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June 23

Just built a computer but it wont turn on

After pressing the power button it doesn't do anything. The fans don't spin. No lights light up. It is absolutely quiet. I am unsure what the problem is. (power supply maybe?) Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.118.202.92 (talk) 08:04, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you are sure mains power is actually getting to the PC (go check the fuses/circuit breakers in your house and the power cable leading to the PC), the first place I would look is the power supply. Many PC power supplies have their own internal fan as shown in this image, and if that isn't running the power supply unit itself is likely to be faulty. Check your power supply has the correct input voltage settings: 100-127V AC, 60Hz in the USA, which is usually selectable with the small red switch on the backplate. The small plugs that supply the power to the components inside your PC, carry voltages typically 3.3, 5 or 12V DC. Check each one with a multimeter to see if the correct voltage is being supplied. Make sure each plug is properly seated, the correct way round in its socket on the motherboard, disk drives, etc. and note that some can be a very tight fit. Astronaut (talk) 09:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit) Due to the much better advice provided below, and me forgetting quite how a PC gets switched on, I've struck out my rather simplistic view of how a power supply can be checked. Astronaut (talk) 17:13, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If you just built a computer and it isn't turning on I would be careful about assuming the PSU is faulty. The PSU will only turn on if the motherboard tells it to turn on so there could be plenty of reasons like the motherboard is faulty, you didn't plug the power switch in properly, the power switch is faulty (presuming the motherboard doesn't have a built in switch which you are using). Okay technically the PSU us always on by the fan doesn't usually run when it's in standby mode (a few keep it running for a few minutes after you turn it back to standby mode but I don't think I've ever seen any that turn it on when you first turn it on in standby mode although probably something does exist), there may be some lights visible on the motherboard, there may not be so without knowing more details about the particular set up, it's difficult to say whether the OP would be aware of the difference between PSU completely not working and motherboard never turns on the PSU. Depending on the PSU if something is shorting you may also get something like this (although usually the PSU will turn on briefly and then go off quickly albeit depending on how much attention you paid and where the computer is you may not notice). Of course if it's the standby that's shorting then I would guess this would usually fuse it fast enough that wouldn't notice.

In terms of testing, you don't really have to worry about disk drives. I would connect only the motherboard and perhaps video card if it has a power connection first (disconnecting anything else plugged into the power supply). In fact, often you'd disconnect everything but the video card (unless it has built in video in which case even that is unnecessary if you have one), RAM and CPU from the motherboard plus the power switch if needed and of course the power. There's also little use trying to measure voltages if the PSU isn't even on (other then the standby lines).

If all else fails, you can disconnect the PSU from the motherboard and video card, connect it to a few disk drives, or fans or something and then short the power on (usually green) and ground (usually black) lines and see if the PSU comes on properly as discussed in our ATX PSU article. If it does, try measuring the voltages if you can. (If it doesn't then yes your PSU may be faulty presuming you've made sure that the PSU is actually getting power and any switch on the PSU is on.)

If you have a good PSU, you shouldn't really need to connect anything, it should come on even without them although the voltage regulation may be poor. (And as Astronaut mentioned the PSU should have a fan which would normally come on when it comes on properly so you should be able to tell if it's at least working somewhat without connecting anything.) For some cheap & crappy PSU however, I wouldn't discount the possibility of them either refusing to turn on, or even dying if you start them without any load so I'd be careful. If the PSU seems fine, I would look more carefully at the motherboard. You could try shorting the pins for the power manually if you're careful.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Make sure the PC Speaker header (SPK or PCSPK or something like that) is connected up - the motherboard uses that to signal (by means of several beeps) if there's a problem (and if you can't hear the beeps you can't know what it's trying to tell you). Next make sure the power supply connector to the motherboard is properly connected, including the additional +12V2DC connector that most motherboards have (it's separate from the main connector, and is often located nearer to the CPU). Then make sure that the CPU fan is correctly connected to the appropriate header on the motherboard - most motherboard microcontrollers will refuse to let the system boot if they don't detect the fan (as a missing or bad fan would result in the CPU being very quickly cooked alive). In my experience these two mistakes are the most common causes of newly-built machines not starting at all - if they're okay, the PSU should power up, even if the RAM and CPU are entirely missing. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:40, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Another simple thing: I assume you're using the front-panel power button to try to turn it on, but first make sure that if there's a hard power switch on the PSU, that it's turned on. -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:51, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

And, of course, that the front-panel power button (PWR) is properly connected to the appropriate header on the motherboard (apologies for stating the obvious, but sometimes one can get caught up in byzantine hypotheses for a failure that's cause by something so trivial one has overlooked it). Ditto for the case reset (RST) switch (if it's accidentally shorted the motherboard may refuse to boot, thinking the machine is being deliberately held in reset). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your help! I thought it was the power supply at first since it was completely dark. (But that's actually because the motherboard just doesn't have an led.) It turns out I didn't plug in the front panel connector for the power switch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.108.156.138 (talk) 04:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Finding and deleting disused DLLs

I've just done a scan of my HD using the freeware program DLL Archive by AnalogX http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/System/dllarch/Freeware.htm which searches for unreferenced DLLs.

I thought it would find either none or just a few. In fact it found over six thousand of them, the biggest of which were over 13MB in size. They must be using up gigabytes of space on my nearly full HD.

a) Are there any paths/folders where it would be particularly unwise to delete them?

b) Would deleting those not in the Windows folder be safe?

c) Is there any other practical means of finding disused DLLs? Thanks 92.15.17.9 (talk) 11:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Here are some more similar programs, except the first one: http://www.softpedia.com/downloadTag/delete+dll 92.15.17.9 (talk) 12:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think such programs are terribly safe, and I wouldn't recommend relying on one. That's because of how DLL dependencies work. There are two mechanisms whereby Windows loads a dll. Firstly is by means of static dependency, where the information in an application's Portable Executable file lists all the dlls it depends upon (and they, being PEs themselves, list those that they in turn are dependent upon). That's how programs like the ones you're talking about work - they find all the executables, and then traverse the tree of dlls indicated (directly or indirectly) by these headers. It's tempting to assume that any DLL file on the disk that isn't reachable by this traversal is therefore "unreferenced", and so can be safely deleted. This isn't the case, because of the second mechanism Windows employs. DLLs can also be explicitly loaded by a program calling the LoadLibrary function; LoadLibrary takes the name of a dll and loads it when it's told to; that name isn't in the PE header of the executable, and so isn't found by the traversal discussed above. This might sound like an obscure way of doing things, but it's actually a very common pattern. Lots of programs will have a "plugins" folder (or several), and when they start they'll look in that folder, read the names of all the dlls they find, and then LoadLibrary each one (and so installing a plugin is as simple as copying its dll into that folder). The traversal misses all of these, classifies them as unreferenced, and so you'd be deleting things that are in fact used (but not statically referenced) and so break stuff. To answer your specific questions: a) clearly the windows directory and its children, but really no-where is safe b) no c) as described above, not really. Instead I'd recommend running a smart uninstaller like Revo Uninstaller Free and aggressively uninstall programs you don't use (smart uninstallers are better than dumb traversal, because they have some knowledge a-priori about the files used by many popular programs). But really I'd question that dlls are really taking up a significant part of your disk; it's almost always media files or the data files associated with applications that's really to blame. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

There's probably other stuff on your disk that can be deleted first. You can start by clearing your browser cache, emptying your trash/recycle bin, clearing various folders called temp or tmp - c:\temp, c:\windows\temp (80+MB in mine!), and other places too. Astronaut (talk) 17:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I use Ccleaner and CleanUp! all the time, so already doing that. I found three copies of hwxjpn.dll, 13MB each, 20 copies of ieframe.dll about 11MB (although some vary slightly in size), and many more repeated seemingly identical DLLs. I have 6719 unreferenced DLLs, dating back to 1994. BTW, I do frequent virus scans with four or five different scanners so they are unlikely to be malware. Its a pity that XP isnt designed to use just one DLL file rather than having many identical copies of them. I don't suppose there is any software that can do the second thing that FinlayMcWalter described? Thanks 92.15.3.0 (talk) 20:09, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Just because you have two DLLs that are the same name doesn't mean they're the same, or that they're redundant, or that you can safely remove any of them. DLLs all have versions, and applications sometimes depend on specific versions (it's rare for an application to actually check the minor version, but they do assume that dlls they find in their own search path are the ones they installed, ones they were tested to work okay with). You can see the version of a given DLL by bringing up its "properties" sheet in Windows Explorer and looking in the "details" tab. The second thing I described above is not a solution, it is a reason why no software can exist that accurately find genuinely unreferenced DLLs. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Task Scheduler

Resolved

I want to run a .bat script every 10 mins with Windows Task Scheduler. However, it doesn't work, the .bat script just flashes up for half a second and then ends. If I run the .bat script normally it works fine. What am I doing wrong? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Try adding a "pause" statement to the end of your batch file so you can see the result and hit a key at your leisure, so Windows doesn't just immediately close the cmd.exe window once the .bat file is done. Comet Tuttle (talk) 14:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

And you'll probably see a "file not found" error of some nature. That's typically because you're expecting the batch file to run with its working directory set somewhere, and with the PATH set with something in it, and it's providing a different environment where that's not the case. It's generally best to specify the full paths for everything (for the batch file, for all the executables it calls, and for any data files it references). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, that solved it! 82.43.90.93 (talk) 15:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Language Display in Games

I've got a mod for one of my games (Men of War) which adds certain scenarios to it. Unfortunately, the English version of this mod is not available yet (i.e. the localization files for this mod have not been released), and I only have the Russian version. The problem is, the cyrillic is not showing up in the game (I get random symbols), meaning I can't read what the objectives are (the objectives are spoken, too, but it's way too fast for me!). Does anyone know what I should/could do to fix this so that cyrillic is displayed in-game? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Assuming a windowsish OS, try setting your system locale to Russian (Control Panel->Regional and Language Options->Administrative->Change system locale... in the Vista box I'm currently on). You may need the Russian version of Men of War, though. —Korath (Talk) 17:19, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Did you use Windows Update and make sure the Cyrillic language pack is installed? Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe the cyrillic language pack is installed, because in 'Regional settings' I can install Russian input (which I have done) and therefore write in Russian. I can view Russian in any other software (Office, browsers, etc.). If this is not what you mean, then how would I go about checking for this (and then installing it if it's not installed)? I don't want to change the system locale just for one single mod, though. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

What is the operation done for data or file is created ,deletion ,selection ,cut,copy,past

What is the operation done for data or file is created ,deletion ,selection ,cut,copy,past,drag drop etc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.80.63 (talk) 17:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand the question, and I don't think other editors are likely to, either. Are you asking how to write a program to do these things, or are you perhaps asking what Windows or Linux do when the user does these things? Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it's the second one, "what is the OS is doing to the data when those actions are taken". 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Making a page live.

