Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

March 24

System Restore

How do I move my computer back to when I got it, using system restore, then, erase all other system restore dates? -68.193.147.179 00:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

It all depends on what type of set-up you have. Most manufactures provide a "restore to factory settings" option which brings your computer back to the way it was when you got it. I think the System Restore you are referring to is the one built into XP. This does to provide a complete restore of a computer - It is more of a internal windows restore. Let me explain - Using system restore will restore all previous windows settings (such as the screen resolution)and user settings (such as your wallpaper). It does not even touch your personal data. It also either restores or removes all .exe files - I think this is an attempt to remove possible viruses that may have caused your computer to have to be restored in the first place.

If you really want to restore it to the condition when you got it (which means losing everything you've done since), you could also format the hard drive and reinstall the O/S (from CD) and then any other apps that came with it (from CD). This is rather drastic, but might be in order if it's really messed up badly. If you bought it recently, the seller might even be willing to do this for you. StuRat 15:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

not-for-mail

What is the function of not-for-mail in the localpart of an e-mail address or at the end of a Return-Path field in an e-mail header? Is it possible to have an actual e-mail address with a localpart of not-for-mail and receive messages at it? NeonMerlin 00:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's the same thing, but I sometimes get e-mail from companies that say "don't reply to this address". It seems odd to me that they would want to use different addresses for sending and receiving e-mails, but, for whatever reason, they do. StuRat 15:41, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Rapidshare & Download managers

Any idea how rapidshare disables the use of download managers??59.92.251.144

I am wondering this too! --Paracit 15:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Probably some form of user-agent sniffing. --TotoBaggins 16:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

it could be user-agent sniffing, but many download managers allow you to modify your user-agent, and would easily be able to work around this problem. they could also be checking the HTTP referer value to ensure that you actually came from their site. they also might be setting cookies, or using one or more of plenty of other methods. a quick search brought me to a site called http://www.rapget.com/ which seems to offer a product that will download from rapidshare and similar sites, but i've never used it and can't vouch for its safety. --64.0.112.13 09:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

What about IDM aka Internet Download Manager; Even if we wait for the 45 seconds and gives us the mirror from where to download the file, if we enable IDM to grab links from the browser it says "File not Found". Whereas, when you disable IDM and download directly from the browser without refreshing the page (same link) it lets you download? Also Rapget does not work anymore with rapidshare. It seems to be outdated. --Paracit 03:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

i don't use rapidshare much at all, and don't know how IDM specifically works, but as long as the program that is doing the downloading isn't the same one that first visited the page, the site has plenty ways of knowing and not letting you download. it could store your browser's user agent or even your entire HTTP request header, set a cookie in your browser, or whatever. when IDM tries to download the file, but has a different user-agent or a vastly different http request header, or fails to have the cookie that was set in your browser, or whatever, the site lies to it and says that the file doesn't exist at that location. furthermore, as rapidshare makes it clear that download managers are only allowed for premium users, their server may be configured in a way that would make your efforts useless anyway. i'd bet that they disable the ability to resume/accelerate/schedule/etc for those who aren't paying members. --64.0.112.62 08:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Connecting to a server on your own computer?

How do you connect to a server on your own computer, ie what IP address would you use to connect w/ it?

That depends on whether or not you are using a router or whether you are connected directly to the internet. You can find your IP address with a site like whatismyipaddress.com. If you don't have a router, that's the IP address you need. If you do have a router, that's still the IP address you need, but you also need to set up your router to forward the desired port or ports to your computer (such as port 80 for HTTP). --Allen 03:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you misread the question. The questioner is trying to connect to a server on the same machine as the client. In that case, use localhost or 127.0.0.1. Splintercellguy 04:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes more sense; thanks. Having recently learned how to access a server on my own computer remotely, I was in man-with-a-hammer mode. --Allen 04:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

ADSL setup

hello, just need some help with my new ADSL connection. I have 3 PC's and wish for all off them to be connected to the internet. What is the best way to do this? I was thinking of getting a LAN Adsl Modem and connecting it to a network switch. Then setup up all the computers to network through the switch. Would this automatically connect them to the internet? Also what would you recommend to be built into the modem? - a firewall or router. Oh and since im at it - would anyone know of any good data encryption software? THANKS FOR ANY HELP

The best thing to do is to get a router. With minimal tweaking all computers hooked up to the router will get Internet. I'm not sure about your second question; what do you mean by "built"? As for data encryption, TrueCrypt is good. Splintercellguy 04:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Just get a router and a modem. You don't need anything else. Routers act like a firewall for the most part. If you want it really secure, you'd get a *nix machine with two network cards as a firewall, a router after that, then the router is connected to the other 3 computers. But a router is plenty to most people. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 05:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

If you only have 3 machines, just get a 4 port broadband router with an ADSL modem built in. In the UK at least, there's no shortage of places to buy them. I've had mine for about 4 years, and as I've added more machines to the network I've since added an 8 port switch as well as a wireless access point. The 4 port ADSL modem/router only cost me £60 and you get can them now for under £40 I think. Johnnykimble 10:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to add that some service providers have an option to give you a modem with 4 ports for other computers - just in case that's the solution you're looking for. That way your modem and router are built into eachother. Rfwoolf 11:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Java Question

Does anyone know the Java command for generating sound with frequency and amplitude parameters? --Russoc4 05:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This page covers creating sounds in some detail. It appears you have to do it yourself, as there's no simple createSound(withFreq, withAmplitude) call. --TotoBaggins 16:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This just might be what I'm looking for. Thanks! --Russoc4 21:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I've also found this class: http://www.jsresources.org/examples/OscillatorPlayer.html

What's the point of invisible spam?

I contribute somewhat frequently to Achewiki, which concerns the webcomic Achewood, and it is contantly deluged with spam that only shows up in editing. Reading the communication of other people about other wikis shows the same problem. So I'm curious if anyone knowledgable in the ways of spam can tell me why this is done? I can see how regular spam might hook the occasional "newbie" (hmm, loans? Why not?) but what sort of effect is spam that can't even be seen except in the form of "look at me, I'm spam!" supposed to have? Or is this phenomenon just spambots gone haywire, incorrectly following instructions to post things visibly? $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 05:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Invisible spam text will be noticed by web spiders, but not to a casual observer. Splintercellguy 06:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

See mw:Manual:$wgSpamRegex#CSS Hidden Spam on the MediaWiki site. --h2g2bob 21:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess that explains it. Thanks, responders. $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 10:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Unreal Tournament 2004 Mutator

I used to have this great mutator that let you tweak the exact amounts of damage, ROF, and ammo of each weapon, and even let you customize the action for primary and secondary fire. Does anyone know the name of this mutator? --froth^t 06:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

found it, it's WeaponStuff. --froth^t 06:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

ADSL Question

(previous Question: ADSL Setup)

Okay, so if I get a adsl modem then connect it to a router, will I be able to network my computers together through it (the router) in the same way I would be able to with a network switch? SO if the connection to the router is the only connection i have will i be able to access files from computer A on computer B (or even C?). Can the router function without a internet connection? If not then what type of set-up would you recommend to achieve this?

And just from curiosity; with the *nix machine - what software would you recommend to run on it (OS and software)?

Here is my attempt at an answer: Does your router have a 'WAN' port - this is a port that you'll see usually separated from all the other numbered ports, and it may be labelled 'WAN' or 'internet'. Ultimately you need to connect your MODEM (or internet connection) to the WAN port of your router, then connect all your other PCs into the various router ports. Then you need to log in to the router (usually a default IP address - I don't rememember it but you'll find it from your manufacturer or someone else here might know it) by going into your web browser and typing in that IP address, the username is usually 'admin' and the password is [blank]. Once you've logged in to the router, you need to configure its settings so that the router is what connects to the internet through your service provider (usually by providing your internet username and password, and the ip address of a server to connect to -- which you can get from your internet service provider). I should add at this point that you must generally deactivate any of your service provider's connection software on your computers - they will be trying to log in to your service provider and connect, which will disrupt your ROUTER from being able to connect. If you've managed to do all this so far but you still can't connect to the net, you must sometimes be patient - try shutting down and switching off your router, waiting a couple of minutes, and trying again. It sometimes helps a great deal to check the webpage of your router company. Good luck Rfwoolf 11:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh to answer some of your other questions: YES a router can function without an internet connection, for example it can still link two of your computers together. To do that it really depends on what operating systems you're running on each PC. You may still have to log in to your router to configure stuff. My number one piece of advice in trying to get two computers to network together is... SHUT DOWN ALL FIRE WALLS - everything from your Windows firewall through to your antivirus's firewall -- get your computer's to connect to eachother first and THEN worry about your firewalls -- and obviously when you do that (shut down your firewalls) it helps to sever your connection to the internet - you don't want any worms or viruses coming in. Rfwoolf 11:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Passively Cooled Single-slot AGP Graphics Cards

For the past couple of months I've shunned my AGP GeForce 6600 GT for an ancient GeForce 2 MX 400. The GF2 is pretty much inadequate for anything 3D these days, but it hasn't bothered me that much because the GF2 is totally silent, having only a heatsink and no fan.

The problem now is that I want something more permanent, so that I can run 3D applications and play games, without having to switch cards. I need a card that is passively cooled, AGP, and at least on a par with the 6600GT.

There is however an added problem, and that is that I have a Shuttle SN85G, so another requirement is that the card should not take up more than one slot in size.

Does anyone know a card that satisfies these requirements?

Thanks, Johnnykimble 12:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

There are, or at least there were some passively cooled 6600 GT's using various stuff like heat pipes and giant heatsinks, not sure if you can find one now with AGP though... --antilived^{T | C | G} 21:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Excel help?

If there's any Excel experts out there, I'd be grateful for some advice. I've got a spreadsheet with two worksheets, one for monthly expenses and one for yearly expenses. Both have five columns: "Expense type", "Provider", "Estimated cost" [this is per mth in the first, per yr in the second], "Yearly cost", "Monthly cost". The latter two columns are calculated from the third.

What I am trying to achieve is to create a third worksheet as an aggregate of these two: displaying "Expense type", "Provider", "Yearly cost" and "Monthly cost". I'd like it such that it will automatically update if I change costs, or add new expenses (i.e. new rows), and such that I can manage it as a list (eg to sort expenses alphabetically, or by the highest cost). [I've defined lists for these first two worksheets to achieve this].

I'm not sure this is possible, just by manually creating a sheet with formulae (I can't see how I could do it other than manually adding a reference for each cell, which isn't exactly efficient, and would prevent automatic inclusion of future rows). I'm thinking Pivot tables may be the answer, but they seem best for summarizing things (I don't need to summarize anything, I just want the data combined as is). I know this must be possible, and I'm not looking for anyone to do it for me... just some pointers as to how I should go about it (and then hopefully Google can help me out). Grateful for any advice... _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 12:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, a slow and inflexible way to do it would be with VBScript, where a script would run through and populate Worksheet3 every time you told it to. But it would be slow.

A flexible way would be to do it with just references; you'd have to make sure it updated to the last row each time (or you could a script to do that for you), but otherwise it is pretty easy. But I don't think you'd be able to sort it. --24.147.86.187 12:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay here's a thought, are you capable of doing it in Access? Even if you were, I suppose there would still be some major obsticles in doing what you want to do. Anyways, if that's not possible and you still want to do it in Excel, then I'm afraid the only thing I can tell you is, that, you do know that you can 'sort' data in Excel by clicking on Data -> Sort. This overcomes the problem that you can only otherwise sort a single column in Excel at a time, which would go into ascending order, and completely ignore the other columns - and this may help you if you want to do dynamic referencing. The problem is that you want to RELATE data together, which is what you're supposed to use a database program for (e.g. Access). The only way you're going to get a third worksheet to take a row in worksheet #1, find that same entry in worksheet #2 that may be in an entirely different row, and then process all this information - is if you make ONE worksheet persistent (not dynamic, where the data is hardcoded) and the other worksheets DYNAMIC (where the values are referred from values in worksheet 1).

Not only would those worksheet 2 & 3 values have to be dynamic, but when they refer to worksheet 1 values they'd have to be capable of finding them in a given sorted list - which may in fact be possible. Why not look up Excel references in the help file, such as dynamic and persistent references.
Sorry I can't be much more of a help than that. Rfwoolf 16:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Create a pivot-table for the monthly data and yearly data on a third sheet. Reorganise the data how you require it and have sums pointing to the summarised data. You should be able to change the first 2 sheets and have the pivote 'refresh' to include any changes. This is a bit of a fiddle and not ideal but it will work. It might help you if you have an extra column called "cost period", this way you could simply have all the data (monthly and yearly) held in a single sheet (table) and run the pivot from the that. The pivot gives you huge flexibility to quickly change the way you summarise your data. ny156uk 16:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much guys, for all your advice. I'll look further into it! Cheers, _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 11:40, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Better/easier FTP program than WS_FTP on Windows?

