Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 July 30

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July 30

Finding where an IP is...

Can you give me some sites so I can figure out where an IP address is from? 24.2.61.202 01:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Try googling it. However, some sites tell either the location of the receipient's house or the location of the ISP's server. Don't you live in Folsom, California? If I am correct, google IP address locator and click on the first site. --Mayfare 03:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure that there are many sites that will give you this information, my personal favourite is http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp. --Credema 06:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In general, you are looking for a WHOIS service, such as the site User:Credema mentioned. - Akamad 11:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Maxmind GeoIP. Google for it! (this keyboard is...poor...otherwise iàd type it out.)JoshHolloway 09:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Slideshow questions

Help!!I want to find a product which can do all these things for me! 1.add my own voice in slideshow? 2.trimming background music in slideshow? 3.add background music to slideshow? 4. add licensed music in slideshow? 5. add multiple music files to the slideshow? 6 create slideshow in a minute? 7 add text to slideshow? 8.add same text to all photos in the slideshow? 9 add the same transition to photos of a slideshow? 10.modify the transition time between photos in slideshow? 11 modify the show time of a photo in a slideshow? 12. revolve photos in slideshow? 13. resize photos in slideshow? 14. make slideshow on cell phone? 15 make slideshow for web? 16 burn slideshow on DVD which can play back on TV? 17 add multiple music files to the slideshow? 18 make slideshow for e-mail? 19 burn slide show on DVD/CD/SVCD/VCD.2.0 which can play back on TV 20.make slideshow for Apple™ iPod, Sony™ PSP, YouTube™, MySpace™

In the future, please keep your questions contained to one thread. Read WP:TALK page guidelines, and do not remove other people's comments. Anyway, the answer for any of this will depend on what program you're using, what type of computer you have, and any number of other things. Please see the manual or guide that came with your product for instructions on using it --L^ie! 06:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound flippant, but it really sounds like you may need to go and take some lessons on the use of slideshow software. --jjron 07:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

vista

is it really bad when u install visual styles like vista blinds on an xp computer.

Well, in the sense that it means you're using XP, yes. Really though, it will change your Window Manager's effects, but it shouldn't affect the system itself, in the same way that using Compiz doesn't change a *nix system. It depends on what you mean by really bad though. --L^ie! 07:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're not using kol's vista skin (which was the best vista lookalike, and was aggressively fought by microsoft- you won't find it easily anymore) then yes it'll look really bad. There are dozens of terrible skins out there trying to look like vista.. things to remember 1) Crapware like windowblinds will take up as much memory as dwm.exe on vista so you might as well take the performance hit and upgrade to vista. 2) If you want to use unsigned msstyles in xp you need to patch/crack utxtheme.dll.. search neowin --froth^t 15:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

help

i tried burning an audio cd but my nero is programmed to burn at 52x speed.i dont think my machine can handle that speed.anyways it refused to burn.how do i change to something like 32x or 16x.am using nero 7. then i tried burning using windows media player 9 series.it was on the process of burning and when it reached 97 percent i got a message which told me to check whether my cd drive is connected properly and that it had encountered a problem.the empty cd i had is damaged.its RAW.am not sure what is means but on its properties tab it says it contains 0 free bytes and 0 used bytes.what am i doing wrong?my machine is a pentium 4,3.2ghz os is xp service pack 2 ram is 512 mb.

ps immediately the error message that i check whether my cd drive is connected properly appeared my cd drive icon disappeared.after restarting the computer it appeared again.

Sign and type better please. Nero Burning ROM should let you pick what speed to write the files. Splintercellguy 09:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

JPEG to PDF

Hi! I have a JPEG image which I need to have as a single-page PDF file instead. How can I achieve this without losing the JPEG compression (so as not to make the file unnecessarily large)? Thanks. —Bromskloss 08:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

By definition, PDF="unnecessarily large", so there's no getting around that. The easiest method is to create a new PDF document, add your JPG to the page, and save it. A much more complicated way would be to convert the JPG to a SVG and then convert the SVG to a PDF. -- Kainaw^(what?) 14:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You don't say, but on Unix-y systems like Linux or MacOS a simple "convert image.jpg image.pdf" will do it with minimal overhead. --TotoBaggins 14:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

$ convert image.jpg image.pdf
$ ls -l image.jpg image.pdf
... 139K  image.jpg
... 140K  image.pdf

If you have Photoshop simply open your jpeg, go to File>Save As... and choose Photoshop PDF as your output format.

