Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

   

How can I get my question answered?

• Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
• Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
• Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
• Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
• Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
• Note:
  • We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
  • We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
  • We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
  • We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

• The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

September 20

css html....noob's question.

Hello , I have just learnt CSS and have designed a better looking website for my self, I have a few questions:

1) Am I correct in thinking that CSS drags the look of your website into 2008 and only using HTML keeps the style of your webpage dated (like 1998!)

2) My page looks good in firefox, but in IE6 it all seems to be too big....

3) My main question is regarding layouts... people talk about liquid vs fixed but what is the point of doing liquid and having to endlessly tweak for different browsers in case the page breaks

4) is there any great dedicated CSS/HTML web forums.

thx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.239.60 (talk) 11:11, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

1) Huh. Your question does not even make sense, sounds like you read a brochure straight out of marketing. Use CSS if you need it, it's not going to change the look of your website. Equendil Talk 11:31, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

1) No. Using CSS makes it easier for you to have a uniform look and feel with less duplication of effort. Kushal (talk) 13:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

1) CSS makes some things possible (I don't know how you'd do layers or translucency or half-decent printing without CSS), some things easy, and a few things harder. You can still do a compliant modern looking website in HTML only, and you can still do rubbish ones in CSS. CSS is no substitute for graphic design skills and taste.

2) All browsers suck, although some browsers suck less than others. Ideally you'd only support the less sucky ones, but if you plan on your site working nicely on nearly everyone's computer, you needs to support the sucky ones too (and there's worse than IE6).

3) As with 2, above, if your site looks bad on someone's computer you've failed. If you didn't take into account the fonts they have installed, the screen magnification they use, the browser and OS and desktop environment they run, and the disabilities and concomitant accessibility aids they have, then the fault is always yours. Liquid layouts are desirable in many cases, because you can't predict the screen and font sizes used by your customer. Some have narrow screens, some have tiny screens, some have wide screens. Anything you fix will annoy almost everyone.

The upshot of all this (I'm sorry if I sound harsh, but developing serious websites takes place in a harsh environment) is that while knocking out a website that looks okay on your own computer is, frankly, child's play, getting one that works on every reasonable computer you possibly can is much much more work. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I feel your pain. The idea that web design just flows in place with well-written CSS dies in the face of browser inconsistencies. You gotta cobble it out. It's an endless battle, but with CSS some things are a lot easier. But not all things. Sometimes a layout table is a hell of a lot easier to manage than CSS can be, in my experience. Sometimes I use both. Good theoretical style? No. Looks good on more browsers? Yes. Well then. Design—web or otherwise—is not a place for absolutists. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Google Pages - Google Sites transition

Hello, I have a question on Google Sites. What are the rules regarding file storage on Google Sites? It seems that Google Sites does not allow certain filetypes. Is there a page somewhere that Google explains the rules of the game? Thanks. Kushal (talk) 11:14, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

( Please answer if you know the answer. Kushal (talk) 10:51, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Can no hero save me? :'( Kushal (talk) 00:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Please? Pretty please? Kushal (talk) 19:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I really hate it when sensible questions that are urgent to the questioner go unanswered, especially when the questioner is someone who has been around here for quite a while. The only rules that I'm aware of are the obvious ones: Google terms of service, see especially "8. Content in the Services". You've probably checked out this page already, but I'm posting it anyway, since you haven't stated explicitly that you've done so. Out of curiosity: why the urgency, and which file types have you had problems with on Google Sites? Does renaming the files help, or are they rejected based on their contents? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, NorwegianBlue. Well, the question is not very urgent. However, Google is preparing for a transition from Google Page Creator to Google Sites. As a Google Pages user, I am not sure what to make of the transition. I would want to be ready when the transition takes place later this year(?). Kushal (talk)

Punctuation and Accent Marks on PC

I have a guide that shows me how to create punctuation and accent marks on PC. There are 2 methods: CTRL + ' + a = a (with an accent mark) and ALT + 160 = a (with an accent mark). The reason why there are no accented letters is that I can't put them in, especially online on the Spanish wikipedia. Since there are many Spanish accented letters, it becomes almost impossible to type a message.

My question: why does my guide not work in wikipedia and is there another guide?

You could be putting in the wrong keys: for me, on Windows XP, Alt+0224 is à and Alt+0225 is á. You have to use the numpad, check that numlock is on. You also have to add the leading zero: Alt+224 is α, while Alt+225 is ß. Xenon54 14:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

An easier way that I used was to change my default keyboard to international version; where ` becomes a dead key that adds a grave accent eg, à; Alt Gr + 2 acts in the same way adding an umlaut, eg ä; Alt Gr + 6 does circumflex, eg â; and Alt Gr + [a vowel] adds an acute accent, eg á. It is the quickest and easiest way I have come across typing accents on an English keyboard. 92.16.148.143 (talk) 16:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

There are more dead keys on the international keyboard. ~ + n = ñ, ` + a = à, ^ + e = ê, " + o = ö --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:45, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

There aren't on mine... " just displays if I type it, so does ^ and ~. They only seem to add accents when accompanied by Alt Gr instead of shift. 92.16.148.143 (talk) 16:39, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

My memory serves that at least ` + a = à is true for the Windows one, not sure though. In the Linux one all of the above are available. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

September 21

Highest PageRank?

According to the little PageRank plugin I have for Firefox, CNN.com has a Google PageRank of 9/10, slashdot.org has 9/10, Wikipedia has 9/10 for the Main Page, etc. Does anybody have 10/10 other than Google.com? Is it possible to? --140.247.10.7 (talk) 00:15, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

There certainly used to be twenty or so sites with a pagerank of 10. I tried out ebay and youtube, as well. It's very inefficient of Google to restrict their range like that. Interestingly Alexa tends to rank yahoo first :) Dmcq (talk) 11:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

w3.org has PR10 (assuming the page I'm using is accurate) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 11:53, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

(whitehouse.gov too) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 11:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you think those are "native" or artificially generated? That is, did someone at Google say "give the white house 10/10" or does the math just work out? I suspect it must be artificial because while I'm sure the White House has more incoming links than outgoing ones, I don't think of its website as being much of an internet hub in comparison to some of those that only have 9/10. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

My hunch is that Google don't touch individual PageRanks. Although Slashdot is extremely popular, I would guess that it's linked to by high-profile sites less than the White House is, and PageRank is based partly on the PageRanks of the linking pages. As a very rough example, according to Yahoo CNN links to whitehouse.gov 5510 times and slashdot.org 1080 times. It's worth noting that the PageRank used internally at Google is far more subtle than the out-of-ten values they show to the public. Although the ranking algorithm has changed considerably over the years, Brin and Page's original paper is worth a look for the nitty-gritty of how the original PageRank algorithm worked. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 19:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

What's a good PC oscilloscope?

Anyone has recommendation on a 2 channel entry level PC oscilloscope that can preferably be used, with its software, in Linux? I've also seen DIY scopes that uses the line-in/microphone plug from the sound card, how well do those work? Thanks. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you looking for just an oscilloscope or, more specifically, a software synthesizer? If you just want to generate waveforms, Audacity can do the job. If you can program, you can quickly learn how to generate some more complicated waveforms with some Nyquist plugins. If you're looking for a softsynth, SynthEdit is pretty good, but it's only for Windows. I found the tutorials in the help file useful for figuring out how to program simple synths. Maybe there's a similar Linux program.--Russoc4 (talk) 02:29, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

No I'm looking for an oscilloscope. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:53, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, a hardware one. My mistake. --Russoc4 (talk) 20:09, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Enabling only minimal features in an OS

I want to make a computer available at a public programme for registration of participants coming there. The participants themselves will be typing their details on the computer. Is there some way that I can limit what they can do on the computer to just entering their details in a browser page? I do not want them to be able to access any of the other features of the OS. Preferably, even the desktop menu and icons should not be seen. Only a single browser window should be visible on the screen (ie, it should be full screen), and it should not be possible for them to close the window either. Is there some method with which I can implement this? A solution for any operating system will do.--thunderboltz^(TALK) 02:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Go to start>run and type "gpedit.msc" when you are the user in question. Lock it down as you wish. Then install Windows SteadyState, which resets the computer's hard drive each night for free - making it immune to viruses. --mboverload@ 02:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try that out. Could I get a solution for Linux/Unix-based systems as well?--thunderboltz^(TALK) 02:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/bin/view/Linux/LinuxKiosk --mboverload@ 02:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Great! That looks like just what I needed. I'll install it and get back. Thanks again for the link.--thunderboltz^(TALK) 02:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Cool, PLEASE let me know how well it works. I may need to use it some time =) --mboverload@ 07:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried it out, and it did work as said. It did detect my wired LAN; however it failed to detect my WLAN card, and hence did not serve my purpose. The OS booted up quick and loaded a full-screen browser (firefox) with the default page I set. One another problem was that I couldnt figure out how to switch the system off, as the OS always restarts into the same guest account. I didnt tinker with it longer, as my wlan was not supported. Though I believe you can get it to detect pretty much any hardware if you remaster the iso file correctly.--thunderboltz^(TALK) 17:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

See kiosk software. ~ Jafet • business • pleasure • voicemail 07:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

BEST PROXY SITES

which is the best proxy site to be able to bypass websense and the works. I use Ninjacloak.com but on that the links are disabled and you can't chat on it.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.26.35 (talk) 04:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Like I have said before if you need to get to a site just ask one of the IT guys. In some companies bypassing restrictions on web access is considered industrial espionage and will get your fired on the spot. Example: Cisco. --mboverload@ 07:56, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I dare someone on CCPS to try going on a proxy. Since most organizations monitor their employees/students/volunteers/patrons internet activity at random, it is probably not the best idea to use a proxy to by pass the filters, and if you're asking this from work, then these type of questions just might get this Wiki blocked too just so know. :) GO-PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

September 22

Itunes MP4

On itunes, every song I buy is in MP4 format. Should I trust any free download that says it can convert MP4 to MP3? The windows moviemaker version I have does not support MP4 format and I need a converter for free. If there is one converter I can trust, which one? Thanks The Reader who Writes (talk) 02:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Use ffmpeg. Free, reliable, open source, etc. Should be able to convert from MP4 to MP3 if that's what you want. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you buying iTunes Pro songs or standard iTunes songs? Encrypted standard iTunes songs aren't convertable using normal means. 212.219.8.231 (talk) 08:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure it's MP4 and not .m4p, which is actually an encrypted FairPlay format? Stifle (talk) 14:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

