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August 12

"Temporarily" installing software

I'm looking for a way to only "temporarily" install a software on Windows 7 64-bit. The case is that I'm going to need to install a program which I'll really only need to use once, so I'd rather not have it install on my system and then uninstall it, as that will likely change some registry gobbledygook I don't want it to. I'd opt for using a virtual machine like VirtualBox, but all my previous operating system ISOs were on my (currently inaccessible) older computer. Preferably I'd like to install the program inside the virtual machine, let it do what it needs to, and then just delete the virtual hard disk. So, does anyone have an alternative solution to my query? Thank you and cordially, 141.153.215.55 (talk) 03:33, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Ideally it should come with an uninstall script that will clear up all the registry entries when you remove it. This can be accessed under Add/Remove programs. If you don't trust that it will have this (or that it will work), do a system checkpoint before the install, then roll back to that point after the run. Note that any data file created might also be wiped out, so make a backup copy if you want to save it. StuRat (talk) 04:36, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Either use Sandboxie, System Restore, or Windows XP Mode. 118.96.159.34 (talk) 11:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Sandboxie is probably the easiest way. Just make an empty sandbox and run the program's installer in that sandbox, and to "uninstall" it, delete the sandbox (after extracting any files you want to keep). It's compatible with most applications, though not all. -- BenRG (talk) 10:46, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Mouseover pop-up CHN-ENG translator for Internet Explorer?

Moved from Language Desk by Falconus^{p t c} 03:14, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I use the Perapera-kun add-on for CHN-ENG translation in Firefox. It lets you hover your mouse over hanzi to see the meaning. However, some sites in China don't work with Firefox (for example, certain online banks) and I was wondering if anyone knew of an add-on for IE with similar mouseover translation functionality. I haven't been able to find one... Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Masked Booby (talk • contribs) 01:58, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

cropping jpg images

I've got an image with the .jpg file extension on a Linux machine. I thought maybe using ooffice to view it I could do some cropping. Hasn't worked so far. My other option my be finding something on some MS Windows machine in a university library and downloading the thing there. What should I do? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:31, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much any image editor would allow you to crop a JPG. In Windows, Microsoft Paint works just fine. StuRat (talk) 04:34, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

A lot of Linux distributions include GIMP, which can do it. Looie496 (talk) 04:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

You could try an online image editor like this AvrillirvA (talk) 09:33, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I do basic image editing in Linux using F-Spot Tinfoilcat (talk) 09:25, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that the jpeg format uses lossy compression. By cropping in a general purpose image editor, you will decode and re-encode, thereby adding new artefacts to those that were created the first time the image was jpeg-encoded. To avoid unnecessary loss of quality, use a specialized cropping program that understands the jpeg format. Jpegtran is the grand-daddy, JpegCrop is a user-friendly windows interface. --95.34.139.175 (talk) 20:18, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Google forces its localized domain on me

Why is it that when I attempt to change Google.ca back to Google.com, it just refuses to go to the US based domain? But when I'm the US, I'm perfectly capable of accessing the Canadian domain without the main one getting in my way? Yet funnily enough, I can access Google.fr, Google.co.uk, Google.de and so on from Canada with no issue, yet it has serious beef with me trying to access Google.com. Even when I sign into my Google account, I don't seem to have much of a say in my preference of which domain I want. Why is that? 70.29.252.46 (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

See this article. 118.96.159.34 (talk) 11:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

One of the problem is .com isn't really a US domain but a generic domain and when someone links to google.com they aren't necessarily intending to link to the US site in particular. I wonder whether www.google.us (which does work) also always takes you to the US site Nil Einne (talk) 12:40, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I would've never guessed to do that. Thanks. 70.29.252.46 (talk) 15:47, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Google problem

This morning, Google started acting weird on my Fedora 12 Linux system using FireFox 3.6. When I make a search that returns multiple pages of results, and browse to some page past the first one and click on a result, then when I click "Back" Google throws me back to the first page. If I click "Back" again then I get to the right page. This seems to happen every time. It does not happen on my work computer, which uses Windows 7 and FireFox 5. What the heck is going on here? JIP | Talk 15:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you using the HTTPS everywhere extension? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:10, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

No. JIP | Talk 15:27, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Also Google regularly inflicts random page tests and changes on random connections. (And they kind of suck at JS :p) ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

This stopped when Google thought I had searched too much for one day and asked me to fill a CAPTCHA. Then after I closed the browser window and did another Google search it started again. JIP | Talk 20:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Screen Quality with Video Question/Concern

Hi, I just bought a new Dell XPS 17 laptop with a 17 inch 900p screen, I have another laptop that is 6 years old and runs 1280 x 800 with a 15 inch screen. Watching the same 720p and 1080p video on both side by side, I think the quality on the old laptop is better, the new one seems a little less sharp and slightly lower quality (the old screen is less reflective). Am I imagining it? Is it the difference in reflectivity? It is that the old screen is smaller? Or is there something I can do to fix this? Thanks for any help:-) 71.195.84.120 (talk) 17:10, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

The reflectivity or brightness are about the only things it could be -- the pixel size on the two systems is virtually identical. Looie496 (talk) 17:26, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

This is off topic, kind of, but I noticed that the results are near identical, if not slightly better, on the new screen with several other hd videos. Going back to the orginal ones I tested, I noticed that they are of a slightly smaller filesize, is it possible that the videos themselves are of varying quality and that the defects are more apparent on the newer display due to size and higher resolution?

The 900 -vs- 800 is not to big a diff, though they are the same vertical size, but width wise its 1600 to 1280; although the 1600 is on a wider screen. I'm not saying that you are wrong, just that I don't really know much about this and am not sure how to determine how big a difference there is/should be. Thank you:-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.84.120 (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

720p is 1280x720. The old laptop can show it 1:1 without scaling, but your new laptop is apparently scaling it to 1600x900, and thus making the image fuzzier. 80.186.103.202 (talk) 17:51, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Is native resolution the problem? Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

One other factor could be the refresh rate. If the new computer has a slower refresh rate, images could look choppy during movement, especially when looking out the corner of the eye. StuRat (talk) 19:45, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers :-) After using it for a bit, I'm starting to notice that a lot of hd videos play better, thuogh some still don't...I have two other questions. Would a lower res video play better on the smaller older screen or the newer, since the newer screen would require stretching it out and such? Second, I debated a lot between the 900p and 1080p screens and went with 900 because I think it would be easier to read off of (I have 10,000's of ebooks) and figured that at 17 inches and arms length away, the videos wouldn't look to diff on it; that and most of the video I have is 720p. That being said, I'm curious if I made the right choice? Honestly, I just want to get rid of (or justify) the nagging voice in my head that keeps telling me I could have got something better (I get a new computer every six years or so, so I'm going to have this one for a while) Any thoughts would be much appreciated; yes, I know, I'm probably over thinking this. Thank you :-) 209.252.235.206 (talk) 06:44, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd say a larger screen with a higher resolution is the best choice. You generally want to display a video at it's native resolution to avoid any up-scaling or down-scaling of the image, which can distort the image, make it blurry, or introduce lag. With a large screen at high res, you do have the option to make the image window smaller than the entire screen. Unfortunately, some inferior video software doesn't seem to have the option to display at 100% resolution, and just goes with the current window size, whatever that happens to be. As for e-books, if they allow you to set the font, then again the largest resolution would let you use a larger font, which should have more resolution for each letter, making them clearer. StuRat (talk) 07:28, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

flickr

Hello. Are there any web archives or mirrors (accessible to the public) that have old pictures from flickr? I remember there was this beautiful landscape that a certain user had, CC-BY license, which is just the perfect resolution for my new computer screen, but which the user has taken down (waybackmachine has been rather unhelpful; flickr "doesn't allow frames", whatev that means). I have tried contacting the user, but he has been unresponsive. Thanks. 203.117.33.23 (talk) 18:25, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

And where was this top secret image? ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I assume you know about archive.org? Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Wayback Machine is part of Archive.org. So I think that's covered. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:23, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

PS2 .STR Audio Files

I've got some audio tracks from a PS2 game copied to my hard drive, and I was wondering if there was a program out there that can play these tracks... and if possible convert them to .wav or .mp3

thanks 157.157.39.8 (talk) 20:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Where's the security weakness?