So I've been using WS_FTP95 for, dang, almost ten years now. However, I'm looking to upgrade. Do you have any recommendations for an easier FTP program for Windows that is freeware? I use it for basic FTP needs. Thanks, Guroadrunner 13:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Filezilla is what I use. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 14:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

i also use Filezilla, but i'd like to point out a favorite software site of mine: http://www.filehippo.com -- they maintain a relatively small list of, in my opinion, the very best software, much of it freeware. (under "file transfer" category on the front page they have two other clients, Core FTP LE and SmartFTP.) alternately, you could check out wikipedia's [Comparison_of_FTP_clients]. the reason i had to mention filehippo is because i feel the software they list on their site represents the best and safest stuff available, and it's where i always go first. --64.0.112.168 23:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Please help (printing digicam pics)

I have HP Image zone and my pictures are crappy when I print them. I was looking for some advice before I purchase another program for editing and printing of my digital pictures. What do you think is the best program and what gives the clearest digital photo when printing them?24.47.13.118 14:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I believe that would depend more on the printer than on the program. Various programs can perform image correction and convert images to higher color depths, but I don't think any one can print the same image better than any other. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 16:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

One thing that helps, but which software rarely enforces, is to always print at integer scales. For example, if you have an image that's 1024x1280 pixels, you can print it at 1X as 1024x1280 dots, at 2X as 2048x2560 dots, etc., but don't print it as, say 2000x2500 dots, as that will result in some pixels being printed with 1 dot and others being printed with 4 dots (2x2). This can significantly degrade the final image. Also, a program that provides for interpolation between pixels will look much better than one which doesn't. Finally, be careful not to reduce the number of colors during edits and saves, say from 24-bit color to 256 colors. If color pics look horrid no matter what, try grayscale instead. They often look much better. StuRat 19:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you describe the resolution and color mapping of the pics your digicam provides ? Many digicams provide perfectly adequate quality for e-mails, but are completely inadequate for large prints. StuRat 19:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

FORGOT WINDOWS XP USER ACCOUNT PASSWORD

I have forgotten my windows xp user account password.How can I login without the user account password?59.163.25.48 16:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

This may be obvious and this may not apply to you - If you can log in to another admin's account on the PC, you can go into Control Panel and into User Accounts and recreate your password Rfwoolf 16:18, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a "backdoor" in XP which can be used if there's not an Administrator password set. Say you want to get into "Josh"'s account because "Josh" is the only admin on the PC, you would start up the PC and when it's on the "Windows XP" loading screen (beginning), turn the PC off by the main power. Then turn it on again and let the PC load. It should go onto Safe Mode. If it doesn't, try again until it does. When on the screen for safe mode, select "Start up Windows XP in Safe Mode". Now, continue and when given an option of who to login with, click Administrator. You can now go into Control Panel and into User Accounts and change your password.

This isn't a very conventional way to do things but it has worked for me in the past many a time :). JoshHolloway 18:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

And that is quite scary. I want to get Linux now.  :( x42bn6 Talk 18:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Just set yourself an administrator password! Start in safe mode as above and instead of changing another admin's account, change the main Administrator password. Sorted and secure...to an extent. JoshHolloway 20:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't need to turn your computer off while it's booting to get into safe mode. Just hit F8 just as Windows is starting up and it will give you a boot menu, with safe mode being one of the options. Philbert^2.71828 23:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

If you do have an admin pass set, the standard way to break the security is to delete the C:\Windows\System32\Config\sam file. You can't be in Windows to do this, so instead, insert you Windows XP cd and restart. When the CD starts loading key an eye out for an option to load the Recovery Console. Once you're in that you should be at a DOS prompt. Type the following:

 cp c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\sam.bak
 delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam

Now take the cd out and start windows. That should have removed the password, and possibly destroyed your accounts. So once you've logged in, you'll have to create your accounts again. It's been a while since I've done this, and I had no problems with it, however, before trying it, I'd wait for someone else to comment on this response who knows more about the procedure than I do. If you do get around to doing it, and find you'd rather be back where you started (with the unknown password), then go back to the Recovery Console and type:

 cp C:\sam.bak C:\windows\system32\config\sam

And overwrite when it asks you to. Be very careful with this suggestion! Johnnykimble 19:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor --Spoon! 08:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

SMTP by hand

I'm trying to send an email by hand, just to try it out, and I had a little problem. Here is the transcript of our "converation" (I type italic, server is bold):
ryan:~ user$ nc -vv smtp.google.com smtp (I open connection)
smtp1.google.com [216.239.57.25] 25 (smtp) open
220 smtp.google.com ESMTP
HELO mydomain
250 smtp.google.com Hello mydomain [(mypiaddress)], pleased to meet you
MAIL FROM: john@doe.com
250 2.1.0 john@doe.com... Sender ok
RCPT TO: (myemail)
550 5.7.1 (myemail)... Relaying denied
^C sent 72, rcvd 221

Why is it denying me? Me email address is a gmail. thanks!--Ryan 17:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know ... but this is an absolute longshot - perhaps it should be [username]@googlemail.com - if somehow that's what google does with gmail. Rfwoolf 17:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Two possibilities:

1. It doesn't like the sender domain "doe.com", but doesn't complain about it until the "rcpt to:" step, and even though it said it was okay during the "mail from:" transaction.
2. I always use angle brackets when doing raw SMTP, and my memory is that they're required:

   MAIL FROM: <john@doe.com>

   RCPT TO: <barney@bed.rock>

—Steve Summit (talk) 17:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I put the angled brackets, but for the same result. IT didn't work! My Mail.app works perfectly with gmail still, O well.

It's correctly denying you because the server you are trying to use is not a gmail incoming server; instead, it's one of the servers for Google's email accounts (those ending on @google.com). Your Mail.app is most probably checking the MX record for gmail.com (as every MTA should), which points to the correct servers. --cesarb 17:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Eh, surely you need to login with your google username and password?? After a quick google search it looks like you should be using SSL, and port 465 for your connection. When you connect to the server on the standard SMTP port and do an EHLO instead of the standard HELO, you'll get the list of extensions. Notice AUTH is not one of them. I'd guess that connections on the standard port only work for local connections without authentication. So, try getting an SSL connection to the server on port 465 and going though the AUTH/TLS process. If you're unsure about what to do, the best source of info are the relevant RFC's, SMTP-AUTH and TLS. Sorry I can't be more help, but I haven't tried any of this... Johnnykimble 18:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

That's not his problem, he's trying to send email to his account, not from this account (which would usually need SMTP AUTH or pop-before-smtp). --cesarb 19:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

http://www.gammadyne.com/relaying_denied.htm --64.0.112.5 13:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The easiest way to answer these sorts of questions is to run a network tracing tool like Wireshark (formerly "Ethereal"), send some mail from your local mail client, and just watch the traffic. You might find open relay relevant to your specific problem. --TotoBaggins 23:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Australian hardware.

Can anyone suggest a few Australian hardware shops? I'm looking for a cheap HDD.

You can try your luck with ebay.com.au - a lot of the asian trade gets flighted there, where you can buy some really good deals (or bid for that matter) and the postage can be as little as say $8. As for stores you can try all the normal nonsense like dicksmiths.com.au - but you won't be getting any special deals there. Rfwoolf 17:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Harris Technology is one.

I usually use [1], for no better reason than I've used them before so I know they're okay. FiggyBee 04:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Re-opening nc port

How can I tell nc (on mac os x tiger) to reopen a server it has started. My syntax us as follows:
nc -v -l -p 9999
but when I disconnect from the computer connected to it, nc closes! How do i tell it to reopen automatically? Thanks again to the wiki community.--Ryan 18:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Is the problem that when you connect (from elsewhere) to port 9999 and then disconnect, nc closes, or that when you log out of the computer/account/window where you started up your nc listener, nc closes? If the latter, try nohup. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Try while true; do nc -v -l -p 9999; done. --cesarb 22:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried, but all I got was a terminal windows that says ">". No computer can connect, not even my own. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgrasell (talk • contribs) 02:31, 25 March 2007

That means the shell is expecting more input. Either you are not using a Bourne shell and thus its syntax is different (does anyone know which is the default shell on MacOS X?), or you typed it wrong (which I do not think is what happened here). --cesarb 04:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Mac OS X uses bash. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgrasell (talk • contribs) 06:58, 25 March 2007

cesarb's recipe is correct. I just tried it on my Mac (10.4.6), and it worked fine.

Did you type it just like this:

while true; do nc -v -l -p 9999; done

—Steve Summit (talk) 12:18, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The only problem with cesarb's recipe (as I discovered after posting my previous message, when I went to clean up after my test) is that it's nearly impossible to quit from it! Here's a safer (and simpler) variant:

while nc -v -l -p 9999; do :; done

—Steve Summit (talk) 12:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Earlier versions of OS X used tcsh as the default shell. If the user didn't purchase a fairly recent Mac, they may be grandfathered into CSH syntax unless they change their default shell. -- mattb @ 2007-03-25T22:53Z

Splitting an Image file.

Hello, I know my title makes no sense, so I'm going to explain. I have a large MP3 file which is the mix of some songs. I have an image file along with it that includes the cues for when the songs begin and end. Is there any way that using the information on the image file I can split the mp3 into several mp3 for each song. Thank you --(Aytakin) | Talk 20:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Foobar2000 can do that, but I've only done it with APE/FLAC/WAV files, so not sure if it will work with mp3's. --antilived^{T | C | G} 20:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have Audacity (download here) and LAME, (download here) you can import, edit, and export mp3s. I have used both of these. They are free, safe (no viruses in 4 years!) and work very well....J.delanoy 15:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Internet settings on slave HDD?

Hello, on my computer I have 2 HDDs. One day I took out my slave drive and when I put it back in later I was not able to connect to the internet. I should mention that while my drive was out of my case, I didn't turn on my pc. Now after I put it back in, every time my pc tried to connect to the internet, the it wasn't able to. I tried everything, disabling my connection, reinstalling my network card, etc. Lastly I took out my slave drive and turned on my pc and I was connected to the internet. Then again I put the slave drive back in and now I was connected again. When I took out my slave drive at the beginning it was b/c i was using it in an external HDD case for a laptop. Now I'm guessing, when it was connected to the laptop some of its internet settings were changed and when it connected to my pc, it was still on its laptop settings. This makes no sense to me. Because as far as I know, my internet settings should not be on my slave drive where I have no windows files or installed any programs. But I may be wrong. Can anyone explain to me what happened? Thanks --(Aytakin) | Talk 20:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I obviously don't know your machine, but what's on those hard drives? Could it be that there are two OSes installed on both? Splintercellguy 21:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

On the second there is nothing except my music and videos. Nothing installed, no OS, nothing else. --(Aytakin) | Talk 21:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a hardware problem. I've already seen that happen before; usually it's the network card which is a bit loose (it's easy to bump into it without noticing), and removing and replacing the card is enough to fix it. --cesarb 21:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

mp3 Encoding What's better 160kb/s Simple Stereo or 192kb/s Joint Stereo?

Regarding MP3 encoding:

What's better 160kb/s Simple Stereo or 192kb/s Joint Stereo? Which is the better choice between the TWO ONLY in regards to sounds quality?

