Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

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December 27

axel.dav

can anyone supply me with the removal tool for the above? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.230.102.166 (talk) 22:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Google is your friend: [1] - also please sign your posts with 4 tildes (~~~~) -- Aetherfukz 01:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Does a Wiki-game exist?

I am not talking about a wiki aboug games, or about a particular game. I am talking about a game which uses a wiki to play it. Most likely such a game would use the wiki to rp out situations and other such things, and it would also use the wiki to document the statistics of the game or whatever. I am asking this because the (general) idea came to mind when I stumbled upon something that seemed to be like this, but actually wasn't. I think a fantastic game could potentially come to be with a dedicated enough creator(s) and without knowing anything about the game (or even if such a game exists) I've wanted to find it and be a part of it. Strange I know. I figured I'd ask here if any of you have any ideas. Sadly, I've found that google is useless for discovering this, although maybe I'm not lucky enough, who knows. Thanks a lot, I'm also posting this is the Misc. reference desk to try to get the largest group of people that might know about this. Thanks. Chris M. 06:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I imagine you'd want some extra features to implement this idea. The MediaWiki source code is freely available, written in PHP (easy to learn and edit), and destined for such great things if you're willing to put the time into it. 68.15.208.73 15:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Some people play Chess on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Sandbox/Chess. Uncyclopedia also has several Wiki games, like Game, Zork and even Game online which, in the spirit of Wiki, you are supposed to help make. I dont know about any Wiki RPG, although I am sure such exist. Shinhan 15:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Accessing Wikipedia from Java?

Hi all-

I am trying to write a Wikipedia tool in Java, but while I am able to get the html for pretty much every other site I've tested (CNN, Google, Apple, etc.) including my own test MediaWiki, with Wikipedia I always get a 403 error (forbidden).

My example code is:

URL input_url;
String fullURL = new String("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X");
//String fullURL = new String("http://www.google.com");
//String fullURL = new String("http://localhost/wiki/index.php/Main_Page");	
try
{
input_url = new URL(fullURL);
HttpURLConnection urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) input_url.openConnection();
urlConnection.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0");
urlConnection.setRequestMethod( "GET" );
urlConnection.setDoOutput(true);
urlConnection.connect();	
System.out.println("Response was : " + urlConnection.getResponseMessage());		
InputStream urlStream = input_url.openStream(); // causes 403 error exception to be thrown

I've seen there are Perl modules that work, and I have a quick Ruby program that also works, but for whatever reason Java is not cooperating. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.176.139.105 (talk) 19:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

Your code works perfectly fine when I try it. Do you have a local firewall that prevents access? Weregerbil 22:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

No, no local firewall at all. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.176.139.105 (talk) 01:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

It is the USER-AGENT that is wrong. Use the one from Mozilla Firefox and it will work; I experienced same problem with my PHP bot. (Oh, and do not use IE6/7s, as there may be problems with UTF-8...) HardDisk 16:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Instead of getting the input stream from the URL, get it from the HttpURLConnection by using the getInputStream() method. Otherwise all of the changes to the connection have no effect. It should look like: InputStream urlStream = urlConnection.getInputStream();

DVD sound problems

I'm trying to burn a DVD with footage taken from my old camera. I transferred the footage from my old 8mm Sony camcorder to my computer using video capture (like the process in WMM) The footage is stored on my computer in an AVI format and does play with sound. Whenever I burn it to DVD, there is absolutely no sound. However, the video is unaffected. I've tried playing the DVD on other players and I get the same result. When I use videos in other formats (MPEG for example), this problem does not occur. What can I do to have sound? --The Dark Side 19:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

How did you burn the DVD? You can't just burn video files on a data-dvd for it to be played on a regular DVD player, it has to be authored, that is converted into an MPEG stream with AC3 sound files. Sounds like your problem stems from this, because you said it worked with MPEG files but not with AVI (which is a computer-only format) files. Try to author and burn the DVD with an authoring program like DVDlab then it may work. If the sound in the AVI plays on your computer without problems then it is just a matter of converting the video and sound files into the right format for it to be played on standalone players. Aetherfukz 08:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Medion MD9717/Philips SAA7134 & Debian

Hi all, what software do I need for Debian Sarge 3.1r4 to get my Medion MD9717 tv card (Chipset: Philips SAA7134) working? Google didn't help me in this case :-( HardDisk 20:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it will be possible, as according to the Linux TV wiki support for the SAA7134 was introduced in Linux kernel versions 2.6.10 (analogue TV only) and 2.6.12 (dvb), but Debian Sarge ships with Linux 2.6.8, which will not include support for your card. -- AJR | Talk 01:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

after kernel upgrade and a hour of messing with the nvidia driver it worked. thanks! HardDisk 20:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

question about business and software

what is the difference between sole propriterships, partnerships, and corporation businesses, and how do you incorporate a business? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.10.15.194 (talk) 21:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

What's the computer related enquiry? As to the rest, sole proprietorships are a business run by one person, a partnerships is a business run by two or more people, a corporation business is literally a business which has been incorporated, this means it is a legally separate entity from its owners/proprietors. To incorporate a business you have to follow the steps of incorporation. [here are some links] specific to Canada in this case, but they'll give you an idea of what is involved. Of course if you are deciding if you should do this you MUST seek professional legal and financial advice. One of the highest costs associated with incorporation are the legal fees, this is unavoidable. Vespine 22:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

dvd-r cd-r

do cd-r's or cd-rw's hold video, and could they play back on a dvd player? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.23.104.243 (talk) 22:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

video is a mystical thing which comes in MANY guises. CD just like DVD do not hold video, they hold DATA. Once you make that distinction, the rest is cake. Or, in layman, yes, there is no reason why CDs can't hold video and no reason your DVD player can't play them, as long as it is compatible of course. The issue is really just that CDs do NOT have enough space to hold a feature length worth of MPEG-4 data. They do however have enough room to hold a VCDs worth, which are still quite popular in certain markets. Vespine 22:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

December 28

moving data from excel to access

I have a lot of data in Excel that i need to move to a database in Access, but i can't just copy and paste it all. is there another way of doing it all at once?

Also, i want to sort data according to its date, but when i sort the date column, it sorts it by the first number (which since i am English, is the day (DD/MM/YY)). how can i get it to sort by year, then month, then day, without creating separate fields for all of them? thanks --194.176.105.39 09:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

i sorted out the second question, the first is still kind of a problem. --194.176.105.39 11:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

You should be able to import Data from Excel in Access from get-go on newer versions I think, but otherwise just use ODBC and specify the excel file as database for the ODBC driver, and then use the driver in Access. Aetherfukz 15:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair use of images

Hello. Is the use of this image in Sketchpad, Ivan Sutherland and T-Square (software) considered fair use (fairusein3)? I checked Google and found no previous instances of the Sutherland Sketchpad video being removed from Wikipedia but University Video was sponsored by Apple Computer who is careful so I had better ask. Also, is Computer History Museum permission and the rationale I gave sufficent for this image and the alternate crop linked to it? I believe somewhere I read that permission is about meaningless but am not sure. Thank you. --Susanlesch 10:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The fair use claim looks fine to me (very small image used in highly targeted articles, not reasonably reproducible elsewhere), but this isn't really the place to ask. Asking at Wikipedia talk:Fair use will get more replies. Permission is for Wikipedia's purposes officially meaningless. --24.147.86.187 01:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Copied the question there, went ahead with the article and archived. Thank you for your help. -Susanlesch 22:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

relationship between i.c.t and public relation

                  yes that is it.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.113.72.38 (talk) 13:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC).

Is this a computer question ? What is ICT ? StuRat 01:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

New MS Office for Mac

Does anyone know when the new MS Office for Mac will come out? And how much the student edition will cost? Thanks! --86.137.233.160 13:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it's not clear yet when it will come out. A news article and mac360 article I dug up using google suggests it will be Q3 or Q4 of 2006 or later. Probablly information about pricing will be available first when the release is officially announced. Pieter-Bas 17:08, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --86.137.233.160 08:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Core 2 Duo software optimization

A salesperson told me that software has to be specfically written to take advantage of the Core 2 Duo processor (as opposed to the earlier Core Duo). He made it sound like Hyper Threading, MMX, 3Dnow and all those other specialized architectures. Are there special optimizations software can use to get greater performance out of Core 2 Duo CPUs? I was under the impression that Core 2 Duo only offered better performance (related to cache?) and less energy usage when compared to Core "1" Duo. --24.249.108.133 19:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• They may be talking about the 64-bit architecture. The more bits, the more information can be processed by the cpu in the same amount of time. Older programs will absolutlely run faster on the core2 due to performance enhancements such as the integrated cache, but when they run, they not be able to take advantage of the extra bits, so they might not run as fast as they could theoretically. --Infrangible 02:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. However, you comment about 64-bits seems to contradict an earlier question I read. [2] --24.249.108.133 17:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, computer science is full of contradictions. --Infrangible 05:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yep he's right. The Core 2 Duo implements SSSE3, adding 16 new instructions. I doubt he knows this though, he's probably just talking about the 64 bit change --froth^{T C} 05:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

But keep in mind that software doesn't have to be written for new instructions, it's done by the compiler. Compilers have to be rewritten for new instructions. --froth^{T C} 05:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

CELLULAR VOIP SERVICE

Ok, there is a service out there that I cant remember the name of for the life of me. It is a voip provider, but here is how it works.. you dial number on your cellphone (a free call, since the number you're dialing is a mobile number the same as your provider). You enter your pin, and then place a call that is routed through VOIP. Thus, you can call any number is the US without using any of your minutes, because it is routed through a mobile number that is the same provider as your phone. Can anyone remember the name of this service? Thx 67.142.130.29 21:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be several services that offer this capability. Splintercellguy 02:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

This article looked interesting and pretty relevant to what you're talking about (moreso than most other search results) .. If you want a 1-800 number solution you could just get a phone card from Sam's Club as those are the best deals for phone cards. That CS Guy 22:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Python method access

Assume the following Python code fragment:

           oTest   = FooClass();
           sMethod = 'SayHello';
           print oTest.SayHello();         ### "Hello World!"
           ### print oTest['SayHello'];    ### NO WORKY
           ### print oTest[sMethod];       ### NO WORKY
           ### print oTest[sMethod]();     ### NO WORKY

How can I get the commented-out lines to work as expected? What is the search term I can use to look up the concept of what I am trying to do here (using a scalar to hold the name of an instance method, or specifying an accessor name indirectly). NoClutter 21:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

getattr(oTest, sMethod)() —Keenan Pepper 02:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Laptop purchasing