I'm running XP Mode only for a scanner, so while I run Virtual PC I don't run it for more than a few minutes. I use a flash drive to store the resulting images, and "XP" has access to only the virtual HD and physical DVD-ROM drive. I have Firewall up but don't want to patch the "XP". I'm guessing then that any security weakness that would affect me would be in Virtual PC. Is that correct? 66.108.223.179 (talk) 23:25, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Virtual PC could have bugs allowing the virtualised XP access to its host machine, but the likelyhood of malware targetting such a vulnerability would probably be small. However, if the XP machine were to pick up any malware that tries to spread itself further over the network, that malware is now on the wrong side of any router firewall you may have. It may still try to infect other machines on your network, including the hosting Windows 7 installation, if those are not properly secured. Unilynx (talk) 10:01, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The question seems confusing. The statement is first made 'has access to only the virtual HD and physical DVD-ROM drive' but then the question goes on to discuss the firewall. The firewall would be irrelevent if the XP doesn't have access to any network (whether a host only one, a bridged one or a NAT one). If it does have access to a network, this is quite a different matter from if the XP is restricted to the virtual HD and DVD-ROM as it is potentially a big security risk as Unilynx points out. If any partitions on the host OS are shared and read-write allowed and the username/password is stored (or they are mounted) then any malware will clearly have access to these. (There is also a minor? risk of the malware attempting to bruteforce any network shares.) And of course even if there are no read-write network shares, the malware may still be able to take advantage of other network services including any security vunerabilities. I can't recall if Virtual PC has shared folders or shared clipboard and stuff of that sort but if it does, this is another security risk. (Just to be clear, any VM has access to the CPU and memory and in most cases to some extent display device and mouse/keyboard, generally the way a VM is designed it should not carry in risks to the host OS but there is always the risk of security vunerabilities. The risk of anything else the VM has access to including sound device, parallel ports, serial ports, USB ports, floppy disks, etc needs to be considered. As these are optional, along with one of the biggests risks that we discusses i.e. network, it doesn't make sense to say the VM only has access to the virtual HD and physical DVD-ROM if you've given it access to these.) Nil Einne (talk) 04:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

August 13

Video Enhancement and Programming

Hi, I've been wanting to write a program that would perform certain effects on a video, then output a modified copy. While I think I have sound ideas and am comfortable with programming, I do not know enough about video file formats and how they are played to get started and was hoping to get pointed towards some information regarding that. For example, any info on the following would help. 1.) Given a(n) wmv, mpeg, avi, etc. how would I extract an array of frames from it? 2.) If I play an a x b resolution video on a, say, 1080p screen, how does the player decide what values the extra pixels should have? 3.) More importantly, if I extracted an array of frames from an a x b res video, then added to them and increased the size to c x d res and built a video from that, would the end result be a c x d res video? For the 1st question I just need to know how frames are stored, I can figure the rest out. The 3rd sounds kind of obvious, but differences between screen resoultion and video resolution and lack of knowledge make me want to ask just to be safe. Thank you for any and all help :-) 209.252.235.206 (talk) 06:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

1) How the frames are stored is quite complex, due to various compression methods. For example, there are compression methods for each frame, but there are others for multiple frames (if an object doesn't move, there's no need to describe it in each subsequent frame). What I've done is used software that allows me to grab single frames and extract them as as PPM RAW ASCII format, which is human readable and uncompressed RGB values (each 0-255, typically). This makes the files huge, but it does make them easy to process with a program. I've then modified the frames and stitched them together as animated GIFs, but I imagine you can make other formats, too.

2) See video upscaling.

3) Yes, you can store the frames at a higher resolution, although I suspect that all frames in a single movie must have the same resolution. Also, there are limits on the max resolution for each format.

Something else I should add is that video rendering/processing is very slow. If you expect to, say, invert the colors on a full-length movie, I'd expect this to take many days to process, especially if you exceed the RAM of your machine and must go to paging space. StuRat (talk) 07:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's a recent question we had on this desk where the format of a frame in PPM RAW ASCII format is described: [1]. StuRat (talk) 07:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd consider using FFmpeg's libraries to handle the video format part, and working with the RGB frames it can provide. See eg http://dranger.com/ffmpeg/tutorial01.html Unilynx (talk) 09:53, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Help with MS Access 2007 (VBA) to open a new instance of excel 2007 instead of excel 2003

I am writing a vba code in MS Access 2007 that creates and opens a new instance of MS Excel 2007 (have added the reference to MS Excel 12.0 already). Code for reference here:

Dim xlApp as excel.application Set xlapp = CreateObject("Excel.Application")

The problem here is that every time the code runs, it opens excel 2003 instead of excel 2007. I want it to open an instance of excel 2007 instead of exce l 2003.

Additional details: OS: Win 7 I have both MS Office 2003 and 2007 installed on my system. I have already tried 'Diagnose' in MS Excel (similar to detect & repair in MS Excel 2003 which makes it default for all excel files). Also, tried un-registering excel 2007 and then registering again but didn't help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.173.224.151 (talk) 12:09, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

You might take a look at this article, especially the section on "automation" and multiple versions. It doesn't seem to be up to date for Excel 2007, but it does give some hints to look at (figuring out what the Excel 2007 class name is). --Mr.98 (talk) 18:44, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

How to make each excel files open in a same instance of excel 2007

Whenever i open an excel file on my system, it opens in a new instance of excel 2007. I want them to open in same instance of excel, how can i do t? Details: OS: Win 7 MS Office 2007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.173.224.151 (talk) 12:12, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

On Excel 2003, you untick the box Show... Windows in Taskbar, under Tools.. Options.. View. I'd guess it's the same in 2007. --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't make any difference in my Excel 2000. When I open from within the running instance, the new file opens in that instance, but if I open by double-clicking the file, the operating system (Vista) opens a new instance of Excel. Behaviour might be different in newer versions. Dbfirs 16:15, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

databases

does anyone have passwords to databses. i mean im doing reserhc project in schol and im not finding anything in the schol databses

so i hope someone can give me passwords thanks. i'd be nice to get a pasword for teh Harvard databses thanks all — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.183.70.187 (talk) 15:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

You appear not to understand the purpose of a password. Suggest you read the article.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:19, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Just FYI, to get access to the Harvard e-resources would require having a Harvard PIN, which would mean you would have access to all sorts of other Harvard student or employee services, information, etc., of whomever's PIN it was. Nobody is likely to post their PINs willingly. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:41, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Obsolete or backdated website