They are .m4p, but what does fairplay mean? Does the encrypted part mean I cannot convert them? Is there any way to get them on windows moviemaker? They will burn to CDs, right? Thanks The Reader who Writes (talk) 22:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

You can burn them to CDs fine (using the internal iTunes function) but you won't be able to convert them to MP3 format. FairPlay is Apples DRM solution to make it difficult for people to share their songs and what have you. Gunrun (talk) 17:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can burn them to CD, and THEN import them as MP3. I would suggest you either only buy iTunes Plus (which are non-encrypted higher quality files) or buy from Amazon MP3 store -- in which all songs are already MP3. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 22:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

An  question

(header titled so that this section may be more easily ignored)

Anyone know the filename(s) that contain(s) the URL icon/logo info? It's probably browser specific so getting both the Safari and Firefox filenames would be appreciated. Thanks, hydnjo talk 02:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you referring to the favicon? -- kainaw™ 02:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I need to null the files so that the actual favicons will be added when the URL is called. Something happenened that put the default favicon into every URL bookmark and I need to delete those so that the actual favicon can be stored when the URL is called. The presence of the default favicon inhibits the collection/storage of the URL's real favicon. -hydnjo talk 02:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

That is dependent on your browser/OS. What web browser/OS are you using? -- kainaw™ 18:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I am pretty sure they are on a mac os x. Kushal (talk) 19:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm using Safari and Firefox. I managed to find the files for Safari and nulling those files works as expected: the bookmarks show the default favicon until any given URL is called and then the null (default) favicon is replaced with the URL's real favicon. However, I can't seem to find the Firefox specific files. Any help/hints would be appreciated. -hydnjo talk 20:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I had to ask because the common complaint with Macs and Firefox is that the favicons are missing. So, if he is seeing them and wants to delete them, it is a rather odd complaint. Regardless, I'm going to make an assumption about which Firefox you are using and suggest that you look in your home folder and see if you see a hidden folder called mozilla. If so, that will contain a firefox folder with all the firefox stuff. -- kainaw™ 00:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, that would be an odd complaint. No, my situation was that all of the favicons were the same default one and I would of course prefer to have each favicon to be the unique one for any given URL. I now see what's happening; as each bookmarked URL is called, the default favicon is indeed being replaced by the proper favicon and is being stored as such. I was being confused by the fact that not all URLs have a favicon and so the default one stays as such - I didn't know that - no problem after all. Thanks y'all for your attention and help :) hydnjo talk 13:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Blackberry service

What is that 'Blackberry service' all about? What are the services offered under the heading 'Blackberry service' for which we pay 40 $s a month

Wouldn't it be great if there was, like, some big encyclopedia you could look things up in, free? Tama1988 (talk) 04:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Keepvidtubezoiding guardian.co.uk videos

If the videos on guardian.co.uk were on YouTube, I'd use keepvid.com to save one or two for the future. But they aren't. The "sauce" is a nightmare of Javascript that I don't relish working through in order to apply my own brain to the task. Does anyone know of a tool (Windows, Linux, OS X) or website that will let me extract and save the video? Thanks. Tama1988 (talk) 04:31, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Check your cache. It's a Flash Video. Copy it to xxx.flv. IrfanView will play it. Saintrain (talk) 06:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Well said! 133.25.54.53 (talk) 08:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both for the reminder and encouragement. I didn't bother to attempt this with Safari, but it was easy with Firefox. Tama1988 (talk) 09:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

How to prevent router from getting computer name?

When I connect with my computer to my wireless router, I can look at the clients table in the router administration pages and see my computer's name, as set in Windows (and I think the same happens with the hostname on Ubuntu(?)). What is the mechanism by which the router gets this information, and how can I prevent this information from getting to the router? Because I think connecting to the wireless network should only involve layers 1-3 (physical, data link, network) of the OSI model, and thus the router shouldn't really need to get into computer names and stuff, which operates at a much higher level. Plus not all OS's have computer names, right? so there should be a way to disable it. --169.232.216.46 (talk) 05:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably one of them boxes trying to be more smart than they should, what is your router ? Equendil Talk 10:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It is part of DHCP. When your computer asks for an IP address, it says "Hi router! My name is JoesGameBox. Can I have an IP address?". In your network setup, where you set the computer's name, change it to something that isn't descriptive. That will be the name that the computer introduces itself as to the router. -- kainaw™ 18:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Subnotebook

Good day! I am thinking about getting a new PC and maybe a portable machine. As for the PC I'm knowledgeable enough to get and set up a good system, my weakness is the mobile platform. I like the idea of a subnotebook like the Asus Eee, so here's my question - is it in general a good choice? Have any of you guys used it? Is there anything similar (memory card instead of hard drive, lack of cd drive, portability, silence, low price) that might be a better choice. Another must is that the machine has to support Linux in any form. Cheers and thanks for any input! --Ouro (blah blah) 08:26, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I've seen the Eee in use although haven't used one myself. The screen is fairly tiny, but the Linux distro that comes with it is solid. Stifle (talk) 14:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The old adage still holds true. It largely depends on what you want to do with it. Could you give us some examples of how you will and how you might use the computer? That information would be of much help as we try to assist you. Cheers, Kushal (talk) 19:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure, Kushal! Most probably it would be used to work on (all sizes of) text files and some graphics, probably a little bit of photograph storage and probably some amount of web browsing. I think the specs on a 9xx series (the one with the 1,6 MHz CPU and 1 gig of ram) are enough, but I am not sure whether this hardware version comes with Linux. --Ouro (blah blah) 21:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. If you are still shopping, please try to get something that is not a first generation (or version) of the model line. Unless it has been around for some time. I have nothing against smaller computers but if you are into free software, please look into this. If mobility is a concern, remember to get a larger battery. 2 GB of RAM and integrated graphics card should be good enough, depending on how much photoshopping photo editing (the generic term) you do. If I were getting an Intel processor, I would probably want to go with Intel Core 2 T5750, unless it was a subnotebook which probably come with an Intel Atom. Can I ask you what main reasons are for your wanting a subnotebook? Kushal (talk) 17:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Kushal, I am still shopping. I noticed the Asus Eee is here and practically readily available, while Dells are harder to come by and thus more expensive. I am looking at the subnotebook formfactor because it's small and very portable, light, and offers the features that I need - editing power and long battery life. I do not need a large hard drive, and I don't expect to need to use a CD/DVD drive very often - an internet connection, Wifi or a USB flash drive should be enough. I will need to occasionally edit a drawing or two, however I now do it on a P3/850 with 512 megabytes of RAM, and I do fine on it (running Zenwalk Linux). I was looking at the model of Asus Eee that comes with an Atom processor clocked at 1,6 GHz - it's the Eee 901. It's enough for my needs. Of course, Linux is a must - I ain't switching back to xp. What would you say about this model? Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 21:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Googled it, found this. Looks pretty sweet. If it meets your needs, I have only one more question-timing. When would be the best time to buy it? Surely, you would not want to buy it and Asus refreshes its product line the next week selling upgraded hardware at the same price. Since it is not Apple, details/gossip should not be hard to get in time, if you want to go through the trouble. Kushal (talk) 00:12, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

It's perfect, it's exactly what I need. The price is similar to what I would have to pay over here. The time of purchase would be November at the earliest I think. Maybe I'll make it a Christmas gift for myself. Yes, I believe that if a new version was to come out, details will not be able to come by - and they are available on Wikipedia as well. We will see, if a new version comes out then the price of this one should drop - which is even better. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I have just decided to buy a Dell Mini 9. It's being custom built now. --mboverload@ 05:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I like it, but the downside it's that it's hard to obtain in Poland, and more expensive. --Ouro (blah blah) 05:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Q(t+1) ?

Someone please tell me the meaning of Q(t+1) here. No one has written anything about it there, just plugged it into the article. Is it 1 more second than t or 1 cycle after time t or what? Thanks 59.95.99.218 (talk) 08:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It just means "at the next instant", Up until time t the signals are as the Q(t) column. After time t they are as the Q(t+1) column. -- SGBailey (talk) 11:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I think in that section of the article Q(t+1) means the value of Q at the next clock cycle. The simpler notation Q_next is used elsewhere in the article with the same meaning. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

My initial thought was as Gandalf's. However the SR latch under discussion doesn't have a clock. -- SGBailey (talk) 13:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

There are 2 events associated with the Set-Reset flip-flop. The first is the latch initially receiving an external input and the second is from the internal feedback loop which generates input as a result of the initial external input. The animation shows this well. 71.100.160.163 (talk) 22:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Debian unstable packages in sources.list

What do I need to add or change in /etc/apt/sources.list so that I can install unstable and testing packages? I'm running Debian AMD64. NeonMerlin 15:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this what you want? --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Computer Hardware

If my BIOS does not support a large capacity drive that I want to install, what are five things I can do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.213.106.78 (talk) 18:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

1> Your own homework? --LarryMac | Talk 18:08, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/search.pl?query=BIOS+does+not+support+a+large+capacity+drive

Deeper blue

Why did IBM disassemble Deeper blue after it beat Kasparov instead of answering his questions and continuing to upgrade? -isor 18:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.160.163 (talk)

(Kasparov, not Karpov) IBM funded the Deep Blue project for the publicity; I'm just speculating here, but I imagine they decided it was no longer worth the money. After all, beating Kasparov again wouldn't have added much to its fame, and losing to Kasparov in a rematch would have subtracted from it. -- BenRG (talk) 12:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

To quite the contrary... refusing to give Kasparov every assistance to beat the machine and then continuing the effort to make it win beyond the point he could ever win again would have been well worth the promotional dollars spent. As is most people are now rating IBM as a second or third rate business player.