My brother's looking to buy a pretty powerful, small, and lightweight laptop. He's comfortable with windows, not tiger (but i hear windows now works, or will soon, on macs, and he might switch to linux anyway.) I suggested, from my extremely limited knowledge, that he look into getting either this Alienware laptop, or this macbook. he'd customize them pretty equally. I'm guessing about 100 gigs, probably 1 or 2 gigs of memory (does it make a major difference?). One of my questions is whether the rpm numbers next to harddrive space matter, because alienware sells a 100 giger with 7200 rpm cache (whatever that means). Also, I can't find any analog for processor on the macbook customizing page. are alienware's options significantly better than macbook's default? generally, which would you guys, in your opinion, suggest? they're both roughly equal in price, and the screen size difference is unimportant. thanks a lot, Sashafklein 23:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

No offence to them but alienware are a boutique laptop, I would stay away from them unless you specifically want a trendy game machine, which it doesn't sound like you do. Sony Vaio also fits the small, light weight and powerful criteria. I have a vaio and my gf has a mac, I think they are equally up to any task you throw at them. If you are running windows, then the native windows is the obvious choice, yes you can run windows on a mac but you may have some fiddling to do to get all the mac specific drivers working for all the bells and whistles. Vespine 00:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but is there anything particularly bad with a "boutique laptop?" I have no problem with something trendy or pretty if it works well. I was just under the impression that Alienware was well-known for having particularly powerful computers, and since I think my brother might, upon occassion, give his computer a workout, is it necessarily a bad idea to get one? I have had bad experiences with "good" computers that start screwing up and slowing down when overloaded with music and videos, and when running many things at once. Do the Vaio laptops run any risk of this? I don't think (think) they have the same reputation for performance as Alienware. My brother isn't a gamer, and neither am I, but... Sashafklein 01:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe by "boutique" Vespine meant you pay a lot for what you get. In other words, you could get the same thing for less elsewhere. StuRat 01:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Shoot. I just realized those links timed out. I meant the Sentia™ m3450 by Alienware and the 13in 1.83 gHz Macbook, if anyone was considering following the links anyway. Sashafklein 01:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as high-end computers, Alienware is popular, but not exactly the best for the price. It's like Dell - a lot of people use it, but it's not the best. For a desktop, you can build your own, but you can't with a laptop, so I would suggest shopping around on Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, or even regular manufacturers such as Dell, Compaq, and Gateway. As long as it has a decent graphics card, is over, say, 2.5ghz, and has about 512MB/1GB RAM (this can always be upgraded later), you should be fine. If you want a Mac laptop with these specs..well..if they even have one, it'll be marked up perhaps up to double the price of a comparable Windows machine. I'd go for a Windows machine with the above specs & a Core 2 Duo processor. --Wooty Woot? contribs 02:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't advise the OP to look for clock speed (2.5ghz) since that's high for dual-core or AMD and low for single core or Intel so it could be confusing.. --froth^{T C} 05:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Dell is notorious for running coupon deals periodically, if you have patience you can snag a good laptop from them for a real cheap price. As for specs, if you plan on gaming the most important thing is (naturally) a good video card and good ram (especially if it's a "shared memory" setup). No one answered the question about '7200 rpm cache'. The hard drive in a laptop is by far the slowest component. The need for light, efficient, rugged drives often beats out the need for speed, laptops have had this boat anchor to drag since their inception. 7200RPM is the speed the disk spins, and it is generally accepted that it will be a good bit faster than the 5400RPM drives that are still popular. As far as CPU goes, there is no sense in settling for less than a core 2 duo CPU, the speed of which is up to you but around 2 GHz is sufficient even for gaming. --66.195.232.121 15:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Whatever you do get the Intel Core 2 Duo. If you get a 2.0 or 2.16 ghz chip that will be fine for anything he wants to do. It's also very cheap right now. The 7200rpm hard drive isn't necessarily preferable over the 5400rpm.. "RPM" refers to how fast the platters spin and a higher speed could cost you battery life for certain operations. "Hard drive cache" refers to something else, something important but you won't see a lot of variety. Getting him a hybrid drive will greatly increase battery life and getting him a totally solid state drive like flash will do even better, although it may slow load times for games. For a graphics card get anything recent.. an ATI mobility radeon x1600 will be able to play anything right now if you get him the core 2 duo, but don't expect a lot of power out of a laptop; those mobility chips are designed for low temperature operation. As for the memory, if you can get 2GB for not too much extra cost over 1GB then go for it by all means. In any case, order your PC customized, don't use their "packages". Stick with what I told you and he'll definately be very happy with his new laptop. --froth^{T C} 05:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

December 29

iTunes/online music uploading to vox blogs

Is there a successful way to upload iTunes or other online music selections to vox blogs - thank you.

You'll have to use qtfairuse6 --froth^{T C} 18:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Visual Basic 2005 — Security requirements

I've recently migrated from VB6 to VB2005 and am struggling with understanding how the .NET security permissions work.

About a quarter of the time, the code below produces an error. The rest of the time it works fine.

Dim filesys as Object
Dim filetxt as Object
filesys = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

filetxt = filesys.OpenTextFile("test.rtf", 2, True)
filetxt.write(notebox.Rtf)
filetxt = Nothing

The code writes the contents of a RichTextObject (notebox) to a file (in this case, "test.rtf" but the file name changes in the actual code). The line that keeps triggering the exception is the one with OpenTextFile on it. The exception window reads: "SecurityException was unhandled. Exception from HRESULT: 0x800A0046 (CTL_E_PERMISSIONDENIED).

What I don't understand is why it doesn't work sometimes, and other times it does work. With the same file name, the same data, etc. The "helpful" window gives me a lot of links to things like "Use a certificate to obtain the required permission(s)" but I think I've already done that? In any case, I'm totally perplexed by what the problem is; it seems like pretty straightforward code to me. --24.147.86.187 01:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The code doesn't look like .NET to me. VBScript? Splintercellguy 02:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

It is Visual Basic 2005, which is part of the .NET framework. --24.147.86.187 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Take a look at this: VBForums - System.Security.Securityexception It looks like someone else had the same problem and resolved it. --Infrangible 04:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that. It seems the best approach is to ditch the FSO and figure out what VB2005's own native file handing code is, which is fine by me. Thanks. --24.147.86.187 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

CreateObject() isn't a method in the VB .NET 2005 language. Splintercellguy 23:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

BartPE

Does msconfig work in BartPE? (like the msconfig when you go to start>run>...) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Member (talk • contribs) 02:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

Which version? msconfig came with 98 and XP, and they're very different. 68.39.174.238 20:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

XP --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 17:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Two iPods on one computer

We just can't seem to get this to work. We just got two iPods, and we want different songs on each one. We tried downloading something called Libra [3], which would create a second library to iTunes, but it wouldn't work because it "couldn't close iTunes." On the help website of Apple[4], it said to create a second user account on our computer, which we already had, and start a new iTunes account on it. But when we tried that and clicked on the new link, an error report came up so it would never open. As it has only been a few days since Christmas, we have not yet exhausted all possibilities, but it is getting quite frustrating. Thank you very much in advance for your help. Reywas92^Talk 03:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

If you use your existing iTunes library, you could set your iPod to manage songs manually, and then just drag the songs you want onto the iPod. --saxsux 07:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Why do people buy ipods, the software sucks! --froth^{T C} 18:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You don't need to use iTunes. Go install Rockbox on your iPods -- then you can just copy and paste folders or MP3 files directly onto the iPod from your standard filemanager. It has other benefits, too -- you can equalise the sound quality to suit your needs, you can play ogg and FLAC files, you can scrobble your songs to Last.fm, you can easily re-upload your songs to any PC you want, and it has a number of coloured themes and styles. Pesapluvo 03:43, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Excel help!

There's a wonderful spreadsheet located here (click on it to download) for keeping track of bills. I love it, except for that I would like to rearrange a few columns on it and add some more. I am afraid I will screw up all of the code that is in the little boxes to the right of everything, because it is so carefully written. I have a few requests for any person who thinks they can help me out!

1. The Arr. column and the Paid column should be right next to each other, so maybe move the Paid column over 1 to the left and rename "Sent" (see below).
2. Next, after the Actual column, I want a column that says Paid for the amount of money paid towards that bill, because we all know that people don't often pay the amount in full.
3. And after that column, one that denotes the final amount owed on the bill, (Actual minus paid).
4. Now, if you notice, when a number is put into the current "Paid" column to denote that the bill was paid on that date, a "P" is placed in the corresponding box on the right. Now, what I'd like is for it to somehow (and I'll leave this up to you) denote whether the bill was paid in full or not by looking at if the remaining balance after pay is $0.00.
5. Anything else you're up to doing.

The one stipulation is that it must work! Haha. I would really appreciate this, and I know that people may be busy, so I'm in no rush for this to be done, but if someone has nothing to do and would like to do me a favor, it would make me happy! Don't be afraid to do it however you want, and feel free to ask me question if you want. You may send it to my e-mail address; just ask me for it. Thank you much. → JARED ^(t)  04:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

what percentage of the total typing work does the left hand perform?

On a QWERT Keyboard, what percentage of the total typing work does the left hand perform? 59.95.40.118 05:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC) Thanks Arun

Quite a complex one this, as it will vary with how you type. Seeing as common letters seem to be reasonably well spread over the keyboard, I'd say that it's roughly 50/50. Although that's just completely guessing. You might want to notice that some really common letters (such as A and E) are both located below your left hand. --saxsux 07:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I cant say for sure but often I'll just use my left hand when I dont have to type very much whuile my right hand is on the mouse. Call me lazy.

Also another thought is that [Enter] key and fullstop are on the right. Those two keys could be used just as much as [A] and [E] if not more. (196.38.244.99 08:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC))

I space with my left thumb. For me it's my left hand since my right hand never goes left of the NHU keys. And I always shift with the hand that hits the letter key, for the top row letters, and with the opposite hand for the other two rows.. strange but I think it's left hand "hands down" for me. --froth^{T C} 09:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a very interseting question. Here's what I'll do: I'm going to go find one of my old papers (a really long one) and figure out how many times I pressed each key. Then I'l have to do some random assigning. (I use the "2-finger" method, which works perfectly fine for me, but I'll assign them based on the home row layout.) I'll be back. → JARED ^(t)  14:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, here are my findings:

• The use of each hand relies heavily upon whether you use your left hand or right hand for spacing.
• I've split up my results based on this (percents are for the left hand):
  • Left hand only uses space: 65.406%
  • Right hand only uses space: 48.773%
  • Both hands use space evenly: 57.090%

Results include the use of all letters of the alphabet, comma, period, quote, and space. What was left over (only 1.035%) was split between the two sides, left and right. 16.633% is the relative frequency of the space bar. I've got all the data, so if you need anything else, just ask. → JARED ^(t)  15:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

In one of my books it says that it's 56%. Nate | Talk ^Esperanza! 02:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Converter needed

How to convert music files from .rm format to .mp3 format , is there a website available to do the same!

08:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)~

RM? Ick. I don't know of any real way of doing it but I'd steer clear of shareware solutions. Install Real Alternative, play it with windows media player while recording with Audacity, and use LAME to encode it. --froth^{T C} 09:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there any other alternative to the one indicated above? A simpler one as Real Media Formats dont play on Quick Time applications and vice versa... At the same time to convert .rm formats to .wav formats 09:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)~

If you don't mind the command line I would look at SoX. They say on their website [5] that they have a version for Windows XP. Conrad.Irwin 10:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

dBpowerAMP is a nice and easy to use audio converter. Just install the RealAudio Encoder with it and you can convert RA files to whatever audio file and codec you want. Aetherfukz 18:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Creative commons and GFDL compatability (2)

I hope I am not breaching any guidlines by doing this, but I am posting again, because my previous post see here did not get me the answer that I wanted. Firstly, I would like to know for sure whether material under a CC-BY license can be incorporated into a work under the GFDL. Secondly, I would like to know more about what progress is being made towards CC-BY-SA and GFDL compatibility.--Bjwebb (talk) 13:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

1. Only if it can be discretely separated from the overarching work. So images can have different copyright statuses from the text they are next to, for example, but one part of an image collage probably could not be, and text is incompatible unless there are easy ways to delineate it (i.e. if you drew a box around part of it). Which is a plain way of saying, only when they can be regarded as aggregated works, that is, independent works with different copyright statuses which are being collected into one work. They are not otherwise compatible. --24.147.86.187 19:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

No, no, this is not what I want to know. I want to know whether a work under a CC-BY license could be used in a GFDL work, without being an "aggregate" - whether they are one way compatible. I expect they might be because the CC-BY only requires attribution, which the GFDL provides.--Bjwebb (talk) 20:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I understand now. From the CC-BY side of things it would be fine, except that you wouldn't be able to re-license the material as GDFL, which would conflict with the GDFL unless it was considered an aggregate work. CC-BY requires only attribution, but it also means that that particular piece of material is still licensedas CC-BY; it doesn't require all derivative works to be licensed CC-BY, but it does require that you note that it is licensed as CC-BY. GDFL would require the entire derivative work to be licenseable as GDFL, if I understand it correctly, unless it is an aggregate. That's my understanding, anyway. --24.147.86.187 20:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad I've been able to make myself more clear. From what you are saying, I can NOT use a CC-BY work in a GFDL one (except as an aggregate) because although the GFDL provides Atrribution, it does not state that the original work is under CC-BY - is that correct?

Couldn't you state that the work is licensed under CC-BY in an invariant section of the deriative work (which is allowed by the GFDL).

Finally, what is it about the GFDL that confilicts with being required to say that the original work was licensed under CC-BY. What about CC-BY-SA, is there the same problem with using CC-BY content in a work there?--Bjwebb (talk) 21:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite follow what you're getting at relating to invariant sections — if you're asking whether or not you could state the licensing information there, well sure (you could state it anywhere and be in full compliance with CC-BY), but that wouldn't change the fact that you couldn't re-license the CC-BY to GDFL unless it had been originally multi-licensed. That wouldn't change anything. The problem is, again, if they are not aggregate works then they have to be able to be re-licensed, which you can't do if you don't have the authority to re-license it. It would be, if I understand it correctly, the exact same problem with mixing CC-BY and CC-BY-SA material: unless you have the authority to multi-license, or the works are aggregate, they wouldn't be compatible, because CC-BY-SA would require you to relicense, as would the GDFL. (Of course I am not a copyright lawyer or a lawyer of any sort, but this is my reading of it.) --24.147.86.187 01:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I cannot give an answer to the first question (I thought it was "no", but am not quite sure). Your second is discussed in this talk at Wikimania 2006. One could check http://creativecommons.org/ or the blog at http://www.lessig.org/blog/ for news. --Seejyb 23:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I managed to browse through these webpages and find this [6], looks promising. I still don't know whether CC-BY content can be incorporated into a GFDL work though, can anyone help? --Bjwebb (talk) 12:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

cell phone reusage as prepaid

can a cell phone that is no longer under contract be used for a prepaid for? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.217.178.112 (talk) 13:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

If you phone is unlocked all you need to do is purchas a PAYG sim, and you are on your way! ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 13:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah chances are you'll have to swap out your SIM card --froth^{T C} 18:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

MSW German SPAG issues

My MSW has never been able to correct German Spelling and grammar, when this action is attempted is comes up with the error message

Word cannot find the grammar file msgr3GE.dll or msgrGE3.dll for German (Germany).

Any advice on where I can find these files, or by some other means correct this fault? ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 13:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Microsoft says you need to install "Microsoft Office Proofing Tools" which should be included on your MS Office install CD. Try putting in CD and doing modify install or some such and looking through the options for Microsoft Office Proofing Tools. Shinhan 17:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

"Paperwork" computer game

The first part of The Fourth Protocol (computer game) is a game of a type I've never encountered since. It's an adventure game, I suppose, but there are no characters and the player has no presence in the game world. You're just a faceless bureaucrat sitting in an office, shuffling papers. You read the papers (they're secret documents, intelligence reports, memos, emails, etc.) and decide what to do (which is mostly dispatching others to retrieve other documents by various means). I know this sounds incredibly dull, but it really was great - it was really a detective game, but because you played it through an office/pc like interface, there wasn't anything to get in the way of one's suspension-of-disbelief. The game wasn't much of a commercial success, and I've never heard of any game like it. Bureaucracy (computer game) and the Carmen Sandiego games really aren't that similar, and while this is just the game style into which The Matrix should have been made, it wasn't. The CSI games (which I've not played, and whose grisly subject doesn't really appeal to me) sound a bit like this, but are there any games (now or at any time) like this? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I recall a game called The President Is Missing! which was fairly similar to what you have described, if I recall. Pretty old school though. Other than that... I can't think of anything very similar, which is too bad. There aren't too many games which really require this much reading or intelligence these days that I can think of, which is really too, too bad. --24.147.86.187 18:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

How about Uplink (computer game)? It's a hacking 'simulation' game. It's more like a simulation of what it'd be like to be a hacker in a hollywood movie than real hacking, but it's a lot of fun, and can feel strangely real. --Noodhoog 18:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

PHP mailing list script

I'm looking for a good PHP mailing list manager script that I can use without having to re-invent the wheel. It should allow people to easily add/remove their names from the list and let me easily e-mail the group if needed. Is there a well-known and well-respected one already out there? I am pretty competent with PHP but don't want to try and write a whole script for this one function I need filled. I do have access to a MySQL database as well if that helps. Thanks. --24.147.86.187 18:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

There's phplist, which should do what you're after. Alternatively, if it doesn't have to be PHP, you could try GNU Mailman, which is is IMO quite nice, and is written in Python. -- AJR | Talk 18:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, just the sort of thing I was looking for. Thanks. --24.147.86.187 18:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

how can i see how much ram my accept??

How can i see how much ram I can put on my pc??, i am planning to buy more ram to my PC.

In Windows XP, go to the Control Panel and then System. It will tell you in the lower-right hand corner of this window. In Vista, just open up "Computer" and it tells you prominently. --froth^{T C} 18:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don`t want to know, how much ram my pc have, I want to see how much is the max that i can put in my pc, because i am planning to buy one. A example: I know that my pc don't support 25GB of ram, because there is a max that pcs can handle.

Depends how many slots you have on your PC, if you don't physically have room for more ram chips, you can't increase your ram. Do you know your current PC specs? that should give us an idea of whether you have free slots or not--74.66.242.190 19:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Well he could buy higher-capacity sticks.. --froth^{T C} 19:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

True--74.66.242.190 19:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Well as for that "max pcs can handle" a 32-bit register can hold a memory address long enough to directly address 4GB of memory. 64-bit is much much more. To find out how much your computer can take you need to open it up. I believe that if you want to use DDR memory, all your sticks should be the same size. Your mobo (mainboard) should be able to handle 1GB sticks so just put one of those in every slot and you're good to go --froth^{T C} 19:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

How many memory card slots does it have and what's the max capacity of each ? The number of slots is easy to determine (just open it up and take a look), but the max capacity of each could be trickier. You may have to look through the owner's manual or look it up online. StuRat 19:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Check out Crucial Technology - they are a major manufacturer of RAM. Their website features a form where you can input the make (Dell, Apple, HP, etc.) and model of your PC and it will tell you exactly what type of RAM you need, how much RAM the default model has, and what the max amount of RAM that your PC model can have is. You can buy from them if you like, but I prefer NewEgg That CS Guy 22:33, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I used ctbios program to find the name of the bios and the program game me this:

        BIOS-Info, c't/Andreas Stiller, V. 1.5 10/00
Computer ID           : FC, SubTyp: 02, BIOS-Level: 116
Rechnertyp            : AT,typ ??,  Konfigurationsbyte  $70
Maustreiber           : Microsoft kompatibel, Version: 08.00
Maustyp               : InPort-Maus auf IRQ2
Bus                   : ISA
Hauptspeicher         : 640 KB, davon verfügbar : 640 KB
Extended Memory       : 1024 KB
BIOS Datum            : 09/17/04
AMI-BIOS gefunden      : Version 11.04, Datum 17.09.04
Processor             : 686: PPro, PentII, Pent III, Athlon, Cyrix 6x86, etc.
BIOS                  : 512 KB, Reference Number: 00
OEM ID                : 9999
URL                   : ????
Chipset               : SIS655FX
Maus via KeybCtrl     : nein
Takt-Umschaltung      : nein
Cache-Umschaltung     : nein
BIOS Modified Flag    : 0
INT-13h BIOS Extension: nein
PnP (ACFG,ESCD,DMI)   : PnP V1.0/ESCD, DMI V 2.3, SM V2.3

Weiter mit D)MI-Info,E)SCD-Info, sonst Exit:

with those informations, can you know how much is the max ram that i can put in my pc?