If a website lacks current information and valuable data, then should it be called backdated website or obsolete website? thanks--180.234.82.244 (talk) 16:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

"Out of date" would be the phrase I'd use. But of the choices you present, "obsolete" makes more sense than "backdated". 82.43.90.27 (talk) 17:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

See Out-of-Date Websites Invite Problems | Branding and Marketing.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:05, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

How to find a lost iPhone

My iphone has been lost, and it could be anywhere in the city I'm currently residing in. I haven't downloaded MobileMe, iHound, or any of those things. Is there a way to locate it after it's already been lost? 70.179.55.4 (talk) 22:22, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Call the number and see if a good Samaritan answers and agrees to return it (offer a reward just in case). However, you might not be able to hear if anybody answers over that annoying ringing coming from under your couch. :-) StuRat (talk) 23:22, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

After you try this, if you don't get your phone back, block it using it's IMEI. Quest09 (talk) 13:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Parallels desktop

So I am in the midst of installing Windows 7 using Parallels Desktop for Mac. I was curious as to whether because my computer is a mac, I do not have to worry about viruses, or whether even though it's a mac, because I will be running Windows on the parallels desktop, I am susceptible like an actual PC owner.--108.46.97.251 (talk) 23:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

It's the OS that's susceptible, not the hardware (by and large). Your Windows installation will be at risk the same as any other. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:58, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much, That's what I wanted to know. At least with this my whole computer won't die and I can just dump it and reinstall. God am I happy I got a mac.--108.46.97.251 (talk) 00:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

August 14

How would a website/network know that it's you, even if your IP address is changed?

Sometimes, users are so hellbent on hating you that they'll remember your IP address so that you don't escape their hate just by changing your username.

Then you figure out how to change your IP address.

There are two other methods of users still figuring out who you are, that I know of:

• Having a distinctive writing style and interests shared by no one else on that site/network
• Failing to delete cookies (that have your old login info, etc.)

What are some other, more technical methods of finding out who you were? How commonly are those methods employed, and how do you circumvent said methods? --70.179.163.168 (talk) 00:28, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

MAC address? General Rommel (talk) 00:45, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure any website can see your MAC address. Maybe if you authorized some kind of Java applet? Even then, I don't know. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

If you are not on the same network (ie: the same switch), your MAC is not visible. Websites tend to use Flash cookies to identify people because they break the "cross-site" security rule and they do not get erased when a user tries to erase all cookies. So, a flash cookie identifies you, regardless of what your IP address is. -- kainaw™ 18:41, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

SecondLife uses MAC addresses, this is interesting in view of recent European privacy legislation. Rich Farmbrough, 20:57, 15 August 2011 (UTC).

SecondLife is a program, not a web page. A program can access information about the computer that a web page cannot. -- kainaw™ 12:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

A browser is a program, also. A browser could send MAC addresses; but most modern browsers do not, because the MAC address is not needed for any part of the HTTP protocol implementation. The browser's code, and certain types of browser-plugins, could easily determine the MAC and transmit it to a server. Nimur (talk) 21:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Separate from cookies are Local Shared Objects, which hold a lot of info and are not often treated the same as regular cookies. I also recall reading somewhere that User agent strings (because of all the gunk they contain about plugins and browsers and versions and etc.), when combined with simple Javascript-accessible info (screen resolution, for example), often renders an pretty specific match (e.g. a one in few thousand chance that you are the same user). --Mr.98 (talk) 01:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good article series starting here. They list e.g. Flash cookies and sites cooperating (voluntarily or involuntarily) via HTTP referrer and information provided in the URI. The User agent string alone carries on average 10.5 bits of identifying information, and if combined with other information (available fonts, resolution, plugins) can give quite unique fingerprints. I have the Computer Modern fonts installed in my Mac Fontbook (for use in Keynote), and apparently that alone makes me unique among the 1709638 users that participated (so far) in their Panopticlick experiment. There is a scientific paper on the approach here. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:53, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was thinking of; thanks! --Mr.98 (talk) 12:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

People can be quite clever, for instance one can serve slightly different versions of the same javascript which has an identifoier in to different people and depend on the caching, if they delete a cookie then the id can be got from the javascript instead and the cookie reinstated. We could do with some technologies like that on Wikipedia as we get plagued by some very persistent vandals. Individuals though do not normally go to such extremes and you can avoid them by not visiting their websites, so it sounds like the OP is visiting a website and trying to do something there and the website owner does not like it. If this is so then who exactly is hellbent on hating? Dmcq (talk) 09:30, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

disable keyboard on laptop

i got water on my laptop keyboard and the arrow buttons are going crazy and the rest of the keyboard is shot. i have a usb keyboard, but the wild normal laptop overrides it. is there a way to disable it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.181.202.2 (talk) 01:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Device Manager? General Rommel (talk) 02:47, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

If it's currently acting like you are hitting the keys, it probably is still wet. I wouldn't use it like that, as water could drip down into the critical bits and destroy the computer. Instead, store it open and upside down (so the keyboard is level) in a dry area until it completely dries out. StuRat (talk) 19:08, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

solution of computer problem

I have a dos base software name 'cross' which is use in retail medicine shop. I have dell inspiron laptop with core i3 processer. in my laptop i install windox xp and the software runnim=ng well I also used a epson dot matrix printer. to print out from printer I use two operation 1. control panel-add hardware-wizard-I have already attached hardware-add new hardware-network adapter-loopback adapter and 2. c:\documents and setting\administrator>net use lpt1 \\computer name\shaired printer name then show ... the command completed successfully but now I install windos 7 ultimate in my laptop, my software running well in my laptop.I want to print out by printer I performed operation 2 before operation 1 and it happens many times e:\user\Supriyo>net use lpt1 \\computer mane\shaired printer name it show ... the command completed sucessfully but I can not get print then I performed operation 1 and then 2 but it show system error 85 occured the local device name is already in use what can I do to get print in windos 7 ultimate.Gonsusona (talk) 02:35, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you running the Command Prompt as an administrator? (not just as a Windows administrator account, but specifically right-click the Command Prompt shortcut and "Run as administrator") as under Windows 7 (and likely Vista) you're probably going to need to do that. Then if it still doesn't work, try using lpt2 or lpt3 instead of lpt1. I could be wrong, but I don't think Windows 7 will let you remap an existing port so you have to use a different port number i.e. lpt2 or lpt3. Hope this helps!  ZX81  ^talk 02:40, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

ok I will try it.Gonsusona (talk) 10:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I move the above response from Gonsusona here from the thread below as I presume it relates to this thread Nil Einne (talk) 13:41, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Stretch screen resolution

Hello,

I have a laptop with a nVidia 540M graphic card and Windows 7 64 bits. Is it possible to stretch the screen rather than having two huge black bars on each side of the screen when I'm running older games that don't have built-in support for widescreen, nor fan-made hacks? My nVidia control panel only has options for custom settings like AA filtering, even with the latest drivers. Same thing for the Intel graphical drivers thingy. Actually I believe there's an option (It's in French and I'm used to English computing terms, quite ironically) but there's only one choice (something to the effect of center screen (FUUU). I also tried using the «maximize» option of shortcuts. Doesn't work either.