Deap Blue was not cheap. They needed those parts for some other super computer. It was a cool publicity stunt, but I suspect that people who really purchase supercomputers have specifications they need to meet other than "Must be able to defeat chess grandmaster." APL (talk) 12:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

IBM doesn't build Super Computers in order to gain free promotion and recognition. Their Supercomputer designs, and the internal competition that goes towards creating the best design for each system is why the World's fastest Models are all IBM, and are all so far ahead of any competitor to the degree it's absurd. That improvement has moved computing ahead leaps and bounds, as the Top level computing equipment always has. Calling IBM anything but a first rate Player is laughable, I don't think I have to explain that to anyone who knows anything about the real Computing Market. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 12:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Chess used to be the touch-stone of computer sophistication - but these days it's become too easy, a big opening dictionary - mindless (but DEEP) game tree searching in the middle - and an end-game dictionary at the end. The logic is solved - it's just a matter of pushing more hardware at the problem. Anyone who needs a real challenge has to attack 'Go'...it's a serious AI challenge that mere mindless compute-power won't ever resolve. The rules of Go are just about the simplest of any serious board game - yet it's insanely difficult to play - and it's tough to write a computer version that'll beat even the most amateur human players.

IBM has come a long way - 20 years ago they were hated by most of the industry - nasty business practices, nasty machines, even nastier software - but they've completely turned that around. IBM are cool now. It's a good thing...I really hope we'll be able to say the same thing of Microsoft in 20 years - but I suspect not. It's been a long time since I last heard someone say: "An elephant is a mouse with an IBM operating system." SteveBaker (talk) 03:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

myspace

hi, ok i know this is just a stupid question but how does one change ones display pic on myspace????..........i just cant find out how to:( thanks, --90.241.174.237 (talk) 20:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It's physically impossible, once your details are taken, the Mug Shot associates you with your profile for Life. You want I should get you a face lift? - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 23:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

FAQ answer here — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 23:47, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Go to the photo you want and click "Set as Default". JessicaThunderbolt 14:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Align a mediawiki infobox to the right

I'm trying to align a mediawiki infobox to the right on a private wiki and I'm not sure how to do it. I have copied the Template:Infobox to my wiki and I have the Parser stuff set up so that it displays great, but I'd like to have it so that all Infoboxes align on the right. (like on Wikipedia). Is this a .css issue? or can I do it in the Template:Infobox itself? Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks. --Rajah (talk) 23:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

There are doubtless many ways of doing this, but the way it's done here is as follows. {{Infobox}} creates a table with the class 'infobox'. MediaWiki:Common.css contains the code

.infobox {
    border: 1px solid #aaa;
    background-color: #f9f9f9;
    color: black;
    margin: 0.5em 0 0.5em 1em;
    padding: 0.2em;
    float: right;
    clear: right;
}

which right-aligns the infoboxes. Algebraist 23:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

awesome, thanks. that worked perfectly. --Rajah (talk) 02:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

September 23

Getting three installed OS's to boot correctly

Okay, so I have 4 partitions in my hard drive. I installed three operating systems in three different partitions (Ubuntu in one, a modded version of XP for gaming in another, and my regular Vista in the last one). Using KGRUBeditor I'm trying to get a menu to pop up before anything boots, where I can select the operating system I want to boot. Right now, with the current settings, it offers me 3 Ubuntu options (regular, safe mode, mem test) and it says under "other operating systems" I can boot windows vista.

When I try to boot Ubuntu, it works fine. When I try to boot Windows vista, it says "Error 22 -- No parition" or something similar to that. There is no third option on the menu to boot the XP. I'm so lost because I'm a noob at this stuff and I was wondering if you could please help me.

Any info you need I will provide, I'm not really sure what information is useful to solve this. Please be patient and thanks for helping me! --71.98.8.179 (talk) 00:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Just try editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst file by hand if KGRUBeditor doesn't work. Make a backup by sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.backup. Open the file with gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst and at the bottom of the file you'll see entries in the menu, similar to this one for Ubuntu (I'm using Intrepid Ibex) which is installed on the second partition of the first hard drive (numbers start with 0 in the world of computing):

title		Ubuntu intrepid (development branch), kernel 2.6.27-3-generic
root		(hd0,1)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-3-generic root=UUID=3c65e3ba-0507-4454-a1c6-556ba8fac134 ro quiet splash 
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-3-generic
quiet

and a few more entries like that, but for recovery mode and things like that. At the bottom you should see something like this for your Windows:

title		Microsoft Windows Vista
root		(hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader	+1

You want to make sure that the root for Vista is correct: correct partition and correct hard drive. You can view the mapping between /dev/sd* or /dev/hd* to (hd*) with this command in terminal: cat /boot/grub/device.map. Once you got that right you can copy and paste those 5 linees to make a new entry, adapting the first two lines for XP, and you should have a working GRUB. If you can't figure this out you could always post your whole menu.lst file, your device.map file and your system locations and we will change it for you. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh wow! Thank you so much antilived! This is really helpful...I'm gonna go give it a shot, and if I can't get it to work I'll post the necessary files. Thanks again! --71.98.24.10 (talk) 12:05, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

So using the instructions you gave me above, I figured out how to get Vista to boot fine. Thank you for that. But I still cannot get XP to boot. It always tells me "Error 22: No such Partition". Does anyone know how to fix that? Here is a picture (I missed one of the Max's :P) that has my menu.lst file, my device.map, and my parition locations. --71.98.24.10 (talk) 14:07, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

EDIT: I got the correct partition, but it says NTLDR is missing. From what I gathered with a quick lookup, its basically the XP bootloader...

So I've decided I'm gonna try to install a NEW and different version of XP. I know that it'll make it so it automatically boots up right away and doesn't allow Ubuntu to boot. How can I change that from Windows XP with my configuration as I have it now? --71.98.24.10 (talk) 20:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Canonical has a good tutorial for that: [1]. You only need to do section 1 for most cases (you'll need a Ubuntu LiveCD). --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks antilived, you've been a big help. --71.98.3.250 (talk) 12:33, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

?

Hey y'all. I'm back! :P. Now I'm asking for some recommendations. I have used Windows XP for a very long time, so when Vista first came out, I was very skeptical. My brother decided he loved Vista and ultimately persuaded my dad to buy him a new computer with Vista Home Premium(That is so messed up, if anything, I deserve a new computer, but this was several months ago[Or last year, I forgot]). Over time, as I tried out Vista, I loved its user interface(same thing with Microsoft Office 2007) but I felt a lot of the CPU and RAM was being taken up by all this. As such it didn't "snap" to my command like XP did.:P But I love that interface(Flip 3D can be fun but is not really needed, unless you're one of those people who open up like 50 windows[Ever heard of tabs?] especially Windows Aero. IMO it's the best theme yet for Windows and is the only thing I decided was worth trading out speed for. So, I decided, "People tend to be very creative, I should just Google 'Aero for XP' or something like that". I did, with multiple key terms for all sorts of things but mostly in pursuit of that Aero look. (I already have the Vista-Aero theme addon for Firefox :P I ultimately found a few things that look promising but years with Windows had taught me caution.:P I then Googled 'problems with [program]' or 'how to uninstall [program], the results shocked me. I discovered that quite a few of these programs messed with system files(Very bad idea obviously, many of the errors reported required in some cases a complete reinstallation of Windows, I should note the latop I'm on is property of UCSB and it's best to not cause such problems :P) and were uninstallable except by manual search and destroy. So I decided to compromise. I got the cool Vista default wallpaper to help get part of the look and I decided to narrow my search to just the Vista start menu. I like the Vista start menu as it's much more compact than the XP menu but I often have trouble finding files(Thank goodness for that search feature). Again, Google searches revealed most of the programs available could cause serious problems and were not uninstallable. Ultimately Google searches eventually found this which claims to not mess with the system files and be easily uninstallable(By easily uninstallable I want to be able to uninstall something from the start menu or Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel). Can anybody confirm this before I download it? Or are there other programs out there that meet the conditions I've mentioned? In addition if you know a program that can change the theme that I can reverse in 30 seconds without side-effects, feel free to mention it.:P--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 00:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

From what the website is saying, all that app does is makes the start menu on XP or Vista look horrible and cluttered, it doesn't do anything else. The route you'll probably want to take is to use either WindowBlinds or a Uxtheme.dll patcher (the former has far more options/features, but is commercial software), and couple that with a suitable theme from Deviantart or Wincustomize or one of a thousand other sites. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now if I want to uninstall any themes I added or get rid of it all completely, how do I do that?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 01:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing complicated with either. With Windowblinds, you uninstall the app, or just delete the individual themes from within the configuration window (or the folder directly). With a Uxtheme patcher, just delete the themes from the Themes folder, and if desired replace the patched uxtheme.dll with a backed up unpatched one. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay then, thank you.:D--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 01:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

OMG! I love WindowBlinds! It came with Diamond which looks quite like Aero!:D--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 02:07, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Firefox download warning

By default, Firefox warns you when you try to close the program while a download is still in progress. Sometime after I updated to version 3, that warning was either lost or I accidentally turned it off without realizing it. I've gone through the options windows but can't seem to find a way to get that warning back. Any help? I'm on XP SP3, if that makes any difference. Matt Deres (talk) 16:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Firefox 3 no longer defaults to this behaviour, and I'm not sure it can be turned on. The reason is that, while Firefox 2 abandoned downloads if you quit in the middle of them, FF3 just pauses the download and resumes when you next launch FF. Algebraist 16:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

...which is fine unless you're using rapidshare, which never resumes. What I do is I leave the download window open when I've got downloads going, so that even if you click close on the main browser the download window remains open and continues. JessicaThunderbolt 19:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, for long downloads I always use 'wget' (a command-line tool that downloads HTTP and FTP files without a browser). It can retry and restart and is generally very determined to get your file EVENTUALLY! SteveBaker (talk) 02:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

PCs used only few days every month

If I use a PC only for 3 to 5 days a month and leave it switched off rest of the days, will it work normal? Is it okay to do that? or is it not recommended to do like that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.122.61 (talk) 17:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. This will be perfectly fine and should have no adverse effects. Gunrun (talk) 17:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

??? Why on earth shouldn't it be fine? The crazy idea of leaving computers on forever wastes energy, and it should also decrease the life time of your computer. --Ibn Battuta (talk) 19:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Computers wear out in two ways:

1. Turning the computer off and on causes thermal fatigue, leading to the growth of microscopic cracks in the chips. Eventually, a crack will cross something important and the chip will fail.
2. Leaving the computer on causes gradual erosion of the wiring inside the chips through electron wind. Eventually a wire will get too thin and the chip will fail.