I have edited pages that have already been live in the past, but this is the first time I have created my own page. The page name is "Newman Grace Inc.", and I have finished editing it, I have saved it, however, I cannot find it on wikipedia when searching for it. How can I make sure that my page is indeed live, or is there another step that I must take in order to make the wikipedia page live. Thank you for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by OBillyHill (talk • contribs) 19:22, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You created the article on your user page, User:OBillyHill and it is still there. More common is to create a subpage by entering in the search box at the upper right of a page User:OBillyHill/Newman Grace Inc.. That way you can create and improve the article, adding references and categories, before moving it from a subpage of yours (a sandbox) to the article mainspace. A new article of a sentence or two created in main space is very likely to get speedily deleted, but an article with references and a reasonable claim of notability stands a much better chance. You rename the page by "moving" it as described at Help:Moving a page. In the most recent version of the Wikipedia "skin," you place the cursor on the downward pointing arrow at the top of the page, and you should see the option "Move." Then in "To new title" you enter the name the article should have, Newman Grace Inc. You cannot move a page if your account is too new and is not yet autoconfirmed. If so, you can request at Wikipedia:Requested moves that it be moved from your user page to mainspace. Please do not copy and paste to move a page, since that violates the Wikipedia copyright rules for contribution history. Edison (talk) 21:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

To Edison's last point, it's actually OK to copy and paste to move a page if you are the sole author of the page and you originated it on, say, a user sub-page of yours. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:09, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

You will notice that Wikipedia does not include "Inc." in the title of an article about a company. So you should consider creating your page with the title Newman Grace. Sussexonian (talk) 21:49, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Letter case in filenames when transferring photos from digital camera to Linux

I've been transferring photos from my Olympus E-520 DSLR to my Fedora 12 Linux computer by connecting the camera to a USB port, mounting it under the Linux filesystem tree (using automatic filesystem detection) and then just copying the files across, because I haven't been able to make any better or easier way work. Previously this has worked all OK, but now I've run into a small issue here.

Previously, Linux saw the files on the camera in all lowercase, such as dcim/100olymp/p1010001.jpg. Now, with no apparent reason, it has suddenly started seeing them in all uppercase, such as DCIM/100OLYMP/P1010001.JPG. This creates a problem, because like all Unix-compatible systems, Linux uses case-sensitive file names, and so the two are actually different files. If I just blindly copy the files across, mixing both conventions, I end up with duplicated photos. I have been able to change the filename case with a simple command: for i in *; do mv ${i} `echo ${i} | tr [:upper:] [:lower:]`; done, but it's awkward having to do it every time.

I don't know whether the fault is in the camera (thinking all the world is Windows, where letter case in filenames doesn't matter) or in Linux (thinking that since Windows is case-insensitive, the default rendition of the filenames doesn't matter and it can blindly force its own version instead), but I want to know how to fix this. I want to force Linux to use a consistent letter case, no matter what letter case the camera uses internally. How can I do this? Is there some option to mount or some filesystem driver parameter I can use for this? JIP | Talk 19:30, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

There are several File Allocation Table filesystem drivers for Linux, as described in FAT filesystem and Linux. It sounds like, for whatever reason, your camera is mounting as msdos rather than vfat. See what it's mounting as now, and try manually mounting it with vfat. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:40, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

No, it's mounting as vfat. I don't have any idea what caused Linux to suddenly start seeing the filenames in a different case. Maybe there is some option to mount that tells it how to see the filenames? If all else fails I'll just have to rename the files afterwards. JIP | Talk 06:46, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

FAT originally didn't store letter case. This changed with extensions added in Win 95. The extensions are called "vfat" because Win95's FAT driver was called vfat (so was Win 3.11's) and people don't understand the difference between drivers and filesystems apparently. Digital cameras (at least the ones I've used) don't implement the extensions. This means there's no correct case for the filenames generated by digital cameras; it's up to the filesystem driver (or higher-level software) to decide. Linux's "vfat" driver supports the shortname=lower mount option to use lowercase, but that's the default, and I don't know why it would suddenly change on your system. -- BenRG (talk) 13:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. The mount option shortname=lower is exactly what I was wanting. Now I just have to automatise the process. Up until now I've been using the same mount point for every device connecting at /dev/sdc1 (/dev/sda and /dev/sdb are reserved for my internal hard drives), which include both my LaCie Neil Poulton drives and the digital camera, as Linux seems to access device files in /dev in sequential order as it finds the devices in the first place - not probably unlike how Windows assigns drive letters such as C:, D: and so on. I can't just write the option into /etc/fstab because then it would probably affect my LaCie Neil Poulton drives as well. Well, there's nothing forbidding multiple mount points for the same device file, each with different options. I will just have to remember which is which. I could automatise the entire process, but I'm not just storing all my photographs in a single big directory - it would contain tens of thousands of photographs. Instead they're divided into subdirectories based on their sequence number, and I will have to figure out a way to make Linux automatically find out which files it needs to copy (in other words, which it doesn't already have) and into which subdirectories. JIP | Talk 19:28, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Reasonably new Linux systems use udev to manage devices, particularly dynamic devices like pluggable usb disks. If you want to do special stuff for a specific disk, you'd add a rule to a file in /etc/udev/rules.d (well, that's the directory on Ubuntu, I don't know about other dists) that detects that specific disk and gives it the specific mount options you want. General notes for writing udev rules (and how to figure out how to identify your specific device automatically) are here, and an example that manipulates the mount_options variable is here. Note that udev also allows you to run a given shellscript when a given device is plugged in (or out), so you could have a script that detects your camera, copies its files off, does whatever jiggery-pokery you want with them (e.g. prefix them with the date and time, or put them into a new subfolder named after the date and time, move that to your final picture archive, and delete the copies off the disk). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Logo of Diba inc.

Resolved

Can anyone find me a copy of the logo of Diba Inc., a Menlo Park, California internet-appliance startup that was bought by Sun Microsystems in 1997? I only have it on an ancient t-shirt, which I've scanned here. Tineye and my usually proficient Google-fu haven't come up with anything at all. Note that it's not the insurance company, the Iranian bootmaker, or a defunct East-European social-networking site. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:58, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

http://web.archive.org/web/19970120192623/http://www.diba.com/ You will need to remove the drop shadow, and it is a low-res GIF. PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:47, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

More specifically, http://web.archive.org/web/19970505134343/www.diba.com/logo.gif PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:51, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Gosh, silly me, I entirely forgot about webarchive. That's just the ticket - thanks! -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

How to watch the new Torrent TV Pilot "Pioneer One"

"Pioneer One" is said to be the first TV program pilot specifically for viewing by Torrent. I have never tried this video form before, and when I go via Firefox to the website [1] and click on "Download Torrent" nothing happens. I use Windows XP. I get a box which says "Opening Pioneer.One.S01E01.720p.x264-VODO.torrent Open or save? "Open" leads to "Browse" and a choice of Firefox and other unlikely programs for viewing. I assume "Save" is the right answer. This leads to a list of downloads, with a 90.1kb file, clearly not the 1119 MB file for the show. If I double click that 90.1 kb file, I get a Windows message that "Windows cannot open this file" without knowing what program created it. If I click "Use the web to find the program" I get a Windows page which offers some downloads from sources of unknown trustworthyness which might contain malware. Basically, what computer program should I install to be able to watch a Torrent program, and what are the basic steps to download and watch this particular program? It really should not be this roundabout. Will some widely known media viewer such as Real, Itunes, or Windows Media player play the thing? And how do I avoid cluttering my hard drive with giant files for programs looked at once? If they were in the playlist for a particular viewer, I might be able to download, watch, and delete. If I have to download a "BitTorrent client" then free, widely used, malware free, glitch free and legal would be good criteria. And why is a downloading and viewing program called a "client?" Thanks. Edison (talk) 20:50, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You need a Torrent client. The torrent file you downloaded (the 90kb one) is just a 'pointer' of sorts to allow a client to then find the file through 'seeds' and then download it. I use Transmission which is on Mac but there's plenty out there. Note - you don't normally watch a torrent until it has completed the download as it doesn't necessarily download the file sequentially. ny156uk (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Per Comparison of BitTorrent clients, Transmission does not run on Windows. What would be a good one for Windows? How about BitTorrent 6 ? Some concern: 1)Is this part of the peer-to peer sharing thing, where people have gotten sued for downloading copyrighted programs, or where material on my computer becomes accessible to others? 2)Are torrent files more likely than others to bring in malware? 30 How do I avoid clogging up the hard drive with downloaded files watched once and of no future interest? I have a fast broadband connection, so I usually just watch TV or movies streaming. Edison (talk) 21:27, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

1) Yes it is a type of peer-2-peer network. The torrent will only share files that you allow it to - which at the very least will always include the file(s) that you are in the process of downloading. As long as what you are downloading/sharing is legally allowed to be downloaded you are fine. 2) A lot of torrent hosting sites have a 'good' and 'bad' indicator (so bad files are voted down) but beyond that i'm not sure - it's certainly accepting files/packages of files from the internet so it's definitely not risk free. 3) Set the downloads to your desktop/a folder on your desktop and then watch the downloads from there - you can then just delete them as soon as you've watched them/whenever (basically keep all the downloaded files in one place then it's easy to go in and delete at your will). ny156uk (talk) 09:28, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

μTorrent is highly regarded. If you want something open source and not just cost-free, try Vuze. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Smaller alternatives to OpenOffice with British-English spell checking?

OpenOffice is nearly 400MB with a British English add-on; despite "Never look a gift horse in the mouth" dare I mention the word bloatware? And it has some irritating features I don't like. I've already looked at List_of_word_processors#Freeware and similar articles.

What smaller free alternatives with British English spell checking are there please (that people can recommend from personal experience or knowledge rather than just providing a link to Google)? All I really want is a word-processor, never use the other things in OpenOffice except sometime the spreadsheet which may be available independently. I have Windows XP.