FORGET IT, I looked at the site and the max amount of ram that my pc can handle is 4GB, 1gb on each slot (4 slots). Thanks guys for helping me.

December 30

Firefox annoyance

Well, I was messing around in Firefox today, and all of the sudden, the "taskbar" of Firefox (not sure on its name) became enlarged.

Image of what I'm talking about -> http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8180/whatlj7.jpg

Anyone have any idea on how to restore it? Andrewtheart 02:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

What were you messing around with in particular? --Kiltman67 03:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I was just clicking around at the bottom of the screen. Just a bad habit of mine (= Andrewtheart 04:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

First of all it is called the status bar. But I don't know how it could enlarge. - Patricknoddy 8:34am, January 2, 2006 (EST)

I think it might be due to some extensions. Once it happened to me, and I started to disable one by one each of the extensions I had recently installed until I found the one that was bringing up the problem. Then I uninstalled it. Unfortunately I don't remember which extension it was (it happened a long time ago).

If that doesn't solve the problem you could reinstall Firefox without uninstalling it first. That would preserve your settings and installed extensions and repair any "broken" files. I have resolved many issues with the browser in this way. HTH --Pfc432 01:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I want to buy a video card

How do you know which slot type you have?--Taida 03:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The easiest way is to just check your motherboard's manual, or do a search for your particular motherboard model number on the internet. --Robert Merkel 03:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

If you computer isn't terribly old, you're motherboard should should have at least one of three types, PCI-Express, AGP, or PCI, (there are pictures of each on their representative articles). PCI-Express is currently the newest and fastest bus available, with AGP starting to show its age a little, but still quite common and useful, while PCI is outdated as a graphics card interface. Chances are pretty good you'll have an AGP or PCI-Express slot, but if your PC is a mostly low-end pre-built one, you may be stuck with only PCI. If thats the case, your choices will be extremely limited, and may not be up for playing todays/tomorrows most demanding games. Cyraan 18:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't find the manual but the model number is P4M800CE-8237. I googled that and found nothing.--Taida 18:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

P4M800 is a VIA Technologies chipset for P4/Celeron-D LGA 775. The chipset supports AGP 8X. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

You still need to check the actual board, though. Just because the chipset supports AGP doesn't mean that the slot is physically present, and PCI Express could still be supported by the use of an add-on chip. --Carnildo 02:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Registry Corruption

Hi! I have a fairly old laptop here it's out of date but i still find use for it. It runs windows 2000 on it and it has a CD drive problem. When I check through device manager it tells me the registry is corrupted (code 19). I've tried as much as i could; I've tried uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling them; I've tried Microsoft's Support's Method but that didn't help me too well (when i tried to delete the UpperFilters and LowerFilters registries i couldn't delete them). After that I tried this part where you start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe), then HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Enum (or it was ...set\Enum)then go to the top and select permissions and then clicked advance and check the lowest bottom (reset something) and that didn't help either. Any suggestions please? --Agester 03:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

You could maybe try restoring the registry. Just reboot and tap the F8 key right away to get the boot menu. Select "Safe Mode with Command Prompt" to a command prompt and run the command "regedit /restore" (no quotes) or maybe "scanreg /restore". From here you should get a list of dates, just pick one where everything was working okay. Good luck. meshach 05:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried as you said. Started in safemode with cmd prompt, and i typed in regedit restore (with the slash didn't help me much) and i got a window that asks me "Are you sure you want to add the information in the restore to the registry?" and if I select yes i get an error window saying "Cannot import restore: Error opening the file. There may be a disk or file system error." The scanreg wasn't detected as a valid command. --Agester 15:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Scanreg is a Windows 9x command, so it wouldn't show up on NT/2000. 68.39.174.238 06:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

guild wiki

i saws my friend use guild wiki so can you tell me how 2 get 2 it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.253.253.64 (talk) 04:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC).

Guild Wiki? Asking proper questions in proper english helps us help you too, you know? Aetherfukz 10:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

4gb ram questions

I use my PC to play games, so my question is, with 4gb of ram, how much time (years, months) i will be able to put the settings of the games at maximum without need to get more ram???

What games? Splintercellguy 11:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

There's not reliable answer to this question. First, some games require more advanced hardware than others although they are released at the same time. Second, Different games need different hardware, i.e. A game with highly advanced AI may require a much more sophisticated CPU than a game with only scripted events, but the latter game may require a better graphics card because the first game uses lesser graphics. Third, noone can predict the future - and the hardware and games market sometimes comes up with new state-of-the-art out of the blue. While more RAM is always better, it only lessens (ingame and between levels depending on the particular game structure of loading its world) loading time. You can't play Half-Life 2 with 12 Gigs of RAM but a 32MB graphics card. Aetherfukz 12:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

So its impossible to give me a expectation of how much time i will "live" with 4gb of ram???

Nearly impossible, yes. A reliable guess, about 2 years. But as I said, in 2 years, while 4 gigs of RAM might still be enough, your graphics card and CPU that you have in your PC today will sure as hell not be enough to play state-of-the-art games, even with a large amount of RAM.
Also, please sign your posts with 4 tildes (~~~~) -- Aetherfukz 13:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

thanks!!! Exdeathbr 15:19, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

How do I check RAM speed?

Could someone let me know how I can check whether my RAM is DDR 1 or DDR 2?--thunderboltz^(Deepu) 06:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

SIsoft Sandra is a nice tool to evalute all your computer hardware without having to open up the PC case. Aetherfukz 12:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

CPU-Z might be better if you just need to do a quick check. It can answer the question you have, while Sandra can answer a whole lot more. --Russoc4 16:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

As I recommended to someone else the other day, try Crucial Technologies. Input your make and model of your CPU (or motherboard) and it will tell you everything you need to know about what kind of RAM you have. Also a good place to double-check what the computer programs linked above say, as its good to have confirmation from multiple sources. That CS Guy 02:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Computer games that delete files as a punishment for losing

Many years ago I recall hearing about a two-player (and two-computer, of course) game where the players would "wager" a random file on the outcome, with the loser's file being deleted by the game. I'd like to know the name of this game (if it ever existed, which I grant is somewhat doubtful) and the names of other games where a player must win to avoid data loss (I know that there are some viruses like this, I just can't remember what they're called). Links to more details would also be appreciated. Thanks! 68.5.255.161 06:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Never heard of such a thing. But... What's the fun and risk in that if we can just backup files? — Kieff 06:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I heard about this about a decade ago, so the particular game I'm thinking of would date to the mid-nineties or before, when backing up a hard drive might entail significant effort or expenditure. Even with backups, restoring a deleted file would be an inconvenience. 68.5.255.161 07:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Still not a lot of risk. What's to say you can't just make a copy and stick it in another folder? And isn't it, well, boring? Splintercellguy 11:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Presumably (and in my mind) it would be played on a non-multitasking OS such as DOS, and operate by encrypting the file first (or reading parts of it into memory and then zeroing those on disk) and then restoring those only when/if you won. I don't claim that voluntarily playing a game like this makes a lot of sense, but I'm interested in whether or not the rumors I heard were an urban legend or had some truth to them.

While reading through the virus detection listings of F-PROT 2.something on a 386 from an old institution that was donated by a robotics company I remember reading about a virus called "Casino" that would make you play something or something and trash the disk if you lost. The variants of it had you playing blackjack (2330: [7], [8]), or roulette (According to the Regiſter). There were a few others that made you answer a question and do something evil if you gave it the right answer. 68.39.174.238 06:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC) (PS. Ahh, what is it about Malta? Or Germany for that matter)

I recall reading that Ken Williams' first "flight simulator" would delete itself if you crashed, and this was not very good for sales. I think I read that in some old Sierra Entertainment catalog from the mid-1990s. --24.147.86.187 15:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Not quite the same, but the roguelike game ADOM has a 'true death' feature, whereby your saved game is deleted on death - or actually, more accurately, it's deleted immediately on being loaded back in, so once you do die it's already gone. --Noodhoog 18:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Web pages

Hello,

On the Google homepage it says that is is serching over 8bn something worldwide. Is that something websites or webpages and if its websites approximately how many individual web pages is there worldwide?

thanks, --81.77.220.92 13:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

That's got to be pages. I can't see there being more web sites than people, can you ? Wikipedia, for example, has millions of web pages, but only a few dozen web sites (if each language is considered another site). StuRat 13:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wait, on just http://www.google.com/, I don't see anything about the number of pages... 68.39.174.238 06:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

ISP connectivity

when undersea fiber optic cables are damaged due to natural calamity like earthquake, how to get connectivity between countries like india and USA to run BPOs........ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ajit007 (talk • contribs) 15:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC).

I'm not familiar with this, but countries should have some type of contingency plan in place for stuff like that, perhaps involving satellite communications. Then again, the internet is supposed to be "smart" in re-routing traffic to an alternate route in case a line is cut out... it may result in significant performance degradation but it should work. What is a BPO? That CS Guy 02:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it might be Business Process Outsourcing - in which case, the traffic is just routed elsewhere, but the time delays will be greater, which might not be satisfactory for some companies. x42bn6 Talk 16:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Is the Parental Control Program 'Hoopaa' safe?