A computer that's used normally and turned on and off once a day has about a 50% chance of failing from each, typically after five to ten years. --Carnildo (talk) 21:34, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Your answer is too good for me not to ask for a source =) --mboverload@ 04:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Um. If it's only about thermal factors, that should also be true for hibernation (instead of shutting down & booting). If that's true, my computer will very likely die from thermal fatigue one day. On the other hand, shouldn't also things like room-temperature/outdoor temperature (if you take a laptop with you) etc. matter? --Ibn Battuta (talk) 15:12, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

In the case of a laptop, it is not likely to die of either of these things, it is likely to die of *owner fatigue* ;-) --66.195.232.121 (talk) 15:39, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't heard of the "electron wind" thing - but there is no doubt that powering a machine on and off does impose more stress than leaving it turned on for some amount of time. However, the precise balance between the wear due to things running all the time versus the wear due to starting and stopping is hard to determine.

The effect I have personal experience with is called "thermal creep". It applies mostly to chips that are plugged into sockets. What happens is that when the computer powers up, the pins on the chip warm up and expand by a microscopic amount - this pushes the chip up a little bit. When the computer is turned off, the pins cool off and shrink - but depending on the geometry of the socket and the pins - the chip may not get pulled back down again - instead it may stay still and the pins pull a tiny distance out of the socket. Do this a thousand times and eventually the chip simply falls out of it's socket! (Well, more often, one pin starts to fail to make contact and the computer fails). Simply pushing the chip back in again usually works just fine - but most people don't know to try that. The same thing can happen with connectors incidentally. Keeping your computer at constant temperature avoids this problem.

Things like disk drives (with moving parts) used to suffer more from being powered up and down because the motor needs to apply more torque to accellerate the drive up and down than to spin it at uniform speed. That additional torque causes extra load on the bearings - so they wear out faster. However, these days, almost all computers stop the disk drive automatically after a few seconds whenever you're not using it - so this is a negligable effect compared to the speeding up and slowing down that the system does all the time anyway.

However, if you only use the computer quite rarely - you should certainly turn it off when it's not in use - you WILL cause a little more stress on it as you power it up and power it down - but that's unlikely to be as much as leaving it on for days at a time...and you really should try to use less electricity.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Firefox bookmarks

For years I've had my browser open with bookmarks.html — but now I notice that it hasn't changed since I got Firefox version 3. Evidently Ff3 stores its bookmarks somewhere else. Where? (I'm on MacOS.) —Tamfang (talk) 17:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

"Starting in Firefox 3, bookmarks are stored in the places.sqlite file and bookmarks*.html files are only used for importing and exporting. As of Firefox 3 Beta 5 bookmarkbackup files are stored in JSON format.) " This page might be useful in determining how to export your current bookmarks to an HTML file, which you could then use as a starting page. You'd have to re-export any time you want to update your list though. There is probably an extension out there to do this automatically. --LarryMac | Talk 18:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Hotmail's secret question and answer

I'm wondering why Hotmail does not allow you to choose you own secret question and answer when you forgot your password. Most of their questions they give are not that hard to guess. The ones they presently offer can be answered by some people around or strangers, especially if you have a profile on a blog or a social networking profile. I mean 'Mother birthplace', 'Best childhood friend', 'Name of first pet', 'Favourite teacher', 'Favourite historical person' or 'Grandfather's occupation' are not that tough and strangers can easily find their answers through social engineering or on your profile. Why is Hotmail so dumb to put those kind of secret questions and don't allow you to choose a tough one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.206.22.13 (talk) 18:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I assume they're trying to use questions which everyone has an answer to (unlike, e.g., prefered college professor--not everyone attends college) and that are easy enough to answer so people don't always get stranded trying unsuccessfully to remember the answer (e.g., brand of first bike--uh, what was that again?). That being said, I do believe that many of their questions are too easy, and they (not just Hotmail) tend to expect that you have a typical US life, asking for pets, vacation homes (!), grandfathers, birthplaces, etc., some of which may either not apply or be self-evident if you go to other places. --Ibn Battuta (talk) 19:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You know, there's no right answers for these questions :->. 'Grandfather's occupation'? Tellafonepole (sic). Hard to guess, dictionary search fails, etc. Just remember to remember it. Saintrain (talk) 19:26, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I read a survey on Slashdot that stated that most people use the same answer for all those questions. Mother's maiden name? Chewbacca. Name of first pet? Chewbacca. Make of first car? Chewbacca. Grandfather's occupation? Chewbacca. Youth in Asia (talk) 02:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably explains why that kid in Tennessee was able to hack his way through Sarah Palin's Yahoo mail account by answering her "secret questions". Anyone who knows you would be able to simply answer those questions and basically get full access to your web mail account. AreJay (talk) 03:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

People who use Hotmail (or Yahoo mail or Gmail) really shouldn't have much expectation of secrecy - you're using a service on a big anonymous company with who-knows-how-many employees with who-knows-what access to your data. It's hard to believe that someone like Sarah Palin doesn't have a decent email account in some kind of secure place - she shouldn't be in the slightest bit surprised that she'd get hacked. These security questions balance the quality of security against what your expectation of security should be. I don't believe a casual hacker would spend the effort to figure out your grandfather's occupation...the return on the effort is simply not worth their time...that's really not a trivial thing to find out. Go ahead - try to figure out my grandfather's occupation (and I'm not telling you which of my two grandfathers I'm thinking of - so you may need to figure out both of them)...I bet you $100 you can't figure it out within the next week. However - when the return on that investment of effort is large (Getting the dirt on the vice-presidential candidate could be worth a lot of money to the right buyer!), for sure those questions aren't secure enough...but who in their right mind (oh...wait) would believe that a Yahoo account would be secure against a few thousand determined hackers?! I have my own mail server - it's WAY more secure - and I get whatever email address I fancy (steve at sjbaker dot org)...it costs me $9 a month with (literally) terabytes of storage space, a web site, a wiki...you name it...I don't get gratuitous adverts tacked onto the ends of my messages. Anyone who really cares about the security of their mail can afford to do that rather than having to find a free email service. SteveBaker (talk) 02:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Free video editing program

Which free video editing program would you recommend? While I'm still in my early days of editing, I appreciate the options I can get even if it takes a bit more time to learn to use the pgroam. All things being equal, I'd go for open-source; but if other free software is better, well, so be it. Thanks, Ibn Battuta (talk) 19:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• On which system ? Equendil Talk 19:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The choices are pretty sparse, last time I checked, for free non-linear editors, which I'm interpreting you to be asking about (e.g. more than just splicing together files in a linear way). It would help if you specified what your OS was, as some (e.g. Cinelerra) are only available on Linux/OS X (not Windows), many are Linux-only. Category:Free video software only has a couple NLEs in it. --140.247.253.44 (talk) 19:36, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I forgot: I'm using Windows. And I looked at the category, but of course there's not a direct comparison (which wouldn't be very NPOV). --Ibn Battuta (talk) 15:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You can have NPOV comparisons of features. The problem is here is that almost none of those in that category are actually NLEs. Most of them are not even the same kind of software (it's a pretty stupid category—having NLEs mixed in with media players mixed in with coding libraries? Totally useless if you don't already know the programs). Basically for Windows there is Jahshaka which doesn't sound like it even works and hasn't been updated in two years? Fact is most NLEs are not free. Some are relatively cheap (e.g. iMovie or Windows Movie Maker can do some basic stuff that is similar to a NLE) but if you want more power than that you're talking about very expensive software (e.g. Premiere or Final Cut Pro or etc.). Unless apparently you have Linux in which case there are maybe one or two options. Sucks, no? yes.--98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

How to add on wireless as an extra to an existing computer with an external modem

I have a computer that has an external broadband modem (ADSL I think). There is a red cable running from the modem to the computer. Only I use or have access to the computer. I personally am happy with this set up. (And note, there is only one telephone line to the flat).

However my flatmates want to get access to broadband somehow. Perhaps the easiest way of doing this would be to have a wireless modem in addition to the existing modem. How could I do this please? What would I need to buy? I want something that can be used even when my modem and computer are turned off. Does such a thing exist?

I do not want to use wireless myself as the security is not very good, and I don't want the next door teenagers or flatmates decoding my traffic for fun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.243.82.72 (talk) 20:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You want a wireless router. this will have 'wired' connections so you can still use the network on your non-wireless PC. Some come with a modem built in (in which case your current modem will be unneeded in the setup), some don't. A wireless-router modem will let you have the setup you want - your internet connection will be maintained (and kept secure if you enable security) by the router itself, your PC needn't be on at all. Most PC shops (independent on chain) will have staff adequately trained to explain the basic setup of these - they aren't overly difficult these days to be honest. ny156uk (talk) 22:38, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Making MSN and Outlook contacts merge in WM6

Hi all,

how do I merge MSN and Outlook contacts in Windows Mobile 6's contact manager? I know about the delete-dupe option, but it's useless in my case, as my classmates think they have to show "funny" names as their display names and not their real names :(

Thanks, HardDisk (talk) 20:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

typing tabs in textareas?

In most graphical user interface dialog boxes or dialog-boxy-like things, the tab key jumps you from one input field to another. And indeed this pattern is followed in most web browsers when they're displaying an HTML form for you. But of course this leads to an annoying limitation: if the particular HTML form you're on has a text box into which you're trying to type significant test, what if you want a tab?

Me, I have to hunt down (or create) some other window in which I can type a tab, copy it to the clipboard, and paste it into the text area. But that's obviously a nuisance. Are there any standardish, supported techniques for typing tabs in textareas? Or more specifically, is there a good way in Firefox? —Steve Summit (talk) 22:05, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

There's [2] and the tabinta extension (which may not be maintained) and an eight year old mozilla bug. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey! Thanks for those! —Steve Summit (talk) 23:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You usually don't type tabs into HTML forms. In media where tabs cannot easily be implement you separate paragraphs by two hard returned (so there is a space between them). This is nearly always perfectly acceptable in such situations. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

True, but "usually don't" isn't "never", and "nearly always" isn't "universally". :-) (In particular, the reason I was asking had nothing to do with separating paragraphs, but rather, indenting them in a plain-text web-accessed bug database, where a tab -- if you can manage to insert one -- ends up acting more or less like a left-margin ':' does in Wikitext.) —Steve Summit (talk) 23:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I sort of think that places where indentation is necessary should provide other ways to do it. Because not everyone is going to use your hacky method. E.g. Wikipedia has its nice : indents. If the forum supports HTML, use <blockquote>. etc. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I shouldn't have said "in particular", because that was just one example.