I spend a lot of time writing letters so something that can help me do that quickly would be great. Thanks 92.15.3.0 (talk) 20:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

AbiWord does the job if all you want is a word processor. According to their website it has British English language support. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Of course, if staying online to use it is acceptable, there is Google Apps. You may need to download a British spell-check dictionary for your web browser though. PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:37, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Can the Windows Vista Business be installed in more than one computer within a small business?

Can the Windows Vista Business be installed in more than one computer within a small business (like the Office Small Business)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.137.86.18 (talk) 21:06, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

No, not according to Microsoft's licensing terms. Only through a volume licensing agreement such as Open License does Microsoft permit using the same Windows product key on multiple computers. By the way, the Office Small Business license agreement only allows the second installation to be on a "portable device" that is only used by the primary user of the other computer, so even for that, installing on two desktop computers (rather than on a laptop) would not be permitted. PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

June 24

Operating System Advice

I'm planning on building my first computer soon, but I'm still not sure what OS to use. I was hoping someone here would have more experience with OSes and be able to offer a little advice to a poor lost soul such as myself. Basically, I'm deciding between Windows 7 and Windows XP. (please don't tell me I should get a Mac or Linux; I really don't want a Mac and I might dual-boot with Linux anyway, so you don't need to proselytize) I plan to use the computer mostly for everyday work (word processor (which I can use Open Office for, to save on buying Office), the Internet, that sort of thing), but also playing the occasional game, mostly Valve Corporation stuff. I don't really know anything about operating systems, though. So which would be better for playing games, and which version of the operating system should I get? I've heard Windows 7 has some trouble playing games, especially older ones, but are they enough of a concern for me to go with XP? Or are there other factors that might make me want to choose one over the other?

As a side note, while money isn't too big of a concern here, it's still a consideration. I'm a student, so I think I'd get a discount on Windows 7, but I'm not sure about XP. So... any help? Thanks. Fletch the Mighty (talk) 03:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I upgraded a little while ago from XP to windows 7 and have never looked back, and I really liked XP. This is obviously just my opinion. I work in IT so have considerable exposure to computers and operating systems. One main advantage of W7 is Direct X 11, however that's only with recent games, not old ones, and I can't say I play a lot of old games, so that part I don't really have an opinion on, I've found compatibility mode to be pretty good. The few things I haven't been able to get working on W7, like some pretty specialized programming hardware and my serial to USB dongle I've worked around by installing XP on a virtual machine which I run using the free Vmware player. However you still need a license of XP to legally install it on a virtual machine, and I haven't tried playing games on it, but if the games are old and your computer is powerful, i think it would be alright. Vespine (talk) 03:59, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Microsoft is phasing out support for Windows XP, and it hasn't been available to purchase for about one to two years now (except for "ultra low-cost PCs", where it's available until October). While security fixes will still be provided until early 2014, technical support and feature upgrades have been discontinued for over a year, unless you have already purchased an extended support contract. - Bottom line is that if you don't have an XP license already, you're unlikely to find one. Even if you do, for long term support, you're better off going with Windows 7, unless your hardware doesn't support the Win7 system requirements. -- 174.24.195.56 (talk) 04:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7, hands down. Simply the "Search" field off the Start menu is great. It crashes far less due to the different driver model. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Adding my support for Windows 7 too. Over the last ~6 years I've used Valve's Steam platform for pretty much all of my games (just counted - 132 different games are in my list!) and I haven't had any major problems (although I didn't have any problems with Windows Vista either for that matter!). There are a handful of the older games that have a few niggles/need slight tweaking to get to work properly (you can get the relevant information from the Steam forums), but anything released in the last 2-3 years should run problem-free, even on Windows 7 x64 which I'm using. Hope this helps! ZX81 ^talk 12:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Anyway avoid Vista. I had a notebook with it which died irreparably recently and I was so glad because it meant I could go and get a new notebook with WIndows 7 instead which I'm quite happy with. Dmcq (talk) 13:45, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the advice, everybody! I'm definitely going to go with Windows 7. I didn't think about the support side of it before, but 174.24 above is right, so thanks for that! Fletch the Mighty (talk) 23:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Networking

How to control a PC with hardwares of some other PC connected with it on LAN? 220.225.96.217 (talk) 04:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

If you are looking for software to remotely control one PC from another, VNC software such as TightVNC (preferably with the "mirror display driver") or UltraVNC should do the job. Alternatively, Windows has a built-in Windows Remote Assistance feature that can be used for remote access (the main limitation is that someone has to be at the PC being controlled to accept the connection). Finally, some versions of Windows have "remote access" or "Remote Desktop" settings in the System control panel that will allow you to connect from the other computer using Remote Desktop Connection (the main limitation is that the connection will not work if you are logged in at the time). PleaseStand ^(talk) 05:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually if you're using version 5 of Remote Desktop Connection client there's a /console parameter to connect to the main console and in version 6 this changed to /admin. Running the client with this parameter (i.e. mstsc /admin ) with connect to the main console of the target machine. However, only if you have the same credentials as that user that's already logged on. ZX81 ^talk 11:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, fwiw, Windows XP, Vista, 2003, 2008, and Windows 7 all have Remote Desktop capability. Some simply restrict the number of users that can connect at any given time, which often forces you to take control over the "main desktop" session. The setting for this is available if you right click "My Computer" (just "Computer" in 2008/Win7) and select "Properties", there will be a Remote tab (or "remote settings" area in 2008/Win7) that lets you activate or deactivate the feature. Nothing personal to anyone, but it astounds me that so many people use VNC when this built-in, tried and true method of remotely accessing a windows computer is right there ready to go. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 13:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Windows Vista starter, home basic, and home premium editions do not feature an RDP server, and neither do their counterparts in Windows 7. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

how to boot from cd?

Today I got my newly built computer to power up. It asked me to insert a cd. So I inserted a Linux cd I downloaded from the internet. (I need to wait until my friend gives me back my Windows cd so I figured I'd try to use Linux instead.) But it was a bad file I downloaded and it didn't install good. It froze and the screen was black. So after a while I restarted the computer but it isn't the same as before. It doesn't ask me to insert a disk anymore. Instead it says verifying dmi pool data and just freezes there. I tried resetting the bios but it doesn't help. Does anyone know what I should do? Thanks in advance. http://www.flickr.com/photos/51417520@N03/4729633936/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.108.156.138 (talk) 04:51, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I built a computer fairly recently that would freeze right at that spot for several minutes before proceeding. Thanks for the bad memories! After trying various things the problem went away when I replaced the DVD drive with another one. I think I changed the SATA cable, as well. Try disconnecting each drive, in turn, and rebooting, and seeing whether that fixes the issue? Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:38, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your system is likely set up to attempt booting from the hard drive, which has the corrupted Linux installation, before trying to boot from CD. To boot from CD in this case, read your motherboard's manual. It should mention the key you need to press to access the BIOS boot menu (usually F8, F11, or F12; you could try those). That should give you several options; one of those will allow you to boot from CD. Alternatively, you can change the boot device sequence within the CMOS setup utility, placing the CD-ROM drive first (so that the system attempts to boot from CD regardless of whether or not an operating system is installed on the hard drive). PleaseStand ^(talk) 05:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh, yeah. You should certainly use PleaseStand's suggestion before trying mine. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I tried changing the boot sequence to make the cd-rom as the first priority but it doesn't help. The "verifying dmi pool data..." message comes on too early, before it even boots. I've also tried changing the hard drive, but no matter what I do, it still freezes there. I think the problem might be stored in a different location than the hard drive, since I replaced with a different one and it still doesn't work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.28.3.33 (talk) 07:20, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Ugh. One clarification: That whole screen, including the "Verifying DMI Pool Data" message, will always come on before it boots, no matter what drive boot order you are using; it's a BIOS message. It's supposed to only take a second, is the problem. So are you saying you are no longer able to get the computer to boot at all from any device? (Have you tried actually letting it attempt to boot for like 10 minutes?) Could you do another check through the BIOS options to make sure there's nothing that looks like a non-starter? If I were completely unable to boot in this situation after trying several boot devices and changing around the SATA cables to eliminate them as a cause, my next step would probably actually be to try removing all the RAM except for one stick at a time to try to eliminate that as a cause. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:51, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Is your DVD drive connected with a SATA rather than an IDE connection? If so, try putting the DVD drive's SATA port in IDE mode rather than AHCI mode. You might also want to try resetting the BIOS settings to their defaults. PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:27, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I have tried all the solutions except for changing the cables. I will try that next if I still can't get it to work. But this morning I found out if you wait overnight, it solves the Verifying DMI Pool Data. However, it still gets stuck at the next line. http://www.flickr.com/photos/51417520@N03/4737006968/

What happens is it says "Bios autorecovering....." and the dots keep adding until they get to the end of the screen, at which point the computer will restart by itself and begin the cycle again.75.185.120.28 (talk) 01:30, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that sounds like a hardware issue. Motherboards, CPUs, and other components that are bad out-of-the-box are not unheard of. PleaseStand ^(talk) 21:04, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

At this point I would try swapping the SATA cables (still trying to boot with only 1 thing connected) and at that point in your situation I'd give up and return the motherboard for a replacement. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:57, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I sent a support ticket to Gigabyte explaining my problem, and they said the motherboard is defective. I'm going to get a replacement tomorrow. Thanks guys.75.185.120.28 (talk) 21:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Looking for a separate XML Schema file

hello,

I am looking for a separate XML schema of the XML dump "pages-articles.xml" file. It is mentioned in your Website that the XML schemas are defined at the top of the dump file. Since this file is too huge to open in an editor, I'd rather use its schema. How can I have the schema as a separate file?

Thank you.

