Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 January 2

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

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)

I believe that there is a commercial keystroke logging program that goes by that name, and I believe that it refers to the russian organization. ST47Talk 21:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

For the keylogger, check out ReFog Software's product page. Ometecuhtli2001 10:27 , 8 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)

• Well, a workaround is to use the Task Manager (CONTROL-ALT-DELETE) to kill the app, but this could cause other probs if it has open files, etc. Maybe someone else has a more elegant solution. StuRat 20:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Try running it in compatability mode? --froth^{T C} 03:57, 4 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)

wikia:internet. --h2g2bob 01:11, 6 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)

I don't think he was confused. That's exactly what he was asking about. However, there's no way any company can support unlimited free outgoing calls to POTS, because they'll have to pay somewhere. Superm401 - Talk 05:10, 8 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)

Get a SIP client and use VoIP User. WP 10:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Woah! Skype gives you Americans free calls? They've never done that here in the UK... If you want free calls to Britain, you have to buy Skype Credit first. --saxsux 07:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It was a temporary gimmick. Superm401 - Talk 05:10, 8 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)

Thank you (very very much).

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)

OK, now that I know the context I can hazard an answer. Using analog methods, the quality of a recording declines with each copy. Thus, it would be ideal to keep a single original recording and make all copies from it. However, this would make production quite slow, and there can also be a degradation of the original with each copy made from it, so it's best to make a small number of master copies directly from the original, and make all the final copies from those masters. Similar concerns arise from copying analog documents, photographs, and movies. This is all becoming rapidly obsolete, however, as digital recording methods now allow for perfect copies to be produced, with no damage to the original. For the time being analog methods do typically have a higher resolution than their digital equivalents, though, so an analog original may still be used with a digital master. However, once technology improves and the resolution is sufficient, I would expect all documents, photos, music, and movies to be recorded directly as digital, eliminating the need for a master. StuRat 19:52, 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

Erg, it's really annoying. in Firefox, the table switches to three column display, where it only needs two. basically, i need some sort of code that will work, and make it Sexi. lol, i think i have it figured out, but help would be appreciated... Xiaden 14:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Check the w3c specs for visibility and display. Using visibility:hidden sets opacity to none. To hide completely, use display:none. Actually, display is much better anyway, as you can use display:block for visibility:hidden. Also, don't forget non-javascript support or noscript tags for people with javascript disabled. --h2g2bob 01:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

well, there is a small glitch with using display:none to collapse the cells. it turns out, that the height has to be specified, or you return a javascript error. just to let you all know. and yes, i put noscript tags in before i started. Xiaden 14:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)