I'm thinking about installing a Windows XP 32 bits partition, because a significant number of older games either don't run or they run very badly (brillant Microsoft engineers decided to dump 16 bits support in Win 7 x64 - despite a lot of early 2000s applications still relying on it to some extent). Will this also fix this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.18.145.160 (talk) 06:38, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is simply a decision of 'brillant Microsoft engineers'. In [[X86-64#Long mode|long mode],] x86-64 CPUs (in other words a decision by AMD which Intel and Via later also followed) only provide support for 16-bit protected mode applications. Any applications which require real mode or virtual 8086 mode can't be run. Therefore only certain applications could be run without Microsoft tweaking the Windows on Windows layer to provide more emulation. Given the risk later proven real of continuing to provide so much legacy code, combined with the fact there are already plenty of virtual machines and emulators, it's perhaps not surprising Microsoft chose not to spend time reinventing the wheel updating the WoW and NTVDM layers so they could work in long mode.

If you are using Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate, Windows XP mode is supported which is probably an easier option then installing a secondary OS. Of course if you have an XP licence for the second copy you plan to install, perhaps it also allows you to install it in a VM. If you intention is to run early 2000s games which use 16 bit code, Virtual PC (used by Windows XP mode by default) may be enough. If it isn't, the most likely problem would be the limited 3D support in Virtual PC, in which case VirtualBox and VMware have hardware acceleration support. (If the only problem is 16 bit installers, you may want to see if there's a way to install it in Windows 7 x64.)

If you do want to go down the installing a secondary partition with Windows XP x32 route, be aware companies are dropping support for Windows XP, so you may find difficulty getting your hardware to work with it. And you're probably more likely to encounter problems with a laptop, since generic drivers don't always work if they are available (I believe in the case of Nvidia even Omega drivers don't work for mobile/laptop graphics chipsets). A quick search suggests there are no official (or beta) drivers from Nvidia for your graphics chipset for XP. You may be able to find some unofficial drivers but I wouldn't get my hopes up if you haven't found some.

BTW on desktop cards, the Nvidia control panel has a 'adjust desktop size and position' submenu option under the 'display' menu. For LCD or widescreen (not sure which one) monitors, this usually shows a 'when using a resolution lower than my display's native resolution' for which there is the option to 'use NVIDIA scaling' (the one without 'with fixed-aspect ratio') usually means no black bars. If there is no such option for the mobile drivers and you've tried multiple versions, you may be SOL (well unless your display has such an option, for a built in LCD monitor on a laptop this is unlikely but if you're using a fancy LCD monitor it's possible). I presume you're aware if you stretch it in that way, the aspect ratio will be wrong, so people and objects will appear squashed/fat.

There is a slight possibility the Nvidia or Intel drivers on XP will provide such an option despite it not existing in the Windows 7 drivers, but I doubt it. In fact were it not for you saying the option doesn't exist on Windows 7, I would have expected you'd have been even less likely to have support for such an option on XP then on Windows 7 (particularly considering you have a very recent mobile chipset).

Nil Einne (talk) 13:30, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Another option might be to use an external monitor. If you have a non-wide-screen monitor, then it should fit better. With any luck, you might have a monitor which is taller than the laptop's, and thus gives you a bigger image. StuRat (talk) 17:12, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I did not know about the whole 16 bits thing, sorry. I stand corrected.

Oddly enough, I just unlocked the stretching option in the Intel Graphical Drivers thingy. After fiddling around and pressing the hotkey for enable/disable panel fitting which is CTRL+ALT+F11, My desktop changed to a "center screen" mode (I had the two ugly black bars on my desktop). But under Intel Graphical Device, I now had three options, so I choose to revert to default, which was supposed to stretch in the first place, and I maxed my resolution, as it had been downgraded. Now the games are shown correctly, and there is only one choice under "stretching", like before.

Probably a registry bug or something? This is weird (but cool) Raskolkhan (talk) 18:36, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

How do I install language support without Microsoft Office?

I would like to install IMEs for Hindi, Korean, Japanese and Chinese. However, I'd like to find a way to do so without needing MS office first so that I can type in those languages without it. Thanks. --70.179.163.168 (talk) 08:06, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this works. Control Panel→language→check the languages. If you do not have the fonts for the languages. Search free fonts and install them. See also Help:Multilingual support (East Asian). Oda Mari (talk) 09:28, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

My MS office program is now in windows.old folders, but how do I get it to work again?

Dell had me reinstall Windows while saving all my previous files to windows.old. I tried opening MS Office from there but I couldn't. Since it came with the laptop, I asked them to send me a replacement copy but they said I had to pay for another one (if they practically mandated a reinstall, then I ought to get software that originally came with the system replaced for free.) _{Because of this, next year, my next laptop will not be from Dell.}

How do I take the MS office files from the windows.old folders anyhow so that I can get them to work again? Are there other (legal) ways to get MS office to work again for free? --70.179.163.168 (talk) 08:06, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

You don't say what version of Windows or Office or where your original Dell install disks are. Your Office will not work from windows.old because when you reinstalled windows, your registry was wiped clean and now does not contain office registry entries. The only easy way to get these registry settings back is unfortunately an office install. With OEM laptops you either get an ms-office key on a piece of paper without the install disks, which is cheaper for buyers and used for pre-installation , or an OEM install disk. If you don't have this disk, then I presume you can 'borrow' an install disk and use your OEM key legally. Note that windows.old is practically useless except for things like your documents and certain app settings and explorer favourites, so once you retrieve those then you can delete windows.old to save space. Sandman30s (talk) 22:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Stopping Firefox from flashing a page and then changing it

I just looked for an article [2] only to realize it was one of those stupid Kluwer abstracts that changes to another page ([3]) if you have JavaScript disabled, or are running NoScript, etc. Normally when I don't have the patience for this I just hit the Stop button as it's loading. But voila, I can't find a stop button on Firefox 5.0, even in the section to customize the menu. Fortunately control-U does work, so I managed to get a look at the source:

<noscript>    
  <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0;url=/_layouts/1033/OAKS.Journals/Error/JavaScript.html" />
</noscript>

Anyway, how do I keep Firefox from doing this when I don't want it, and where did the stop button go? Wnt (talk) 13:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

The stop button appears at the right end of the location field while the page is loading. It changes to a reload button once the page is loaded, which is pretty annoying but I guess it saves some space. You can also hit Escape to stop it. NoScript has a helpful option (under the Advanced tab) to "Forbid META redirections inside <NOSCRIPT> elements" for dealing with this kind of website rudeness. Firefox has an option (under Advanced/General) to "Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page", but it will drive you insane if you turn it on all the time. Bobmath (talk) 14:53, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! Wnt (talk) 05:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Is defragmenting pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys worth it?