I am looking for a free parental control program, particularly to monitor my childs MSN messenger account. I found Hoopaa whilst searching. When I tried to down load the program my norton security program noted that it was high risk. I am not very good with computers etc but would like to know if I can down load it safely. rod82.16.96.228 16:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it flags as high-risk because it monitors activity. It would help if you could tell us the exact warning message. Otherwise, I looked around on Google and I think it is clean - but this is not definite. x42bn6 Talk 17:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

My personal advice is to forget the parental "controls" - they don't work. Ever. Why not just have a talk with your kids about how people aren't what they seem on the Internet?--207.75.178.77 20:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree 100% with above user. MSN is relativly safe (compared to a chat room for instance). Children mostly use it to talk to their own friends. It's far better to educate your kids than spy on them. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 02:01, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I might also note that similar things are often VERY imprecise and can make incredibly poor judgement calls on things (EG. "Scunthorpe"/Scunthorpe Problem). Also, (This is a sociology thing and that isn't my field), you may inadvertently let of an "arms-race" where they try and circumvent it, etc. 68.39.174.238 06:21, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Music files' pictures

On my music files, when viewed in "Tiles" view in Windows XP, an image appears on the files next to the name, giving the name of the artist etc; normally it's the WMP logo, but the image is now a blue musical note and "MP3" written underneath the note. How do I change it back to the WMP logo? Thanks, 81.131.37.82 17:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like the icon (picture) associated with MP3 files has changed - possibly the associated program (the program which runs when you double click an MP3 file) has changed too. Try right-clicking on an mp3, and selecting 'properties' from the pop-up menu. In the property sheet that comes up there will be an entry near the top for 'opens with' which determines which program is associated with MP3 files. If that doesn't say 'windows media player' then click the change button and select WMP from the list. That should also return your icon to the standard WMP one. --Noodhoog 18:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

DVD recorder to PC

I have some material recorded off the TV with a DVD recorder onto DVD-R and DVD-RW. I'd like to be able to watch these on my PC, but when I try to access the disk I get a warning saying "D:\ is not accessible, incorrect function". Any ideas on how to access these disks? --Nicknack009 18:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Your DVD recorder may have a "finalise disk" option - try that. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that works. Thanks. Now, any idea how to export still images so I can edit them in Photoshop? I've tried CTRL+Print Screen, but that doesn't seem to work. --Nicknack009 20:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

VLC media player has a save-screenshot option. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Perfect! Thanks again. --Nicknack009 21:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Slashdot trolling phenomenon: Hello World

On the website Slashdot.org there are occasional comments posted anonymously which consist of HELLO WORLD, followed by strings of numbers. It almost looks like a 'numbers station' style message. Just out of idle curiosity I've been googling around for information about these posts, and it seems that Wikipedia used to have some info about it on a page titled Slashdot Trolling Phenomena which has since been deleted, and the relevant info has apparently not survived into the main slashdot page.

Anyone know any info about this, or is it possible to dig up a copy of the deleted page? it's no big deal, I'm just curious really

Thanks :) --Noodhoog 18:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a reference to a classic beginner's programming exercise - namely creating a program that prints "HELLO WORLD".--207.75.178.77 20:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that part I get - I've written enough Hello World programs in my time.. the part I'm curious about is the message that follows. it consists entirely of numbers, broken up into strings of 5 digits. You can see an example of one here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=14975963&sid=181035 (be warned, if you decide to try and decode it, it could be anything - probably something goatse related, knowing Slashdot) --Noodhoog 20:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's the most recent archived version in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine: Slashdot trolling phenomena - HELLO WORLD. It says 'The "HELLO WORLD" troll posts what appears to be one-time pad encrypted messages in the style of a numbers station.' -- Bavi H 20:00, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

HAH! I NEVER THOUGHT about using the IA to view deleted pages... How lame was that? 68.39.174.238 08:21, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

what is trojan spyware?

What is trojan spyware?

See trojan horse (computing), spyware. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

How do you find out

how many watts your power supply has? Note: my computer did not come with a manual for my power supply--Taida 20:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It's written on a sticker on the side. You will have to open the case, and you may have to take the power supply out to be able to read that sticker. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

If you didn't buy a "gaming" machine, it's probably a wimpy 250W PSU that your OEM installed to save cash.--207.75.178.77 20:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Your right, it is indeed a wimpy one they put in to save cash. Only 300W. I'm gonna have to buy a new one. The video card i want requires 400W. I want to buy a good power supply so i don't have to keep changing it but one thats still cheap. Which one should I buy? Any suggestions?--Taida 00:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Which do you want, cheap, or good? You can't have both. --Carnildo 02:38, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I want a good one so i don't have to keep changing it but i don't want to spend extra money on something i don't need. For example, i don't want to buy one that is so good i will never use it. How many watts should my new power supply be?--Taida 16:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Cheap power supplies can list high wattages, but if you look at the outputs of the rails they can be lower than high quality, lower wattage power supplies. A $40 450watt will have 15amps on the 12volt rail, whereas a $60 450w will have 2 12v rails, one with 15a and one with 17a, totaling 32a. BFG Tech recommends a 350w power supply with 12v rating of 22a or more for their 7950gt video card (a fairly high end video card @ $260). This would of course be a *high quality* 350w. As for your question, I would go with something along the lines of an Nspire 450w. You want headroom with the power supply, if your card has a minimum requirement of 22amps and 350w and you buy a 350w with 22a on the 12v, don't expect it to last more than a year if its working 100% of its maximum, think of driving your car at 6000rpm redline every moment you're in it. --PiTHON 20:35, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

December 31

Shell

In Windows cmd.exe, commands like dir.. or cd.. work (with no space). I can even do something like cd..\system. I can't reproduce this functionality in any GNU/Linux shell. I already tried an alias of cd..='cd ..' in bash. That allows me to use cd.. , for instance, but not cd../system . I also tried the same in zsh with global aliases, but it still didn't allow me to continue the string. Any tips on how I could get cd../system (for instance) to work? Superm401 - Talk 05:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Try (1) "cd - && cd system" or (2) "cd - && dir system". Basically, "cd -" goes back one directory. Rest is self explanatory. IN terms of spaces, though... you're going to have to have them. Reply back if this works for you.Andrewtheart 07:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

That does what I want in this case, but so does just "cd ../system". The spaces are the issue. Superm401 - Talk 07:59, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Oops, sorry for the misunderstanding. Anyway, I'd take "unsigned"'s advice and tweak with the source. Andrewtheart 08:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

This is most likely impossible, because of the way most shells parse the input string. Arguments are separated by spaces. You may be able to get the desired behaviour by changing the source for your desired shell or writing your own shell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.49.189.224 (talk • contribs)

It seems like you understood my problem. I was hoping some sort of alias could alter this behavior. I'll wait for a second opinion, but I may yet tweak the source as you suggest. Superm401 - Talk 07:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

An alias replaces a token by a string. Whatever shell you are using needs a way of recognising the end of the token, and in many contexts that needs a space. I do find myself wondering why it is so crucial to get this to work: I guess you are porting a script from cmd, but why can't you just push it through a processor like sed first? Something like:

`sed 's/^cd\.\./cd ../'`

(I haven't used sed for ages, and would usually do this sort of thing in perl, so I may have the regexp wrong; but it's right in principle.) --ColinFine

Help! CD Drive automatically uninstalled!

Hi I was having problem this morning ripping a CD using WMP 11 so I decided to restart Windows (XP Professional SP2). Then my CD Drive doesn't work! It doensn't have the D:\ Directory in My Computer anymore and doesn't respond to any CD I insert. I'm using IBM NetVista Desktop, what do I do! Urgent! Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.198.23.204 (talk) 05:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

Okay, let's see. I'm using GNU/Linux, so I'll have to do this mostly from memory. Right click My Computer, click Hardware (at the top), then Device Manager. Do you see the CD-ROM drive listed there? It would say something like CD-ROM or CDRW, or DVD+RW. If it's there, is there a mark (like a question mark, exclamation mark, etc.) next to it? If so, what does the mark look like? Superm401 - Talk 06:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Try Start + Settings + Control Panel + System Icon + Device Manager Tab (that's for Windows 98). StuRat 13:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. You right click My Computer, then click Properties, then Hardware, etc. Superm401 - Talk 18:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes I did that and the CD ROM drive is not even there! What do I do?

You can diagnose the problem pretty quickly if you happen to have a knoppix disk. Just pop it in and reboot, and see if your system goes anywhere.

If it doesn't, you will need to replace the CD-Rom drive.

If it does, then you most likely have UDMA enabled through the BIOS for all drives, and your CD-ROM drive doesn't support UDMA with the stock WinXP driver set. WindowsUpdate has very likely decided that you needed an updated driver based on the controller chipset's identification, and has helped you by replacing your working drivers with something newer. You can disable (U)DMA mode through the hardware properties of the controller, or - if your system worked quite well a few days ago, then you can go into System Restore and choose a restore point prior to that date. 'Start - 'All Programs' - 'Accessories' - 'System Tools' - 'System Restore'.

When you start the system, do you see any sort of BIOS screen? On my machine, it shows the processor, the expansion slots, all drives, memory, etc. If you can get this, check to see if your drive is detected at start up. If it isn't, then its very likely dead. Note that you may have to "dismiss" a splashscreen (Like the IBM logo) to see the details. 68.39.174.238 08:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

my nearly dead computer does this from time to time as well. usually, it's the connection to the inside of the computer for me. if you know what you are doing, you can go inside and unplug the CD drive, check the connection, replug it in, and restart your computer. that ussually works for me.Xiaden 18:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Canon PowerShot A620

The focus/snap button, with the zoom in/zoom out switch on my Canon Powershot A620 has come off in my backpack, nothing appears to be broken, but I cannot figure out how to put the button back on. Is there any guide on the internet of the contents of the A620, or does anyone know how to place the button back on? Thanks so much! --Nevhood 06:45, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I doubt a guide would help you honestly. Andrewtheart 07:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Try taking it to a camera shop, or any place that does small appliance repair. Check you backpack carefully for some other tiny parts which held the button in place which may have fallen off. Then again, they may have fallen down into the camera (does it rattle when you shake it ?). StuRat 13:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, there's nothing in my backpack, and there's no rattle either inside the camera. There's a metal disc under the button that needs to fit under a small plastic hole on the camera case, the metal apparently bent out of the hole, and I can't put it back. Should I try opening the camera? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nevhood (talk • contribs) 17:54, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

Unless you know what you're doing, it's probably better to let a camera repair place do the work. Even if you remove the batteries, the flash capacitor will probably still be charged. Touching it won't kill you, but it will hurt like hell, and may cause significant electrical burns. --Carnildo 21:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

phpBB dates

On these forums the dates are showing up as, for example, "e1212Sunday495112", which is unhelpful. I don't know if they're broken for anyone else but nobody's said. What could be the problem? Vitriol 11:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks OK to me. There should be options in the Administrator Control Panel how to format the date in PHP format, I think. (It's been a while since I looked at phpBB) x42bn6 Talk 16:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

That might have been good advice if I was an administrator. Vitriol 18:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Go to http://forums.kingdomofloathing.com/profile.php?mode=editprofile . At the bottom, I think there will be a Date format option. Change it to "D M d, Y g:i a" (default). Superm401 - Talk 19:06, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

That worked. Thank you! For some reason it said "english" in there. Vitriol 11:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

e systems e214 fan noise

hi, just bought new computer but the noise is driving me crazy!

will the fan quieten down after a few weeks or am i stuck with it? TIA —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.105.67.49 (talk) 12:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

- Well I've never known one quieten down, You probably just need to get new fan, they don't cost much, Howso-Mchowsoson 13:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, make sure there isn't a wire or cable in contact with the fan blade. That makes a lot of noise and will eventually damage the wire or cable, which is likely to cause a more severe problem with the computer. StuRat 13:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Multiple monitor problems.