I had to skim through much of Joint Stereo: The Myths to get the answer. For almost all cases, even 160 kb/s joint stereo will produce better sound quality than 160 kb/s simple stereo, because what joint stereo really does is combine common aspects between the two stereo channels, which gives more bits to the parts that do differ, which means each channel ends up with more bitrates than, say, half the bitrate. For example, say you have 160kbps in simple stereo and each channel takes 80kbps. Joint stereo finds the parts that are the same, and let's just say that it only shares about 10kbps of bits that are the same. That means you have 150kbps for each channel, which gives each channel 75kbps independently. So each channel end up with 75kbps + 10kbps shared, or 85kbps, which is a 5kbps increase from simple stereo. Thus, the quality (except in an extreme case the article talks about) is better with join stereo. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 23:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

March 25

Computer

Can I type something on my computer and print it onto a notebook? 68.193.147.179 01:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite understand, do you want to print it onto a piece of notebook paper and then put that in your notebook ? Or are you asking about moving data to a notebook computer ? StuRat 05:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I want to print something directly onto my planner. 68.193.147.179 23:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean like a Franklin Planner ? Standard printers can only handle paper within a certain range of thicknesses, so you would need to be able to remove a sheet of paper in that range from the planner, print on it, then put it back inside the planner. If you want the printing on the outside of the planner, some folders have clear pockets in the front, back, and/or spine for holding printed pages and labels. If your planner doesn't have this, you would need to jury-rig one. You could take a transparency, put the printed page under that, and tape down all 4 edges, for example. You might have to cut both down to size. There are special printers for printing on surfaces like vinyl, but those would cost thousands of dollars. Possibly a print shop, like Kinkos, might have such equipment. StuRat 01:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

There are such things as flat-bed printers. Think of these as your normal printers at home, but giant, with a head that passes up and down and up and down again - but in the case of a flat-bed printer, the heads (as usual) go left to right left to right, but the heads move across a plane flat surface (usually a few metres long). You would put your notebook on the surface and the printer would set its 'origin' at the corner of the place where you want it to print, and then they would load the image and send it to print.
Alternatively you can get it lasered on! You should call up an engraving or lasering company and ask them. It depends though, on what material or surface you want to laser onto, and the thing is you can't really do colour. But it can still be pretty neet though. And it's slightly risky - if there's any kind of mistake the only way to fix it is to cover it up with more laser. I suppose the same thing goes for printing.
Finally you should look at printing onto a sheet of vinyl, and then sticking the vinyl onto your notebook. My advice actually is to go to a sign company and ask them if you can buy a small off-cut of a nice metalic-type vinyl, maybe one that looks like brushed steel. Then cut it into an A4 or letter-sized sheet, and load it into your printer at home - most laser printers should be able to print onto it (and even try inkjet printers) and then stick that onto your notebook.
Good luck and let us know how it goes. Rfwoolf 19:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Form

Is there a way I can view a picture of a form, then type the answers right above the line? 68.193.147.179 01:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

A bitmap picture of a form can't generally be edited. I suppose you might be able to do this by importing a bitmap into a word processor and then adding text boxes on top of the form, but this would be rather sloppy, so I'd suggest getting an online form directly, if you can, or recreating an online version (type the form in) if you can't. StuRat 06:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You'd need an image editor to do that - even MSPaint might let you get away with it - but you might look into something like Corel Draw -- even Photoshop could do it. Adobe Acrobat WRITER (the software that CREATES the acrobat files might also alow you to do that as an extra option). Short answer: Get image-editing software. And sure, you can try do that in Word (which doesn't EDIT the image, but merely allows you to create text boxes on top of it) will do the job, but it's not very ideal Rfwoolf 14:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Best way is the most low-tech solution I can think of: typewriter. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 11:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

System Restore 2

How do I remove all my old "system restore" dates in Windows XP Home? 68.193.147.179 01:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm assuming you want to do this to save disk space. There are two options that I know of (I have XP Pro but should work in Home as well). Go to System Restore, then choose settings and lower the percentage. The other is to go to right click on C drive --> Properties --> Disk Cleanup --> More Options and choose the clean up option for system restore, but be aware this deletes all but the last restore poin. - Akamad 01:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Browser Volume

Does anybody know of free software that will let you control the sound of an individual app?

I'm not much of an expert, but I think you'd have to mess with the registry or some other part of windows. I'm not sure, but I think that when a program wants to make a sound, it sends a message to windows which sends it to the sound card which sends it to your speakers, so you'd have to selectively interrupt the signal, and only windows would know which program it was coming from. --Chaffers 18:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This isn't that easy to do with the audio interface from XP and earlier. Vista, however, has a completely redesigned audio stack that lets you do this right off the bat. --Alph Tech STUART 18:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

TV shows on the Internet

I've noticed that a lot of sites like Youtube, have episodes of TV shows. How exactly do people get the shows from the TV onto a computer so they can be uploaded? 71.218.42.144 02:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)X

Most likely TV tuner or capture card. Splintercellguy 02:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Usually it's people cutting clips from their pirated, downloaded TV episodes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.10.86.63 (talk) 22:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

Another way to add video clips is by recording the show off of your TV using a VCR. Then, transfer the video to a digital video device like a camcorder. Then upload the dv to your computer using firewire. Jtg920 (talk) 15:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Random Number Generator

Would it be possible to construct a random number generator in the following way: Create a 2 bit digital counter that counts sequentially from 00->11 and repeats, with a high clocking speed (10kHz would do it I assume), then at some random user-selected point in time (such as, at the push of an impulse button), the two bits are extracted, and a number from 0-3 is created using those bits? Would this number be somewhat random? Would the circuit favor some numbers over others?

Yes, but it's still not a true random time generator, as it depends on time. I've actually done a hardware random number generator that counts from 0 to 255 in this fashion using a PWM, which generates the seed number through this method and then uses that seed to generate a random number through software. And yes, the number is somewhat random, and I think is more random than purely using a seed. And no, the circuit doesn't favor some numbers over others that I know of. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

And I've used a similar method where I read the millionths of a second off the time string. I didn't rely on user selection, but instead relied on the processes running on the computer to supply random time intervals (at least in the millionths of a second range) between when the program needed random numbers. StuRat 05:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a fine way to generate random numbers if the count frequency and the sampling frequency are absotively, posilutely, 100% not correlated. The catch is that in the real world, seemingly independent processes have an uncanny knack for becoming synchronized. The literature is full of failures of random number generators (that is, failures to be properly random) because there was some ridiculously subtle, never-suspected backchannel synchronization pathway which caused the sampler always to sample the counter at the same spot, or in the same pattern.

So if the counter were two hardware (not software or firmware) flip-flops, it was counting quite fast (why not megahertz?), and the switch pressed by the human strobed a hardware holding register (say, two more flip-flops). then yes, this would be about as random as any other source.

Atlant 18:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Me, I would never build a random number generator this way. If I was building a hardware random number generator, I'd use a noise source, not a counter.

If you have a random number generator you think is good (and no matter how sure you are that it "can't possibly" have any order to it), if you really want to be sure it's good you have to test it. One set of tests I know of for random number goodness is by the good professor Marsaglia. (Last time I tried, I don't think I could find any PRNG's that passed even half his tests.) —Steve Summit (talk) 14:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Scanning - I didn't anyone explain why a counter is not random. Assume you have 4 counts (00, 01, 10, 11) that repeat. They have a frequency of 10MHz. Assume the internal data bus has the same frequency (of course, I'm just making this up - but this is an example). Assume there are 4 devices on the bus. One is the mouse. When the user clicks the mouse, they select a "random" count. However, the counter is running in sync with the bus with the same count of 4 items. So, when the mouse gets the bus, the counter will alwasy be on the same number. This is an extreme example, but it shows how the internal hardware can sync up with a counter and cause it to favor one number over another. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, no, because you're assuming here that each of the 4 items get an equal 1/4 of the clock cycles every second, which isn't true. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It's true, Kainaw's one assumption might have been imperfect. But this doesn't mean that regularly sampling a regular clock will get you high-quality random numbers! The person who's trying to do this is making a million assumptions, all of which must be true in order for the sampled numbers to be truly random. —Steve Summit (talk) 18:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

For the record, your suggestion is basically a digital version of an analog random number generating machine created in the late 1930s by (a spinning wheel with a light that would flash when you hit a button, displaying a number). It was, in fact, the instance for which they created the first random number "tests" that people discuss up above! It is described, I think, on Maurice Kendall's page — he was the one who came up with it, and the first random number tests. --24.147.86.187 01:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Strange Problems

Hello... I'm not really sure where to go with this, so I thought I'd try here. For the past few weeks my computer has been slowing down immensely. I ran Ad Aware, Spybot, AVG, Kaspersky and ran memory checks, disk checks and defragged all of my drives. Nothing has worked.

I did however notice something strange that I think may be the cause. When I open up Task Manager and look at the processes the "System Idle Process" doesn't always equal the total CPU usage (-100% of course) Now, I realize that it can just be little innacuracies and rounding errors for just a percentage or two, but I'm talking HUGE differences, 50% or more sometimes. So I'm wondering, could my CPU not be getting enough voltage or something? I've never tried overclocking, but I was having problems with my power supply a while back, could that have something to do with it?

So yeah, normally I could just take care of something like this myself, but I don't even know what to search for on this... Everywhere else I've asked I've been ignored... Does anyone have any ideas? 64.112.218.232 03:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC) Koriar

I've never heard of anything like this. I doubt it is a source voltage problem, because chances are, if it was, then your computer wouldn't even function correctly. My first guess (although I'm really only guessing) is that there is something wrong with the actual crystal that determines the clock rate. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

System Idle Process = The amount of free CPU cycles you have, and thus if you don't have 100% (or something close to it), something else is using your computer is well. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

From what I understood, he meant that the processes, including idle, add up to only about 50%. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, no, I mean like my idle processes and everything will add up to be 100 (though sometimes 99 or 101) but the processes other than idle processes will add up to, say 25% and the "cpu usage" part at the bottom and in the task bar will say something like 75%.

Oh, and also by voltage, I mean voltage for the CPU itself, my BIOS has options to change the voltages for overclocking purposes, but I'm scared to mess with them.

Koriar 04:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

No it shouldn't have anything to do with the voltage, please list the processes that ususally use the cpu on here. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, it usually has rundll32.exe on there taking up a cycle or two, firefox and taskmgr when I'm on here, cvhost will pop in sometimes, csrss.exe will sometimes too. Other than that it's just whatever is running. Most of them are taking up just their normal amount of the CPU as far as I can tell, though Explorer.exe has been running a little high on the CPU lately though (hence the virus and spyware checks)Koriar 05:18, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I doubt if it's a hardware issue, I suspect that some piece of software, either malware or software with a bug, is causing the prob. If you have a boot disk, I suggest you boot from that to determine if the problem occurs when you boot from there, as well. You can also try booting in safe mode. If the problem does not occur in those cases, next try killing processes until you get down to the bare minimum and note when the problem goes away. This will hopefully allow you to identify the rogue process. If it's not something critical, you could just run without it. If it is important, you might want to reload that software, or possibly try another version. StuRat 05:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but have you upgraded to Windows Media Player 11 recently? I did that a while back, and was having problems similar to what you describe. Once I finally twigged it was WMP11 causing it, I rolled back to WMP10, and all the problems went away. --Noodhoog 00:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Nah, nothing like that... and I tried it on an old copy of Vista RC1 that I had as an option to boot to (on another partition) and it had the same effect. Though now that I'm thinking about it I did have a DRAM error preventing me from booting as roughly the last thing to happen before the slowdowns. (specifically the last thing to happen was me moving everything to a different case, as for some strange reason the board was grounding out... I think... seems to have solved it not starting up anyways.) Sooo, I'm pretty sure that eliminates software, any idea what I should try? I REALLY don't want to have to buy a new motherboard. :( Koriar 15:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

USB/Firewire PC Card reader?

Is there such thing as an external PC Card reader? --72.202.150.92 04:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep. See this google search result, first link has an external USB one. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Seems like these are made specifically for wireless cards. I need a more general purpose reader. --72.202.150.92 05:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I use an external USB reader for SD, so I figured they'd be out there. Google "12 in 1 USB card reader", and they can be found for a reasonable price. Hope that helps. Baseballfan Talk 08:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that you mean PC Card, previously known as PCMCIA (People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms) - it doesn't seem that there is a generic USB interface device. These guys say "There is no universal interface between a PCMCIA (PC Card or CardBus) slot and a USB port plug," although I can't say how definitive that particular site is. Based on the summary provided here, there might be more information in the video, but I can't view the actual content, and I can't find a transcript. --LarryMac 13:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. It looks like it's hard to make a USB to Cardbus (essentially a PCI slot) adaptor. Probably a bandwidth issue? --24.249.108.133 14:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any USB -> cardbus adaptors that exist. Would a PCI -> Cardbus adapter work? Those are cheap and readily available. ~Crazytales (Hasta la Pasta!) 02:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Computing information

I am currently studying IPT at high school and need information for an upcoming test. The Internet is very useful for this but I don't get to use it for very long at a time so I was wondering if there was somewhere on the web that has computing information that could be downloaded as a PDF file or something. Does anyone know of any such sites? Thanks, Mix Lord 06:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Try using the advanced google search, and under file format, select Adobe Acrobat PDF (or add " filetype:pdf" after your search). Baseballfan Talk 08:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have a specific idea in mind you might want to try purchasing an ebook or something. There are a lot of subjects with huge documents if you really want to read a ton- the office graphics api is free-as-in-beer to download and is several hundred pages last I checked. You could read the major RFCs like 2616. Do you have a specific subject in mind? There's no way you could collect a significant amount of information on all computing subjects. Although you could try downloading the wikipedia database and importing it into a local mediawiki installation --froth^t 16:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

My keyboard and mouse seem to have a mind of their own!

Occasionally, when I am typing, funny words, which were not typed by me, appear, and the mouse pointer will go haywire. The funny words appear to contain some sort of programming code. When it happens again, I will copy the funny words here. Is there any known virus or malware which causes this behaviour, or is it a hardware/software problem? And how do I fix it?