According to Defraggler, pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys (among some other things, including some supposedly random gibberish under C:\System Volume Information\ - what exactly is that anyway?) make up roughly 22% of the defragmented files on my Windows 7 laptop. Should I just let these files be, or should I go actually take the time to defrag them? 141.153.215.229 (talk) 17:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Defragmenting is really only important when you are low on disk space. Is this the case ? StuRat (talk) 17:16, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I suppose so. I mean, I still have some GBs of space available, but not enough to install a large program or something... 141.153.215.229 (talk) 18:13, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

If you have less than 10% of your disk empty, you will probably take a heavy performance hit, since the read/write head has to move a lot to access parts of files stored non-contiguously on the platter. This is especially true for a file used for paging (which is happening if you run out of RAM and the computer starts swapping data in and out). So yes, it makes sense to defragment the page file. It also always makes sense to buy more RAM and more disk. ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:27, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

\System Volume Information\ stores Shadow Copy data. It's used by System Restore. hiberfil.sys is written/read sequentially when you enter/exit hibernation. Each fragment requires an extra disk seek, and each seek takes a hundredth of a second, more or less, so if the file is in 100 fragments it will take an extra second or so to enter hibernation. pagefile.sys is read/written in mostly random order while the system is paging. Since the accesses are random there's a lot of seeking whether or not the file is fragmented. It may still be useful to defragment it so that it's all in one region of the disk, because seeks across a larger fraction of the disk area take longer. Also, while hiberfil.sys is a fixed size (unless you add RAM), pagefile.sys grows in size as needed, which will probably cause fragmentation. You can avoid that by setting the minimum size to a large value (and possibly setting the maximum size to the same value). To configure the page file, press Win+Pause (or open the System control panel) and choose Advanced system settings → Performance → Advanced → Virtual memory.

If you delete hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys from the Windows Recovery Environment or BartPE or Knoppix, the system will recreate them with minimum fragmentation the next time it starts. (Of course, you should shut down Windows, not hibernate it, before doing this.) -- BenRG (talk) 21:34, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Deleting them is the easiest way to ensure you have a mostly defragmented version on next boot. But you can only do that if you're not in Windows. But if you're defragmenting the drive you don't have much choice about which particular files you're defragmenting do you? Broba (talk) 22:32, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

If you disable hibernation the file should either be deleted or deletable (can't remember which) on next reboot. In Windows 7 and I think Vista this isn't I believe possible from the GUI but there is a command line way to do it. If you disable the page file the file will either disappear or become very small (in the other of a few k) which may mean a small amount of fragmentation when you change the size but not much Nil Einne (talk) 08:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Microsoft Word preferences

I find Microsoft Word a frustrating and counterintuitive program, but I am compelled to use it in the office. Is there a way I could set up the particular preferences that I have to make a document remotely readable and apply them to any file I open? Specifically I'm talking about: font, line spacing, point size, indents, page display as Draft, language marked as English (UK) not English (US), page zoom set at 100%, etc.

It seems that I can alter these parameters laboriously, one by one, and save them as default preferences, but that only applies to files I create from scratch. When I open a document created by someone else (which applies to 95 per cent of the documents I have to work with), it retains their settings. Is there an easy (ideally single-step) way to apply my own preferential settings to such documents without having to go through the tiresome process of individually going to the respective pull-down menus and changing the font, line spacing, point size, indents, page display, language, page zoom, etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.100.56 (talk) 19:23, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Not exactly a single step, but I imagine you can save it as flat ASCII text, which should remove all the formatting, then cut it and paste it into a document template formatted as you prefer. StuRat (talk) 20:28, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

The best you'll be able to find, IMO, is re-saving as RTF (which is a text format, not binary), and then parse out what you don't like. You can even convert from RTF to something more popular like HTML fairly easily and parse that instead. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:14, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

87.114.100.56: You may be able to write a macro to do all of those steps for you in a single step. I don't know much about writing macros in Word, though. —Bkell (talk) 22:53, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Start with a template. Kittybrewster ☎ 05:39, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

... or just record in your macro the sequence of key strokes to change the font, line spacing, point size, indents, page display, language, page zoom, etc. Save this macro to run on a single keystroke of your choice. The problem is that the macro will be saved in your default template (normal.dot), but will not load with the imported file. Perhaps an expert knows the quickest way to load the macro into the required files? "Tools -> macro -> run macro" seems to work for me on Word 2000, but I don't have imported files to test it on. Dbfirs 07:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

August 15

HP 6310 all-in-one printer

My printer works fine but when I press HP solutions centre with a view to scanning, it says no HP products can be found. Kittybrewster ☎ 05:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you reinstall the software from the original CD. Keep the printer switched on so that it is found.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

thank you. I had to uninstall first. Kittybrewster ☎ 01:55, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Web-page problem

I have a webpage which has a typical button where a single mouse click by user opens next page. It works well while the page is on the server. But when I (to test it) download the page on my harddisk and try to test the webpage by clicking the button, the button does not work. How I can come around this problem. Note that when I save the page on my PC I also end up saving a whole folder which has several files like javascript and etc. Should I do something with these javascript or the html within the webpage so that the clicking on button may open the next webpage which is on server, not my PC, remember the button is now on the webpage on my PC harddisk, (It works OK when this webpage is on server). Please help. 124.253.136.32 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC).

You could dry downloading the target page of the click. This would work if the click link assumes a local folder. Alternatively, you could edit the click link to point back to the server by specifying the full URL. This might be trickier if the link is implemented in Java script. To find out, just view the source (HTML) in your browser. Dbfirs 07:39, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

>You could dry downloading the target page of the click.

124.253.136.32 describes clicking a button to open the target page. It sounds like they want to save the page with the button on it and re-generate the results the button creates. That is, ⁺the content of the target page may be different every time.

Wouldn't it need to be Java to implement this? -- but thanks for clarifying my rather woolly reply. Dbfirs 07:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking of a page with a constant address but that contains frequently changing content. (Say, a page that always shows today's weather forecast.) In that case, saving a copy of the target page may not be useful: you want to get the most recent conent. ⁺Edited above to clarify. --Bavi H (talk) 01:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

>Alternatively, you could edit the click link to point back to the server by specifying the full URL.

When you use your browser's Save As command and it puts the page images and elements in a sub-folder (as 124.253.136.32 describes above), the browser also modifies all of the links in the saved page to have full URLs. So the problem may be more complex than an incomplete relative URL. --Bavi H (talk) 02:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, but it depends how the page was downloaded. I've had this problem in the past, but I agree it sounds unlikely here because, as you say, the "thicket" folder was also saved. Dbfirs 07:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=html ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

As Dbfirs also suggested, if you want to solve this yourself as a learning exercise, use your browser's View Source command, find the parts that describe the button, and search online to learn about them and HTML and HTTP in general. Here are some possible problems to investigate:

• The code of the page may have different parameters for the button every time you view the page from the server (for example, the button may have a different time stamp or session number each time). When you save the page on your hard drive and use it again later, the saved parameters may now be out of date.

• The server may be looking for a particular cookie or referrer which isn't present when use the button from the page on your hard drive.