D.B —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.84.128.133 (talk) 08:15, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Perflib_Perfdata_650.dat

I have this file in my C:windows/temp folder. It will not delete, but is re-made every time I start the computer. I have spent some time on the internet trying to find out what it is. How do I find out what program is using it please? I'm using XP and Firefox. Thanks 92.24.186.235 (talk) 08:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

That's a temporary file used by Performance Monitor. You can find it under Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Performance Monitor. However, depending on your version of Windows, by default it will be monitoring a few basic things (memory, processor, network and disk usage on Windows 7 it seems) so having these temporary files isn't unusual. Unless it's using an unusually high amount of disk space, I wouldn't worry about it, it's part of normal Windows operations. ZX81 ^talk 12:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

turning text into html in JSON

So I finally got my basic javascript Twitter page working. BUT. Twitter sends the "source" element, like what client they use, as a link. But when I just use document.createTextNode on it, it doesn't render it as a link. It just displays the anchor tag text, without rendering it. (for example)

<a href="http://www.tweetdeck.com" rel="nofollow">TweetDeck</a>

Instead of becoming a link, the above just displays as text. The whole thing, <a href> </a> and all. What can I do about this? Thanks, [flaminglawyer] 10:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that Twitter sends you data 'as a link', but document.createTextNode will output pure text, so any HTML tags will be lost. Tell us more about what Twitter sends, and I'm sure someone can tell you how to include it into your page. As a quick fix, have you tried to set the sent data directly as an elements innerHTML? Zigorney (talk) 18:48, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

That was stupid of me. Yes, innerHTML worked. Thanks. [flaminglawyer] 17:58, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

cd

With the DOS / Command prompt function "cd", is there a way to make it got to the current directory instead of having to re write the script every time I move it to a different folder? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:49, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

This link lists a way to do what it is that I think you want. (I haven't tried it myself. I assume what you want is: your batch file has already done some "cd" statements to change the current directory to be something else, and you then want to "cd" back to the original current directory.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:29, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Unless I've misunderstood, you can simply use pushd . (the period means set whatever the currently directory is) and popd to jump back to that directory as long as it's in the same session.ZX81 ^talk 16:43, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey, that worked for me perfectly. (Though I'm not the original poster.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I thought the OP was asking how to get a batch file to CD to the directory that it's located in. That location is stored in the environment variable %0. But that includes the name of the script, so if this is what the OP wants, s/he should use: cd /d %~dp0 which will CD to the drive and path that the script is stored in. [2] Indeterminate (talk) 00:03, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Information about microsoft

can u please provide me with the details about the different components such as finance, production function, marketing, administration, inputs & outputs, research and development and human resource management of microsoft company? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashuhaso (talk • contribs) 14:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

You can start with our article Microsoft. Then, here is a copy of Microsoft's most recent Form 10-K annual financial report, which is hard to parse if you haven't read any 10-K's before, but it has a lot of information. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Captcha is bad

I once saw a website which asked users to prove they're not bots by simply correctly identifying a picture. This looked easier than captcha to me; depending on the words used in captcha, I can end up having to re-prove myself two or three times, but these pictures were easy, I got them first time. Why isn't this used more often? Vimescarrot (talk) 21:20, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I imagine it's because a captcha can be generated from any arbitrary word, algorithmically; whereas your describe-a-picture idea requires that when setting up the system, a human must look through many, many pictures (hundreds? thousands?), identify them all, and not make any mistakes. Another robot-identifier that is, I believe, popular in phpBB message boards is to say "What is 2+6?" and have the user enter the result into a text field. This of course is really easy to make a robot solve, if the robot's author has taken the time to make the bot look for a math problem next to a text field. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Because Mr Spammer quickly collects a massive library of pictures and their valid identifications, obviating the whole thing. To avoid this, captchas (whether read-the-text or not) really need to be mechanically generated. I have seen proposals for ones that show a couple of simple phong-shaded people with a variety of ordinary objects, and you have to answer questions like "what is the object in the man's right hand and the object on the table", and say "umbrella, banana". They vary the lighting and the orientation of everything, and apparently solving this in general is one of the unsolved problems of computer image analysis. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

All this makes me feel bad because I feel that we're now in a situation where two good-will technologies are competing against each other. We're trying to both enhance automatic visual recognition and hinder it at the same time. Of course these are being done for different purposes, but there's nothing inherently stopping a good-will technology from being used to an evil end. The technology itself won't know a difference. I've even seen Wikipedia being used as a means to help spam evade automatic spam detection. JIP | Talk 21:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

You have a point, but think of it this way; when the image processing improves thanks to nefarious demand, it can then be used for good and a new protection test can be rolled out. It is certainly a cat and mouse game but it's only zero sum if you are in the spam/spam protection business. For the rest of us, we get some nice technology out of the whole deal. Also, see recaptcha for a way to do good while preventing evil. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 17:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Picture ones can be difficult too. You see a picture of an ear of corn is that "Corn" "Maize" "Grain" "Vegetable" "Plant"? (And too bad if you think corn is a fruit!) APL (talk) 15:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

This is very much tangential, but all of this reminds me of the Army Alpha and Beta tests from WWI... --Mr.98 (talk) 13:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Meaning of Ubuntu "version?" number?

I have two machines running Lucid Lynx, here are the $ uname -a results:

Linux machine1 2.6.32-22-generic #33-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 28 13:27:30 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

and

Linux machine2 2.6.32-22-generic-pae #36-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 3 23:14:23 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

They are running the same kernel, but the other parts are different. (btw, machine1 was an upgrade, machine2 is a clean install of LUcid) What do the #33 and #36 mean? and can you point to a relevant webpage? Thanks! --Rajah (talk) 23:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

PAE refers to Physical Address Extension. Does machine2 have more RAM than machine1? That might explain the difference. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know about PAE. Please disregard that for the purposes of this question. Both machines are now up to #36, for example machine1 is now:

Linux machine1 2.6.32-22-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 3 22:02:19 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

Ok, doing:

$ grep install /var/log/dpkg.log|grep 36

Turns up:

2010-06-04 19:34:51 status installed linux-image-2.6.32-22-generic 2.6.32-22.36
2010-06-04 19:34:51 status installed linux-headers-2.6.32-22 2.6.32-22.36
2010-06-04 19:34:53 status installed linux-headers-2.6.32-22-generic 2.6.32-22.36

So now, as stated in Software_versioning#Odd-numbered_versions_for_development_releases, they don't just use the fourth number, they also have a fifth number. These pages: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/2.6.32-22.33 https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/2.6.32-22.36 , etc. seem to indicate it's just a way to version extremely minor changes to the source. --Rajah (talk) 06:54, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

The part of the version after "#" is taken from the .version file in the source tree where the kernel was compiled. The number in that file is incremented every time a kernel build starts. So it's basically a count of how many times someone ran "make" after untarring the source. This serial number doesn't tell you anything about what's in the kernel. All it does is guarantee that if you recompile, there will be something in the new kernel's version string to distinguish it from the previous one. 98.226.122.10 (talk) 10:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --Rajah (talk) 05:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

June 25

Converting Word to PDF

Hello. When I convert a Word 2007 document containing formulas created by Equations Editor to a PDF, the formulas become invisible in the PDF except for fraction bars and the top line of radicals. How should I fix this? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 00:42, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

How are you converting it to a PDF? Are you using Word's own PDF support or something else? The obvious thing to try is another method of making the PDF, like with CutePDF. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:56, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If you are doing this just once, a quick and dirty method might be to just take screen shots of the formulas and put them in the document instead. This obviously won't be practical if there's hundreds or if you need people to be able to copy and past out of the PDF.. Vespine (talk) 05:43, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If you'd want to make the original doc file available to us, someone more knowledgeable might find a different method more quickly. As for myself, I use the built-in Export to PDF feature of OpenOffice.Org. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Why are you using the very old Equation Editor in Word 2007? Word 2007 has built-in support for creating formulae, and these can be converted to PDF (using the Word's built-in converter) with no problem - it works great (example). I would not recommend trying any third-party PDF creator tool (such as CutePDF, Nova PDF, or PDFCreator), for in my experience (and I create PDFs from Word several times a week and has been doing this for years, and have tried a few third-party solutions) they are all much worse than the Microsoft solution. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 12:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that isn't terrible. Not as good as LaTeX, of course. But Word seems to be getting better than it used to be. What is the UI like? --Trovatore (talk) 18:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I use Word's own PDF support and its built-in support for creating formulas. Yet to consider a third-party solution. --Mayfare (talk) 18:26, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Searching for Bootable PCIe 1.0 x4 SLC NAND Flash SSD

Hi.

   I am looking for a Flash-based Solid State Drive which meets the following requirements. Does anyone here know of any such product?

1. It must be bootable, i.e. the workstation computer in which it is installed must be able to boot from an operating-system installed on it.
2. It must be built with Single Level Cell NAND flash memory.
3. It must connect directly to the motherboard via a x4 PCIe 1.0 Slot.
4. It must have a minimum capacity of two hundred binary gigabytes, i.e. 214,748,364,800 bytes.
5. Its length must not exceed 254 millimeters (ten inches).

   Thanks in advance. Vickreman.chettiar (talk) 05:00, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

The RamSan-10 and the RamSan-20, both from Texas Memory Systems, fulfil most (items 2 to 5) of your requirements. The RamSan-10 and RamSan-20 have usable capacities of 225GB and 450GB respectively. However, neither of them are bootable. Hope this helps. Rocketshiporion (talk) 05:25, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

   Thank you, but I am looking for a x4 PCI 1.0 SLC NAND Flash SSD for the express purpose of using it as a boot drive. Vickreman.chettiar (talk) 05:45, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

writing a program, USB and interface

I'm only a beginner programmer, I know a bit of C and python. I've been working on this project www.vespine.com for about a year and I've got the hardware pretty much worked out now, so now I need to work on the software. I have ideas of my own how to go about this but I don't doubt there are probably better ways of doing it.

The firmware is in C on a microcontroller where the cube is represented by a data array which holds separate R, G and B values for each LED. I can get some visualizations going in the cube but ultimately would like to be able to feed more complex animations and stuff through USB, ideally with some sort of user interface, maybe even graphical representation. For windows by the way.

