference desk. The answer to your question is not in Google's online instructions. Therefore, nobody here can provide a reference to the answer. The answer you seek is at Google. You have two sane choices: Stop using Google or call Google and try to find someone there to give you an answer. You have many insane choices, such as demanding that people who don't know the answer give it to you. -- kainaw™ 12:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Try the Google Web Search forum at http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

How DARE you personally attack me!?

• "What makes you believe that the Google developers answer questions here?" I believe nothing of the sort.
• "This is a reference desk." Yes, and just about anything can be asked here, except maybe questions whose answers no RD users know. As far as I know, this is no such question.
• "Therefore, nobody here can provide a reference to the answer." As above, maybe one person can.
• "You have two sane choices: Stop using Google or call Google and try to find someone there to give you an answer." 1. Google is the most recognisable search engine. No way are you stopping me from using it. 2. What is Google's phone number? Besides, since I'm from Australia, it'll probably cost heaps to call Google. And I'm 15 years old, for God's sake. I'm not the type who is supposed to talk to a bunch of high adults.

Unless you do not want to use a proprietary protocol that probably has security holes the size of football fields, you can use Skype to call Google's 1-800 number. (Maybe Goog411 will help you find Google's number.) However, I don't think you can get an answer to your question on the phone. Kushal (talk) 13:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"High adults"? Is the implication here that Google employees are all stoners that answer their phones high? This is an amusing, but unlikely image. APL (talk) 15:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

• "You have many insane choices, such as demanding that people who don't know the answer give it to you." As above, I'm not addressing anyone in particular, just hoping that there is someone here who does know the answer.

Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 12:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Both of you— please stop. Either someone will come up with an answer or the question will go unanswered. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why is this feature a problem anyway? As it tells you it's done the quoteless search, what possible harm does it do? ~ mazca ^talk 14:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I hate to admit to agreeing with IFE, but this 'feature' bugs me too. I often don't notice the warning. (Who reads the text before the results?) Since I sometimes google for something just to see if it exists, this is very slightly annoying. Nothing to get angry about though. APL (talk) 15:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You'll need to substantiate your claim that my suggestion (the "this" OR "this" one) doesn't work, because I have evidence that it does (as of this writing). Perhaps you didn't know that (unlike search terms) Google's "OR" operator is case-sensitive? I gave it in the correct case in my suggestion. For that matter, my "trivial word" suggestion also seems to work. Please realize that I would not have suggested these things if I hadn't already tested them myself; I wouldn't need to speculate about the behavior of a publicly available service. I also fixed your quote of the previous post to be legible. --Tardis (talk) 15:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a handy trick. I notice that it also works when the first string is a null string. (Compare "" OR "The anyone Encyclopedia" "" OR "The Free Encyclopedia" "The Anyone Encyclopedia" ) I may have to look into modifying my Firefox search box so that it always does that when I search for something quoted. APL (talk) 15:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You don't even need the quotes: OR "The anyone encyclopedia". Algebraist 15:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

From Google's suggestion that you use "OR" as an operator when you send that search, I surmise that you're actually using my other trick of including a trivial word. I realize now that Google actually entirely ignores those words; you can use "+or" to require such a tiny word, but it's hard to even find an example where that changes anything. But that's good: the trivial-word trick will thus never hurt you (by missing a page that happens to lack the addition). --Tardis (talk) 17:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems like you're absolutely right. I just edited line 43 of the XML file for Firefox's google widget to say <Param name="q" value="the+{searchTerms}"/> instead of <Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>. Now this won't ever bug me again. If IF Expert uses Firefox I recommend that he do the same. Thank you, Tardis. APL (talk) 19:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't use Firefox. I use Internet Explorer. Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 09:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Doing this in IE is really easy. Go to the dropdown menu next to the search box and choose 'find more providers'. Paste http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=TEST+OR+TEST (or whatever method you think works best; I haven't experimented much with those mentioned above) into the url field, give it a name, and click on install. Algebraist 07:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

June calendar of events

Respected Sir

I have observed that a very important event like 'World Environment Day' that is observed all over the world is missing from your list of events from June calendar which is published on the right side of your main page.

Kindly ensure such events are covered so that many readers who visit your site will be enlightened.

Please treat this as a suggestion.

Regards

Lion. Dr. Francis P S Rajan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.69.190 (talk) 07:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, we do have an article on World Environment Day, and it is in the list of "holidays and observances" at June 5#Holidays and observances. And I think annual events aren't usually featured on the Main Page - it only lists one-off items of international news and significant anniversairies. But there is a discussion page for the Main Page (and a whole lot of suggestion pages linked from that) if you want to raise the issue there. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

This appears on the Main Page for the 5 June each year, see Wikipedia:Selected_anniversaries/June. --h2g2bob (talk) 17:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is frequency division used in microprocessors?