OK, here is an example of the funny words. o binary >> ik &echo get asd >> ik &echo bye >> ik &ftp -n -v -s:ik &del ik &asd &exit

Some questions we need to know: 1) What operating system are you using? 2) Are either your keyboard or mouse wireless or bluetooth or cordless etc? You might want to do a virus check, it could be spyware or something similar. You can monitor extra programs in Windows XP by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Escape -- but as always, the processes' that it shows running can be a bit confusing - most are usually normal processes - you could look for suspicious ones and just google them to see if they're possible spyware or malware Rfwoolf 11:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I am using Windows XP Home. My keyboard and mouse are not wireless, bluetooth or cordless. AVG did not find any viruses.

it looks like you're being targetted by a worm that's trying to install a trojan. a reference i found on google, although it doesn't really help is: http://www.scriptalias.com/?p=79 . basically that random code you're seeing is a series of commands meant to be executed on your computer, and if it's working, then it's using those commands to force your computer to download a file and run it. i strongly suggest you enable your windows firewall (if it's disabled), update avg, do a full system scan, run windows update, all as soon as possible. information about a virus that you /may/ have can be found at http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/trojagentcba.html . if you know anyone who's good with fixing viruses and trojans and such, maybe you should have them take a look at your computer for you and figure out if you've been hit --64.0.112.5 12:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah all is not looking too friendly. I'd try to stablise and secure your system: I'd physically disconnect from the net, shut down all suspicious programs (check your bottom-right systray for example), back up any extra special files (although this is your call, the situation may not warrant a full backup of your data), I'd make sure your firewalls is up and running good, do whatever scans you can, then reconnect to the net, see if you can update AVG, update your Windows - but while you're doing that perhaps start googling some of the processes you see in Ctrl + Shift + Escape (But this may or may not help identify the malware/virus).
Last resort is to back up all your data, format your system and re-install Windows. Then make sure you do a FULL Windows update. If you use mIRC, it may help to know that worms love targetting mIRC users, other p2p software can also help worms. If you can, if you're susceptible to worms and viruses, you should consider investing in a proper antivirus software, e.g. Norton Rfwoolf 13:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

AVG is a perfectly fine anti-virus program, and it's much faster than Norton, much cleaner, and takes up fewer system resources (and money). ST47Talk 13:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'm inclined to agree, but, having used Norton Systemworks, it comes with it's own firewall which so far I've found very effective - and informs me of all types of attacks on my computer, especially when I'm on mIRC or a p2p (and yes I'm aware that it shows off a lot by displaying warnings for things that aren't really viruses, or overeacts to any attempts to connect). Nonetheless I find Norton to have features that AVG alone doesn't have. So let me rephrease: You may wish to acquire a package such as Norton that may include its own firewall. Rfwoolf 13:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Respondin to the questioner, perhaps your machine has been compromised via remote access? Splintercellguy 17:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The text that you see indicates that the computer is attempting to download a file via FTP. Either the origin is a malware program or remote access. Remove the machine from public networks immediately. Run pretty much any antivirus you can find, including spyware, adware, worms, trojans, etc. You may want to preform a System Restore or reinstall the operating system. At the very least, use you firewall settings to block TCP and UDP ports 21, 25, 5801, and 5901. To prevent all FTP access, you may need to block all random high ports (1024-65535), which FTP uses to free port 21 for out-of-band communication. Good luck. 71.185.113.29 02:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget to install Windows Defender when you update, if you haven't already. --Alph Tech STUART 18:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

(de-indent) Random shot in the dark here, but are you using a wireless keyboard and mouse in an office or apartment? It's possible you're picking up another tenant's typing ad mousing. Trojan seems more likely though. ~Crazytales (Hasta la Pasta!) 02:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Dates in iPhoto

Hi. Using Apple's iPhoto (on Mac OS X), I've come across a number of photos which were taken with the camera's clock set incorrectly. I've since changed them, in iPhoto, to the correct date. My problem is that this only changes them in iPhoto's database, and not the date in the underlying EXIF data embedded in the photo. Now, I've found several scripts which can batch change EXIF data to a given date (or to add/subtract a given amount of time), but does anyone know of a way (I'm guessing AppleScript is most likely here...) of automatically batch copying the revised date and time set in iPhoto, to the EXIF of the actual photo file. Somebody must have had this problem before! Thanks in advance for any guidance. _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 11:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know much about photo metadata and EXIF data and things, but if you're saying iPhoto independently stores a copy of the graphics file's original exif data, then one way to do it, based on my little knowledge is that you can download the demo of Apple's Aperture (photography software), for professional photographers. Import the photos into your Aperture library, change the metadata, and export them with the modified metadata. At Apple's download center (http://apple.com/downloads/macosx), you can probably find a script to do it for you if you like. If the script only does one file at a time (unlikely) create a workflow in Apple Automator (software), and you're set. I hope somebody who knows more finds you an easier way! *eek* :) I could be totally wrong and changing the metadata doesn't affect the EXIF data, or possibly EXIF if a form of metadata? I like the latter. Another thing you could do is that you can just highlight all the photos you want to modify, right click (or control click for a one-button mouse) and select "Batch Change...". On the pull down menu select "Date" and you're set! I hope I helped a little. [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 07:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your input, Mac. Yes, I know about batch changing dates in iPhoto. The trouble is that changes to dates made in iPhoto's UI (including via "batch change") are only to the dates in iPhotos internal database. That is fine for organising the photos in iPhoto (they'll now have the correct date) but it doesn't change the date in the EXIF data. Thus if I open my photos in (eg) Picasa on Windows, they'll still have the wrong dates. Hence I'm trying to find a way to copy the dates specified in iPhoto, into the photo's embedded meta data. I will certainly take a look at Aperture, and Automator is a good point that I hadn't thought of (can't say I've every really used it...). Thanks again _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 11:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Automator is rather easy, you just kind of "plug in" different scripts into each other so it's a multiscript program. If you go by Aperture, I think there is a checkbox or something, a special parameter or feature you have to do instead of just a normal export, but I could be wrong with that too. [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 15:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

EXIF data is near impossible to screw with. I've tried myself. There are a number of programs that'll allow you to VIEW the EXIF data, but rare among them are the ones that'll allow you to actually make changes to it. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 11:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Strange Problem with Internet Connection

My computer starting acting up yesterday while I was on Yahoo. The internet seemed to shut down in a weird way because whenever I clicked a link or icon it would load half way and then the "stop" icon would flash (I am using Mozilla Firefox); the process is basically instantaneous and I can't even open the website. In Internet Explorer, however, it just comes up with a typical "Cannot find server." What I can't understand is the fact that I can use the internet connection for about 20 seconds to connect to sites once I start up; after that, it will just stop allowing me even open the site. I can apparently use most aspects of Wikipedia [It is set as my homepage] (I couldn't use anything but the main page yesterday) but nothing else. The computer has been a little slow in general, but I certainly didn't do anything to trigger it (to my knowledge).

Some details:

• I am using a D-Link DFE-530TX+ PCI Adapter #2.
• I have a Comcast (Broadband) Internet connection (We called them and they said it was a computer problem, which doesn't make much sense to me because I had a similar problem with another computer, although it was just slow and actually displayed a "cannot load website" screen)
• It is a relatively old computer (About 2000 I think).
• I have about 3.7 GB of Hard Drive space remaining, so it shouldn't be a space problem.
• I used a program called WNSLookup and found this computer had a ping for about 0.05 ms with google.com, so I really don't think speed is the problem.
• I just remembered that there are some other renters where I'm living, and they probably have computers/are using the internet. Could this be what is impacting the connection?

I was thinking it might be a router problem, but I really don't know. It's almost as if a firewall is somehow stopping the connection, but I don't have any firewalls up (Not even Windows Firewall).

Any help is very sincerely appreciated... I need this thing to work. (Sorry for not signing in, but I can't seem to access my page; it's Robinson0120.)

• EDIT: When I tried to post this, it didn't load, so I tried to force it to open like I did before by holding the enter key; it worked for this page (probably because I have a connection established), but won't for others. I had to do the same for this edit post.

• EDIT II: I just managed to open or two sites by holding down enter like I said earlier(I have to wait right until it says connecting, because it can then load sometimes), but it is difficult to actually get around them. Pictures are also not being displayed, probably because they are linked from another separate location.

it's often frustrating trying to diagnose people's computer problems over the internet, but a few easy suggestions do come to mind. you say your windows firewall is disabled; have you tried enabling it (and then rebooting, i suppose)? another idea is to open the network connections manager, right click your internet connection's icon, and go to Repair. if those two things fail to fix anything, your next step would be to determine the source of the problem. if multiple computers are having issues, then the problem is either coming from outside (router, ISP), or both computers are doing the same thing wrong (a pair of matching viruses? who knows). if you use a router, try connecting your computer directly to the internet through the modem, bypassing the router. if the problem is solved, your router is somehow causing the issue. if none of these things seem to help, hopefully somebody else will have some good ideas. wish i was there to help! --64.0.112.5 13:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• Suggestion: Try clearing your browser cache (your temporary internet files) Rfwoolf 14:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• Suggestion: I've had problems on comcast (now locally bought out by Time/Warner) before where I could communicate with other computers but it would appear DNS was totally messed up (especially after using Bittorrent) My only solution was to reboot the computer. You might take a look at a packet sniffer like Ethereal to see what packets are being delivered, etc. Or, if you don't want to try something that advanced, you could just try the ping command (ping www.google.com). Root⁴(one) 15:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Advice needed on my first software order!

After many months of trying to sell a copy of my customised software that I wrote, a client has said, "I'm ready to order your software for 3 PCs"
The problem is, I'm not sure on how I'm supposed to handle this transaction and what to do now!
Any advice would be appreciated.

Some little questions:
1] The client is overseas, so I am probably going to send him the software by post or download - but how do I send him licences, and how do I present these licenses?
2] Do I get him to sign a license agreement? If so what should it say or look like?
3] Who makes the first move: Does he pay me first or do I send my software first?
4] Here's how I think I should be handling the transaction: 1) I send him a pro-forma invoice outlining all the costs of the software, as well as a Terms and Conditions form. If he agrees to the terms he will sign the Terms and Conditions and fax it back to me. 2) I dispatch the software (by post or by download) and I will talk him through the installation process. Once installed, the software will be set to only work for a 3 day trial. 3) He must then make payment, and once I have received the money I will give him a code to unlock the software. Do you think that is okay?

Thanking you for any advice

~The one-man show software developer. 138.130.19.123 13:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

• I think that this scheme is perfect and it would gurantee both of the client and developer their rights. Go on with it.

Thanks. I've encountered a company on the web that wants payment upfront (in the tens of thousands of dollars) before it will ship the software.

• I'm planning on using a derivative of this EULA: here 138.130.19.123

Just curious, what does your software do and how did you market it ? StuRat 17:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'd prefer to say not too much about what it does, but I can tell you that it does something in the stockmarketing industry. I did my marketing by push (pushing) by emailing and contacting various stockbrokers. The interest I got was pretty decent, and I got a few requests for quotes, but nothing ever translated into an order. Then months later I was asked for a quote by someone that was interested months earlier, and a few weeks later he emailed me to say he wanted to order. This will be the first deal I'm ever doing as a custom-developer, so if there's any advice it would be greatly appreciated. 138.130.19.123

One suggestion is to give a demo version away for free. You could either offer a reduced function version or a full function version that expires after a demo period. Hopefully once they use the program they will decide they can't live without it. I wouldn't be too concerned about the price if selling to stockbrokers, as the price isn't likely to be the deciding factor on a purchase. You should also work with customers to improve the customer interface, as the interface which programmers think is ideal is seldom the same thing the customers want. StuRat 00:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

PS3 wireless internet connection

I have tried two wireless boxes (Wanadoo 9730 & Netgear DG834G) both of which have a decent signal, the Wanadoo box had at worst 15% and best 35% and Netgear had at worst 80% and best 97%. The PS3 eventually linked up to the Wanadoo box, originally, and I downloaded a game. It seemed to be working fine, I then went on Motorstorm and tried to play online, it connected and said that an update must be installed, I did this, and at first attempt it reached around 10% before the error message came up and second time around 25%. The error message is "80710102" something about a DNS error. I do not know what this means, and how to fix it!
Whilst playing games offline the message keeps popping up in the corner, and when trying to connect Call of Duty to the internet it said "authentication failed". I do not know why any of this is happening, is it overloading of the servers due to it being a new release?
I am in the UK and on a machine bought in the UK. The wireless routers, I have tried each on their own (i.e. only one plugged in) and both plugged in, neither will work. I used the easy settings and it configured the IP etc. for me. I know the connection is configured correctly, as I have been on the internet from it, but the games are not playing online, and I am repeatedly being signed out. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks, Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 14:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC) I thought I better say that the Netgear is not connected to any other computers (with or without wires) and the Wanadoo box is connected to 2 other computers (both wirelessly). Asics talk ^{Editor review!} 16:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not an expert, but I would suggest hooking your PS3 using a wired connection and see if it works.

1. If it still won't work, it most likely has a manufacturing defect and I would look at the warrenty to see how to get a replacement.
2. if the PS3 works with a wired connection and not a wireless one, see how many computers your router can handle. Also, you may be receiving interference form another wireless router with the same name, brand, etc. Try enabling encryption to your router. This should filter out interfering systems.