The plain text stream is a lone bastion of near-universal, least-common-denominator compatibility and fungibility in a computing landscape of everincreasing specialization and Balkanization. Now, tabs are admittedly on the edge of what a plain text stream can legitimately contain, but to the extent that a web browser is a generic user interface, and an HTML textarea is a generic text editor, I'd certainly like to be able to manipulate tabs in one. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

In MS Excel if you want to 'add' a tab-space you hold control and then tab (ctrl+tab). This means that you don't move to the next cell but rather it adds a 'tab space' in the cell you are writing. The same is true for MS Word when working in the tables. I don't have a windows PC at home so can't test but i would suspect that on IE you'd probably get the same result - perhaps in Firefox it will work too? Having said all that in Safari my policy doesn't work... ny156uk (talk) 22:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Nice suggestion, but no, it doesn't work in Firefox, either (at least, not on this Mac). —Steve Summit (talk) 23:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I use the mozex extension to accomplish this. It basically allows you to right click the textarea to open it in a text-editor of your choice. It copies the content of the textarea in a temporary file and opens it in the editor. When you save that file in the editor, it copies the data back to the textarea, with tabs intact. Perhaps not exactly what you want though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.241.133.176 (talk) 16:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes. I was using a "view source with" extension (I forget its name) for a while, and that's certainly another option.

The good news is that the "tabinta" extension which Finlay McWalter mentioned seems to work perfectly (despite its age). Thanks again. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

September 24

Abuse contact

Does anybody know the abuse contact for uni-pr.edu? Tracert is showing that it resolves to ThePlanet.com, but something tells me there's a better contact to report abuse even if they do use ThePlanet.com. GO-PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The common practice is to email abuse@whatever.the.domain.name.who.sent.the.offending.email.is. Don't expect much of a reply. There is no guarantee anyone will read your complaint. Youth in Asia (talk) 03:43, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's what I found. Can't verify the authenticity of the information though. AreJay (talk) 04:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought you have to be an educational institution to get .edu domain. Apparently not. Probably because it was grandfathered as explained in the link. Kushal (talk) 10:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't expect much of a reply. There is no guarentee anyone will read your complaint. This is true, but to assume that because a small percentage of networks ignore all abuse reports that all networks are like this is like assuming that because a small percentage of vandalism survives Wikipedia's vandal fighters that Wikipedia cannot be trusted. There are many responsive abuse departments around. An example of a responsive abuse department would be Embarq ANS (I say that because blacklisted Embarq spammers who show up at trustedsource.org almost never show further activity after abuse reports are submitted). An example of one that does NOT repsond would probably be Comcast Network Security, but they do respond in some cases (an example would be a few of the fraud websites I've gotten Comcast to take down). GO-PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I imagine they'd be pretty upset when they find out that you're not a admin. or spokeman for Wikimedia. That's assuming they read your e-mail, though. Some major American ISPs don't even go after hackers. Those aren't 16-year-olds who added the word balls to an article anyone can edit. They're people running networks of hundreds of infected computers that take down entire web sites. They ignore them, or sometimes, send them warnings. Even if you get a response from a live person, I doubt the banned user will hear anything about it from the ISP.--Tree 'uns 5 (talk) 04:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tree 'uns 5 (talk • contribs)

Find and replace multiple files, but only between <title> tags (Mac OS X)

Hi -- thanks in advance if anyone can help me with this.

I have a folder full of HTML files, and I'd like to do a "Find and replace" on the text inside them, but only on the text inside the <title></title> tags. I'm using Mac OS X. What would be the easiest way for me to do this?

My ideas so far: I don't know regular expressions, but I was thinking along the lines of using grep to get the text I want, and then what? piping it into another program that'd actually do the find/replace/save? Alternatively, I have TextMate on here, which I use for other things, but it has a very complicated interface, I have a feeling perhaps the feature I want is buried in there somewhere?

As you can probably tell, I know very very little about UNIX things, I just know there should be a way for me to do this, I just don't know how.

If anyone can help, I really appreciate it. Thanks again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.90.126 (talk) 03:19, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Sed is used for that. You will want to use regular expressions, such as s/(<title>[^<]*)dog([^<]*</title>)/$1cat$2/. Hmm... haven't used placeholders in sed in a while. I don't think they are $1, $2, $3... Anyone remember? -- kainaw™ 03:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Just remembered... I believe you use \1, \2, \3... -- kainaw™ 03:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!! I now have something to work off, I'm reading a guide to sed as I type this, so I should be able to figure it out from here. Thanks again for the help. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.90.126 (talk) 03:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

data management

I'm working on an API that requires some basic databasing, and in trying to design my database I realized something that made me feel...well, ignorant: I'm not really sure what the difference is between a table and an array. Is the information in an array stored in a table, or does it need to be coded? Is an array a table that can only sustain one data type? What merits using one and not the other? I have a feeling that permanent storage requires use of a table and displaying information often merits use of an array, but I'm really not sure what the funcitonal difference is. Maybe more functions can be performed on a table than an array. Specifically, I'm thinking of a table in a MySQL database, and an array in PHP. Thanks. --Shaggorama (talk) 06:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Different beasts really, both an "array" and a "table" are ultimately collections of data (but then so are lists, trees, etc), but "array" is (usually) used in the context of a programming language to refer to contiguous data where individual elements can be accessed (directly) through a numerical index, while "table" is used in the context of a database, tables are sets of structured data with relatively complex underlying mechanisms to store and retrieve individual entries. Equendil Talk 06:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Note that my answer is not specific to PHP, the PHP manual says about arrays : "an array in PHP is actually an ordered map" (ie associative array). I'm not really familiar with PHP and its level of technical obfuscation, so it's probably best someone else answers specific questions. Equendil Talk 07:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

They have different dimensions, for one thing. A table is more like a Microsoft Excel worksheet—each individual row can contain multiple fields each of which have values. An array is something different—each item in an array can contain only one value, but you can make arrays multi-dimensional.

You can store the same data in either but you'd store it differently. If you were storing pixel information in a table you'd have each row contain fields like "x" and "y" and "color", and you'd say, "get me the data for row whatever" and it'd let you manipulate those values. For an array though what you'd probably do is have a multi-dimensional array like pixel_color[x,y] = your value.

You see the difference? You can store the same data but you'd do it differently. Of course if you wanted to save an array permanently you'd have to output it somehow, usually into a table but not necessarily. There are also very different ways to manipulate arrays and tables. With something like SQL you can very quickly sort huge amounts of data in a table by very complicated criteria, whereas with an array usually the best you can do is use regular expressions or just cycle through the data manually one piece at a time. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with most of what comes before. Programmers universally use the term "array" for a very specific language feature - a contiguous block of data - accessed with a simple integer "index" - there can be one, two and three-dimensional and even N-dimensional arrays...same deal - contiguous data, N integer indices. Some languages (like PHP) might implement arrays some other way "under the hood" - but they are essentially simulating that same thing. There is really no other meaning for the word.

On the other hand, the term "table" is a pretty vague term - it's used much less formally for all sorts of different things. It doesn't have the solid connotations of words like "list", "array", "stack" or "tree". I might talk about speeding up the 'cosine' function by making a "lookup table" - this table is likely to be a simple array of floating point values. On the other hand, I might talk about a table of some kind of data that's stored associatively - or in a linked list or in almost any other kind of physical structure. So a table MIGHT be stored as an array - and an array MIGHT be used to implement a table - a table MIGHT NOT be implemented with an array and an array MIGHT be used for something that's not a table at all. SteveBaker (talk) 01:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft office word - Text-type

Hey, i wondered if it is possible to somewhere get more various types of text-types.

You know, "times new roman" is the most standard one and then there comes many other types with it to choose from, but I still don't have some types that I had on my previous computer which I liked to use. So I was hoping it might be possible to somehwere find and install/download new types or something

And i want to say thank you beforehand for any answers :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.164.177.171 (talk) 15:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

They are named fonts. Most fonts can be bought, some are available freely. Microsoft Windows stores available fonts in C:\Windows\Fonts directory, they can be installed by copying their files there. The Wikipedia article has some useful data on this topic. MTM (talk) 16:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

This page [3] tells you how to install them once you download them -- Mad031683 (talk) 16:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Extreme content control

Hello, is it feasible to establish a www content control system on a computer by

1) stopping the computer talking to any name servers whatsoever 2) hard coding (20 or so) permitted hosts' addresses into the hosts file

How often would I need to edit the hosts file? Also can someone remind me how to achieve the first point on a Windows XP box? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.49.27.114 (talk) 18:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• Well, filtering network traffic is what a firewall does, so I would use that. Requires control on outbound connections though, which the Windows firewall doesn't really offer. A pretty good firewall on Windows is "Look'n'Stop" (20€). Does anything you expect from a firewall and hasn't grown into a bloated piece of software that checks your mail, scans your files for viruses, takes a memory stick for itself and goes into 100% CPU mode now and then like ZoneAlarm.
• If you want to try your method here though, you can disable your ISP's DNS by setting up the connection manually (no DHCP) and not giving it any DNS server. Won't have anything to talk to then. Edit the LMHOSTS file and make sure LMHOSTS lookup is activated (WINS tab in TCP/IP properties/advanced). Equendil Talk 18:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oh and how often you would have to edit the hosts file depends on how often the hosts change their IP address, so can't really answer that one. Equendil Talk 19:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you mean hosts or lmhosts? If I remember correctly, lmhosts is more for computers inside your network, whereas hosts works more for non-local addresses (i.e. - Internet) Washii (talk) 18:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can't get scroll wheel to work

I just bought a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 and I can't get its scroll wheel or back button to work. The wheel button however, does work. There should be a simple solution to this, but I can't figure it out :/--SquareOuroboros (talk) 18:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Which operating system are you using? It's quite ironic, but I've had quite a bit of problem trying to get my Microsoft keyboard and mouse combo working under Windows (only works in certain USB ports), so it's not unusual. Did you install intelliMouse (or whatever it's called) that came with your mouse? --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

History: The laptop I am using (a Gateway) is supposed to support Bluetooth naturally, but it doesn't act like it does. So instead, I stuck the Bluetooth USB radio receiver from my Logitech keyboard (which is not being used). That seemed to work, except for the scroll wheel and back button.