Should I look into java or visual studio or something else or stick with C? C++? I haven't got the faintest idea how to build an interface with c, is there a simpler way? Is there such a thing as USB app building software or something? Any other suggestions? I know these are all noob questions and I'll have to start at the bottom, I made my 1st LED blink on a microcontroller only a year ago, happy to start at "hello world". Has anyone interfaced USB hardware before? Any tips where to start? I've been googling ideas but there's obvously LOTs of stuff online, thought I'd ask here for people's opinions. Vespine (talk) 05:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

That's a pretty cool looking thing, and a fun project. Just so I understand what it is you're asking, can I recap - you've already built this nifty LED array, and hooked it up to a microcontroller. Using software you've written in C and transferred to the microcontroller, you can get the LEDs to flash in some attractive patterns. What you'd like to do now is to have a Windows PC program that communicates with the microcontroller over a USB interface, that tells the microcontroller (in real-ish time) what lights to flash. At some point you want that PC program to have a GUI, so you can design, save, load, and otherwise manipulate light patterns. And I'd guess that you'd like to be able to distribute that program to other people, so they can build (or buy from you) a lightcube and program it themselves. I'll answer shortly (this all seems fairly straightforward) - if I'm misunderstanding what it is you want to do, my answers will reflect that (and probably won't be useful, so stop me if I'm off chasing snarks). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:18, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, firstly you'll have to do the microcontroller end. You've not said what microcontroller it is (I'm guessing it's an Arduino or similar) or what libraries come with it (if you can link to public docs legally, that would be very helpful). I guess you've been programming this thing over the USB interface, but now you want to talk directly from your prospective Windows app to your microcontroller app, in real(ish) time. I'd very much hope that the microcontroller comes with a library that gives you proper control over the USB interface, and lets you drive that yourself. In this case I'd imagine you'd want to set that up as a custom USB device class (because you're not pretending to be a mouse or a disk drive or anything else) which seems to be device class 0xFF (and you'd set up the vendor info and device info so that Windows doesn't mistake your device for anything else, and so that your Windows program can accurately identify the lightcube). Then you need to design the control protocol you'll talk between the two. I'd guess there's not much the PC will read (make sure you have firmware revision numbers and a hardware identifier too, so that you can later work with different versions of your hardware and software). Mostly you'll be sending commands saying "set these LEDs to these values" - you might be able to do that just with a control transfer message; if you need to send a lot of stuff (e.g. a complex programme of LED changes over time) then you might need to use the bulk transfer mode as well (or instead). I'd see if you can do it all with control transfer for now. How you implement this on the microcontroller depends on its USB library. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:27, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see your website says it's a PIC32. This note discusses a USB stack for the PIC32 (which I think you can get here). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:23, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Next you need a Windows app. Firstly you should have a simple non-gui app, that lets you talk over the USB using your custom lightcube protocol. As long as a library is available, it really doesn't matter what programming language you use. You know C and Python, so lets say you do it in Python (but really C is just as good, and if your skills are stronger there use that instead). I'd think using libusb to handle the low-level communications is a good idea; it works on Windows, and if you later want to support Mac or Linux, it should make porting easy. If you're coding in Python, there's PyUSB, which is just a thin Python skin over the C libusb - the operations you'll do will be the same regardless of which language. Firstly your test app will have to setup the USB interface and find any lightcubes you've plugged in. Then you'd use the control interface to send "change the LED" messages, using the protocol you designed above. Later you might find the need to add fancier stuff to the protocol, and make both ends smarter, but in the first case this should get you going. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, to clarify when I say "Firstly you should have a simple non-gui app", I mean that you should write a simple text-based test one first, not that you should never add GUI functions to that later. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:57, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Wow thanks heaps for that fantastic reply! We must have a time zone difference, sorry for not replying earlier. I'll definitely be saving this as a road map. I thought at best I'd get a few cynical one liners:) . So most of your assumptions were dead on. At the moment, I can generate some basic patterns in the cube firmware, just using linear loops and stuff, and I can play some files that I found on the internet at 3dleds.com which look great but are just "frame by frame" recordings someone made so you can't really manipulate them. So yes the goal is to get some more complex stuff streaming form my PC.

I'll be replacing my basic pic32 starter kit with the pic32 usb2 starter kit, I suspect that it will be a lot easier to utilise the USB on that since that's what it looks like it is made for. The cube is represented in the microcontroller(Uc) code as a data array, so I imagine what I'll do is just mirror the data array in my PC application so I can manipulate it and then use USB to send the PC's array to the Uc at 25Hz or whatever my frame rate will be. So the 1st thing I'll need to tackle is the control protocol.. Thanks heaps for your help, this really gives me a solid idea of what I'm facing. Vespine (talk) 01:30, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

One last question, I've done a bit more reading and am starting to think maybe wifi might be the way to go… there is a wifi module avaliable for the pic32 starter kits, and come to think of it, I don't really want the cube plugged into my pc all the time. So do you think ethernet and wifi will be much harder to implement then USB? Or is it much of a muchness? I'm going to look into it some more. Any opinions? Vespine (talk)

Assuming they've also got a TCP/IP library for the PCI32 PIC32, that takes care of the wifi stuff too, then it's much the same as USB. You'd just use the socket libraries of both platforms rather than libusb. And again, python, C, or whatever, just about every general purpose language has a TCP/IP api (almost always Berkeley sockets). You still need to have your own high level protocol that defines what you're sending back and forward. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:52, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, perfect, you've been a great help. Cheers. Vespine (talk) 15:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Networking Cable Diameters

   I need to know what are the overall exterior diameters (i.e. including the jacket) of the following types of cables.

1. Category 3
2. Category 5
3. Category 5 Enhanced
4. Category 6
5. Category 6 Amendment

   Thank you. Rocketshiporion (talk) 12:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

They're all similar - this is useful [3] gives CAT5 as 1/6inch. You can get thicker cables.77.86.123.157 (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

There is enough variance in the spec... It all depends on the gauge of the wires, whether they are stranded or solid, if the cable is shielded, and the type of jacket used (softer > thicker, etc.) I have seen some super thin Cat5, and some super thick Cat5. 1/6 of an inch is probably fair but by no means universal. "Generally" they get thicker as you move up the scale, due to more demanding signaling requirements. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 17:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If you're checking their dimensions you probably should also check out their minimum bend radius as well, you can't bend them at right angles. Dmcq (talk) 23:18, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

mysql last value query

This is just trolling for some ideas that I haven't thought of yet... Here is the situation: You have a table with people in it. You have about 30 tables, each identical, with yearly data on the people. So, you have purchases_2000, purchases_2001, purchases_2002... The people may have entries in one or more of the yearly tables. The goal: QUICKLY create a list that shows the last purchase per patient. It can be as simple as the patient's unique ID and the last purchase's unique ID. Most solutions that I've seen people come up with take about 4 hours using real-world data. I'd like to see it get to around 4 minutes with some creative insight into how MySQL optimizes queries. -- kainaw™ 14:06, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm twitching a bit at the idea of per-year tables, but anyway, are the purchase tables indexed on the patient ID? (If so, what accounts for the slow queries, and if not, could they be?) -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

It is easy to manipulate the tables, so you can join people.person_id to purchases.person_id. There is a date, item, and value field in purchases. Obviously, you need date to get the LAST purchase. Nearly every solution I've seen uses subselects or joins each purchase table on itself (sometimes 3 or 4 times). I have a method of doing it that is functional, but I know someone much smarter than me will have an outstanding way of solving this little problem. I feel that if I simply give a query and say "make it better", then all I will get is minor improvements on that query, not a wholly new query that is far superior. -- kainaw™ 14:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I understand that you can do a join where people.person_id = purchases.person_id. My question is whether there's an index for purchases.person_id. The presence or absence of an index will, I think, greatly affect the speed of that join. -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:18, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Correct. There is an index on purchases.person_id and purchases.date and even (purchases.person_id,purchases.date). -- kainaw™ 15:23, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

OK... I'm a little surprised that the straightforward approaches are slow, then. Is a very simple query like "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM purchases,people WHERE people.person_id = purchases.person_id" slow? Would you be able to post an "EXPLAIN SELECT ..." for that same query? Also, is it a good assumption that any single person's purchases are a small fraction of all the purchases? (That is, you don't have one customer who dominates your business?) -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

That is not slow. What is slow is methods of getting the last purchase per person. A person's last purchase could be in any one of the yearly purchase tables. So, common methods are to search all of the purchase tables (per person) to find the last purchase date and then search all of the purchase tables again (per person) to find a purchase on that date and, if there is more than one on that date, wrap it all in a big query that groups by patient to make it one purchase per patient. That isn't how I'm doing it. I query each purchase table and order by purchase date desc. I union the results. Then, I join that big union to the person table and group by person. I get 1 purchase per person and, because I ordered dates from most recent to the past, I get the most recent purchase. That takes about 15 minutes. -- kainaw™ 15:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I got you. I wasn't fully appreciating the problem, and was focusing on the problem of finding the last purchase date for one customer. I therefore assumed you could just start with the newest purchase table, and work your way backwards until you found a table with at least one purchase. If this is a real, ongoing problem (as opposed to an intellectual curiosity) it may be worth denormalizing and explicitly storing a "last purchase" date for each customer. Is that a possibility? -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:41, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem is much more widespread. There is a need for last time a vegetable item was purchased. Last store visited. Last cashier used. Last time bread and paper products were purchased at the same time. There are tons of requests for "last" queries. I used to make a temp table that I filled with the last date based on the purchase criteria, but now I just union all the purchase tables (from 1990 to the present), limiting on the criteria and then join it to the customer table. It takes a long time - much longer if I copy-paste and regex-replace the criteria and accidentally replace something else so I have to fix it and rerun the whole thing again. -- kainaw™ 15:49, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If you don't have an INDEX on the field you're doing an ORDER BY on, doesn't that mean the SELECT doing the ORDER BY has to read essentially the whole table and sort it? And if you're doing a SELECT ... UNION on those N yearly tables, doesn't the implicit table that this generates (the one you then join on) then have no index? It would be tempting to create a VIEW of that query, but views can't have indexes. Things might be better if you invert the order things are done (that is, you do the join and ORDER BY on each subtable first, before the UNION) but really the subtables are the problem. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:46, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense. I'm going from tons of indexes tables to a monster-sized unindexed table and then joining that to a large (but relatively much smaller) customer table. I'm going to try to reorganize it so all joins take place on indexed tables then the union. However, the final group by must take place on the final result which will the result of unions so it won't be indexed. If I could just think of a way to index the union of 20 tables on the fly. -- kainaw™ 16:52, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

What if you insert the results of the individual-table queries into a temporary table that's appropriately indexed? -- Coneslayer (talk) 16:59, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If I was doing this, I'd be bold and junk the per year tables and make them all one purchases table, with purchase year as one column. That'll be one bit of effort to do, but will bring huge benefits in the future when you want to do things of this sort again. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Internet problem