Again, this is what I would try. I am not an expert!!!!J.delanoy 15:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Advice about my LT

Hello all, I had few questions about my LT and I hope u could help
(*) How can I make the battery last longer(and I mean its life time not time till it discharges)
(*) I sometimes feel that the touch pad doesnt respond to the clicks, what can I do?
(*) The screen may sometimes look like it refreshes with a little flash, whats the problem?
Thanks a lot .
NB: Its DELL Inspron 6400

• Well, I'm familiar with a Dell Inspiron 9200, so let's see ... I don't know about the battery. With the touch pad, do you mean when you click on the buttons by the touch pad or do you mean the touchpad itself? The buttons sometimes may not work if you don't depress them in the middle of the button, like if you try press them from the corner. As for the touchpad itself, go into your control panel and find it, and see what you can change in the settings that may help. As for your screen problem, please can you clarify a bit what you mean by it refreshing with a little flash? In your display settings, you can try adjusting the refresh rates to about say 60 hertz, and as for the dpi it should be about 96. Rfwoolf 15:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  

Thx alot for the advice, I adjusted the touchpad settings and its much better now. I found that the refresh rate is already 60 hertz and the i guess i found 96 dpi too small for me :D. By the refresh with a little flash i mean when sometimes u r working on many things and the computer is slow, if u try to refresh, the screen would look like its being repainted again. Thats what happens but faster and it gives a little white flash. This just started occuring lately, it hasnt been always this way. Thanks again.

I also found 95dpi too small for me - but I was picking up display problems especially on images. Here we have an excellent LCD screen that displays images all funny - especially the Wikipedia logo in the top-left of the browser - that was a prime example. Another hectic problem was certain programs would look terribly funny - with text getting cut off because it runs off the window, and all sorts of nonsense- but as soon as I adjusted to 96dpi it was all solved. The Dell website told me to do that - so I suggest you google "Support + Dell", and go to their website and specify your model number and go through the display troubleshooter etc. I did that, and with the 96dpi thing, it said you can increase the fonts of the titles on windows by right-clicking your desktop, then clicking Display, and then clicking on Appearance, and at the bottom where it says Font-size, click "Large Fonts". ... but then again, you don't seem to be complaining about funny images. Rfwoolf 16:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, you cannot actually change the DPI setting for a TFT monitor as you can with many CRTs. Doing so (if possible) will only enable some software scaling. Pixels on modern LCD monitors are physically realized by individual TFTs, something that cannot be changed (as opposed to the possibility of playing with electron beam deflection in CRTs). You really should never use non-default display settings with an LCD, since the result of doing so will be obviously poor image quality (assuming, of course, that the defaults were set correctly in the first place). -- mattb @ 2007-03-25T22:49Z

Encrypted DVDs on Linux?

My friend gave me a Transformers DVD as a gift. But I'm unable to play it on my Fedora Core 5 Linux system as it's encrypted. Neither xine or totem can play it. I've tried to install VLC, but it fails because of missing dependencies. I already seem to have those dependencies, but I can't make yum understand it. Is there any other DVD player for Linux? JIP | Talk 16:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you have LIBDVDCSS installed? Duomillia 18:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I compiled it from the source code. I think I have version 2.0.8. xine and totem still say they can't open the DVD because it's encrypted. JIP | Talk 18:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Just install VLC media player [edit: I posted too quickly -- here is a link describing installation of VLC on FC5]. Droud 20:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

mplayer can do dvds I think. I prefer it to Totem in general. Looks like yum knows about it too. Johnnykimble 20:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

MPlayer downloaded and started successfully, but I am unable to actually play anything, because it can't find a VIDIX driver. My computer uses an ATI Radeon 9200 PRO card, if it's of any help. JIP | Talk 06:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

This time I was able to install VLC. When I start the GUI up from the Applications menu, none of the controls do anything. I tried starting "vlc dvd://" on the command line. The first time, I was successfully able to get to the DVD's episode selection screen. Actually trying to play an episode crashed VLC. Subsequent attempts crash VLC straight away. Here is the debug information it gives me:

VLC media player 0.8.5 Janus
[00000289] main dialogs provider error: no dialogs provider module matched "any"[00000286] skins2 interface error: no suitable dialogs provider found (hint: compile the wxWidgets plugin, and make sure it is loaded properly)
[00000286] skins2 interface: skin: VLC 0.8.5 Default Skin  author: aLtgLasS
libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 0.2.0cvs from http://dvd.sf.net
libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.9 for DVD access
libdvdnav: DVD Title: TRANFORMERS_VOL2
libdvdnav: DVD Serial Number: 3C98628C___MVB__
libdvdnav: DVD Title (Alternative):
libdvdnav: Unable to find map file '/home/joona/.dvdnav/TRANFORMERS_VOL2.map'
libdvdnav: DVD disk reports itself with Region mask 0x00fd0000. Regions: 2

libdvdread: Attempting to retrieve all CSS keys
libdvdread: This can take a _long_ time, please be patient

libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB at 0x0000012d
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB at 0x00000192
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB at 0x00005e89
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_0.VOB at 0x00005eda
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB at 0x00005f27
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_0.VOB at 0x00005f60
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB at 0x00005fad
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_04_0.VOB at 0x001f4dad
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_04_1.VOB at 0x001f4dfa
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
libdvdread: Found 4 VTS's
libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
[00000401] a52 decoder: A/52 channels:2 samplerate:48000 bitrate:192000
[00000402] main audio output error: couldn't find a filter for the conversion
[00000402] main audio output error: couldn't set an input pipeline
Segmentation fault

JIP | Talk 06:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, running "vlc --no-audio dvd://" allows me to successfully play the DVD. But there's no sound! The Transformers experience just isn't complete! JIP | Talk 06:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You might need a codec or something for the audio, however odd that is. Splintercellguy 15:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Turns out that Xine can indeed play the DVD, with sound even, once I installed every codec I could think of. JIP | Talk 05:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Sony Walkman with Mac OS X and iTunes

How can I use my Sony Walkman NW-E002 on my iMac, preferably with iTunes? Thanks! --Fadders 18:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Sony does not list any Mac OS software for your device, so if a new drive does not appear on your desktop when you plug the MP3 player in (like a USB thumb drive), you're out of luck. Droud 20:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

The best way to check is to just plug it in and see if it works. [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 07:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I hate to be a third party pooper, but it's been my unfortunate experience that Sony and Macs don't get along. At all. (Digital cameras, of couse, are another story entirely.) Cernen Xanthine Katrena 11:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Integrated graphics

i know integrated graphics are never Good but are they ever decent? particularly the newest integrated gpu's like the nvidia geforce 6150 (normal SE or LE) or the intel graphics media accelerated x3000 ok. i know they are not as good as dedicated but will they be able to play modern games like supreme commander or oblivion at a playable level. thanks Beckboyanch 22:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Intel integrated GPUs are no good for games and are really only able to run Beryl and provide 2-d video acceleration. ATI and nvidia ones with shared memory (turbocache, hypermemory, etc) can play some games in really low settings, but definitely not Oblivion.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 01:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes forget integrated or "light/mobile" cards for modern games. To give you an example, my "7300 Go" on my laptop benchmarks at half the speed of my old 5700 ultra. It struggles even with optimized engines such as unreal 99 although it runs fine with unreal 2k4 strangely enough. But forget it with Oblivion or Test Drive Unlimited - unplayable. The minimum card you need just for playability on modern games is a midrange card like the 7600GS or nothing lower than the 7300GT. To my horror, I just found out that 7600GT is not really supported with the upcoming DirectX-10, so it seems we have to have deep pockets just for PC's to keep up with modern consoles. Sandman30s 14:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Nothing on the market other than the Geforce 8800 series supports DirectX 10. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Until very recently, all "integrated graphics" chips did not have hardware transform & lighting, a basic requirement for any gaming card. Withouth hardware T&L, your CPU must do all the heavy lifting -- essentially software rendering. --24.249.108.133 14:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Fax

I've got a scanner, a document, an internet connection (non-dialup), and Windows XP. With these materials, is it possible to construct something that will send a fax? If not, is there anything that would make it possible that I could get hold of quickly? Black Carrot 22:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

All you need is some software to convert the image to a FAX format and send it. StuRat 00:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

If by fax you simply want to email your document to someone (so there is no fax machine anywhere printing out your document) then the answer ends here: Scan it and email it. But if by fax, you mean that a fax machine has to print it out, then the only way to do that is ultimately via a telephone line. You can either do that by going to an actual fax machine and start the fax transmission, OR you can look for a fax service on the internet - where you provide your document in a specified format (e.g. JPEG) and their computers will dial up on a telephone, connect to the target fax machine, and using their software will transmit the document as a fax. So the short answer is the only way to send a fax with your equipment (including an internet connection, but excluding your own telephone line) is to use an internet fax service. Rfwoolf 11:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm assuming, however, that you can hook a phone line up to your computer, in which case you only need the software to convert the image and send it via dialup. I seem to recall a piece of software named Ring Central Fax, but can't vouch for it. StuRat 13:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Windows XP has a Fax Service I believe. Splintercellguy 15:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes you just need a goold ol' fashioned modem. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't computers still have built-in modems ? Or have they started dropping this feature on new PCs ? StuRat 11:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

efax might have what your looking for efaxthey give you a # that people can fax to and it comes out in your email inbox and a software that lets you fax from the computer and will come out there fax machine --Nerdd 12:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Laptop video card problems

Yes, I know this probably isn't the right place to ask this, but I'll ask it anyways. When I started up my laptop this morning, a white screen showed up with a couple of black marks on the screen. A small image can be seen on the top-right part of this screen. I don't know if this has to do with the video card, the LCD display, or just the fact that my laptop has broken. Either way, since I have no other resources, I desperately need your help. If you can't give me solutions on how to fix it, then give me links to websites explaining the troubleshooting. Thank you. 76.199.85.142 23:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Edit:By the way I have a Toshiba 1405 series.

I don't have an answer for you, but this is the right place to ask. StuRat 00:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Well like the things you touched on - you need to find out if this is a) A video card problem, b) a software problem, or c) a screen problem. Does your screen show ANYTHING else? Does it improve after a moment and allow you to get into your operating system? And when exactly does the problem start: does anything show properly BEFORE the problem, or, does the computer turn on and the very first thing it shows is the problem? Also what does the image look like? If none of those things suggest anything, your laptop servicer will probably unscrew your laptop shell and check 1) The light tube that lights up from the bottom of your laptop screen to see if it is damaged/broken/ununiform, then 2) check the connection whenre your laptop screen connects to the soundcard - it may be loose/dirty/broken/etc.
If for example it's your SCREEN that's the problem, then we can assume that your operating system is still working normally and that your graphics card is working normally - so if for example you can hear yourself logging into windows, playing an mp3, and clicking start and shutting down - then you know the problem lies NOT in the operating system or software. Next, if there is a change in what is displayed when you turn your computer on - things like fuziness, various colours that change, or different unknown data, or if the problem appears and then changes, or starts out fine and then changes, then you can begin to assume that it is a video card problem. Remember, more information helps! Rfwoolf 11:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

A photograph of this anomaly would be MOST awesome in diagnosing the problem; as it stands, it sounds like a cracked/busted LCD (ouchers). Cernen Xanthine Katrena 11:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

March 26

Eaves of Erastothenes

I am having some problem in finding two prime numbers that when multiplied together would equal to a 400 digit number. I have an a assignment dealing with the Eaves of Erastothenes and Im having difficulty finding those two prime numbers.72.40.60.1 00:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)jc

I's actually called Sieve of Eratosthenes. Maybe that'll help you on finding information about it. — Kieff | Talk 00:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm badly mistaken, the Sieve (elegant though it is) is unsuitable for numbers in the hundreds-of-digits range, so there's something fishy about this assignment... --Steve Summit (talk) 01:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe he's actually talking about the General Number Field Sieve, but I can't imagine how that'd be confused with Erastothenes'. — Kieff | Talk 02:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I have never heard of using the Erastothenes for such large numbers. Would the Sieve of Atkin be appropriate? And are you sure it must yield a 400 digit number? Seems similar to the 30,000 word summary my Latin professor assigned on a 20 minute film... Freedomlinux 02:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't this question be better on the Math desk? [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 07:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)No, I'm not an idiot, I thought it said 400, not 400-digit.

Basically you want to find two 200 digit prime numbers (or one 199-digit and one 201-digit, etc.). The most straightforward way is to pick two pseudo-random 200 digit numbers, then find the first prime number greater than or equal to each.

It is pragmatically impossible to test a 200 digit number for primality by dividing it by every prime less than its square root (there are roughly 10^98 such primes), so one must use a better primality test; see Primality_test. There are both deterministic and probabilistic primality tests, but the probabilistic ones are, to date, vastly faster than the deterministic ones, and hence almost always preferably for pragmatic use.

Primality tests are nonetheless somewhat expensive, so for starting pseudo-random number N, instead of running one on N, N+1, N+2, etc, one can speed things up by not bothering with any of the even numbers, nor any divisible by three, etc. In other words, skip the ones divisible by small primes, and apply the expensive primality test only to the numbers that are not divisible by any small primes.