It'll give you a compression option and some other options when you go to save, and you could also downsize your image first before saving as a PDF to keep the filesize down. The file sizes aren't that bad and it's pretty simple to do. I'm guessing some other photoediting programs would possibly do this too. --jjron 15:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

And if you are on OS X, you can open it in Preview and Save As.. to a PDF as well. Only adds a few KB to the original size, presumably because PDFs can actually have JPEG images embedded in them if I recall correctly, so you're really just adding a tiny bit of PDF coding around that. --24.147.86.187 23:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

PS3 price drop

when will there be a price drop of the PS3's current price in the UK?

Sure. --L^ie! 13:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

really?! which retailers are selling it the cheapest? and what future developments will be happening for the european and PAL PS3's?

Well history (and logic) suggest that the PS3 will reduce in price as its time on the market lengthens. Many consoles that are sold are sold at a loss (even at £430) and so the firms are slow to reduce the price until the economies of scale/money from games makes it viable. Now Sony have reduced the price in the US and other countries so I would expect it to reduce in the uk in the medium-term. You could look at ebay for purchases, or some of the major sites like game.co.uk or gamestation. Good luck, the console looks like - long term - it will be worth the money. ny156uk 17:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind the US "price drop" is really a clearance sale. They are selling the 60GB PS3 for $499, but only until the current supply lasts. Then there will only be the 80GB model for $599 (it will also come bundled with Motorstorm). So it really isn't a true price drop because the 60GB model is discontinued (at least in the states). --24.249.108.133 21:55, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

voice-activated web browser

I'm looking for a voice-activated web browser that will allow the user to fill in web forms using voice only. For example, they will see a page that says Name, Address, City, State, Zip. They say "Name John Dow, Address 123 Street, City Kansas City, State Missouri, Zip 64154, Submit." The form is filled out and submitted. I am having trouble finding such a beast. All "voice-activated" browsers I can find only allow you to use voice to navigate links, not enter data. Does anything like this exist? Cheaply? Free? -- Kainaw^(what?) 15:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Dragon NaturallySpeaking claims it is compatible with Internet Explorer. My guess is that for something like you describe you're going to have a hard time, since you're really asking for a high-quality voice transcriber that happens to be hooked up to a web browser. I'm not going to inquire as to why you need it to be voice only (Maybe Stephen Hawking is having trouble ordering things from eBay?) but I don't think it is a terribly usual request, which is probably why you aren't finding much out there. I can't imagine this being a very common requirement. --24.147.86.187 23:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There's a extra download for Opera that includes voice, but I've never used it, so I can't tell you how well it is. Our article does mention being able to control Opera with voice only. Might want to look into it. Furthermore, Opera has a feature where you can store information to be filled out on forms, so you can maybe use that and fill out the blank stuff with voice. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 20:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Virus that makes computer/hardware explode

I read about a virus that can make computer hardware explode. Is it real or a hoax? If it's real, how does the virus make hardware explode? I think they could change the hardware settings and make the hardware become so hot that there's a fire. --Kaypoh 15:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Possible, maybe... but implausible. It could make stuff overheat -- perhaps -- but actual explosions are extremely unlikely. Most likely a hoax. Gscshoyru 15:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

not unless the hardware and drivers were extremely poorly designed, and definitely not as a virus that would be able to fool much of anyone. The only way I could think of to do this that would actually do something would be to find a way to disable the mainboard's Fan slots, and then hope you overheat it, but there's no way to make it explode, and even just turning off fans would destroys the insides and the computer would shut itself off --L^ie! 15:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It would be unlikely to make such a virus, except maybe when you write one that activates a bomb wired to your PC... Blake Gripling 06:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

See our article on killer poke. --cesarb 23:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Algorithm for solving f(x) = x