I am currently using a TV set as a secondary monitor so as to be able to watch movies from my PC without burning discs.

However, I currently only see part of the desired screen on the TV set, the top, bottom and sides are all missing. I can see more if I change both sets to a lower resolution, but the lowest my graphics card seems to offer is 800 x 600 and with this the TV set still misses some. Okay, I just found a bit of a nswer myself. When I drag a movie in a media player onto my TV, it does not overlap the edges as the desktop background did.

1. Why do I have a loud humming over the sound of the movie?
2. Why are there horizontal ghost lines moving up and down my scren?
3. How do I alter the screen resolution of this TV independantly?
4. How can I want mirror the contents of my monitor on the TV instead of extending one desktop across both.

Aaron 14:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

1. prob caused by 2
2. the TV output signal is defective, presumably because the driver is misconfigured (it's sending the wrong kind of TV signal)
3. that's something your specific video driver is responsible for, and the display properties sheet (in windows, assuming that's what you're running) is responsible for allowing you to set those independently. For the ATI driver I use, it's really obvious (it's in the settings tab)
4. I think that this is again a display-driver-specific setting

Regarding 1 and 2, if you're in a PAL country, make sure you're sending the right kind of PAL. I don't know what options are really available for NTSC or SECAM. Also, naturally, make sure your display driver is the latest one. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

CD Drive

The CD drive on my laptop is going slightly crazy. When I insert any type of cd--audio, dvd, any program--the computer slows down significantly and in some cases the cd doesn't work. If there's a cd in my cd drive, no other music will play at regular speed. Sometimes, when I put in a big computer program, for instance, Rosetta Stone, the computer will slow to a standstill and when I end the Rosetta Stone program, the computer screen clears out and all I see is the desktop image for a minute before everything comes back. This is a NEW computer (got it late this summer) and a nice one--a Dell Inspiron with 80 gigs and a nice processor and whatnot. I think there's just some problem with my cd player, which is one of those dvd burning ones. Any tips? Is this a problem that could be solved by giving the computer to a specialist for a day, or is it a problem at all (just normal?) I'd appreciate any help. Sashafklein 19:15, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I think your machine is still under warranty so I'd recommend to contact Dell technical support and they should resolve the problem. Mahanchian 19:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

If it's new and has done this all along, especially, the cable may not be plugged in properly. An intermittent connection would cause many of the symptoms you've described. If that's the only problem, it's easy to fix, just unplug the cable and plug it in properly. Of course, that will require opening the case, so you might want to have them do it for you so you don't void the warrantee. StuRat 00:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If replugging in the power/bus connections doesn't work, I recommend getting a replacement CD-RW drive. They are extremely cheap. My CD drive was having some of the same symptoms recently (slowing down the entire computer, not regonizing discs, etc), and I happened to get my hands on a new CD-RW drive. Installed it within 10 minutes, booted into Windows, and all was good. Andrewtheart 18:17, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Hard drive

If I was to remove the hard drive from computer A and replace it with computer B's hard drive, will either of them lose memory whilst they are not attached to the computer? Will they format? Or do they keep their memory indefinitely? --69.144.234.146 20:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

No, neither drive will lose the data stored on them. They keep their data indefinitely, whether powered or not. Hard drives are special in the sense that they are a type of non-volatile storage (that is, they retain data even whilst not powered). Therefore, you could theoretically switch the disks and be completely fine, as long as you know exactly what you are doing when you plug in the jumper cables and such. (Not to say you wont run into hardware recognition issues when whatever operating system is on your hard drives boots up in the new computer and senses a whole bunch of new stuff around it, but this also shouldn't be an issue, especially with the ingeniously and flexibility of today's operating systems. But that's a different issue). Andrewtheart 20:45, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks. And I'm fairly certain I know what I'm doing. ;)--69.144.234.146 21:43, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Note, you're supposed to wear rubber gloves when you touch the hard drives, so a stray spark won't damage them. It's not very likely, but just a precaution. StuRat 00:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Rubber is an insulator, so it will encourage static buildup and probably make things worse. Hard drives come with a steel casing, and as long as you only touch that casing, you'll be fine. If you're feeling paranoid, use a grounding strap to discharge any static that builds up on your skin. --Carnildo 23:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right on the use of the grounding strap, but I've seen hard drives with exposed circuit boards. And, even those with a full metal case aren't static proof, as the metal can conduct the discharge to the circuitry. I've also seen hard drives with a rubber cover, but that is questionable as it will cause heat to build up and likely shorten the hard drive's life. StuRat 13:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Unlike other electronic components, it's possible to handle a hard drive entirely by the metal case even if the circuit board is exposed. --Carnildo 20:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree with Andrewheart on one point. He said: "Not to say you wont run into hardware recognition issues when whatever operating system is on your hard drives boots up in the new computer and senses a whole bunch of new stuff around it, but this also shouldn't be an issue, especially with the ingeniously and flexibility of today's operating systems. But that's a different issue" While that might be true with some things, there is one issue that isn't flexable, which is the motherboard chipset drivers that your operating system uses. When you use drivers that aren't the right ones, you can encounter stability issues, seemingly random hardware misfunction, IRQ errors, and a slew of other things. The safest and easiest way to keep the files on hard-drive B in your example is to either burn the files you want to keep onto a CD/DVD and transfer them to the new harddrive (you can also use usb key, etc.) or to boot from hard-drive A while having hard-drive B as a secondary storage device (for example Drive E:) and either transfer the files or access them directly from the drive. 70.18.228.121 05:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)DAnyN

On that subject, if either have Windows Product Activation or something similar on them, both of them will want you to "re-activate" or worse. 68.39.174.238 08:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It's possible to bypass Windows copy-protection by moving enough other hardware with the hard drive. In my experience, if you move the CD-ROM drive and network card with the drive, Windows won't bug you. --Carnildo 20:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

You got lucky with the chipsets, ram, cpu, etc... Windows checks 10 things and if 3 of them change, you have to reactivate. Though the NIC counts as 3 changes. It's explained here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PiTHON (talk • contribs) 03:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC).

Computer Virus problem

Hi, my computer has been experiencing problems whenever i virus scan, two viruses always come up. There names are Look2me and Abetterinternet if it is any help to you. They are in the rootkit it seems. Can anyone tell me how to get rid of them?----Giantmungus9 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.36.211.252 (talk) 20:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

Virus/Spyware scanners are basically the primary way to remove such malware from a computer. If the scanning program you are using will not remove them, I suggest the following. (1) Go here, download that and run it. (2) Go here, download it and run it (get both the Virus scanner and the Spyware scanner). (3) Download and run this. (thanks for the link PiTHON) Hope all of that helps. Andrewtheart 20:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

What is the best Mac OS virus scanner now? Any alternatives? I don't mind paying for it. TIA. -Susanlesch 21:00, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Try Norton Antivirus for Mac OS X. Also see http://www.clamxav.com/ Andrewtheart 21:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Great! I will get them both. Thank you Andrewtheart, my Virex died a while back.-Susanlesch 00:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• Norton did great at first. Then I got what geeks call a "kernel panic." I am going to try scanning without scanning compressed archives (might work in my case). -Susanlesch 20:23, 1 January 2006 (UTC). P.S. It's running fine. Probably just some stray electron. -Susanlesch 05:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Andrew those were the first 2 pages I googled as well, however the second one is a bad website, it look suspicious to me and googling "spywareremove.com" shows a site that lists it as an actual spyware website. For the original question, I would also recommend Spybot S&D. However, some spyware is extremely hard to remove, don't be surprised if its still there after you do a bunch of scans.--PiTHON 21:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• PiTHON, I got mine from Google. Hope that's safe. Otherwise VersionTracker or MacInTouch are safe links. -Susanlesch 20:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I figured. That's why I said "The "Automatic Removal" programs look promising, although it's safety is questionable as well (which is why you should try the other programs first)." Thanks for double checking for me though. I'll delete them now. Andrewtheart 21:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

The video card I'm planning to buy says it needs

An available hard disk drive power dongle (smaller floppy disk drive connector is not sufficient). What exactly is a "hard disk drive power dongle?"--Taida 22:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[This] connector, the same plug that your hard drive uses.--PiTHON 22:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

It's what's called (rather incorrectly) a Molex connector. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 03:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I have never heard those things called dongles... 68.39.174.238 08:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

January 1

software of this kind??

hey!! everybody plz help me with the name of a software that could produce sounds of various specified frequencies.. & also recognize them.. returning those frequencies ...actually im trying to transfer data files using .. sound ...i wanna generate sounds of frequencies.. corresponding to given specified ascii code... and doin the reverse to recognize them to reverse them..

Audacity can generate sounds of a specific frequency and length and amplitude, i think it will read them as well i dont know. its a completely free program but is pretty powerful, check it out and see if it's what you need.--PiTHON 02:14, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Transfering data files using sound?? You mean you want to modulate and then demodulate an analogue carrier signal to encode digital data? ;) Maybe researching modem might be useful? Vespine 21:53, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

open source flash?

I'd love to own Macromedia flash but cannot afford it. Are there any alternatives that run on linux? A google search has turned up nothing :-( Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 02:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The Flash player runs on Linux, the development tools (bar perhaps under Wine) do not. One can get Actionscript tools (compiler et al) open source, but I think that's mostly it. SVG is intended (with JavaScript as the programmatic backup) to be the open source, open standards animated vector graphics solution, but the current state of browser support for SVG doesn't remotely match Flash. So, in short, no. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 03:15, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh well that's what I feared. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 18:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Paypal for Ebay

I've never used eBay before, so a couple of stupid questions. Firstly, assuming I'll be doing at least a few buys a year, whats the best way to pay/recieve money? It is optimal to use Paypal, correct? Then, on Paypal, can I just open a personal account to buy and sell on eBay? It mentioned something on the Paypal site that you need the upgraded premier or business account for eBay, but I may have confused this with something about credit card/debit card paying. Thanks! 172.195.1.55 07:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

PayPal is a popular method of payment on eBay. PayPal offers protection for both buyers and sellers. You can buy and sell items on eBay using a PayPal personal account. PayPal do charge fees for their services, these are shown on their website. This can be significant when selling low value items. Adambro 15:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Your first two questions require a subjective response. However, if you were to ask an array of eBay users, my gut feeling is that you'd probably hear that PayPal is the best option for an occasional buyer/seller (mainly for the convenience).