I have a thing that makes one modem provide internet to two computers via a wire. It is an SMC Barricade. When I turn off my modem and turn it back on while one of my computers is using the internet, the modem shows that Power, Ethernet, DSL, and (sometimes) Internet are all up and running but the internet doesn't work on that computer for a while. Sometimes the internet on both computers doesn't work, but sometimes it works fine, iF i run a network diagnostics it says there is a DNS server error or soemthing. If I connect either computer directly to teh internet it works fine. What is going on and how can I fix this? 76.229.149.7 (talk) 17:02, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Your SMC Barricade is a device called a router. When you turn off the modem, and turn it back on, the modem will spend a minute doing self-tests and starting up, and then the modem communicates with your ISP to say "I've been turned on; please give me an IP address". Your ISP's computers then give the modem an IP address. Now, all this time, your router hasn't had an IP address, because the modem has been off; so every once in a while the router tries to ask the modem for an IP address. Once the modem does have an IP address, the router will finally get the IP address it needs, next time the router asks the modem for one. Now, also, all this time, your computers have not had an IP address while the modem was off, so now the next time each computer asks the router for an IP address, the router will finally give the computer an IP address; and then you can access the Internet. If you want this to go slightly faster upon turning on the modem, you should first turn on the modem, then turn on the router, then turn on (or restart) the computer. (Is there a reason you keep turning off your modem?) Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:28, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft Office 2010 Student Edition

Does the Microsoft Office 2010 Student Edition contain/display the "non-comercial use only" stamp like the Microsoft Office 2007 Student Edition? Thanks! --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)

Yes, probably. Let me find a link.... Chevymontecarlo 14:44, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Argh, can't seem to find one. I think there is a separate version for commercial use. Chevymontecarlo 14:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Anybody has Office 2010 Student Edition? --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 19:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does. 124.214.131.55 (talk) 02:22, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

New Features

When I log on to Wiki I get New Features activated by default. I have to log in to choose to no-New Features mode. Is there any way I don't get New Feautres by default ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 04:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately no, the developers of Vector apparently didn't give a shit about non-logged-in users who might not want the horrible new skin. However, there are two ways that I know of to revert Wikipedia back to the old style. Firstly, you can add "?useskin=monobook" (without quotes) to the end of any url, reload, and it should now display the page with the monobook skin. The second way is this userscript for greasemonkey, which adds "?useskin=monobook" to urls automatically while your browse. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 09:52, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually the developers did look into methods to allow non logged in users to choose but were informed the servers couldn't handle it Nil Einne (talk) 10:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

June 26

antenna connectors on cell phones

Old phones had antenna connectors but new ones don't. Is that just a cost saving thing, or is there a better reason? I'd like to add an antenna since my reception is lousy at home, but it no longer seems possible. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.243.88 (talk) 08:06, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Speaking as a former cell-phone technician, exterior antennas are superior to internal antennas when it comes to line noise and dropped calls. Even better would be an antenna mounted outside of your cell phone altogether! Some people mount antennas on the dashboards of their cars and even on their roofs. They then hook up those antennas to their cell phones. If you wanted the best possible reception, you would mount a tall antenna on the roof of your car. Someone at Radio Shack can set you up with one.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 08:42, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but 1) I rarely use my phone in a car and when I do, it almost always works fine. The trouble I'm having is indoors in a residence. 2) I don't see how to use an external antenna with any recently made phone since they don't have antenna connectors any more. That's what I was asking about. 75.57.243.88 (talk) 08:48, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

This blog post from an antenna manufacturer, about the recent iPhone 4 antenna problem, touches on the fact that the antennas have disappeared due to consumer preference. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:07, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you can attach an antenna through the charging point. Kittybrewster ☎ 15:33, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Still unlikely, with any modern phone (more and more are switching to USB connectors). What might work is an external antenna (as in outside the building, not simply outside the phone's casing) connected to a piece of leaky coax inside the building. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 22:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

If you have broadband at home, you can of course use a Femtocell if you network operator supports that. Seems a bit overkill in this case however and I'm not sure if the OP is interested in solutions but more the why Nil Einne (talk) 10:28, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

You can open up your phone and tape the end of an external antenna to the internal antenna. People say it helps. What make and model of phone is it, by the way?--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Information theoretic loss of JPEGs through displaying

I'm asking this out of curiosity, not for any practical application reason. Suppose one had a JPEG file, displayed on the screen at 1x zoom, no special effects applied or anything, and one took a screencap, and saved the screencap in a lossless format (PNG or BMP or whatever). From an information theoretic point of view, would the resulting copy have lost image information? Would it be in any information theoretic sense an inferior version of the original image? Note that I'm not interested in metadata or anything like that, I'm only talking about the actual image itself. Any thoughts? Maelin (Talk | Contribs) 08:37, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

No.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 08:44, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Unless the computer being used to display and take the screencap only had, say a 16 color display. Then the screencap would be limited to 16 colors, regardless of whatever the original jpg was 82.43.90.93 (talk) 09:46, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that in some situations, the raw JPEG might have a higher color depth than what can be displayed on a screen, no? --Mr.98 (talk) 12:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

So there's no kind of interpretation or processing algorithm that is used that is not universal to all JPEG displayers? Every possible program you could use to open a JPEG will send exactly the same pixel pattern to the monitor, and hence, one would always get the exact same BMP no matter what app it was screencapped from? Also: assume the system has maximal available colour depth. Maelin (Talk | Contribs) 19:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

It is unclear to me what you mean by "the original image". By this, do you mean the first JPEG file that you mention? If you have a JPEG file on your system, it has already gone through a step of lossy compression, hasn't it? Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, nomenclature I intended was "original" -> jpeg, "copy" -> bitmap from screencap. Maelin (Talk | Contribs) 19:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Mr.98 is right; see the "Color profiles" section of the JPEG article. It's not certain that the JPEG will render to your display totally accurately, which would mean that some loss of information occurs. That said, I do this occasionally and it's certainly "close enough" for my work. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:00, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure you can lose information this way. Suppose you have your computer set up to produce 16 bits per pixel video (5 bits red, 6 bits green and 5 bits blue - typically). In that case, the color depth has been cut down in the display's frame buffer - and when you do your screenshot into PNG, the low order 2 or 3 bits of each color will be zero. The quality of the resulting PNG image would be worse than the original JPEG. Even if you use 24 bits per pixel, some applications pay attention to the JPEG 'gamma' setting and display gamma-corrected pixels. The PNG image would then have the gamma settings 'built in' and if you then displayed the image on a screen with a different gamma (an older CRT versus an LCD - for example) then the quality of the PNG would be worse than the JPEG would be on a correctly adjusted monitor. I'm sure there are other ways to lose quality too...but that's enough to prove a point. SteveBaker (talk) 02:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Userscript

Would it be possible to write a userscript that can scan a wikipedia article page a randomly select a link, then navigate to that article? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, you could use your browser's find feature. In Safari it's Command-F and in IE on Windows it's Ctrl-F. It won't just search for links or automatically navigate to the articles though, sadly. Chevymontecarlo 14:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Picking a random link and then automatically navigating to it is the whole point of my question. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:53, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

What operating system are you on? this could (obviously) be done in javascript, which you could add to your user javascript page, or if you are on a Mac you could write something in applescript to do it. The first is not an entirely trivial problem, since you'd need to do some dom manipulation to set up a button or link to trigger it, and integrate that with the rest of the page.

(e/c) It's tough to do, since all links aren't just floating around in the <body> element, they're buried in several layers of divs and <p>s. So if you just randomly pick a link from the whole page, you're quite likely to get one of the sidebar links, or an external link. But if you go into the bodyContent div (the actual article text), you can't easily get a list of all the <a> elements. This might be avoidable by using the WP API, but since you're not a bot or bot owner, you don't have access to it (I think). [flaminglawyer] 17:53, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

API access is not limited to bots or bot owners. Although as a user's limit on queries is 500, and flagged bots is 5000. ^Avicenna_sis @ 18:30, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I just found the proper API call for just links. I'll try to write up a short script. [flaminglawyer] 19:08, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Free wi-fi at a cafe

Why would they use WPA2 security when they freely give out the network key? It seems to defeat the purpose of encryption. 67.243.7.245 (talk) 14:55, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Presumably so that they can limit it to customers rather than anyone within a few dozen yards of the building? ╟─TreasuryTag►assemblyman─╢ 14:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Since the name of the cafe is the SSID of the network, anyone nearby could just walk in and ask for the key. 67.243.7.245 (talk) 17:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

They could ask, but I doubt they would be given it. Usually you only get the key when you buy something. --Tango (talk) 22:17, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Most likely whoever installed the wi-fi set it up with security as that's the done thing these days. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 15:00, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Prevents Reduces the likelihood of casual snooping of the wireless traffic. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

the straight forward answer is "Because they don't know any better". The cafe contracts with someone who comes in and set up the system (who doesn't usually know anything about the cafe business or put much thought into why they might or might not want security). The system is operated by the store manager (or more likely, whatever employee happens to be handy), where 'operates' means 'turns the computer on and off at need'. No one cares beyond that. --Ludwigs2 17:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The encryption 1) decreases freeloading by non-customers as Treasury Tag mentions; and 2) if I understand how WPA2 works, it prevents eavesdropping of active connections even if the network key is known. That is, if someone walks into the cafe with sniffing tools and sees you working at your laptop, they can't read your traffic. Your session uses a temporary key that was created when you first logged on, and if the attacker didn't intercept that initial handshake, it's too late after that. Without encryption, they could start listening in the middle of your session even though they missed the beginning. That said, anyone doing anything even slightly sensitive at a wifi cafe should do it through a VPN, whether the cafe uses WPA2 properly or not. 75.57.243.88 (talk) 19:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstand what that "network key" they're giving out is, and how it's used. It's not an encryption key, it's an authentication token - it's used as part of the (rather complex) 802.11i authentication scheme. Here (rather schematically) is how things work. When you connect to a WPA2 access point (AP) you are mandated to authenticate - at this point you are unauthenticated, and the AP will only let you pass IEEE 802.1X packets until the authentication is complete. To do this you enter into a 802.11i authentication scheme sending EAP packets encapsulated (in EAPOL) in which you pass that authentication token and you're given a Pairwise Transient Key (PTK) using the scheme described at IEEE 802.11i-2004#The Four-Way Handshake. That key only lasts for the session, and is unique for you. The PTK is used as the key for one-to-one communications between you and the AP using an AES based cryptosystem called CCMP. The strength of CCMP (which relies on that of AES) and the uniqueness of the PTK means that no-one can read your conversation, even other people in the cafe who know the same authentication token. Now you might have spotted one fly in this ointment - how did you pass the authenticator to the AP, and receive the PTK, without others intercepting that and being able to read your subsequent CCMP conversation. That's where the extensibility of EAP comes in - EAP can host a number of plugins that allow the EAP transaction to be encrypted, so that information can be passed securely. In the cafe scenario (as for basic home and SOHO routers) that's either LEAP (boo hiss) or a TLS-based public key exchange (TLS is the fancy-pants new name for SSL), generally PEAP or EAP-TLS. So, tl;dr: that number the cafe guy gives you is sent by ssl to the router, which sends you a temporary AES key, and you use this for the rest of your session - that way other patrons can't read your stuff (but the cafe guy can). Some comments: in this scenario, the authentication part is pretty worthless (all you need to do is visit the cafe once, or know anyone who ever has) and you know the authenticator. There are modes for EAPOL which don't need an authenticator - which just give you (still securely) a PTK to use for your visit. These seem not to be terribly widely supported, which is why your cafe is just using the way they are doing. The second thing to think about is how to actually make that authentication useful to the cafe (as some cafes have a problem with people who buy one small coffee and sit there all day taking up space). There are router systems intended for cafes which generate temporary authentication tokens (which live in an internal RADIUS database for a few hours, or for the rest of the day). These can be generated at a web app (so the barista prints one off for you when you ask) or can be integrated with the cafe's till (POS/EFTPOS), so when you buy a coffee there's a fresh authenticator on it, which gives you a couple of hours of access. As with most products targeted at rather tight verticals like this, such systems tend to be rather pricey. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I do not have the impression that random wifi routers do TLS, and anyway, as long as there are no secret keys at the beginning, then an attacker can potentially spoof the access point. 75.57.243.88 (talk) 04:26, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