We had 8085 in our current semester, where we learnt that even though the uP itself operates on 3MHz, we use a crystal oscillator of 6MHz. This is so that we can divide the latter by two and provide a 50% duty cycle clock which the microprocessor requires. Could someone please explain me this concept in detail? What is the "duty cycle" of a crystal oscillator? If the microprocessor requires a square wave, doesn't it already have 50% "duty cycle"?

Thanks. --RohanDhruva (talk) 09:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

TrueCrypt reliability

How reliable are cryptographic programs like TrueCrypt? I mean reliable in the sense that I always be able to access my data, but nobody else. GoingOnTracks (talk) 12:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Every chain is as strong as its weakest link. So no program like that is a one-stop solution—you need to be protected from malware, phishing, etc., as well as physical security of the machine, not to mention safe computing habits (not executing unknown code on a regular basis, keeping up with security updates to software and the OS, choosing strong passwords and not using the same one on every site, etc.), or else all the encryption in the world isn't going to mean a thing (just like the biggest, strongest door lock in the world is defeated by a ground-floor window left open).

As for the level of encryption itself—it means the NSA's standards, so it looks pretty reliable to me. But again, that's only one piece of the overall puzzle. At Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, they had fences, armed guards, help from the FBI and G2, were sited in a remote location, used code-words, compartmentalization of information, etc. etc., and it was all for really nothing because in the end, one high-placed guy had never been properly screened for his security clearance by the British and he walked out the door with everything they came up with and gave it to the Soviets. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly right. Assuming you have a password that has 256 bits of random entropy (i.e. it is as strong as the key for the cipher itself), the encryption itself is completely bullet-proof: if you put all the computers in the world together to crack the password it would still take billions and billions more time than the age of the universe.

However, that is not the only piece of the puzzle. In very short terms, if you can have a password that is very long, impossible to get, not written down or shared with anyone and your computer hasn't been compromised, then you are pretty much guaranteed that you have encrypted files that not even the NSA can open up. Unless they torture you and stuff. Which would be bad for a whole bunch of other reasons. Although, if you use the "hidden drive" feature of TrueCrypt, you can get around even that. Isn't modern cryptography wonderful :) 83.250.202.36 (talk) 22:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Broken WNR834b v1

Hello all,

hopefully one of you can help me: after an odyssey on the Netgear WNR834B v1 router firmwares (original, DD-WRT mini, DD-WRT std, back to original), I cannot access the web pages, I get wrong passwords; but I tried through the standard pwd, mine and the DD-WRT password; even resetting the config with the HW switch was not successful.

88.217.62.34 (talk) 15:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki

What does this mean, which is coming up on my wiki:

Database error
A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

    (SQL query hidden)

from within function "efUpdateCheckUserData". MySQL returned error "1146: Table 'simlandw_wiki.cu_changes' doesn't exist (localhost)".

How do I fix it? StewieGriffin! • Talk Sign 17:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Music Programs

It seems Reason is like a more inclusive program, let's say, compared to a Digital audio workstation like Pro Tools. Are there any other programs like Reason, and if so, could you provide a list? My other question is if there are "higher-level" programs", than Reason, as it seems like Reason can do everything Pro Tools can do, and I'm wondering if there are any programs that are "higher-in-level" than Reason, and if so, could you provide a list. Thank you!68.148.164.166 (talk) 18:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you need to clarify what 'inclusive' means. If you want software that contains recordings for you and be 'inclusive' then Acid could be good. Ableton has ALOT of options, and Logic can do everything Pro Tools can too. Please clarify inclusive for a more precise answer. 86.140.7.114 (talk) 00:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Pro Tools only mixes and records, but Reason mixes, records, reverberates, etc. etc.. That's what I mean by inclusitivity.68.148.164.166 (talk) 18:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Its still not clear what you mean. Pro Tools can add reverberation via plug ins. Are you after the software which does the most things?86.140.7.114 (talk) 19:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Time Machine and Airport Extreme

Time Machine didn't initially support backups to Airport Extreme discs, but it does now. Does it backup to both the new "N" generation and the older "g" ones, or just "N"? And do you plug the disc into the ethernet or the USB port in it? Thanks for your help.--78.148.200.171 (talk) 21:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

June 9

I must be a complete moron

Can someone explains to me why Gmail Labs have fixed width fonts for reading email but on Google Groups I can't even get fixed width fonts for reading the news group comp.lang.python

Or is there a feature which I cannot find because I'm a complete moron? 122.107.165.222 (talk) 00:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)