If all you are going to do is buy, all you need to worry about is a hard $10,000 limit until you become verified. This entails either attaching a bank account to your PayPal account or apply for their credit card. If you start to delve into selling and using PayPal to receive payments, keep these limitations in mind:

• Monthly receiving limit of $500 until you upgrade to a Premier or Business account.
• Receive a maximum of 5 credit card or debit card transactions per year until you upgrade to a Premier or Business account.
• Withdraw maximum of $500 monthly unless you do 2 of the following 3 things:
  • Add and confirm a bank account
  • Confirm your Social Security Number
  • Complete your enrollment in the Expanded Use Program. The Expanded Use Program requires these steps:

1. Authorize PayPal to charge a $1.95 USD Expanded Use Fee to your card. (You will receive a $1.95 USD bonus in your PayPal account after you complete enrollment.)
2. On your next credit card statement, find the 4-digit Expanded Use Number that will be printed in the item description section of the charge.
3. Log in to your PayPal account, click the Complete Expanded Use Enrollment link on your Account Overview, and enter your Expanded Use Number.

Keep in mind that the biggest limitation is on selling. You only mention buying, which is all that I do and I have been fine with the personal account for a few years now. - (Nuggetboy) (talk) (contribs) 16:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

General MIDI's "Charang"

In the General MIDI specification, program number 85 is reserved for instrument sound "charang", part of the synth lead category. what is the meaning of "charang"? Is it related to charango? - Because mine doesn't sound like it.

I think my question belongs here because it is about a technical specification. Congratulationsfriend 08:42, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe they're the same, google image search shows identical looking instruments for both. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 19:13, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right, it does! But also a hodgepodge of other stuff, making me thing they might be misspelled filenames. What i'm most curious to know is: why it is grouped as a synth lead. Congratulationsfriend 09:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Unicode input

I am using a laptop computer. I try to use the U+202E character with my virtual numpad by holding down a special key. But whenever I type the Alt+E, the "edit" menu pops up. Am I doing something wrong? Scienceman123 talk 09:18, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking at Unicode#Input_methods, Alt codes and Windows Alt keycodes looks like Alt+ only does the first 256 characters, and in decimal. Then there's EnableHexNumpad. Weregerbil 16:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

linksys wireless rotor

I have a model WRT54G and wishes to prevent access from outside sources. The Linksys home page is blank. Where / how do I find the incripted code? Thank you. Remy R

Pull up a web browser, type "192.168.1.1" without the quotes, if you haven't changed it, the login and password should both be "admin" without the quotes. This should pull up a page with all sorts of settings/options, along the top, look for Wireless, once you click that, you should see a bunch of submenu options underneath the top row, one of them should be security, click that, from there, you can turn on wireless encryption. WPA-PSK or WPA2-PSK are your best choices for security and simplicity (but make sure your wireless card can support them, if its not really old, it shouldn't be a problem), you can set any password you want with WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK. If your card cant support them, you may be stuck with WEP, which is still better than nothing, but you have to remember either a 10 or 26-digit long hex key, and WEP can be cracked by someone who knowledgeable/resourceful enough. Once you enable encryption, your wireless connection to the router will drop until you reconnect with the new password. Cyraan 17:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The default username is not admin, it is just blank. The password is "admin" 70.18.228.121 05:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)DAnyN

If 192.168.1.1 isn't your router's IP address go into DOS and type ipconfig /all The "DHCP Server" and "Default Gateway" will be your router's IP address --froth^{T C} 06:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

You can get infos from this lame page. Note that if your router and network card(s) support WPA or WPA2 USE THEM! WEP is extremely insecure these days. 68.39.174.238 08:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Programming help request

I have recently obtained a TI 89 Titanium calculator and am wondering: is there is any logic to the numbering of the keys (for the getkey() command)? Please post your reply on my user page. Alphabetagamma 22:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC) By the way... In the 1985 Boise, Idaho, mayoral election, there were four write-in votes for Mr. Potato Head.

Um thanks for the trivia about mr potato head. Did you know that in the 2001 UK census 390,000 englanders stated their religion as jedi? But to answer your actual question... I have a TI-83 and 84, and the pattern for those is that the first row straight across is the tens (11, 12, 13, 14, 15) the second row including the top arrow is the twenties (21, 22, 23, 24) the third row including the left and right arrows are the thirties (31, 32, 33, 34, 35) the fourth row including the bottom arrow is the forties (41, 42, 43, 44) and so on down the calculator. My numbers probably aren't right exactly since I haven't used it in awhile but that's the general idea. Try using this snippet (you'll have to change it to '89 BASIC)

I know the thing about the 83 numbers... It's the 89 numbers I'm wondering about.Alphabetagamma 03:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Lbl A
Repeat Ans
getKey -> K
End
Disp K
Goto A

Just run that and hit whatever button you need the code for and it will display the code on the screen. This assumes that when there's nothing held down getKey returns 0, which might not be true for the 89 but you might as well try --froth^{T C} 06:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Google Calculator dead?

I've been trying to do equations/conversions with Google Calculator but it isn't working for me (I don't get the "calculator" screen as I ought to). Is it gone for good? Anyone know? Is it just me? --24.147.86.187 00:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not just you because I've just given it a try and it's not working amymore for me either. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 00:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Works fine now --froth^{T C} 06:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

"9 * 10 + 32 / 3" works for me, both from FireFox search box and Google's main page. 68.15.208.73 13:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, it works again for me too. Phew! Thanks for checking. --24.147.86.187 14:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

January 2

kgb

what does kgb stand for

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym=kgb&Find=find&string=exact --PiTHON 03:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The Russian one? Committee for State Security according to KGB. 68.39.174.238 08:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Try here. - Patricknoddy 8:37am, January 2, 2007 (EST)

Unless this is a computer question, it would be better to place it on the Language Ref Desk. StuRat 00:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Windows BSD code

Apparently certain programs in Windows contain BSD licensed code. But the text of the license states: Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, and this list of conditions in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution (emphasis added). Has Windows complied with the emboldened statement? I don't believe it has.

Only those programs would need to have the BSD license included with them, not Windows itself. Windows is proprietary and closed code, although it wouldn't surprise me if there were some variant of BSD licensed code somewhere in it. 68.15.208.73 13:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

None of the programs purported to have BSD licensed code has the license included with them, just the copyright strings. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.24.64 (talk) 00:00, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

Simcity problem

I've recently installed SimCity 3000 on my Windows XP system and (surprise, surprise) it's acting up. The CD-rom automatically reboots when I exit the game. Any ideas on how to fix this? - Mgm|^(talk) 12:32, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried ejecting the CD-ROM right before you exit the game ? StuRat 13:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, in that case it keeps asking for the CD back. - Mgm|^(talk) 00:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Internet Wiki

Is there a wiki about the Internet? - Patricknoddy 8:38am, January 2, 2007 (EST)

Internet 68.15.208.73 13:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia? It definitely covers the Internet. Splintercellguy 00:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there another program like Skype?

So now it's 2007 and Skype no longer offers free calls to anywhere in the USA or Canada. Is there another free program that does the same thing? Or anything I can download that does that? Man I hope so. NIRVANA2764 14:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Edit: Okay, I just called my own house and it looks like Skype is still offering free calls across the nation. Huh? NIRVANA2764 14:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Skype will remain our lurvely freewarely P2P voice communicator of choice. You may be confused by their reported price structure changes for SkypeOut...? 81.93.102.185 17:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Skype is only one of many VoIP services, although it's fairly unique in its ability to call into the phone system. --froth^{T C} 21:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

MSN Messenger display image problem

I can't see other people's display images and other people can't see mine when I change it. I am using ZoneAlarm, but it is configured to allow both client and server connections. I am not using that "firewall" by Microsoft in my Internet connection and think my router NAT is correctly configured, allowing the port 1863... I know with this information it is hard to answer but... maybe someone has had experience with this and has some idea. Thanks for any help ;) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.58.9.82 (talk) 15:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC).

are you sure its related to a firewall? i'd check your program settings first. also theres like 3 versions of messenger. windows messenger, MSN messenger, and live messenger. live messenger is the new replacement apparently, but they keep the old ones around and i'm pretty sure they can open independently so you may even accidentally be using the wrong program. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PiTHON (talk • contribs) 16:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC).

Ok some more research and it looks like it is your firewall, hope you're up to This fix. Or just stop using ZoneAlarm :p --PiTHON 03:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Master edit versus other kinds of edits

What's a master edit, and what other kinds of edits are there? Thank you! 81.93.102.185 17:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Can you give us the context, please ? StuRat 00:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This might be intended for the Arts section, pertaining to music recordings. 68.15.208.73 01:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, MUSIC RECORDING, sorry. I thought it was the only context. :) 81.93.102.185 12:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Xine vs VLC

Now, I have an Ubuntu Edgy machine that runs Beryl (radeon driver, aiglx) and I've noticed that when comparing VLC (xvideo) and Xine in fullscreen mode, VLC is increadibly choppy but Xine plays perfectly. Out of curiosity, what's different about Xine? Does it use a crazy l33t video output module?--Frenchman113 on wheels! 18:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah wait... I b0rked my settings and VLC was defaulting to X11, ignore this post.--207.74.179.29 17:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

And again, the problem with dual-booting.... forgot to log in.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 17:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

here goes nothing.(javascript/dom/Xhtml)(oh, and CSS)

Ok. i hope this will be the last time i have to bring these topics up. first off, i'd like to thank everyone who has given me prior help on this topic. ok, down to buisiness:

I am using XHtml to make a website, coupled with Javascript for user scripts. i am using DOM to locate three coloums of data, changing a row from "visibility:hidden;" to "visibility:visible;"(i might have spelt them wrong here, but not in the actual code.) I do this by getting their ID and then using the element.style operation. however, this doesn't work as i exspected, as i would like for the table to remain the same size, and would like for them to disapear when i call the function a second time. i tried using an if statement and element.style to figure out what the visibility is currently set to. needless to say, it didn't work.

can i dump some of the code here, in case i did something completely retarded(like misspeled something, forgot to capitilize where neccissary...)Xiaden 18:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you want but I can't understand what is happening. Could you clarify again? --24.147.86.187 19:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I use display: block and display: none instead of visibility - I think that might work. But I am useless at the DOM model so this might not be the best way. x42bn6 Talk 22:27, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

i'll try display, but i'm using a table... so that might not turn out as exspected... oh, and what Is happening, is that the visibility turns on, then never turns off. or it gives me a javascript error, that it can't edit visibility, because it isn't an attribute...Xiaden

Name this unknown app

About early 2003 someone showed me an application that looked almost identical to the classic app "WinAmp" (it hadm the traditional greyish-brownish classic skin look of winamp with identical looking buttons). This app was different however. It allowed you to play a file and then perform "tricks" with the output sound.