I am running Vista (32-bit). I've installed the program "Microsoft Mouse" and this specific mouse is oddly not in its drop-down list for devices. Also, message states "Some mouse settings might not work until you connect a Microsoft mouse to a USB port on your computer or set up a Microsoft mouse that uses Bluetooth technology." on startup. How, nowhere in my control panel is there anywhere to set Bluetooth settings.

So, help?--SquareOuroboros (talk) 07:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Monitor clock/phase reset

Why hello. I changed out my graphics card the other day, and it all has worked fine, except when I turn my PC on my monitor's clock/phase settings have reset and the picture is blurred and vanishing off the screen, requiring me to manually fix it.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks. 80.229.160.127 (talk) 18:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably can't really answer that one, but you might want to indicate what graphic card and what monitor you have. Best always state what's your hardware and system (or any relevant info) when you require technical help. Equendil Talk 19:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The new card is an ATI x1950, the monitor is an Ilyama. I didn't really see it as a fault in the hardware, more of a software issue. I do have the latest drivers for the card, too. 09:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC) talk)

The settings you are after are likely in the graphics driver, you may be driving the monitor at an inappropriate refresh rate for the given resolution. Try adjusting the settings in windows to the specifics of what the monitor is supposed to support. Also, if the monitor has an onboard "auto adjust" feature, give that a whirl. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 15:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Dealing with a dead laptop

Hello, I am a graduate student whose HP Pavilion DV1000 laptop recently died. I turned it off a couple of days ago, and I was not able to turn it back in an hour or two later. No lights appear anywhere on the machine. The disk drive does not open. To my recollection, the battery was fully charged before I turned off the laptop (I had it plugged in). I've tried different techniques to bring it back to life -- ejecting the battery for a while, being plugged in with the battery inserted, being plugged in with the battery ejected, holding down the power button at all these different points, removing and reseating the memory, etc. Someone said it may be a "fried motherboard", though I'm not clear what this means.

With the laptop being a few years old, the warranty has expired. The laptop, running on Windows XP, had been holding up fairly well, though Office 2007 (necessary for my classes) was a little sluggish on it. I was wondering if there were any other fixes possible. If not, is it more fiscally reasonable to get this laptop fixed by HP or another place, or to get a new laptop altogether? Thanks, 140.182.135.28 (talk) 19:56, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you feel comfortable removing the hard disk and placing it [as a slave, if needed] in another computer and then recovering your data? Kushal (talk) 21:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not likely that it's the hard drive that's faulty - I doubt that it's the RAM of the graphics or the display - the machine would at least boot to the BIOS layer - lights would come on. It's possible you just have a dead battery. If you know someone with a similar machine - borrow the battery and see. Failing that - you have to take a chance and buy a battery...sadly, you might do that and find it's really something else. A "fried motherboard" is certainly possible - a totally dead machine could indeed have a faulty motherboard - or a dead battery - and there is really no easy way to know which. I guess I'm a little surprised that not a single LED anywhere would come on - even with a faulty motherboard - so again, the battery seems the most likely thing. But a new battery is (presumably) cheaper than getting the motherboard replaced - and replacing the cheapest thing first is really the only sane way to proceed. I'd try a computer repair place first...have them give you a cost estimate - only you can know whether the cost to repair is more cost-effective than cost to replace. When you do replace it - how much important data do you lose? Swapping the hard drive into a new laptop probably won't work...fixing this one does. Dunno - get as much information as you can and make an informed decision. SteveBaker (talk) 01:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Computer TV appliances on Linux?

As my TV recently broke down, my mother's husband suggested I get a USB appliance for my computer to receive TV signals and watch TV on my computer instead. The only problem is, unlike 99.999999% of Finland's population, I use Linux and not Windows. Will these appliances work on Linux just as well or would I be forced to finally succumb to Bill? JIP | Talk 20:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the MythTV folks could point you in the right direction. --LarryMac | Talk 20:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Look at the list of supported hardware at the Video4Linux-wiki 90.235.30.211 (talk) 15:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

MythTV works great - but I strongly recommend buying hardware that's well supported by them - search Linux user groups to find someone who has a really nicely working system - and copy it exactly! Once you get "off the beaten track" you can run into horrible installation problems. SteveBaker (talk) 01:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia template help on Template:User BRUIN ALUM

This template appears to transclude itself, revealed by the template's "What links here" special page. I am having trouble determining how the <include> and </noinclude> tags are allowing this. I would appreciate assistance! Newportm (talk) 20:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The <noinclude>d parts of the template page transclude the template a few times, to illustrate the template's function. This is done on many template pages. What's the problem? Algebraist 20:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I guess there's no problem. That is my first experiment with <noinclude> tags. Newportm (talk) 02:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Fedora - Keyboard - Noob

Hi,

I am using Fedora 9(KDE). Some keys on my keyboard don't work with Fedora, to be specific the Volume +/- keys, calculator key, the "Email" key (supposed to open the email client when pressed) and the key with MS Windows logo on it (I want to open kMenu with it). How do I get these keys to work? My keyboard is Compaq 5185 if that helps. Thanks for reading-Abhishek^Talk 23:26, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Those keys are not magic. Compaq installed a program (that they didn't tell you about) in Windows when they shipped the computer. That program listened to those keys. You need to map them in Fedora. Click on the "f", then System Settings. In the settings, select Keyboard and Mouse. Choose Keyboard Shortcuts. You'll see KDE Components and the actions that you can map to a key. Select the component and action. Click on the > and press a key to map it to that action. I just noticed that I have shutdown without confirmation mapped to Ctrl+Shift+Alt+PgDown. I better make sure I don't accidentally press that. -- kainaw™ 01:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It would also help that you got the right keyboard in System/Preferences/Keyboard (I thought Fedora uses GNOME?). You should have a few options under Compaq, try them all and see if they magically work. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I got the Volume +/- keys working following kainaw's advice, but I can't figure out how to map the other keys. The configuration utility provides a very few options to configure; and doesn't allow me to create custom shortcuts either. Someone pointed me to this wiki, but when I tried to open the file I was supposed to edit it said the file didn't exist!-Abhishek^Talk 15:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Connecting to the Internet

I recently installed a modded version of Windows XP on one of my partitions, made specifically for gaming (it takes out most of the crap like movie maker, etc) and the full iso is only 92 mb for example. It says it came with most drivers removed EXCEPT networking drivers and drivers necessary to connect to the internet are supposedly with the setup. My problem is that I absolutely cannot connect to the internet! =[ and I fear it is because it didn't install the necessary drivers (the OS works flawlessly excepting that). What can I do? I don't even know where to start. Thanks for the help. --71.98.3.250 (talk) 23:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

September 25

Temporarily disabling Spotlight

I use OS X 10.4. I've found that when I use some (actually very memory intensive) applications, specifically FinalCut Pro, my Mac decides that I'm not doing anything of consequence and starts to index things with Spotlight, sometimes hogging +90% of the CPU resources. Of course this drive me bananas since what I'm actually doing (watching video and figuring out where to cut it into little pieces) is quite intensive and having it occasionally be jerky on account of Spotlight is a little ridiculous.

Is there any way that I can selectively disable Spotlight? On Google most of the results I've found are about totally disabling it all the time and often about deleting your Spotlight cache. That's not what I want -- I just want to be able to turn it off for an hour here or there while I am doing something that I don't want disturbed by its little "mdimport" process.

Any thoughts? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Cat5 to fiber optic to cat5

Hello. I have difficult residential internet installation I’m struggling with. My wireless service provider only has cat5 cable installs and needs to have “line of sight” to get a signal. Well, in order for me to get “line of sight” I have to run the cat5 cable about 340 feet. I’m not only too far for cat5 to work but I have to run through woods full of wildlife that like to chew on it. Is it possible to start with cat5 at the antenna, switch to fiber optic for the long distance and the back to cat5 into the computer? Wiini (talk) 00:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It appears you are mixing things up in your description. "Line of sight" is used in wireless connections. Cat5 is a cable. So, it sounds like you have a wireless connection about 340 feet from your house and there is a Cat5 cable running from the wireless tower to your house. If so, this is a terrible design. Cat5 begins to lose dependability beyond 300 feet. However, that are solutions. You can get a Cat5-to-fiber converter. They are common (and not extremely cheap). The catch is that fiber cable is prone to cracking if twisted, bend, stepped on, driven over, etc... It isn't as bad as it was back in the early 90s (when it would crack just because it didn't like the way you looked at it). But, it is still more fragile than a wire. Another solution is to use a repeater at the tower. Repeat the signal, wirelessly, to your house. At your house, begin the cat5. You will be using a short-range wireless signal, which can be blocked, but isn't truly line-of-sight. Best of all, the animals can't chew on the wireless signal. -- kainaw™ 01:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

To use fibre optic fibre, you need a pair of fiber optic transceivers. These will cost about $300 each, but at 100 meg you can have a range of 2000 meters. And of course you will need power to operate them. For the one out in the woods, this could cost more than the pricey transceiver. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Why bother with such a complicated set up? Unless I'm mistaken (and supported by wikipedia articles) properly constructed ethernet cabling should work up to 100 metres total (given that you will usually add patch cables, the distance of the permanent cabling is often limited to 90 metres according to Category 5 but the total distance allowed should still be 100 metres). 340 feet is slightly over that but according to ethernet over twisted pair with high quality cabling you can generally get away with 150 metres particularly for 10BASE-T. So you could probably get away with keeping it completely passive particularly as I doubt your wireless internet connection is going to be faster then 10BASE-T so you can just limit it to that (although I suspect 100BASE-TX should be fine). Since this is a residential connection, I would say it doesn't really matter if you're breaking the spec if it works. If it doesn't work or you don't want to go this route, you could just install a ethernet repeater (or a switch) somewhere along the loop to ensure neither segment is longer then 100 metres (remember it could be something like 70+35). You will need to find a way to protect and power the repeater (which shouldn't be that hard, I'm sure I've heard of people putting switches [and APs] on rooftops and stuff before) but I personally suspect it'll be cheaper then adding fibre to the mix. If we were talking about over 200 metres say, looking at fibre may start to make sense. Nil Einne (talk) 09:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

problem in running a software

whenever I try to run a software(newton) a message appear "msvcp71.dll is not found".also when I try to run an other software (springcharts) a message appear" msvcr71.dll is not found .please install java 1.5" .plz tell me what is java 1.5 and how i can istall it from internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khubab (talk • contribs) 01:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You need the Java Runtime Environment. You can download it from http://www.java.com . — QuantumEleven 09:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Replacing long string of if/thens in VB.Net?