That's where the Sieve of Eratosthenes comes in. Pick the largest small prime to use for pre-screening, say 101 for specificity, and set up a sieve over e.g. N and N + 101^2. Search sequentially through that sieved interval, and run the primality test only on numbers that were not sieved out.

The resulting algorithm will find two 200 digit primes in a fraction of a second (assuming a reasonably fast indefinite-precision math library or tool -- including the not-particularly-fast Unix "bc" program -- running on a modern processor). Dougmerritt 01:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Computer help!!!

I think I deleted Windows. Please help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.175.125.196 (talk) 03:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

In that case, reinstall it from CD. StuRat 04:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Unlikely --froth^t 06:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand. Is there a problem? Rfwoolf

hah --froth^t 16:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps I should have said "Congrats, you've taken the first step to improving your computer by deleting Windows, now install a nice version of Linux to complete the process". :-) StuRat 17:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

If you think you deleted Windows, my next question would be how you managed to ask for help in the first place. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 11:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Windows XP trouble

Hi there.!? I got Win XP on a Pentium III machine (yeah, back from the 17^{Superscript text}th) Trouble is the thing keeps on rebooting when I'm working. I keep sending "reports" 2 microsoft, but I still have the problem. 2nd: I need the password file name on win XP. Someone help me PLEASE... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.207.126.37 (talk) 06:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

Try running antivirus and anti spyware programs to fix the rebooting problem. Sending reports to microsoft does absolutely nothing for you, although apparently MS engineers appreciate it. And passwords aren't stored in a file, they're stored in the SAM hive- you need pwdump or samdump/bkhive to extract it. --froth^t 06:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there any warnings or errors that appear before rebooting? Such as a blue screen? If so, what does it say? YThe problem could also be a hardware issue. - Akamad 08:01, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Try this program to find your password Password recovery via Life Hacker If you dont mind starting fresh I would recommend re installing windows or using a recovery disk if you have one - Nerdd 09:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised you can even get Windows XP to run at all on a Pentium 3 machine. Does it meet all the recommended system requirements ? If not, perhaps you need to upgrade your hardware or go with an earlier O/S. StuRat 13:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You might need to tick off Automatically restart when a BSoD occurs to see the error code. Splintercellguy 15:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

There was nothing wrong with XP running on Pentium 3, when it first came out Pentium 4 was really rubbish and was even slower than Pentium 3 (Socket 423 times). --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Copy Protection

Can anybody tell me how to copy a copy-protected disc, please? Dudforreal 09:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• Floppy disc, hard disk, DVD disc? - Mgm|^(talk) 10:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

An LP disk? TOTB

A frisbee? _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 11:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

What methods have you tried, and where do they go wrong? For example in the case of a CD that is copy-protected, you could try putting it into Nero (if you have it) and simply saying Copy Disc. Rfwoolf

Some copy protected disks are physically modified I.E. I have one that although the CD plastic casing is there, the edge of the CD where the data is stored is burned off somehow. Of course, the CD was required to have the software run. And I believe what they did was burn a file to that with certain portions allocated to the missing data sectors. You could never copy the disk file-by-file, and you could never copy the disk as a whole using very basic methods. (like even "dd" in linux) It wasn't like I was trying to act as a pirate, I just wanted a backup CD! But I understand why the software makers went to the lengths that they did to protect the CD, given, how small the software package was and how many people do pirate.

I have heard certain CD-modification methods do the trick, but if you mess up your CD, tough luck. I never tried them. That's all I will say.

Root⁴(one) 12:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

StarForce talks directly to the drive firmware and measures the physical angle between frames/sectors of data. Maybe this is what you're thinking of? --froth^t 16:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't say if they might have used this additional trick (never heard of this one!), but probably not. When I did try to figure out to what extents they protected the CD, the first thing is pretty obvious... they burnt away the outer sectors of the CD data! Second thing I noticed was there's a single file on the iso that cannot be copied. Knowing a few things about filesystems, I suspected that certain (many) filenodes had been allocated to the burnt off sectors and only a few necessary and key filenodes used to "open" the software were actually available on the remaining disk. To ascess those nodes, just ask the operating system to seek to the proper position in the file.

If your operating system is unlucky enough to seek into the wrong portion of the CD, well, tough luck. On systems I tried, you had to reboot the system to get the CD reader to work properly again.

I never did prove my hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt (I think I would have felt guilty had I did, after all, it was a good program, and had I accomplished it, I also knew I'd be tempted to do the same for some software I didn't legally own). But I became so enamored with my hypothesis that I decided to consider the problem "closed" if not solved. After all, just finding the right nodes would take a lot of time and research. It certainly accomplished their goal, which is to make the act of copying the CD harder than it is "worth". I found a simple ellegance to it.

Root⁴(one) 05:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

There's always the strategy of, if it's an audio CD, to play it, and find a way to record the audio and recompress it back into mp3 format. Sneaky... and difficult... and you lose quality. And probably illegal Rfwoolf 12:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's a disc with copy protection on it any attempt to circumvent this is, by definition, surely illegal... _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 13:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes unfortunately that's basically most of the DMCA in a nutshell, but it's a stupid law and most countries have nothing of the kind. I'd suggest ripping an image of the disk, mounting the image with Daemon Tools which can emulate a lot of copy protection, and then using nero or something to copy it onto a real disk from the mounted disk. For games you'll probably need a no-cd crack for the weirder protections. --froth^t`

If the media is a CD and the copy protection is something like SafeDisc, use Alcohol 120% or CloneCD. Splintercellguy 15:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

copyright law is sketchy, but unless you plan to sell the copied material, it is most likely legal. if you have nero, select "copy disk" and hold down shift when you click "start" of what ever it is (cant remember) Most of the time, the disk will begin to copy at around 1/2 to 2/3 the maximum possible write speedJ.delanoy 15:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

"copyright law is sketchy" — not always it isn't. The DMCA is very clear on this point: title I, section 103 declares illegal "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work". Hard to be more direct than that in this case. Lousy law, alas.. --24.147.86.187 12:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

What I was saying is that unless you try to sell you copied discs, it is almost impossible for the manufacturer to bring legal action against you.J.delanoy 16:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Civilization Franchise?

though i'm not an expert, i don't believe that "Wikipedia:Reference desk/all", "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing", or "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 March 21" should be in the "Civilization Franchise" Category. i know this doesn't exaaactly belong here, but atleast it's somewhat on-topic, and i figure somebody here will know how to fix it. (i don't!) --64.0.112.38 13:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

That's typically caused by someone including that category in a question or answer as an example, not realizing that it is live for this page. The problem should go away as soon as that question is archived. StuRat 13:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Found it ! It was in the last question for March 21, which I've now fixed with the "nowiki" format. StuRat 13:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I suitly emphazied your fix by using the [[:Namespace:page]] link format to force a non-magic link (see Help:Category). --Tardis 16:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You just put a colon in front of the word "category" ? That looks better, but could cause probs if somebody copies it with the colon included. I guess that's not likely in this instance, so yours is a good solution. StuRat 17:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Woops, that was my fault! − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Linking to a specific point in html or pdf

I want to eventually link to specific point in a html o pdf file online. (With the purpose of commenting this). Putting an anchor is not an option. How can it be done?132.231.54.1 16:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You say putting an anchor is not an option, but, what constitutes an anchor? When you generate a PDF file you can similarly put anchors in them - would that count? Other than that, my guess would be a java solution, or I don't know Rfwoolf 16:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's none of my business, but out of sheer curiosity, why are anchors not an option? That would be the easiest way. The only other way is with the Javascript scrollto() function (or whatever it's called) but that wouldn't be very portable. Curtmack of the Asylum 16:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I would assume they want to link to somebody else's document, and don't have access to edit it and add an anchor. I suppose they could make a copy and add an anchor to that, but they might run into copyright issues. StuRat 17:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thas is. I want to point to external documents, freely available, but I cannot download them and save them in my site. Since many are some pages long, I would like to have a way of point to page 4 paragraph 3 or something like that. As said processing the file is not an option. They are not on my server and cannot be.132.231.54.1 17:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

If there is no anchor on the page, you cannot magically make one up. An anchor has to exist to link to it. Again, there is no such thing as a link with a hidden "move down three paragraphs" option. Check the page's source code to see if they already put anchors in there. If not, you must link to the page and have the user scroll down. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:55, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I generally handle this by giving directions ("go to 3rd paragraph of the 7th page for the relevant info"). It's not ideal, but better than having them read the entire document. StuRat 20:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't a way of a kind of link that matchs a text string? Within html, without scripts. 132.231.54.1 21:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No. There are two and only two types of links. There are links to pages that go to the top of the page and there are links to anchors inside a page. Even with a script, you could not do what you want. Scripts do now allow you to look at the text on pages that aren't yours - unless you are using something with no concept of protection, like IE3. But then, you won't have much in the way of scripting. The only way to do what you want is to write your own web browser that has some new kind of link definition and tell people that they have to use your new web browser to use your website. --Kainaw ^(talk) 00:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe that in the earliest days of the web, under some web servers (or perhaps it was under the web server, since of course there was a time when it was singular :-) ), the trailing "?..." syntax in a URL meant to do a search. But it was a search for documents and subdocuments that matched the query, not a request to magically jump to the searched-for string in the returned page.

(Since then, of course, the "?..." syntax has been generalized, and is now typically "?key=value&key2=value2...". But since the interpretation of a query string is server-dependent, as far as I know a modern web server could still implement the old behavior, if it wanted to.) —Steve Summit (talk) 00:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

In theory, you could simply use XPointer, which is designed to be able to do precisely that, if the target document is a XHTML document or other XML format. In practice, I doubt many (if any) user agents understand it. --cesarb 00:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Wireless connection, an MMO, and Windows Vista

When I'm running Voyage Century Online, I often have trouble maintaining connection to the server when I'm on my home wireless connection. I never lose connection to the internet, I am merely booted from the game server, and the problem is only on my home wireless connection; other wireless networks and broadband give me no problem. This mainly happens if I stop playing for a few minutes to browse the internet or grab something to eat, and I leave the game running. If I maintain activity, however, I rarely have a problem. Could there be some sort of feature, either for Vista, my for my wireless card, for my router, or for my modem, that blocks connection when there is a lack of activity? If not, what could be causing this problem? —Akrabbim^talk 17:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

ls for executables

Is there a way to execute ls to list only executable files? Also, how can I do a list with every folder in $PATH? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alph Tech STUART (talk • contribs) 17:55, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

For the first part of the question,

ls -l | grep -e '^-..x'

should work. To do this across all directories in your path, you could wrap it in something like

for d in `echo $PATH | sed 's/:/ /g'`; do echo $d:; (cd $d; ls -l | grep -e '^-..x') done

(This assumes sh or bash, and Unix/Linux, of course.) --Steve Summit (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

For the first part: ls -l *exe

For the second: ls -l `echo $PATH | sed 's/:/ /g'`

Or for exe's only: ls -l `echo $PATH | sed 's/:/ /g'` | grep -e '.exe$'

Johnnykimble 19:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The example using "exe" assumes executables end in "exe". In Unix/Linux, they rarely do. The previous example with grep is better. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Heck, exe's don't just end in "exe" in the DOS/Windows world, either! There, the appropriate glob pattern would be *.exe, or for grep, '\.exe'. (Though this last is somewhat of an oxymoron, since a regexp matcher like grep is decidedly nonstandard in the DOS/Windows world.) --Steve Summit (talk) 20:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

They make a grep for Windows, but what's all this about executables not ending in .exe? .coms? --Alph Tech STUART 02:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I was just nitpicking. Johnnykimble said "ls -l *exe", but that would find a file named, say, "flexe". And, for a different reason, "ls | grep '.exe'" would, too. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think ".msi" is a proper executable suffix (installs). I'm sure more are out there. The weirdest thing I've seen is double clicking on a javascript file and windows wanting to execute it instead of open it (like any scripting language in unix). But I have doubts that it would run from the command line. Root⁴(one) 20:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Lol, quite right. My mistake was a symptom of being a Windows desktop user most of the time and a linux server user some of the time... Johnnykimble 21:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

This bit of Perl will show all the commands in your $PATH. --TotoBaggins 23:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

 perl -le 'for (split /:/, $ENV{PATH}) { for (<$_/*>) { print if -x && -f } }'

ls -F | grep '\*$' works too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.78.64.102 (talk) 03:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

file * | grep {whatever} is another way of finding all the odd executibles. Remember, lots of scripting languages (such as Perl, Awk, etc.) may be executible also. And if you're on Unix/Linux, just look for the "eXecutible" bit in the protections mask.

Atlant 16:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of using ls to generate file lists for consumption in other programs except in quick, flying by the seat of your pants instances. You can use "find" and some xargs notion, but even then you have to consider that in unix (at least this used to be the case), filenames can contain any character except for '/' and '\0'. Filenames with spaces require special attention. (You could name a file " ". That one's a bit creepy.) One potentially dangerous character would happen to be the pipe character. Possibly some others would be characters less than 0x20 (hex) for what they may do to the console.