For example you could press play and then press another button, and the song position would skip around or repeat sections or go forward and reverse in varying speeds. These "tricks" were added to make the song sound "cool" for a performing DJ or something. Anyway he said it was a german-developed app (i seem to remember) but never gave me the name of it. Anyone have a hint of what it was? NoClutter 20:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure it wasn't simply WinAmp with an output plugin for performing effects? --66.195.232.121 22:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not completely certain, but the interface did look different enough to be a separate app, (almost like an early fork of the WinAmp codebase) and I had no basis to question the person's credibility or knowledge on the issue. Nevertheless, even if it was just a plugin I have no clue which plugin it could have been. It had entirely distinct buttons and windows for doing effects that Ive never seen from a plugin. NoClutter 22:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Sonique, perhaps? — Kieff 03:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Wii #3

How much does the console cost by it self?

How much does Wii sports cost?

How much does the Tv cable cost?

How much does the power cord cost?

Nunchuck=$20

Wii remote=$40

Is there is any thing I missed?

______________

$250

+ tax

______________

$270

Sorry if you feel interrogated, but please, these Qs have been bugging my since the thing came out.

Østerbrogade 20:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean the cost of production? Wii sports would cost nintendo probably less than a cent to press. The cords are very cheap as well. The console and the wii remote would be the most expensive parts. I doubt the nunchuk costs nintendo $20 to make. --froth^{T C} 21:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Web Surfing on a non plasma/lcd TV

Hi, I am trying to get my media center in my living room to display nicely. I have used video out as well as an averkey and the picture is always fuzzy and it is hard to read the fonts. My TV is not plasma or LCD so I guess I should have known that it wouldnt of looked that good.

I have a 37 inch flatscreen tube TV with HD. My question is simple, if I get a video card that outputs HD and connect my computer with an HDMI cable should I be able to read simple font on this TV? Or do I have to go LCD/Plasma to be able to surf the Web in my living room?

216.211.3.61 22:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

While an LCD or plasma screen TV may be clearer than a CRT, or even worse, a projection TV, and while HDTV is clearer than the old PAL format in the US, none of those combos has the resolution of a good computer monitor, which is typically 1600×1200. Two typical HDTV resolutions are 1280×720 and 1920×1080. The better HDTV can manage to display a decent 1280×1024 computer resolution. However, the lower frame rate on the HDTV and the "nonsquare pixels" will make the quality significantly lower than a 1280×1024 computer monitor. See the HDTV link for a size comparison.

You might want to do the reverse of your plan; get a huge computer monitor and use it to display TV. Of course, to do this you should expect to pay major cash. The cheaper alternative is to use your current setup, and lower the resolution to the minimum, say to 800x600 or even 640x480, so the resolution is something the TV can handle. You might also want to increase the font size in your browser. This should make the text readable, but only a small amount of text will fit on the screen. StuRat 23:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I cannot resize a partition with partition magic

I get an error 2002 ("there are invalid enties in FAT "),; there are 9 unullocated GB just after the part. i wanna extend.. maybe a virus? Do exist viruses that are invisible in the processes list of task manager? tia ----Ulisse0 22:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Try running scandisk. Go to "My Computer" and right click the drive you're trying to partition. Go to Properties. On the Tools tab click "Check now". If it fixes your FAT then try partition magic again. But I highly discourage its use- it's infamous for ruining laptops and unusual drive setups. Try burning the GParted livecd and using that. --froth^{T C} 22:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

But do scandisk first --froth^{T C} 23:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Be sure to check "Automatically fix file system errors" after you hit "Check now", then hit start. Checking "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" wouldn't be a bad idea either, but can take a few hours. How did you end up with 9gb of unallocated space? What file system is your first partition set to, Fat32, NTFS? I have used partition magic quite a few times without problems, but would still be very wary of using it like Froth is, make sure your data is backed up first. Also, if you are able to boot off a partition magic CD and do the work from there instead of from inside windows you should have better luck, so no other programs interfere with its work.--PiTHON 02:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Formerly I had 2 partitions: one with Win98 followed by another one with XP (but on Fat32, not NTFS); then I installed Ubuntu BB at the bottom of the HD and Xp became unbootable, so I erased it to merge the freeed space in the 1st part. --Ulisse0 14:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

MySpace IM

anybody know how to set up Gaim, or some other multi-protocol IM client to function with MySpace IM?

thanks Omnipotence407 02:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the protocol is currently supported by Gaim:

It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, and Zephyr networks.[9]

— Kieff 03:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Running Linux on A Blackberry Handheld

Are their any open source projects for running linux (any distro) on a blackberry? Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.181.165.150 (talk) 03:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

Free Ipod Converter (RM)

Hi is there a free converter that can convert real media format files to mp4 ipod format? Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.102.23.93 (talk) 06:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

pacific county

What are the major cities of Pacific County? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.35.124.41 (talk) 06:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

How is this a Computer question ? See Pacific_County#Census-recognized_communities (do a lot of hippies live in Tokeland ?). StuRat 19:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Reg RTT, Packet Size and Distance

Hi All,

Can you please help me out finding answers for,

1) Why a positive correlation might exist between Round Trip Time(RTT) and Packet size with reference to the different components that contribute to RTT (propagation, transmission and queuing delays).

2) Explain why a positive correlation might exist between RTT and distance with reference to the different components that contribute to RTT (propagation, transmission and queuing delays)

Any guidance site information will also do the needed. I couldn't find the exact and appropriate answers. So was asking for your help.

Hope you will help me in this regard. Thank you.

Anticipating a positive reply from you.

Thanks and Regards, Prabhu.

ShallV Prabhu 07:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Printing hidden pages in Excel

Hi. I'm using Excel 2003 and would like to make Excel print a page that is otherwise hidden (ie the user doesn't see the page unless they print the worksheet). Is this possible? --Dweller 09:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking for an old Half-Life mod

Hi everyone. Some years ago I used to play a Half-Life modification named "argh", "arg", "arrg" or something like this. It was a pirate mod, a pretty funny one. Search engines didn't come up with anything useful so I was hoping that someone here remembers the mod and could give a an adress to download it or at least the exact name. Thanks! 82.83.89.26 09:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

How can I put RM stream videos into my iPod?

Hi I tried to put this .rm video into my ipod but no converters work! Is it because of this streaming thing or something? Pplease direct me into the right way..thanks!

oops

what are the 56 types of oops concepts? "what are 56 types of oops concepts?"Swarupa 12:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC) "what are oops concepts?"Swarupa 12:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you are looking for object oriented programming system (I edited your posts to make them a little neater, by the way). NoClutter 16:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Wii #3

How much does the console cost by it self?

How much does Wii sports cost?

How much does the Tv cable cost?

How much does the power cord cost?

Nunchuck=$20

Wii remote=$40

Is there is any thing I missed?

______________

$250

+ tax

______________

$270

Sorry if you feel interrogated, but please, these Qs have been bugging my since the thing came out.

Østerbrogade 20:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean the cost of production? Wii sports would cost nintendo probably less than a cent to press. The cords are very cheap as well. The console and the wii remote would be the most expensive parts. I doubt the nunchuk costs nintendo $20 to make. --froth^{T C} 21:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

What I need is the price of everything. I really want to know what the package prices are seprately to equal $250

So like I said the mote would be $40. what would every thing else be?

Why is the United States so far behind in cellphones?

The USA invented the cell phone, so why is it that it lags so far behind in cell phone technology? It seems the models for sale are at least two generations behind what Europe and Japan offer. --24.249.108.133 17:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a combination of infrastructure requirements, market forces, and (I expect) government regulations. For example, the US is around 30 times the size of Japan but less than triple the population. That means a lot more infrastructure has to be replaced or upgraded to support new features, and that infrastructure must be funded on a much lower per-capita basis. Consequently, the mobile phone suppliers must pass along significantly higher costs to consumers if they're going to roll out upgrades at the same pace. There are, I expect, many other contributing factors. — Lomn 19:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a common phenomenon where the leader in a new technology lags behind the rest in a few years. One reason is that the originators still have functioning old models, and people accustomed to that level of technology, so are reluctant to throw them all out and get new phones using new technology. I have to admit, I'm in that category. I don't need games on my phone, have no desire to download ringtones, don't need a camera in my phone (as I've got a real digital camera), and have no desire the sends IMs over the phone, I get enough carpal tunnel syndrome from my computer already. For some strange reason, I seem to think phones are to be used to talk with people. StuRat 19:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

which do you think you would prefer for reading?

I am doing a survey and for that matter want to know your opinion. 1) Imagine that you use the PC only for reading news and ebooks. For that purpose, would you prefer a laptop or a tablet pc if you had given a choice between the two? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.126.210 (talk) 17:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

Just for reading, the tablet, but the laptop is a better general purpose tool, overall. StuRat 19:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

TV as Monitor

This may not be the right reference desk to ask it on but it seems most suitable.

I've just bought a 23" widescreen LCD TV screen and if I wanted to connect a computer to it by DVI it will only support a resolution of 1024x768. Now compare this to my 19" LCD monitor which supports a resolution of 1280x1024. Why does what is a larger screen not have as high, if not higher, a resolution? --Kiltman67 17:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

All displays don't have equally big pixels. See for example display resolution TERdON 18:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

We had a very similar question a few posts ago: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing#Web_Surfing_on_a_non_plasma.2Flcd_TV. Basically, it takes fewer pixels to see the things typically shown on TV than it does to be able to read lines of text, so TVs have a small number of large pixels, while computer monitors have a large number of small pixels. StuRat 18:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Sir

dear sir,

       i`m trying to find out information about my grandfather who served in the royal horse artillery during the second world war (ww2)his information is has follows.

mr james edward murphy 53,tudor street or road cardiff. his date of birth is 21/06/1909 if anyone knows anything or got information about him please let me know. thank you