There's certainly a more elegant way to convert named-months to numbered-months than the following:

       Dim Number As String
       If Month.Text = "January" Then
           Number = "01"
       End If
       If Month.Text = "February" Then
           Number = "02"
       End If
       If Month.Text = "March" Then
           Number = "03"
       End If
       If Month.Text = "April" Then
           Number = "04"
       End If
       If Month.Text = "May" Then
           Number = "05"
       End If

(etc) What exactly would this more elegant manner be? ("Month" is a ComboBox control in DropDownList style) Badger Drink (talk) 05:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried a DateTimePicker control? Drag one of those onto the form and try this code:

Dim monthName As Date = DateTimePicker1.Text
Dim monthNumber As String = monthName.ToString("MM")

--Tree 'uns 5 (talk) 06:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tree 'uns 5 (talk • contribs)

This would be perfect, but as far as I know, the DateTimePicker pops up that horrible shitty little calendar selector. Since most of the dates I'd require would be from the 1970s, the calendar selector would be a horrid mess of obnoxious clicking - and even setting the starting date wouldn't help too much, since the dates I'd need would fluctuate within a twenty-year period or so. =( Badger Drink (talk) 06:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Doesnt' VB.Net have some kind of switch/case statement? --LarryMac | Talk 12:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Select Case. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You could replace it in numerous ways. For one, an using elseif statements for all but the first would make the Block more efficient. A "Select Case" statement would look prettier. The best way of course would be to use an associative array though, with the months being the Identifiers of their Values. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 12:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Check out the DateTime object, specifically the various Parse methods (probably TryParse is best for what you want). It lets you parse strings into DateTimes which can then have the month extracted as a string. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how to do this specifically in VB, but to solve this problem generally (mapping a string to another string, or really mapping anything to anything else), you'd use a hashtable (see associative array for the general data-structure). In many languages hashtables are built in (like PHP or Python), but in many languages this is part of the standard library. I googled it, and found this nice article that helps you do this in Visual Basic 2005. There might be specific solutions that work better in this case (like using specialized Date-objects), but for the general problem, this is how you do it. 90.235.30.211 (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

That sounds way overkill. If there wasn't a specialized function to do this, I'd just use a SELECT CASE or something like that. It's a lot easier and a lot less overhead. I'm not sure I see the advantage of using a hashtable for something this simple. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Here, incidentally, is how you'd do it with Select Case:

 Dim MonthText as String
 Dim MonthNumber as Integer
 MonthNumber = 0
 MonthText = Month.Text
 Select Case Ucase(Mid(MonthText,1,3)) 'make it case insensitive and only get the first three letters, to make it easy on the user
 Case "JAN": MonthNumber = 1
 Case "FEB": MonthNumber = 2
 Case "MAR": MonthNumber = 3
 (repeat)
 Case "DEC": MonthNumber = 12
 End Select
 If MonthNumber = 0 Then
     Msgbox("Your month name was not accurate, try again")
     Exit Sub
 End Select

Or something like that. It's still a little over a dozen lines of code but it's pretty straightforward. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

xbox 360

will a normal xbox 360 hard drive work on a 360 elite? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwking (talk • contribs) 05:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure. The Elite drive is just larger, but the interface is the same. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 07:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought Microsoft discourages swapping hard disks. ?? Kushal (talk) 12:39, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

That may be, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. I mean, am I offering a guarantee that absolutely nothing can go wrong? Nope. But have I ever experienced a problem when swapping Xbox 360 hard disks? Nope. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 20:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Encryption on Windows XP

Is there any way of decrypting files with a signature algorithm of sha1RSA? I won't go into details but an encrypted file's certificate became deleted from on my Windows XP. -- penubag  (talk) 06:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Uh what did you encrypt it with in the first place? --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I just used MS's default encryption option. The right-click, file properties, encrypt contents. I hate Microsoft, they can't get anything right. -- penubag  (talk) 07:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

So you marked it as encrypted, then reinstalled your computer or otherwise lost your original profile/keys? This seems like a nice article on this subject. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Um... They seem to have got this right. You don't have the key to the files, therefor you can't get at them. I'd be more worried if you COULD get at your encrypted files without the key. Anyway unless you want to spend a few months brute forcing the key chances are your SOL 88.211.96.3 (talk) 09:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Quoting from the article: "The Recovery Agent is a mechanism that allows the administrator to recover encrypted files when the user’s keys are lost." So depending on his situation, he might well be able to decrypt his files. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Laptop Issues

I am having problems with my laptop (A ThinkPad T23). Recently, it's taken to actually booting up at a time I'd prefer to call "two seconds left in the game" and BSoD'ing about 60-80% of the time it *does* boot, and this past weekend two curious things happened, a day apart:

• The laptop lost track of both date and time (Saturday)
• The laptop couldn't find a necessary file to boot up, but booted normally when I rolled the system back a few weeks (Sunday)

For clarity, I'm using Windows XP, the laptop (and its parts) is secondhand, and I have not added or removed any hardware (except for a mouse in order to play Diablo II without getting frustrated at the trackpoint; the mouse's addition or removal does not affect booting as far as I have observed). Any ideas as to the nature of the gremlins haunting the system? -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 09:00, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Loss of ability to keep track of date and time suggests a failure of the motherboard battery. You mentioned that the laptop is second hand. Unless you never let your ThinkPad run out of batteries (the regular ones), you might want to replace the small button cell in your motherboard. But wait, lets see what others have to say on this issue.

It could be malicious code infecting your computer that is causing the problems. I do not have much faith in the system rollback feature in Windows XP. You might need to reinstall your operating system. Lets wait and see what other wikipedians have to say. Kushal (talk) 12:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

My first reaction was also "dead motherboard battery". For those who don't know - even when you disconnect your laptop from the charger AND pull out the battery pack, there is a teeny-tiny rechargable "lithium cell" on the motherboard that holds just enough charge to allow the on-board clock to keep good time until you replace/recharge the main battery. If that goes kaputt, your computer loses track of time when you turn it off. The battery usually lasts longer than the computer - but when it fails, this is exactly the kind of thing that happens. That certainly explains the first symptom - and could possibly explain the second. It's a general rule with computers that you should always "fix the bug you can find" before you worry too much about the others...very often, fixing the obvious problem also fixes the not-so-obvious ones. Sadly, this may mean dismantling your laptop - which is always a tricky and stressful thing. If you were born lucky, your computer may have a little plastic flap underneath somewhere - held down with a tiny screw or snap-connection - that's specifically designed to let you get at the battery. If so then PLEASE make a sketch or take a close-up photo of the battery BEFORE you take it out - so you'll be 100% sure how to put the replacement back into the machine! Then you can remove the old battery - and find a replacement (most decent computer stores will have them) and you'll be good-to-go. If you can't get at the battery easily - you might want to take the machine to a professional...it's really easy to yank off a flimsy ribbon cable or lose a screw inside or something. SteveBaker (talk) 00:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

IBM has always made the Thinkpad maintenance manuals freely available. The manuals contain step-by-step instructions for common maintenance procedures, with clear pictures. Searching for the exact model number (found on the bottom of the machine, it looks something like 2647 or 2628-FX1) should produce the most accurate information, but apparently Lenovo keeps a generic T-series maintenance manual available [here]. It is quite possible that Lenovo still sells all the replacement parts - you just need the FRU number which you can find the maintenance manual. 130.188.8.13 (talk) 13:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Using print screen to create screenshots

I've been practising using the print screen button to crop screenshots from online videos on Microsoft Word, but when I cut and paste these into My Pictures it comes up as "scrap". It will not allow me to just paste the screenshot of a webpage directly there either to enable me to crop it in paint. Any way to work around this? Alientraveller (talk) 10:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Print Screen (copy) and then paste into a photo editor (even MS Paint will work) and save the screenshot as a standard jpg or gif. You can easily edit a standard jpg or gif in any photo editor (even MS Paint will work). -- kainaw™ 12:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

When you use print screen you are copying the image to the clipboard as an image. If you paste it into a folder, it will come up as a "scrap" because that's how Windows recognizes raw clipboard data. Rather, as suggested above, you will need to paste it into an intermediary image program (MS Paint, Paint.NET, GIMP, whatever) and then save it as the image file you want it to be. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:39, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If you only need to crop and resize it, you could just as easily paste it straight into MS Word and do the editing there. In the picture properties under the Size tab there will be a Compress button which allows you to delete the cropped portions of images to keep teh size of the document manageable. Of course with this method you don't have the picture available to use in other programs. Zunaid 16:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Firefox: Inheriting history in new tabs?

An example: Using the same tab, I browse to sites A, B and C in that order. On site C, I open a few links in new tabs, and later close the original tab with site C. Now there is no way for me to go "back" to sites B or A without creating a new tab and navigating there myself. Is there some way (extension/setting or such) that makes new tabs inherit the history of their parent tab, so that I can go back to sites visited in the previous tabs? -- Aeluwas (talk) 12:06, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This isn't quite what you want, but you could just re-open the closed C tab, and all of its history should be there, allowing you to go back to B and A. --LarryMac | Talk 12:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

LarryMac is right. Go to History > Recently closed tab >> ... . Alternatively, if you just closed it, you can press Shift + Command (Control on non-Macs) + T to get to it. Cheers, Kushal (talk) 12:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm yes, thanks; unfortunately I already knew that (but hadn't really thought about it to be honest). Well, it's surely better than nothing. :) -- Aeluwas (talk) 18:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate Tab JessicaThunderbolt 19:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Perfect!! Thanks a lot! :) -- Aeluwas (talk) 12:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

MATLAB: Solving system with unknowns in multiple matrices

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone knows a clever way to solve a system Ax=b (using MATLAB) where:

A = some nxn matrix

x = some nx1 matrix where some amount (<= n) of the entries are unknown

b = some nx1 matrix where some amount (<= n) of the entries are unknown

Also, x and b are subject to the following condition:

If the entry in row i of x is unknown, the entry in row i of b must be known, and vice versa.