EDIT: Not that Windows doesn't have its own problem. I remember naming a directory "π" (read as ascii $\pi$) and it giving some version of windows all kinds of troubles. Root⁴(one) 21:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Software notability

At what point does an article about a software product become acceptable for Wikipedia? I stumbled across an article about a Quest Software product, found someone had set up a category for the company (with 21 entries), and the ones I looked at (e.g. Benchmark Factory) were written by a single user. Clarityfiend 20:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

From what I understand, the smallest requirement is that it has to be made by a known company. If all 21 entries and the parent company are not notable, then probably all of them aren't. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 22:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, the company seems large enough and has been around long enough. Saves me the trouble of tagging lots of articles. Clarityfiend 00:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Odd disclaimer

THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.

In updating to iTunes 7.1.1, I noticed this in the disclaimer thingy. Is it in all Apple disclaimers, or do they really think there is a chance people will try to run life support machines on iTunes? Skittle 21:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It's good ol' boilerplate. Splintercellguy 21:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it's possible some nuclear plant might put instructions for dealing with an emergency in a format to be played by iTunes, and Apple doesn't want to be legally liable after their software fails and causes a meltdown. StuRat 22:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Haha I love it! the plant is about to melt down and madonna comes over the PA becuase someone overwrote the shared playlist;) Vespine 01:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Or this - X201 09:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Plus the fact it's not that hard to make a bomb and an iPod can easily be turned into a timer. Gives a new meaning to "The Final Countdown". x42bn6 Talk 01:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Clearly there's only one song appropriate for nuclear holocaust. :) --TotoBaggins 12:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Whaaaat? It's clearly, "the soundtrack to world war three" [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 15:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like we've got the plot for a movie here...I'll sketch out the screenplay. And maybe we can fit Blinded by the Light in the song track somewhere. :-) StuRat 15:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Everybody in the electronics business does this. Look at any data sheet for any IC or other electronic component and you'll probably find this disclaimer. Honestly, it appears that all that fancy electronic equipment in hospitals must be made with baling wire and chewing gum, 'cause it sure can't have any semiconductor devices in it!

Atlant 16:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Wondered whether it was software engineers (or lawyers) mucking about or whether it was standard. Interesting thought that safety intructions, or suchlike, could be loaded on iTunes. I like the idea of employees at a nuclear power plant walking about with their iPods, searching their 'work' playlist for 'big shiny dial in the red'. Skittle 00:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Windows XP highlight color

Selected icons/text used to be highlighted in blue, but now they're highlighted a yucky turquoise color. How do I change it back to blue? Thanks. --Anakata 23:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

right click on desktop, properties -> appearance -> advanced -> item -> selected items, probably. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

March 27

clock

The clock was moved 1 hour forward recently, and I moved all my clocks, but my computer keeps switching back to the old time. What should I do? : I got windows xp / and this never happened in the 5 years that i own my computer 65.93.104.242 02:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Your computer may update its time from the Internet once in a while. (I am guessing that this is what is happening?) If so, you should not manually set the time on the computer; all you need to do is tell it the correct time zone. If you are changing it because of daylight saving time, Windows has an option to adjust for DST automatically. If you live in a country that has its DST rules changed recently, you need to install a Windows Update from several months ago that updates those rules. --Spoon! 02:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

On that, be sure that you've got the correct timezone set as well as having the DST option checked. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Or you can just let your computer be an hour off for a few weeks each year, between when it thinks DST starts and ends and when it really does. That's what I decided to do. StuRat 04:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

You should probably get this update for Windows XP if you haven't already got it. Johnnykimble 09:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Online community

I want to start a web site with forums, photo galleries, calendars, etc. for local enthusiasts of various different, though slightly related, hobbies. I was originally thinking of going with just a simple forum like phpBB but then thought that it would be nice to have calendars available for local events and things as well as a place for users to upload photos. I realize that there are many content managers out there but I was hoping that people here could help me narrow down my research a bit. I don't know any PHP but I'm alright with figuring computer related things out. So any help? Dismas|^(talk) 02:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Invision Power Board offers a forum just like phpBB, but also has a calendar in which you can add events. In fact, I'm pretty sure phpBB has an addon of some sort which can do this too. JoshHolloway 09:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Some sort of PHP-Nuke system with gallery2 and phpBB addons? Or something like Moodle? --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Decide whether you like the wiki, forum, or weblog paradigm, they can all acomplish the same thing. Look at Comparison_of_content_management_systems, decide on finalists that meet your requirements. If its a open source php/mysql system you can try it out at opensourcecms.com . I just did this for a small news site and decided on drupal, I have been very suprised how easy it is use. -- Diletante 15:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I bought two CDs long ago, Warcraft III and its expansion, they exploded; can't play now

I lost my two CDs because apparently they were of very low quality, I didn't use them in any bad way, but they began to develop cracks from the inner part of the CD to the outside. I tried downloading the game from p2p and using a no-cd crack but it won't work, since the gaming network is unable to identify my application version (due to the no cd crack), despite I have two legal CD keys. The game(s) was very expensive, and simply can't play now due to their anti-copy policies. What can I do? I just posted a message in their forums for this reason, and I'm waiting a response. Thanks. --Taraborn 09:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Are they really genuine Warcraft III? I think you can request a copy of the game cd from blizzard at a cost if you explained your situation to them. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can. They will want the bad CDs in return. Most companies do this. Activision replaced both my Quake and Quake II CDs for me. I asked the operator when I asked for replacements and she said that out of a good 1,000 requests to replace broken CDs, only 1 will really have the original CDs. Everyone else is just trying to get a no-cd hack working. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Warcraft III Battle Chest (original game + the expansion) costs a whopping $35 on Amazon. Personally I don't think that counts as "very expensive", but that's just me. Which is not to say that you shouldn't try to get replacements from Blizzard; I'm just pointing out that the price has probably gone down a lot since you originally bought them (as is common with software). Replacing defective merchandise is good policy in general, though it can often take a long time to process. --140.247.249.200 15:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Just FYI: Very high speed CDROM drives operate near the limits of how much centrifugal force a disc can withstand. And balance/vibration is also a problem; that's why most high-speed drives have some sort of dynamic balancing mechanism.

Atlant 16:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

To all: I guess nobody has understood my question and almost all were assuming bad faith. I'm not stupid, if I were cracking the game I wouldn't ask here, I would have already done it by myself (by spending more time trying to crack it instead of spending it talking to the company) and would be asking at a much better place. They were expensive when I bought them, now they are much cheaper. Anyway, I'm not going to spend my money because of a stupid "assuming bad faith" behaviour by the part of the company. To the $35 dollar guy, well, I guess you are rich, because I simply can't afford giving away that money, even worse when there's no reason for doing that. And again, yes, they are original Warcraft III CDs. I asked in the Battle.net forums and received some useful responses, even one by a Blizzard employee. I don't want to sound rude, but thanks for nothing, buddies ;) --Taraborn 09:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I assumed you wanted to play the game. So, I suggested you get new CDs from the company. When I did it, it was free. I called a 1-888 number (free). They asked me to fax a copy of the CDs to their toll-free fax line (free). Then they sent me new CDs (free). So, if your intent is to do something other than play the games, please rephrase your question so we can better understand what it is that you want. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Then this is out of its place "I asked the operator when I asked for replacements and she said that out of a good 1,000 requests to replace broken CDs, only 1 will really have the original CDs. Everyone else is just trying to get a no-cd hack working." --Taraborn 17:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

See assume good faith. You assumed that I stated "I asked the operator about Taraborn and she said he is just trying to get a no-cd hack working." If you assumed good faith, you would have assumed that I stated "I asked the operator when I asked for replacements and she said that out of a good 1,000 requests to replace broken CDs, only 1 will really have the original CDs. Everyone else is just trying to get a no-cd hack working." without any mention of you at all. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Y!M problem

I can log in and start conversations. But when I send messages, they do not appear in the conversation window. I can see when the other person is typing a reply, but when the reply is sent, I do not see it in the conversation window. Yet I know that messages I send or receive go through because when I save the conversation as a text file, and open it, I can read the messages.

How can I fix this problem so I can see messages I send and receive in the conversation window? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.8.10 (talk) 11:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

Perhaps somehow the text color got changed to the same as the background. If that is the case, (based on YM version 7) click on the icon that looks like an artist's palette and select a text color that will show up against your background. --LarryMac 12:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

A question on history of vector software

I'm seeking for information on history of vector graphics software.

I'm interested in the following question: when and in which product, such features as the brush and stroke (applied to a path) were availible for the first time. I suppose it was somewhen in 80-s. Maybe it was in Fontographer or Adobe Illustrator? Thanks in advance. Crocodealer 17:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Can it be Freehand? Crocodealer 19:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you really mean "product"? Things typically appeared in research papers/software long before being copied commercially. And if you did in fact mean "available in a commercial product", are you interested only in consumer products, or even just Windows products? Because features typically appeared in non-Windows products first (Macintosh MacPaint, Amiga Deluxe Paint, etc). Also there were some high end graphics systems on IBM PCs in the DOS days, so first appearance of certain things could easily have been pre-Windows even on PCs.

The feature/features you're asking about seems fairly vague. "Brush"? If you really want to know the first use of something that could be considered a digital brush, well, Ivan Sutherland's circa 1960 landmark Sketchpad system certainly had such a thing.

Extremely sophisticated brushes/path strokes were supported in the digital sumi-e (Japanese brush painting) software done at the MIT Media Lab circa 1986, give or take a year or three.

Stroking along a path was supported in version 0.0 of Postscript, which, IIRC, preceded Windows, and it in turn appeared earlier than Postscript in Xerox Parc software in the 1970s.

A lot of early graphics firsts happened in CAD software and in flight simulators done for the military by e.g. Evans and Sutherland.

Clarifying exactly what you want to know would be rather helpful. Dougmerritt 21:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. By product, I mean commercially available product, for any operating system. By brush, I mean something resembling the "calligraphic brush" tool in Adobe Illustrator: a short line or an ellipse moves along some user-drawn path. Here is an illustration: Image:AI calligraphic brush.png. By stroke I mean a more simple thing: a medium is painted on some defined distance from the path. Crocodealer 14:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the majority (although not 100%) of early paint systems did that much. Identifying "firsts" in history is notoriously difficult, but here are some contenders to consider:

The very earliest "painting/drawing" systems were purely vector based and did not leave a trail of pixels behind the "brush" in the way I think you mean, so we'll skip those.

Apparently the world's first raster graphic/bitmap paint program was "Superpaint" by Richard Shoup at Xerox PARC; Shoup later left for New York Institute of Technology, where he and others produced the paint program "Paint", which was sold to Ampex, and became the commercially available Ampex Video Art (AVA) paint program.

Although later than AVA, people have also claimed a first for personal computers in particular: Todd Rundgren's Utopia Graphics System paint program for Apple II, which used a digitizing tablet for input.

There is almost never a single authoritative source for finding out about firsts; each such is often aware of other similar but different authorities. Thus many people would say the answer is "MacPaint", but are unaware of earlier non-Mac development.

P.S. I forgot to be explicit: no, I don't think that Fontographer nor Adobe Illustrator nor Freehand could be contenders, although one would want to find and compare introduction dates to firmly prove such things. Dougmerritt 20:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

DPMS off mode

The computer I use at work (and since my work does not require a computer I only use it during down-time to play solitare and so on) will suddenly shut itself off every time I use it- maybe seconds after startup, maybe minutes. When it shuts itself off the screen says "DPMS off mode", although I tend to think that's just the monitor informing me that the computer shut itself down, and not related to the cause. Any thoughts? Simple solutions befitting a computer I don't own? Thedoorhinge 19:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The message probably relates to this - VESA Display Power Management Signaling. Check the system power management settings if you can. --LarryMac 19:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's intentional, to prevent employees from wasting time...DPMS = "Don't Play Much Solitaire". :-) StuRat 19:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Free Wrapper Induction Software?

A wrapper, in the sense relevant to my question, is a piece of code that can extract data from a web page. For instance, one could construct a wrapper (perhaps using regular expressions) that could take the HTML from Amazon.com's checkout screen and parse out which items you ordered and how much they would cost, so you could use that information programmatically. Wrapper induction is the process of automatically generating a wrapper from examples. For instance, you might download your Amazon checkout screen today, again the next time you order books, again the next time you order books, and so on, until you'd collected several different examples. Probably after adding some markup code to those examples, you could run your examples through a wrapper induction algorithm, and it would generate a wrapper that, hopefully, would be reasonably successful at extracting any checkout screen information that might come its way in the future.