That long explanation above is right. Only a few tweaks. The EAP system might not use TLS, it could use something else. And it could use RC4 in what is essentially per-packet-WEP rather than AES. And, the system is vulnerable to snooping, but much less since an attacker has to see the initial handshake. Otherwise they're flying blind against 128-bit AES. Shadowjams (talk) 21:27, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you 75.57.243.88. Wish you would make an account so I could thank you proper-like. --mboverload@ 23:14, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

"non-comercial use only" stamp in MS Office?

An earlier question prompts me to ask: What "non-comercial use only" stamp is Tyw7 asking about? I was going to recommend this version to my sister, but I'm worried this might mean a visible watermark on every document, which is clearly not suitable for letters to the bank and such like. Astronaut (talk) 16:11, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The text in question appears on the top bar of the window of the program (see pic) (nb my latest version is Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition) I haven't seen any visible mark in documents, but it is possible you can tell what version was used to write a particular document somewhere in the individual document properties. File:Office07homestu.png
--220.101 (talk) ^\Contribs 17:08, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

No there is no watermark. And there is no way to know which version of office you are using. Plus, you can "scrub" these data from your documents. Just go to Office button-->Prepare-->Inspect documents-->Scan-->Click remove on everything you see. --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 00:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Tyw7. I am more familiar with Office '97! If you don't scrub the document as detailed, I take it that some version data might remain? Or if you examined the code in a 'hex' code editor or similar?--220.101 (talk) ^\Contribs 01:25, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I created a blank file and check the propertitiees. Nothing indicates Home and Student Edition. The only thing the other person know is that its created by an office of 2007 or later. Cause Office 2007 & 2010 the default file type is .docx. --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 09:20, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, that's what you mean. Thanks. Astronaut (talk) 12:42, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Modem - router - computers

After reading Internet Problem above, is it correct to think that if I plug a (small old) router into my broadband modem, and then plug this XP computer and another Linux computer into the router, then it should all start working by itself without me having to do anything further except wait? Thanks 92.15.5.103 (talk) 19:20, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

You may be able to just wait, or you may have to restart the computers. (Or manually renew their IP connections from the command line.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:46, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) As long as it's had its initial setup (which it probably has, since it's "old", as you say), and assuming it hasn't stopped working altogether, then yes, that should work.. [flaminglawyer] 20:00, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, if I try that, but then decide to go back to having my XP plugged into a modem as currently, would I be likely to get any problems? 92.15.5.103 (talk) 20:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

If your router is anything like mine, or my previous router, or the one before that, then it should be fine. [flaminglawyer] 20:38, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Worst case scenario, you have to reset your router. [flaminglawyer] 20:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

userscript help

I made this userscript that picks a random wikilink on a article and follows it. I got it to display using addPortletLink, but it doesn't work. Any help on what I'm doing wrong? [flaminglawyer] 21:16, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

There's no need to re-invent the wheel. You can accomplish the task without using any third-party APIs:

function getLink()
{
	var content = document.getElementById('content');
	var links = content.getElementsByTagName('a');
	window.location = links[Math.round(Math.random()*links.length)].href;
}
		
window.onload = getLink;

--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:22, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

well, hmmm... try:

function getLink()
{
	var content = document.getElementById('content');
	var links = content.getElementsByTagName('a');
	x = links[Math.floor(Math.random()*links.length)];
	window.location = x;
}
		
window.onload = getLink;

You'll probably want to add a loop to exclude undesired links (test to see if the link contains things like 'special' that you don'y want to follow)

You forgot the href.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 04:38, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Problem Downloading RealPlayer

Hi, my friend is having problems downloading "Realplayer" onto her computer. She is using Windows XP on an HP, when she tries downloading RP, it tells her that she has limited access and is restricted. She tried changing her Account Type, but there is only one User Account on the computer, so this option is not available. So, how can she download RealPlayer? Moptopstyle1 (talk) 22:29, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like someone else set up her account as a non-admin account using a hidden admin account. Is it XP Home or XP Pro? --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:10, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It's XP Home. Is there any way to change that setting? Moptopstyle1 (talk) 04:25, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if this seems off topic, but see RealPlayer#Criticism. Then, if you still really want to put that useless, spyware- and adware-infested program on her computer, you can try logging into the account named Administrator without a password. Press F8 while the computer is booting up and select safe mode with networking, or press CTRL + ALT + DELETE at the regular login screen. If that doesn't work, then try a portable version. And if those steps don't work, then your friend is a very lucky lady.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 04:37, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Both I and my friend use RealPlayer SP, and neither of us has received any spyware or adware, we don't use the message center or anything, we only use it for the converter for AAC to MP3 files so we can add iTunes music into Windows Media Player for home movies. Moptopstyle1 (talk) 04:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Google Adwords, Dynamic Keyword Insertion not working as expected

Hi, this page [4] explains that to use Dynamic Keyword Insertion, all you have to do is type {Keyword: Alternate_String}, and it wll replace the {...} part of your ad with the keyword typed in by the user, or replace it with "Alternate_String" if the keyword/list of keywords was too long to fit into the line.

However, when I try this with my ads, it always pulls the alternate string, even though the keyword in question is way shorter than the alternate string. Say my keywords were

wprdc
Ref Desk
wikipedia reference desk computing

and the ad was set up to say

Check out {Keyword: Reference Desk}

then I'm always getting

Check out Reference Desk

even though, from my understanding, I should be getting

Check out wprdc

and

Check out Ref Desk

for the first two keywords.

(Let's not get into the details of using {Keyword} vs. {KeyWord} vs. {keyword} here, I'm aware of that distinction, it doesn't work with any of them.)

I've tried googling the problem but never got any further than the description of how it *should* work, like shown in the Google help page.

What am I doing wrong? Should I have asked bing instead? ;-) -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 23:09, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

June 27

Location of Wikipedia section edit links ?

Take a look at articles on German or French Wikipedias - they have links for editing section right after section title, not on the right side of page as here. Another user told me that this placement is less likely to pile up (which somtimes happens in short articles with infoox and several sections). I wonder if this is true and how did they get the links there in the first place (I checked around but couldn't find any sign of explanation) ? ~~Xil (talk) 00:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It is done with some JavaScript; see User:Drilnoth/lefteditlinks.js. You can enable it at Special:Preferences → Gadgets → Moves edit links next to the section headers; see the documentation for previous discussion. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:56, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks ~~Xil (talk) 10:13, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

AJAX question.

As a simple learning exercise, I'm designing an interactive web-based game which runs in an HTML5 browser and is multi-player. Sadly, I'm a relative newb at AJAX programming.

If I have a JavaScript application running in the client - I can easily have it request data from the server using something like:

function updateToNetwork ( sendme )
{
  xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = updateFromNetwork ;
  xmlhttp.open            ( "POST", "responder.php", true ) ;
  xmlhttp.setRequestHeader( "Content-type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
  xmlhttp.setRequestHeader( "Content-length", sendme.length + 3 ) ;
  xmlhttp.setRequestHeader( "Connection", "close" ) ;
  xmlhttp.send            ( "TAG=" + sendme ) ;
}

...collect that message on the server using some PHP code that sends a response:

 <?php
 $incoming=$_POST["TAG"];
 ...do some thinking, then...
 $outgoing="...whatever..."
 echo $outgoing ;
 ?>

...then pick that up in the client using:

 function updateFromNetwork ()
 {
   if ( xmlhttp.readyState != 4 ||
        xmlhttp.status != 200 )
     return ;
   var result = xmlhttp.responseText;
   ...do something with the result...
 }

...I have this working - but what I'd REALLY like would be for the server to send out updates to the client-side JavaScript code without being asked for it. Is there a way to do that?

I can have the JavaScript poll the server on a timer - but that's really inefficient.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:33, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

There are some kludgy ways to do it; see server push. Actually that article looks a little bit outdated, so maybe there are better methods now. 75.57.243.88 (talk) 04:29, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

[ec] I may not be credentialed to comment, but isn't this by definition impossible in the context of the Web browsing model (AJAX or not)? I would be curious to know if any mainstream sites/web apps employ such a technique. Riggr Mortis (talk) 04:39, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's the question. Is it impossible? The main reason it's generally undesirable (and therefore a reason it wouldn't be used much) is that the server has no way to know whether the end user is still there. They could have exited the browser or turned off their computer and the server would have no way to know and hence would continue to uselessly send out data. However, in this application, I'll be getting data from the application and I can easily time-out if I don't see any input within a few seconds. I don't mind requiring the client to send out "I'm still here" messages (say) once a second - but I need to avoid doing it (say) 30 times a second! The unnecessary load on the server from dozens to hundreds of applications just sending a "please update me" message 30 times a second is what I'm trying to avoid. SteveBaker (talk) 15:31, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Apparently if you want to do this with pure AJAX (that is, not with an applet), it is known as a "Comet". The article gives some common implementations. My reading of the article (having never tried to implement it) is that the techniques look a little cludgey, either forcing the browser to send a million requests for updates, or requiring a solution that only works in certain browsers. (Or an applet, which should work fine, I would think, though it would require user approval, etc.) --Mr.98 (talk) 18:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

What software helps recover laptops better than LoJack for Laptops?