If you describe more about what the button does or provide a link to where it is, we may be able help you get the button to work from a page saved on your hard drive. --Bavi H (talk) 02:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

124.253.135.225 replied on my talk page:

[...] When you save the page on your hard drive and use it again later, the saved parameters may now be out of date. - that, man, seems to be the reason. Now, how can we do something about it...

and

One important thing I forgot to tell you is that target page (on the server) is a .jsp page

We don't have enough information to tell what's causing the button not to work from the page on your hard drive. Would you be comfortable saying where the button is? If not, perhaps you can describe what the button does or describe some of the HTML code the button uses? --Bavi H (talk) 02:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Wireless internet provision in a large building such as a hotel

I am currently on holiday and have stayed at several hotels. Many of the hotels provide wireless internet through a commercial hotspot service where I must sign up and hand over my credit card details. The rates are high - sometimes more than €5 per hour. However, the same hotels often provide a free internet service, but only from one fixed PC usually placed in the lobby area. I was told last night the reason they don't provide free wireless service to guest rooms was the cost. That puzzled me; what costs are involved? After all, they are already providing the free service in the lobby; surely there is just extending the existing service by installing wireless access points, one or two per floor, the associated power and network installation, and some occasional maintenence costs. Surely that couldn't cost more than a couple of thousand euros. Spread over all the guest nights I imagine it would add < €1 to the room rates and will be paid off in less than a year. Or have I got my ballpark calculations completely wrong? --91.13.16.36 (talk) 08:57, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak to your question exactly other than to say most all hotels I've stayed at (all in the US) have had free wireless internet, so I don't see how it could be /that/ cost prohibitive to supply. The few I've heard of that provide wireless you have to pay for have provided free wired internet hookup in the rooms so that all one has to do for free internet is bring along the correct cord. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 09:05, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

A high percentage of the wired providers that I've encountered have the cord in the room. Though, it's only about 3' long. So, you're tethered to the desk which has A) the most uncomfortable chair in the room and B) no good line of sight to both the desk and the television without craning your neck. Dismas|^(talk) 09:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

As far as I could see here in Spain: more upscale hotels, where the guests are supposed to have more means, charge about €5 per day. Backpacker hotels, go guess why, offer it for free. 88.14.196.229 (talk) 10:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems likely to me that if guests were given the option of using free wifi in their room, internet usage would go up, so you would need to take the cost of extra bandwidth into account too. The cost of one or two internet-connected computers in the lobby (they will need one or more for reception staff to use anyway) is minuscule, and would presumably allow the hotel to advertise free internet access. 130.88.73.71 (talk) 15:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest that hotels are in the business of maximising their profits, and will charge for any services at whatever rates will do that, regardless of how much it actually costs to provide the service. The majority of guests at more upscale hotels probably choose a particular hotel for other reasons than internet access costs and are willing to pay the charges, particularly if they require it for business purposes. Backpacker and similar hotels are catering to a clientele likely to be, on average, poorer, younger and more internet desireous, where (lack of) free internet access may well be a deciding factor in which hotel they choose. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.110 (talk) 19:22, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, business users will probably be able to claim back the wifi fees as expenses, hence they are effectively free for the user (and if a business or travel agency is choosing a hotel, they're unlikely to investigate the wifi charges). Similar considerations apply to extortionate hotel phone bills - many businesses will pay for their employees' calls, a few other people will be conned out of large amounts of money, and the rest will find an alternative method of making cheap calls. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:54, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Program Files Folder x2

Resolved

Hello all, I have just got a new laptop. It's a 64bit Win7 laptop, and I have noticed there are two 'Program Files' folders - one 'normal' one, and one with '(x86)' written after it. I suspect the (x86) one is for programs that are intended for 32-bit versions of Windows - can anyone confirm this? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is right. See this link, it kind of explains how it would be useful if you had two different versions (x86 and x64) of the same program both installed. —Akrabbim^talk 13:11, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, thanks - very helpful link! --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Identify software for plotting stories

Hi; is anyone able to identify this software, and any equivalent Windows version if possible? Ta. ╟─TreasuryTag►Osbert─╢ 16:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

That's a screenshot of Scrivener. There's a Windows version in public beta available - I haven't used the Windows version yet so I don't know how many bugs it still has -- Ferkelparade π 16:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Great – thanks so much! ╟─TreasuryTag►Counsellor of State─╢ 21:11, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Find and Replace expression: Change 3rd colon to a period?

I've never written a search expression for Find and Replace, so I'm sorry if I haven't done my homework. I have a table of timecodes in the format "00:00:00:00" — I need to change the last colon into a period so it reads "00:00:00.00". Can you give me some pointers? --24.249.59.89 (talk) 20:05, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I assume you are asking about something like sed. The command you want is a regular expression. In sed, you'd use sed -i "s/\([0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}\):\([0-9]{2}\)/\1.\2/g" yourfile.txt -- kainaw™ 20:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Simpler might be s/:(\d\d[^\d:])/.$1/ or s/:(\d\d)$/.$1/ depending on what else might be in the strings, and if the time-code is at the end of the string (second method). Rich Farmbrough, 21:01, 15 August 2011 (UTC).

sed might be a bit complicated for a learner or someone new to programming. What language are you using? Sandman30s (talk) 10:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking for nice boxes and arrows FOSS

Ideally the sort of thing where you move the boxes around and the arrows re-route, etc. Rich Farmbrough, 21:05, 15 August 2011 (UTC).

Dia (software) -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

twitter

how do i view what people tweet about me — Preceding unsigned comment added by Von1235 (talk • contribs) 21:16, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a twitter account - And if so, are you talking about what people say when mentioning your username ('@username') in their tweets, or what people are generally saying about you without referencing your twitter username (or both?)? Darigan (talk) 08:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

both — Preceding unsigned comment added by Von1235 (talk • contribs) 15:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

August 16

Google's purchase of Motorola

Florian Mueller (FOSS Patents) thinks that Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility is more than just about defending Android and some commenters on sites like Facebook and CNET on saying things like "no more locked bootlaoders, plz" and "googlephone yeah" (misspelling intentional). The articles I have been reading have brought up the question of whether this will distance other Android device manufacturers like Samsung and HTC now that Google might become a manufacturer of Android devices and take advantage of being the owner of Android. Also, some analysts are saying this might be a big mistake on Google's part. Isn't this similar, though, to what Nokia had going with Symbian? Nokia owned Symbian and manufactured Symbian devices, while also licensing it to other manufacturers? Did that lead to Nokia's flop or was that something else? --Melab±1 ☎ 01:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Nokia's recent losses are generally attributed to Symbian being out-of-date, hard to use, and lacking in features compared to Android or iOS. Many different morals can be drawn from the history of Symbian, which is complex with changes of ownership, multiple versions, fragmentation of the platform, different licensing models, etc. It was initially created by Psion, who didn't make smartphones, and licenced much like Windows Mobile; in the early 2000s different companies, principally Ericsson and Nokia, developed separate versions with different UIs and apps; it was owned by a separate (but largely Nokia-owned) company for a while, then open-sourced, then more recently Nokia has taken it over and done an impressive but too-late overhaul. Possibly, the frequent changes in Symbian's organisation impeded attempts to modernize it, and the fragmentation prevented wider uptake (compare Windows Mobile, which is much more unified across platforms).