(Not sure if this goes in Computing or Mathematics) What is the name of the algorithm for solving f(x) = x by iterating x_{n+1} = f(x_n)? Is there a criterion for when it is guaranteed to converge? 212.203.98.213 17:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I could be reading this completely wrong, but it appears that you are asking about a computer algorithm that uses a function F with a parameter x. The function F solves the problem by calling F(x_1) where x_1 is some new value of x. This is called recursion. It is a very powerful form of computing that, unfortunately, too many programmers don't feel comfortable enough to use much. -- Kainaw^(what?) 18:16, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you are thinking of some variant of or some algorithm similar to Newton-Raphson? But that's for $f(x)=0$, not for $f(x)=x$. --cesarb 23:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The process is finding fixed points, so I guess you could say it's a fixed point algorithm. See fixed point (mathematics) for more; your algorithm is essentially the definition.

For your second question, iirc it is guaranteed to converge if the (absolute value of the) derivative of f(x) is less than 1 at all values between your guess and the solution, correct me if I'm wrong though. 75.58.182.206 00:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

See fixed-point theorem.

Way to speed up wikipedia load times?

Is there any way to speed up the load time on wikipedia pages in firefox? I notice a lot of times it will load the main body of the page, then spend another five seconds or so loading the side bar- are there grease monkey extensions or something of that sort that could skip over the stuff that doesn't change from page to page, or that allows it to load quicker at least somehow, to allow the page to load faster? --Longing.... 18:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It used to be that if you weren't logged in, Wikipedia loaded much faster. I don't know if that is still the case. -- Kainaw^(what?) 18:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't answer this question specifically, but I have found the best way to make web pages load instantaneously (in your perception, at least) is to use Firefox's "open link in new tab in background" option. While I'm reading, I just middle-click links I want to read, and then continue reading the current page. When I'm done, I kill the current tab, and the page has already loaded and rendered in the next tab. I only wait for pages to load when they're broken. --TotoBaggins 18:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't work so well when you're juggling five tabs and you REALLY NEED TO SEE THAT DIFF NOW SO YOU CAN MAKE SURE IT'S OK TO UNDO and then you have to wait fifteen seconds for a page to load, and it feels like you're on 56k again. /rant --Longing.... 19:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You can also tweak Firefox's settings to load pages faster (if you havn't already done so) [1] --Worm 23:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Free web hosts

Does anybody know any free web hosts that are reliable and free of ads? --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 21:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"Reliable", "free", "no ads": choose two. Sorry. --TotoBaggins 22:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There are some hosts that give free or discounted service to non-profits (within the USA probably only to 501(c)(3) corporations). One example is Dreamhost. I have worked with several Dreamhost accounts and have generally been happy with their service. I won't endorse their reliability given some problems they had over the past ~year however, FWIW, I have no plans to move my hosting elsewhere. (A glance at the main space page on them has some coverage on my concerns wrt endorsement and some good external links) HTH --Jeremyb 22:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If you are willing to spend even a little money (say , $10 a month), you can get pretty good hosting services. But you'd probably need a credit card, which is what I imagine your difficulty is, judging by your user page. --24.147.86.187 04:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

110MB.com is a nice host; I'm not spamming here in this reference desk, it's that I hosted my site there for free, with 2GB of space, no forced ads and provision for server-side apps like MediaWiki. The only things that you have to pay are the optional/premium features and make sure that you abide to their rules... Blake Gripling 06:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I can give you 100mb of space (ish) on my dedicated server if you would like. Direct Admin control panel. Message me on my talk page. JoshHolloway 08:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Freehostia (www.freehostia.com) offers cost-free, ad-free hosting with Perl and PHP support. Fairly extensive services. 165.234.180.57 15:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It's all about the gigbytes, baby!

I was just thinking:

1) How much storage would you need to store every piece of information ever produced by humans? I'm talking about every spoken word, every printed letter, every film, every painting, everything. Of course, only an approximate guess can be made but are we talking in orders of exabytes or zetabytes or what?

2) Approximately how much new information are we creating annually? Is this increasing and, if so, by how much?

3) Assuming current trends in storage capacity hold true, when will we have more storage in our PCs than all the information all humans have ever produced. When will we be able to carry it all on our key chain (i.e. thumb drive)?