I read on some brochure/magazine/ad for new computers that it's protected by a software like LoJack for Laptops, but has more features and overall does a better job than LoJack. However, this was a long time ago and I forgot that software's name. Whatever it is, I ought to replace LoJack with it, so I can feel more secure about it.

What was that anti-theft software called? --Let Us Update Wikipedia: Dusty Articles 05:31, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

AS usual, we have an article— see Laptop theft. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:21, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

A way around "geographical restrictions"?

I tried to buy (i.e. download) this song from amazon.co.uk:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keine-Langeweile/dp/B001I4GOB6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1277616729&sr=8-1

Being in America, I got this notice:

We're sorry. We could not process your order because of geographical restrictions on the product which you were attempting to purchase. Please refer to the terms of use for this product to determine the geographical restrictions. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Similarly at amazon.de: http://www.amazon.de/Keine-Langeweile/dp/B001SO36SA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1277616876&sr=8-1

Tut uns leid. Ihre Bestellung konnte nicht verarbeitet werden, da das gewünschte Produkt geografischen Einschränkungen unterliegt. Weitere Informationen zu den geografischen Einschränkungen finden Sie in den Nutzungsbedingungen zu diesem Produkt. Wir entschuldigen uns für Unannehmlichkeiten, die Ihnen möglicherweise hieraus entstanden sind.

Apparently you need to be in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland to make this purchase, and for the UK site, you need to be in some region that I presume includes the UK, and clearly excludes the building I live in in Minneapolis.

Is there some way around this? Michael Hardy (talk) 05:38, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Download Tor (link). Once it's running, check what your IP is (link) and copy/paste the number over to to a whois lookup server to see what country it's from (example link). Your IP will change every 10 to 15 minutes using this method, so if you are little off, just wait and try again. Also note that your Internet speeds may slow down a bit while doing this, as you are hopping from PC to PC across a very big network.

On the other hand, you could check iTunes. :) Disclaimer: I'm not sure how legality plays into this (if at all) but I hold no responsibility for any actions. ^Avicenna_sis @ 08:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I ran into the same problem with iTunes. Since Tor is described as a way to do things anonymously, and since I need to provide billing information, I wonder about this suggestion. The geographic restrictions could be based on billing information rather than on IP numbers. Michael Hardy (talk) 15:34, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

The easiest way is to find a friend or relative in the region and have them purchase it for you and forward it on. I assume this will work for an MP3; I do exactly this for DVDs, CDs and books for my friends in Australia. This works for ebay too, when vendors will only ship locally. The vendor makes a sale, and my friends get what they want and everyone's happy!--TrogWoolley (talk) 08:26, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

That is probably the best strategy. Since Amazon MP3s are DRM-free, once they're purchased you can copy, edit and burn them as much as you would like.

Another strategy is to find the song on YouTube, and find a website that will download the audio track. Trust me, they exist, but I'm not linking to any of them, and you can find and use them at your own (legal) risk.

Using Tor to make a purchase is rather like going up to a stranger and handing them your credit card. Proxies and Tor have their uses -- I'm watching Germany v. England right now on ARD, and I'm in America -- but you should never even think about using them for anything remotely important, especially not if it requires you to login or give sensitive information. You're trusting a strange computer to relay information back and forth, and you have no idea who could be watching. Xenon54 (talk) 15:45, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, scanning the DRM disambiguation page, I'm guessing that you meant digital rights management and wondering why you didn't link to that.

Both of the songs I'm interested in got taken down from youtube because of terms-of-use violations. They were put there by a reader who's often had that problem.

More later.... Michael Hardy (talk) 23:05, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

If you do a purchase through Tor, I haven't tried it but I'd expect the sensitive info to be encrypted through the Tor network by the SSL at the distant server, and therefore not readable by the intermediate Tor nodes. Check the server SSL certificate carefully, of course. 75.57.243.88 (talk) 10:32, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

MP3 compression

Can anybody recommend a good program for lossy compression of MP3's? I want to be able to adjust the level of compression. Ideally, I should get arbitrarily small file sizes in exchange for arbitrarily higher losses in quality. --Bowlhover (talk) 09:44, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

[5] 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:42, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

That program appears to use LAME - a standard, open-source MP3 codec. Bowlhover asked for "arbitrarily small file size" in exchange for "arbitrarily higher losses in quality" - but while that might be conceivable in general, the output will not be an MP3 file. In addition to file format overhead, MP3 files must have a minimum of 8 kbps and 16.0 kHz sample-rate. You can read about this in our bit-rate section of the MP3 article; you can also find technical documentation at this source cited in the article or The Anatomy of an MP3 File available in MP3: The Definitive Guide book. If you want lossier compression than these formats, you no longer have an MP3 file - you will have "something else" that will not play in a standard device or software media player. You might be interested in PCM audio. While not a true lossless-compression, you can specify arbitrarily low sampling frequency and still end up with a decode-able, playable sound file. Reducing sampling-rate will proportionally reduce file size (at the expense of degraded quality). However, the relationship between the degradation in "audio quality" versus "file size" will be pretty non-linear. Nimur (talk) 20:22, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I highly recommend you do not recompress already compressed MP3's just to adjust the file size. You should be compressing the CD, not an existing lossy file. --mboverload@ 23:26, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Excel conditional formatting

I am working in planning of facilities.I put the position of each facility as a geographical coordinates(latitude and longitudes).I want the excel to color it red whenever a new position I enter is less than 100m distance from the existing positions of the facilities which alredy exist.Is there any way for that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.218.23 (talk) 15:58, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

My first attempt at doing this was really unwieldy, unclever, and probably unmanageable. Hopefully another editor knows a much smarter way. I put X and Y coordinates for 25 locations in two columns (E and F); I used random numbers from 1 to 100, but these are similar to your latitude and longitude numbers. Then in column H, I used the good old Pythagorean Theorem to measure the distance from the first row's coordinates to that row's coordinates, with =SQRT((ABS($E$3-E3)^2)+(ABS($F$3-F3)^2)). Then in column I, I measured the distance from the second row's coordinates to that row's coordinates with =SQRT((ABS($E$4-E3)^2)+(ABS($F$4-F3)^2)). Then, painfully, you could continue, so there's one column of calculated data for each of your facilities locations. Then finally you could use conditional formatting to color the row red if any number in that row from column H through column AI (or whatever) happens to be under 100.0. This is awful but may serve if you have a low number of facilities. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:54, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

HTML viewer for Symbian phones

Does anyone know of an offline HTML renderer for Symbian OS phones (specifically S60v5), as the in-built browser asks you to make an internet connection like 5 times before finally opening the page (Opera Mobile doesn't work either). I'm looking for something like Plucker; I've tried Mobipocket but that doesn't work for S60v5, nor does it allow opening of saved .html files. --Mark PEA (talk) 21:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and if one isn't available, how difficult would it be to create a Symbian app from one of the source codes provided by Plucker? I have decent coding experience, is it a large effort creating ports from one OS to another? --Mark PEA (talk) 21:26, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Freeware = Communism

How come American people work on making freeware for no charge, yet America hates communism? 92.28.242.168 (talk) 21:52, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Freeware isn't the same as communism. In some cases, it is a loss leader of some form (companies give away personal anti-virus software in the hope that it will attract people to buy commercial AV software or a premium version of their personal software with more features, or someone contributes to a FOSS project in order to prove themselves so they can get a good job), or it can be simple charity, or it can just be for fun and for the satisfaction of seeing your software used. Communism is a way of structuring an economy. Freeware is personal choice. --Tango (talk) 22:14, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

First, freeware is not at all the same as free software or open source software. Freeware is very often part of a very commercialized system - it can be thought of as "advertising." However, I think the OP intended to ask about free software - software that is typically developed by the community without any restrictions or requirement that the original authors profit from it. This is a whole different animal - somebody does work ("conducts economic activity") by programming something useful; and then they release it to the community with legally enforceable licenses, with the intent of helping the community at large. This is "free software" - and as it can sometimes displace commercial software that performs an equivalent function, it has been oft-criticized for its negative impact on commercial software. Without doubt, free and open software has changed the economics of the software and technology market (e.g., Copyleft—the economics of Linux and other open source software). However, it's not even clear whether free and open-source software has the effect of deflating or inflating the value (price) of commercial software. In some cases, the presence of free software encourages economic growth by making new technology development cheaper and opening technology markets to a broader audience. The economics of technology are very complicated. Some flavors of the free- and open-source software are inspired by leftist, socialist philosophies; the GNU General Public License has been likened to communism in scholarly analysis (e.g., The institutionalization of Open Source; The Open Source Definition, Open Sources). Bruce Perens writes: "The reason for the success of this somewhat communist-sounding strategy, while the failure of communism itself is visible around the world, is that the economics of information are fundamentally different from those of other products. There is very little cost associated with copying a piece of information like a computer program. The electricity involved costs less than a penny, and the use of the equipment not much more. In comparison, you can't copy a loaf of bread without a pound of flour." So: free and open-source software is not the same as communism; but many of the great thinkers and leaders of free-software have been communists or communist-inspired; so it is no surprise that there are similarities in the philosophical foundations. Nimur (talk) 22:50, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Same reason Wikipedia editors write a free encyclopedia to give away. You might like the book The Hacker Ethic. 75.57.243.88 (talk) 07:49, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

June 28

super-arduino?

I'm wondering what low powered embedded computers exist that are more powerful than Arduinos (8-bit AVR with 1k of ram, using a few milliwatts of power) but less battery hungry and expensive than something like a Gumstix (600 mhz Xscale processor with 64 meg or so, using around 1 watt). I'm imagining something like a 20 mhz Arm7 with 256k, using maybe 1/10th of a watt. Any suggestions? 75.57.243.88 (talk) 07:52, 28 June 2010 (UTC)