It's probably true that few other companies used Symbian because it was so closely associated with Nokia, and the fragmentation of the platform meant that other companies' phones wouldn't necessarily run Nokia applications. You could compare Palm and its Palm OS, which it spun off, tried to license, and later re-purchased with similar confusion. Android is much newer, and Google has so far had quite a firm control on it (while the OS is open-source, Google has developed important proprietary applications); the frequent updates to Android also discourage differentiation by making it much harder for companies to keep up to date. Android's principal goal so far is to sell users to advertisers, not to sell phones. What will happen to Motorola and Android in the future is a matter for speculation, and the Reference Desk is not for speculation about future events. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

What (known) hurdles must this pass in order to be finalized? --Melab±1 ☎ 16:35, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Have you read our article on mergers and acquisitions? There are several legal and regulatory stages in the process. The relevant law is very complicated; many parties are involved, including shareholders and board members of both companies; the Federal government, usually represented by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other government agencies. You can read the official press release, (the official official press release, filed with the Government), at the SEC website: DEX991 Exhibit 99.1 GOOGLE TO ACQUIRE MOTOROLA MOBILITY and read other EDGAR filings to see all the relevant and public-record materials related to this acquisition. The associated document, Form 8-K, informs you of the legal-ese: Form 8-K for the Google acquisition of Motorola. Nimur (talk) 18:11, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

need help

trolling
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
i used brake cleaner on my keyboard and all my keys are stuck together I am using on screen keyboard to type this please help me ????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.83.112.39 (talk) 05:20, 16 August 2011 (UTC) Are you sure that this really happened? If it did then I think you need a new keyboard. Dbfirs When you get your new keyboard, be sure to read the cleaning instructions.--Shantavira|feed me 07:09, 16 August 2011 (UTC) Brake cleaner can contain both acetone and toluene - both of which will dissolve most plastics. Toluene is especially nasty, I would actually advise against using brake cleaner indoors at all due to the dangers of inhaling it. On your keyboard it will have probably partially dissolved the plastic on the keys, which then fused as the plastic resolidified when the solvents evaporated. As suggested above there is probably not much more you can do at this point except buy a new keyboard (and some keyboard cleaning wipes!) Equisetum (talk | email | contributions) 10:16, 16 August 2011 (UTC) A clean break key yesterday Break out the dremel with mini-saw attachment. And only use that type of cleaner for the break key. (P.S. GIFs or it didn't happen.) Rich Farmbrough, 11:34, 16 August 2011 (UTC). Is it just me, but are we getting a lot of these 'PC broken in bizarre way' queries recently? All from either the same IP, or same subset. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC) Well, maybe someone's just learning? That's good, right? KageTora, I had taken the liberty of closing your 'small' tag. Anyway, for my part, I just wash the keyboard in the sink/under the shower. This may be advanced maths for some, but once you get the hang of it it's easy. First you unplug the keyboard from the computer and disassemble it carefully, place the screws in order so that they all return to their original holes. If this is a wireless keyboard remove the batteries as well. Only clean the plastic components (use washing-up liquid and warm water). When doing the dismantling remember the order of all components, because that might be tricky. Be careful not to wash any of the electrical parts, as this might be disastrous for them. Then put it all back together in order. --Ouro (blah blah) 14:16, 16 August 2011 (UTC) It's not just learning. It's a set of increasingly unlikely and ridiculous computer questions. See here for more examples. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC) C/f [4] and SPI  Chzz  ►  16:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC) Cheers - I hadn't realised this had already been logged. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

omanual file format

This question was originally posted on the English Wikipedia Helpdesk [5], and I moved it here.  Chzz  ►  15:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

omanual - freeware need (container)or Program to open it.

hello My Name is Nathan L King I'm trying to find more Info on a new file ext.(?). I down lodead a omanual from internet archive.org on several ifixits to repair Sony Playstation 3's,Canon cameras and there in a omanual format witch is a xml and something else. I'm not sure how to do what im recomending so im just doing something in hopes it gets to the right person to get things asked the right people. I use your en.wikipedia all the time and try to use freeware in the hope that someday will be able to DONATE someday. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.135.163.250 (talk) 15:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

See XML.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:42, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about where you got it from? There's a lot of stuff on the internet archive. Emeraldemon (talk) 19:06, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Laptop battery - left plugged in and running

Does it hurt a laptop battery to have it plugged in and on most of the time (24 hours most days). My wife insists that this hurts the life and rechargability of the battery. I just had to replace one, so is that right? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

OR, but I leave mine plugged in and on for 24 hours a day, and I've had it over three years and no problem with it (HP G60 - except that it gets very hot, but apparently this laptop is well known for that anyway). Also, I never thought rechargability would be a problem, because I leave it plugged in and on all the time - I would never use it on battery anyway. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

If you never use it on battery, how do you know running it plugged in all of the time doesn't hurt the battery? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:25, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, on the rare occasion that I have to take it on the train and need to do work while I'm there, and haven't been lucky enough to find a seat with a power socket, I have been able to use it with no problem, for anything upto two hours, after which I've switched it off, still with lots of battery left. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I have a laptop plugged in and running 24x7 except when there's a power cut. When this happens, the battery appears to function as normal.--Phil Holmes (talk) 15:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Security implications of a poor-man's proxy?

As part of my endless effort to subvert university IT (don't ask, long story, lots of existing posts on here about it over the course of a few years now), one thing I'd been playing with was creating what I am calling a poor-man's proxy.

Essentially it is a PHP script that scrapes content from another server and displays it as its own. So if you went to http://edserver.edu/program/events/, it would really display content from http://myserver.org/events/. This is accomplished by some mod_rewrite rules that send all queries to http://edserver.edu/program/ to a PHP script that then scrapes the end off of the URL (in this case, events/) and then plops that onto the end of the source URL (in this case, http://myserver.org).

It's a pretty simple script, in the end, and the site does not require any complicated user interactions (no form submissions).

The IT people are mulling this over. I think they'll be most concerned with the potential security issues. I'm hard pressed to think of any that are serious — the PHP script does not allow any modification of the .edu server whatsoever. There are no passwords being sent anywhere or anything like that. There is no user interaction at all other than static browsing. Worst-case scenario, the security on the .org server is compromised, and the .edu server displays false information for awhile? That seems rather minor. The PHP script just accesses the source (.org) server through regular HTTP requests — it doesn't have FTP access or anything special.

Am I missing anything obvious? Or unobvious? What's the worst you could imagine doing in such a situation? --Mr.98 (talk) 23:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

What if the server you're scraping from contained malicious code i.e. something that took advantage of a browser vunerability then you'd effectively be passing it on. Depending on the security of the local network it's possible that edserver.edu is completely trusted since it's assumed to be internal. Or perhaps all web filtering is normal performed at the gateway and in this case it's been bypassed (again assuming the .edu server is internal) so unless they're running antivirus on all the client machines it wouldn't necessary need a browser vunerability, it could just rely on user error (because they assume it's a local server so if it says to run something then that sounds okay).  ZX81  ^talk 23:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

What if PHP has a bug involving a particular type of malformed URL, and when edserver.edu goes to fetch the URL, the bug triggers, and the geniuses who wrote this exploit put some executable code in the malformed URL which, because of the spectacularly bad nature of the bug, then gets executed by edserver.edu? Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

These two seem like rather obscure possibilities that don't increase the security too much from hosting a PHP-laden site in general. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Why not just send the URL suffix as an HTTP argument, and load the PHP page directly? For example, http://edserver.edu/program?url=/events/, which will load the URL "program" (your PHP script); and supplies "/events/" as the argument. Here's the PHP manual for GET variables (everything in the URL after the ? symbol). Use the syntax $_GET["url"] to refer to "/events/" in this example. Then, implement the screen-scraping in PHP. You can specify a mod-rewrite in Apache so that it looks like you're not using a "?" ; but this is purely cosmetic; and it requires the assistance of whomever manages your Apache configuration. Nimur (talk) 00:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I know it's entirely cosmetic, but it's to preserve old links (and because cosmetics matter). It doesn't require that much assistance — they just need to enable local .htaccess files, and mod_rewrite does the rest. (The script I've written generates its own .htaccess files, which makes it even easier.) But that wouldn't affect the security situation. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