- Pyro19 21:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Note on part 1: the uncertainty principle precludes us from making perfect copies of analog artifacts like sounds and paintings and such, so you'll have to specify how decent a copy you want for this question to have meaning. --TotoBaggins 22:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Does the store have to be indexed? It all goes a bit quantum.... I suspect it mainly depends on your definition of 'information' --Worm 22:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I have heard that is more data online than in the world's libraries already, but this is pretty difficult to prove (or disprove) so i'd take it with a pinch of salt. I would expect you are talking into the ridiculous numbers for data-storage aof all digitalizable information. Wikipedia which of itself will represent a stunningly tiny portion of the web is (according to this link - http://www.webaroo.com/webpack/wikipedia/wikipedia) about 5gb when zipped up/compressed, but that size will be increasing daily. Plus that's only the English version (and probably from some time ago). See Yottabyte for an idea of storage already in existence and IBM predictions. Obviously the world's worth of information would be even bigger. I wouldn't be so foolish as to suggest a pen-drive would never hold such an amount (after all how many people would envisage a chip smaller than a postage-stamp can hold gigabytes of information when something this size (see Early IBM disk storage for a mind-boggling understanding of the speed of development in hard-drive capacity. ny156uk 23:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Man, that IBM article is mind blowing. - Pyro19 00:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not talking about exact replicas or quantum states. If we consider a narrower question, you might get a better idea of what I'm thinking: How much information did I produce yesterday? I spoke to some people and I wrote some things, that's about all. I didn't create any videos, build anything, take any photos, etc. So at most I produced very little, maybe some KB of information.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about but on a much larger scale, that is, for every human and from all time. - Pyro19 00:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There are a LOT of articles and theories about these kinds of questions, doubling every year is something I have heard thrown around more then once http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_10/coffman/. Vespine 02:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You still haven't defined how you would quantify that information. Are you considering your speech to be valuable for its language content or its audio content? Those are two different types of information (one might be stored as a text string, the other as an MP3 file, for example; the difference in bytes would be between less than a KB to hundreds of MB, depending on compression). It's the difference between the written data "C-flat" and a second-long recording of that note on a piano. That's essentially what the quantum states question is about — it takes the quantification question to the extreme (by asking what the ultimate level of quantification of the world can be; the uncertainty principle sets the lowest theoretical limits for quantification), but it's still an important question you would have to answer before you got an answer as to "how much" information you are talking about. --24.147.86.187 22:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Since no-one else seems to want to tackle the question directly, I'll give it a shot. So, trying to figure out how much you produced yesterday...you would have to store your speech as an actual audio file to preserve the tone etc, if you spoke for an hour and managed to compress it down to 1MB a minute, that's 60MB. Incidentally, what you wrote and stuff is probably neligible, seeing that even if you wrote 5000 words that's only 5KB *uncompressed* - consider it as something like 0.008% of the space required for the speech. So taking into account other tibits of information the space required for a rather unproductive day would be 100MB. Extrapolating this, you'd need at least 10^6 x 6x10^9 (the number of humans) = 6x10^15 bytes or say, 10 petabytes (I think) to store the average human production for one day. Over a year that's 3.6 exabytes, over a century that's 360 exabytes, over a millenium that's 3.6 zettabytes. Hopefully that all balances out on account of the human population being way smaller that it is now. As to when we'll be able to store it, well...firstly, I reckon we'll never be able to, because, if you think about it, as we find those technologies that allow us to store more information, we're producing more information, and I doubt we'll ever catch up with ourselves - ie, we'll always produce more than we can store. But, only considering the idea of a few zettabytes, right now we can store gigabytes on very small drive, if we doubled the size every year it would only take like 40 years [10^9x2^n = 10^21, if we 1 n a half-ed it, it'd take 70; but I have no idea if that's possible, it's seems rather far-out & I'm just guessing...

So anyway, it's at the very least a few zettabytes...something like 10^21 bytes. So yes your original guess was pretty much there, although, if you were to count EVERY little bit of information I see no reason why it might not run over into yottabytes (humans produce notoriously large amounts of crap, literally and figuratively...). Trimethylxanthine 22:18, 2 August 2007 (UTC)