An example of this sort of system could be:

A = [1 2 3; 4 5 6; 7 8 9]

x = [2 y 5]'

b = [a 6 c]'

where y, a, and c are unknowns (this particular example may not actually have a solution, and I'm pretty sure this particular A is singular, but it demonstrates the general form of the problem).

For a normal case where all the entries in x are unknown and A and b contain only known elements, it's easy to just execute

x = A\b (or x = inv(A)*b, if you like)

but I'm not sure how to solve the type of system described above due to unknowns being in both x and b. I'm sure there's probably a way to solve it using the MATLAB symbolic toolkit, but I'd prefer not to use that since not all versions of MATLAB have it.

Any suggestions, ideas, or code would be much appreciated.

H. J. Hackenbacker (talk) 12:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Partition A, x & y so that the known x's are in one partition and the unknowns in the other. It will be easier to tell what to do next and the partitions of A will probably no longer be singular. Saintrain (talk) 14:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Download to Pdf

I noticed that on wikieducator.org in their toolbox, they have a "Download as Pdf" option which downloads the current wiki page to a pdf.

I have a wiki and wanted to see if I could perhaps add a tool similar to this. What I want to accomplish is for the user of the wiki based site to be able to download a pdf of any page they please. I don't necessarily want to "print to pdf" all my current pages one by one and post the link up since the page will be edited constantly. A tool such as the one wikieducator has, either in the toolbox or elsewhere, to download to pdf would be extremely useful.

How would I do this?

18:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)18:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It'll involve adding some custom PHP. This page seems to describe one MediaWiki plugin that can accomplish something very similar. There may be others as well—if you google "wiki2pdf" you'll find a lot of little code snippets. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia icon

How can I put a Wikipedia icon on my computer screen for faster access to search the files of Wikipedia? I though there was one on another computer I used some time ago, but I have been searching Wikipedia for over an hour and I cannot find anything about this.

If there is an icon available for download, Wikipedia should make this feature easier to find. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.245.15.66 (talk) 19:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

On Windows, you can simply drag the favicon (the one near the addressbar) onto your desktop.

If you use Firefox or Opera, you can use the integrated Search feature.

--grawity 19:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

A site I can't remember

Hi Wikipedians:

I came across a site a while ago that let's you use this Java Applet, which turns out to be a Java-based Windows Server 2003 terminal software that gives you a complete Windows Server 2003 desktop (including a full Office 2003 suite) right inside the browser (I was using Firefox at the time) for free. A lot of other people used it and left some signature files behind. With this site, I can use Office 2003 on any platform provided it has a browser that can run Java.

I find the site to be sooooo cool. But now I can't find it any more. I think I stumbled across it while searching for "online office". But the site no longer seems to show up in Google.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

128.100.122.154 (talk) 20:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

There are a few web desktops listed here. Was it one of those? JessicaThunderbolt 20:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Pro cons of java, c++ og assembly language

The question is simple. What is the pro and cons of java, c++ og assembly programming language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.199.32.168 (talk) 21:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Which language can you program in? This gives a great advantage to you! Does your platform have a compiler or interpreter for the language? gcc gives you c++ plus some more languages. Is this a homework question? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If this a homework question, I should note, we do not answer such questions unless you have shown you have tried and need Help not Answers :P--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 22:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

og is the name of an object-relational database mapping library used in Nitro and written in Ruby. Ogg is a free, open standard container format. And or is Logical disjunction - do you mean any of these? Also see c++ assembly language or Java (programming language). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Fingerprint Reader

Hey y'all! The laptop I'm using has a fingerprint reader but there doesn't appear to be any software on it to make use of it...Is there any freely available software out there I can use? Thanks.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 23:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

How about the UBEK driver: [4]. Worth a try. Fribbler (talk) 23:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll see if it's any good.:)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 23:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Wait, I'm on Windows, the requirements say GNU/Linux...?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 23:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

So it does. The same for "fprint" (another one I found). Back to the googleboard! Fribbler (talk) 11:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

How to download FreeBSD?

I want to install and use FreeBSD because it is genetic Unix and it's BSD too. I'm currently using Ubuntu GNU/Linux but I want to dual-boot Ubuntu and FreeBSD. I'm having trouble downloading FreeBSD. The downloads on ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/7.0/ state this: 7.0-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso, 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso, 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso, 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc3.iso, 7.0-RELEASE-i386-docs.iso, and 7.0-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso. I'm so confuse what .iso should I download. Should I download all, 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso, or the 7.0-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso? What is 7.0-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso? What .iso(s) of FreeBSD should I download? Jet (talk) 23:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It certainly looks like you need to download them all and burn each one onto a separate disk. Then you should reboot your computer with the "bootonly" disk in the drive. Hopefully, it'll prompt you to insert the other disks as needed. SteveBaker (talk) 00:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you don't need the livefs or the bootonly. LiveFS is mainly intended to be used as a rescue disc. Bootonly is if you only want a disc to bootup with and plan to install from e.g. the internet. And depending on what you plan to install, you may only need disc1. Docs may be useful, but of course you can also access documentation directly from the internet (I don't believe you need it for an install even a full install). There is some brief description of the various discs at [5]. And yes, you will be prompted to insert the discs as needed although at least last time I made a full install there was some extra disc swapping (putting CD1 back in and then CD2). You could of course combine the various discs into a single DVD, there are various guides for this available online and I did it myself without much problem or you could potentially I think only burn disc1 (to CD/DVD R/RW) and then mount the images stored on your computer (never tried this although I think it's possible). Nil Einne (talk) 09:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

September 26

Qbasic Programming Question

Alright, I suck at programing tests and quizzes, and the equation/math part of the programming, and flowcharts (this is Qbasic), so I need some help with this problem.

2. Reserved words are words that are used by Qbasic and we can not use them for variable names (True/False)____. Now give an example of a reserved word ____________

3. You are given an allowance of 20.00 dollars a week. Last week you spent it as follows : $3.50---Fast food, $8.00---Movies, $14.00---CD. You also won a wager with a friend for $5.00, and found another $5.00 in the parking lot of the Mall. Write a Qbasic program which displays your fund Balance on Sunday night (when you get your allowance), all of your transactions, and the amount you have left on next Sunday morning. DO A FLOWCHART!!!!!

Use this space for your work: —Preceding —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.203.57.167 (talk) 00:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixed this [6].) APL (talk) 01:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, the Wikipedia reference desk has a rule - we aren't allowed to do people's homework. Sorry. SteveBaker (talk) 00:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

(fixed this [7].) APL (talk) 01:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Use this space for your snarky refusal to do homework: --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

16:9 monitor

I've recently switched to a 16:9 1920×1080 monitor. While I am really happy about this at first since now I don't have to watch my videos with letterbox anymore, I find it kind of annoying also, because when viewing certain websites, Wikipedia included, the text is just stretched across the whole screen, making the shorter paragraphs (Four or five lines when viewed in 1024×768) feels like proseline. I am wondering if there's a way to force my web browser (Firefox), or just the Monobook skin (That'll help editing greatly), to adjust the resolution to perhaps something with a lower horizontal resolution. As for some reason it really does makes me feel frustrated to see proseline. -- クラウド６６８ 04:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

One thing about using a widescreen monitor is that you really need to stop your habit of maximising windows. Just un-maximise your window and adjust it to a comfortable width, because even if such plugin exist it'd only fill up your page with blank space: why put your desktop space to waste? --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Antilived. With my wide-screen monitor I simply have my browser set up taking up the normal width of a monitor then the spare desktop space is ideal for dragging/dropping files or getting fast access to my HD. Certainly that's the best policy - it does take a bit of getting used to but once you do you'll find switching between your screen and others more 'normal'. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Telephones ringing

For the purposes of a theatrical production I need to have several normal telephones ringing on demand. Does anyone know of a method to send a signal to the phones to cause them to ring. My initial idea was to get a laptop and plug them in but I would have no idea what kind of software to use to send the signal. MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 11:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's a rather technical discussion on doing just that. If it's too technical (it is for me) why not just use a sound effect? Fribbler (talk) 11:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

That page is essentially how to make a program that creates a WAV file that sounds like a phone ringing, which you'd then burn onto a CD and play using a (person operated) cd player. -- 84.45.132.96 (talk) 12:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? It seems to involve hooking up the phone to the cd player. I'll admit I don't understand all of it. Fribbler (talk) 12:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You're indeed correct. The software creates a CD that produces the correct Voltages, so that when hooked up to a telephone a ringing sound is formed. It also provides information on hooking up the phone. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 12:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Ringing isn't really a "signal" so much as a "blooming great AC voltage" - the phone exchange sets enough juice to waggle a little iron hammer in a solenoid at a distance of several miles. So this is proper electricity, rather than wimpy-dimpy computer type electricity. Other than Fribbler's excellent sound effect suggestion (which is what most theatres seem to do, in my limited experience) you can have someone electrically competent build a ringer circuit (this has more info: http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/telephone_ringer.html) - but as the voltages required are nontrivial, it should be someone skilled in the electrical arts. Alternatively you can buy (for cheap) a used analog PBX (aka PABX), the little analog phone exchanges small offices had a decade or two ago before they switched to digital. You can get these on eBay (and probably car boot sales and the like). Then you can plug in a coupleof regular BT phones and you just dial one to make it ring. The trouble with using a real phone (rather than a sound effect) is projection - in a large theatre that phone might seem quiet (the sound radiates in all directions, whereas the actors project into the audience). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Music metadata

Is there a free and easy way to update metadata on downloaded music files from P2P programs (ie not iTunes etc which already come with the correct metadata)? --RMFan1 (talk) 12:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

How about this? Fribbler (talk) 12:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Ill try that. If anyone knows of anything that actually updates the metadata automatically please let me know. Also I have a question about metadata: Why is it that on WMP there are so many different types of metadata (for example, theres an "album artist", "artist", "composed by" etc) but the files themselves seem to have less (usually just "title", "artist" and other basic tags)? --RMFan1 (talk) 12:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)