The following assumes that the server starts in a secure configuration; proper file-permissions; no untrusted access; etc.

mod_rewrite uses regular expressions, so make sure your regexps are well-formed. Some regexps are able to hang during processing; I don't know if mod_rewrite will behave well (your Apache.conf or platform-equivalent should have a HTTP request timeout, so this isn't a "security risk" in most cases). Your rewrite may collide or alias another valid URL; which will confuse users if they hit "reload." In my assessment, none of these are a significant security risk; in that, they probably won't result in privilege escalation, data leaks, or other compromises to the system; but they are security risks insofar as "they might make otherwise perfectly good PHP code behave strangely." That sums up the risk from the mod_rewrite directive. This says nothing of your screenscraping (or the rest of the PHP script) - make sure that code is free of security risks. Pay careful attention to string-sanitizing when you are including/delivering content from a server that you don't control. Nimur (talk) 01:08, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Good points. (The nice thing here is that I do technically control both servers, which reduces the danger to the "one of them gets hacked", which is really no different than any one of them getting hacked, except there are two of them.) My mod_rewrite expressions are pretty simple, just:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase $base/

RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . $base/index.php [L]

</IfModule>

Which were just taken from some tutorial on the internet somewhere. I'm no reg_ex guru (at all) but the simplicity of it ("go to index no matter what") seems to make it appear a bit safer than otherwise, but I don't know. The $base gets filled in by PHP (it is the .edu domain). --Mr.98 (talk) 01:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

August 17

Most likely thing to die in a PC from a power surge

Of course the cause of death is the power surge, but in a case where the thing now does absolutely nothing when you press the power button, what is the most common thing or set of things that that surge has done to kill the PC? Is it most often frying of traces on the PCB, unviewable damage to the CPU, the chipset, or what? 20.137.18.50 (talk) 13:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Power hits the power supply first. The power supply is designed specifically to kill itself in order to save the rest of the computer (otherwise, we wouldn't use power supplies - we'd just run power right into the motherboard). So, the power supply is the most likely thing to die in a power surge. -- kainaw™ 13:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

That is some hopeful news, Kainaw, but one thing I noticed while looking at the motherboard and plugging and unplugging the power cord is one really tiny square green light that still comes on when it's plugged in but goes out when I pull the plug. Would that fact take away the possibility that it's just the power supply, or can power supplies too damaged to let the thing turn on right still provide some power to the motherboard? 20.137.18.50 (talk) 13:55, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

It could still be the power supply. It could also be that the power supply failed to protect the computer and there are more bad parts. I always start by swapping out the power supply. If it has a separate network card (which is rare now), I swap that out too because almost nobody puts a surge protector on their network cable. Then, I swap out the motherboard if it still doesn't work. Then, if there are still issues, I keep swapping out parts. -- kainaw™ 14:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Someone sending emails from my Outlook

Tonight I wrote and sent a single email. It was the only email in my outbox but the send/receive process seemed longer than it should be. The notification in my systray said "sending message 3 of 3". I definitely did not have 3 emails to send and my 'sent' folder shows only the email I knew about. Could someone be using my Outlook to send spam emails and also be hiding the evidence so I can't see them? If so, how can I see what has been sent and how can I prevent it happening again?

I hope you can help. Gurumaister (talk) 17:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

If you're using Outlook Express, it has an option to "Break apart messages larger than" that lets you specify a size in kilobytes. When you send a large e-mail, this option will split it behind the scenes into separate e-mails under the size limit. When this happens, you'll see something like "Sending message 3 of 3" when sending, but the Sent Items folder only shows the 1 message in its original form. Maybe an option like this is the cause of what you saw. --Bavi H (talk) 01:56, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Reversi Bug

Hello. On occasion, at the end of my Reversi gameplay, the last pebble placed on the board switches colour between black and white. How can I fix this bug? You may access my source code at http://sites.google.com/site/superaec and download the files that come with the package (i.e., Clap.au, Hi.au, Lo.au, Manual.pdf, Oops.au, and Reversi.java). If you need more time to answer this question than it can last on the reference desk, please email me through my talk page. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 18:10, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

It appears that you only set the color in one place: line 139,

  cell [i * DIR [b] + box] = me;

Is that line of code always valid? In other words, under what circumstances would i * DIR[b] + box be invalid? Under what circumstances would me be opposite what you expect? If you can define the answers to those questions, you can set a conditional breakpoint to automate the process of trapping the error-case.

Debugging your code for you is sort of out of scope at the Ref Desk; but I can recommend this tutorial on using the Eclipse Java IDE for debugging: The Eclipse debugger and the Debug view, from IBM. Use the step-debugger to trace your code execution; use the variable watch window to investigate the values of variables at runtime. Debugging computer code is a very valuable, very difficult-to-acquire skill. Nimur (talk) 18:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

A computer without a chassis?

As I've assembled two computers from individual components inside chassises (chasses?), I got to think, would it be possible to assemble a fully working computer entirely without a chassis? Just the components connected to each other, lying on the desk or on the floor. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of such a thing? I can think of two advantages - better airflow and saving the cost of a chassis - and one disadvantage - the system takes up more room and is harder to transport. Are there any other things to take into account? JIP | Talk 20:41, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

When Google started, they laid bare motherboards on baking sheets (I think with a rubber mat between the MB and the sheet). They then racked the boards in dense racks, and ventilated them wholesale from the side. They were mostly doing this for reasons of density. Having just a few, which you intend to transport, it'd be bonkers to not have a case. Cases are relatively cheap, and they protect the delicate PC components from ESD, thermal, and mechanical insults. And don't assume that the case hampers cooling - often the opposite is true. When electronic devices are designed the heat dissipation is modelled on a program like FlowTherm, which tracks where the air from fans goes, and analyses how the heat from components dissipates. The case is part of that equation; if you remove it, you risk the fans blowing air straight off into free space, rather than over all the components they're supposed to be cooling. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you should watch the film π ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:15, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You lose proper cooling air flow circulation. As well as protection from dust, falling objects, and spilled food and drinks. Likely shortened lifetime of hardware, due to pieces of your flaked dead skin and other such gunk accumulating on delicate circuit boards and causing erratic currents. 88.112.59.31 (talk) 00:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure cooling is as much of a problem when it's not in a plastic box? I had a friend who was into the whole "totally silent computer" fad awhile back (or maybe it is still going on?) and he had a whole, non-chassis computer laid out in such a way that he didn't need any fans, or something like that. So yeah, you could do it. But there are obvious disadvantages to having all that stuff exposed. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:26, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Finding and configuring certain hotkeys

Is there a way to find out what key combinations do what? For example, whenever I press AltGr+Shift+E, whatever window is currently in focus becomes out of focus. The key combination was once used to open up ASUS WebStorage, which I have since uninstalled. However, it seems that Windows is still expecting WebStorage to run or something of that sort, which might be why the window blurs. 141.153.216.54 (talk) 21:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

August 18

changing name of wireless router

How do i change the name of my wireless router? 72.235.221.120 (talk) 02:23, 18 August 2011 (UTC)