Wrapper induction should probably have a Wikipedia article. For now, though, my question is where can I find some free, concrete implementations of wrapper induction. I can find all manner of academic papers describing different approaches to the problem, but almost no code that I could actually throw my current dataset at. I could write my own, of course, but I'm lazy and would rather at least try something that already exists first. --Ryguasu 22:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a page on wrapper is due before an entire page on wrapper induction is created. Our current page on "wrapper" does not include the definition you use above, though googling around certain shows it to not be a fanciful term. --24.147.86.187 22:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

@Ryguasu and 24.147.86.187 ... The topic you mention is a subset of Information_extraction, which is a subset of Natural language processing, both of which already have articles. Apparently, AFAIK this specific sub-topic is not yet linked. As far as pre-existing free software, your best bet would probably be to look for cites specific to your sub-topic, and see what they reference. You might also try your search under Perl, compiler generator, BNF, any variety of other similar areas. HTH. dr.ef.tymac 22:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I would also suggest doing searches on "screen scraping", the term I've usually heard for this concept. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

...and, lookit that, we gots an article on it already! —Steve Summit (talk) 22:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The term "wrapper" is heavily misused in this example. In the realm of computers, a wrapper is something that wraps an existing item and adds (or sometimes limits) functionality. For example, I've written many PHP wrappers that take C++ code, wrap it, and make it usable as a PHP object. The term, as used in this question, is closer to "screen scraping" than anything else. He only wants to extract info on a single screen. He doesn't want to do "spidering" to find pages that contain information and then use "information extraction" or "data extraction" to pull it out. --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

@ Steve Summit and Kainaw. Although the term "wrapper" is indeed replete with alternative meanings, the OP did ask about specific software that is the subject of research in the field of Natural language processing and computational linguistics. Not to nitpick your answers, but "screen scraping" is a different (generally much simpler) concept. Anyone can knock together a "screen scraping" program with javascript and a few well-constructed regular expressions. Wrapper Induction Software is not the same thing, and it's not (necessarily) an off-the-cuff term coined by the OP just for the purposes of this question. If it was off-the-cuff, then probably "screen scraping" is indeed enough for his uses. Since he said he had seen the academic papers, it seems logical that his question merited more than the glib "go look at screen scraping" answer. I was tempted to give that answer as well, but the questioner seemed to be looking for something more.

Anyway, screen scraping may indeed be what he's after, but I just thought I'd add that caveat in case it sheds any additional light. For other searches, he might also want to try "hidden Markov models", "probabilistic context-free grammars", and "n-gram analysis."

If you want, do a google search on "Boosted Wrapper Induction" filetype:pdf for more details and background on the academic papers in question. HTH. dr.ef.tymac 02:40, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Teamspeak or Xfire

can someone tell me some advanteges and disadvanteges of using xfire instead of teamspeak for voice communication? I know xfire is cheaper since u dont need a server but maybe the sound quality is worse?--Taida 23:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly how xfire does it, but with most p2p programs, you're transmitting to everyone and recieving from everyone seperately. This means it uses more and more bandwidth (or, if the bandwidth is limited, results in worse and worse quality) the more people you're talking to at the same time. I wouldn't try to talk to more than two or three people this way, especially if you're gaming at the same time.

With a server-based service like teamspeak, the server's load increases as more people join, but the individual clients still only have to send and recieve everything once. FiggyBee 03:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Speaking from experience, having tried all three, all I can say is Ventrilo all the way.

March 28

Download some logic

Is there any place on the internet where musicians share their music, but in the form of say, Garageband .band files, or Logic song files, instead of mp3s or midis or aacs or something like that? [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 00:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't help you with Garageband or Logic, but there is ACIDPlanet for users of the Sony's ACID Pro and ACID Music programs. --LarryMac 00:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

KOTOR 2 problems

After installing KOTOR 2, I run the game. I go through the menu screens and watch the first movie. Then, however, the screen remains blank (black) while music is playing. About 45 seconds later, a message box pops up saying that KOTOR 2 has to close. My computer is well within the system requirements (2.8 GHz Pentium D, 1 GB RAM, etc) with the exception of my 'graphics card' (really an IGP), but that has been offically supported since the latest patch, which I have already installed. I have all the latest drivers and the latest DirectX 9 build.

The KOTOR games are notorious for crashing whimsically on PC. I havent completed either of them due to the game crashing at one point or another and no matter what I try I can't get any further. I'm not entirely sure what to suggest. Maybe having a clean boot and having as little as possible running in the background. It's not an unknown problem with this game, though. Capuchin 08:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

grep

I'm trying to find lines in a file which do not contain any of the letters abc. How do I do this with grep? Thanks. --87.194.21.177 01:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

-v option. See [2] Root⁴(one) 02:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ja, v = das ist Verbotten. StuRat 03:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

So, I'd go with "grep -v a -v b -v c target_string". StuRat 03:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Eh, grep the executable, works on files, not target strings. You can test your regex by omitting the filename. But Upon looking at StuRat's suggestion, I did discover something. On another page about grep on gnu.org, it mentions that grep can accept lists of regular expressions (something I had not realized). Indeed, you can use multiple regexes with the -e option. But it appears that -v can only negate all regexes, not any specific one. So, although an easy way to accomplish what you want if you knew anything about regular expressions is grep -v '[abc]' filename, you could also grep -e a -e b -e c -v filename. The -e option is nice because you can give multiple regexes and have grep report back which files matched, etc without having to do a double pipe (Unix). Sweetness!

Root⁴(one) Pats StuRat on the back for his creativity. Root⁴(one) 04:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, if you can use grep -v '[abc]' filename you should be able to use the reciprocate, grep '[^abc]' filename, however escaping it may be a little hard. -- ReyBrujo 04:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

One more tidbit. I feel like a jackass correcting people here, but this one misconception has convicted me more than once, so I think it would be helpful for me to share. I've been fortunate that the HTML form for which I used that type of regex as a validator (before I corrected) apparently has not been abused!. If you use [^abc], you have to make sure that you match that regex against ALL characters on the line (well, excluding line feed). grep '[^abc]' can match abc! This is a common misconception of how the negated character class works. All that character class says is "match any character that is not in this set". The line "abcd" works, because "d" is not in that set!!

So in that case a correct invocation for our intents is instead grep '^[^abc]*$' where ^ matches the beginning of the line, [^abc]* matches any character not in the set {a,b,c} zero or more times, and $ matches the end of line or eol character(s). The anchors {^,$} force [^abc]* to stretch from the beginning to the line to the end, just before the eol char if it exists.

This is analogous to predicate logic: if you want to declare that something must exist that has property p, you say $\exists x,p(x)$. If you want the logical opposite, you say "It's not the case that x exists and p(x)", or rather "For all x, not p is the case", or formally:

$\neg (\exists x,p(x))=\forall x,\neg p(x)$

The sad part of it is I have had mathematical training in thinking correctly about things like this and I still mess this construction up.

Root⁴(one) 14:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. -v is right there on the man page, don't know how I missed it - sorry! Those interested in silly dinner party games may be diverted by the result of "grep -v [mackerelMACKEREL] countries" where "countries" is a list of all the world's countries. I get 3 of them. Thanks again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.194.21.177 (talk) 10:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

While we're doing character-class tricks, here's a rare use for a character-class with only one item in it:

 ps ax | grep '[f]irefox'

That command will show you firefox's process info, but not the info for the grep command itself, which it normally (annoyingly) would, since "firefox" matches the regex, but "[f]irefox" does not. --TotoBaggins 18:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Cute! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.78.64.102 (talk • contribs) 23:08, 28 March 2007

Easiest way to let users interact with a website

Suppose I want to do a very basic "web 2.0" site. Letting people (1) create an account and login (2) upload text & pictures, (3) posts to forums. Now, ten years ago when I was on top of these sorts of things, I would have done this with custom perl cgis. Nowadays, I expect that would be re-inventing the wheel? What's the simplest way to do this sort of thing? --Wouldbewebmaster 02:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

That sounds a lot like a wiki, like this one. StuRat 03:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't want that level of anarchy. :) In particular, I'd want, for example, to approve submissions before they're added to the site, at least for new users. --Wouldbewebmaster 03:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The simplest way is to find a suitable Content management system. You can do as much or as little re-inventing as you want. If you want to code it yourself there are alot of web application frameworks out there, ruby on rails is very popular, I have been trying to learn to use catalyst (software) which a OO perl framwork -- Diletante 03:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Zope + Plone --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 07:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

my monobook.css

Hi all! I'm trying to gain some real estate on my edit pages by deleting the copywrite notices, etc. Did it in my .js file but figured it would be done better in my .css file, yes? no? Here's my .css file (the whole thing) (addapted from Mac Lover's .css):

 
/* Don't display some stuff on the main page */
/*   Thank you, Mac Lover */
/* body.page-Main_Page #lastmod,   */
/* body.page-Main_Page #contentSub,    */
/* body.page-Main_Page h1.firstHeading    */
body.page-Main_Page #siteSub, 
body.page-Main_Page #newarticletext,
body.page-Main_Page #userinvalidcssjstitle,
body.page-Main_Page #editpage-copywarn,
body.page-Main_Page #editpage-copywarn2,
body.page-Main_Page #editpage-copywarn3,
body.page-Main_Page #editpage-specialchars,
body.page-Main_Page #talkpagetext {
  display: none !important;
  }

Doesn't work. My first css; am I missing some punctuation or something? Thanks. --Saintrain 06:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC) P.s. do "//" inline comments work in css?

not sure what's wrong with your code - might sound obvious, but have you tried emptying your browser's cache/shift-refreshing the page in case that's the issue? And no, I'm afraid you're stuck with /* */ comments, CSS doesn't support // to my knowledge... _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 06:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks UKPablo. My problem is over-zealousness with ^C^V. A little snooping with firebug (Yaaay Firebug!!!) revealed that "Edit" pages aren't the "page-Main_Page". Duh! So changing it to:

/*

<nowiki> */
/* Don't display some stuff on the edit page */
/*   Thank you, Mac Lover */
body #newarticletext,
body #userinvalidcssjstitle,
body #editpage-copywarn,
body #editpage-copywarn2,
body #editpage-copywarn3,
body #talkpagetext {
  display: none !important;
  }
/* 

</nowiki> */

gets rid of half the, um, stuff on the edit page. I can live with /* */ --Saintrain 00:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

DVD copy-protected disc

How can you copy a DVD copy-protected disc onto a DVD recordable disc?Dudforreal 07:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, strictly speaking, you cannot due to the wonders of the DMCA and the fact that recordable DVD medium lacks sufficient capacity to contain a pressed DVD. -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T14:18Z

You could just do a 1:1 copy of the DVD provided you have a dual-layer blank. If you want to burn an unprotected DVD to dual-layer blank, or if you do not have such a blank, use DVD Decrypter or a related product to decrypt the DVD. Then, either just burn the files, or use something like DVD Shrink (though I think it’s not best quality) to shrink to 4 GB. Splintercellguy 15:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You are still allowed to make backup copies of software/videos that you bought legally. I suppose your question is about Video DVDs, not software ones. If so, try DVD Shrink. Aetherfukz 15:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You are allowed to copy the bits verbatum, but commercial DVDs are encrypted, meaning that if you want to do any sort of meaningful backup you would have to decrypt them. That is illegal in the US, even if you own the damn thing. --Oskar 17:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes indeed, thus my comment about "the wonders of the DMCA". DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink, et. al. are in fact illegal to use for transcoding CSS-protected DVDs in the USA. This is the same law that could be used to make a reasonable case against the legality of black permanent markers, Scotch tape, etc (okay, this is hyperbole, but amusing nonetheless). -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T22:47Z

I'd personally recommend AnyDVD. --Sn0wflake 04:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Not everyone here hails from the US. In most european countries it is still (barely :D) legal to copy DVDs non-verbatum. You are allowed to make a backup copy of stuff you own. If the company hinders you from copying it you can remove the copyprotection. It's still a grey area here in the EU but there hasn't been any resolution. The law entitles you to you backup copy that is for sure, the only matter of discussion is wheter the law for a personal backup counts more than the law against removing copyprotection. Aetherfukz 12:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Ripping songs with the Playstation 3

Yesterday, I finally got around to updating my PS3 to version 1.60 (Up from version 1.32!). I saw it could rip songs, so I tried it with a disc my brother burned.

• He used NeroVision Express 2 SE, version 2.0.1.14
• The "about" thing said that there are no updates available for it.
• The disc used was a Memorex 24x CD-RW with 700MB free space. It had never been written on before. To be safe, I told him to burn it at 16x.

When I tried ripping the tracks, three (Out of 12) wouldn't work. One always got to 44%, and then quit. I tried it three times. Then I ejected the disc to see if it was dirty. It wasn't, so I put it back in and tried one more time. That time, it worked. The other two still wouldn't work. What is going on?____J.delanoy 13:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind... found answer...J.delanoy 23:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Indexes not being used in double join in PostgreSQL.

I have a view (of the type SELECT * FROM a INNER JOIN b ON (a.b_id=b.id) INNER JOIN c ON (b.c_id=c.id)) in a postgreSQL database. I've got indexes on the relevant keys. Here's the relevant query estimations (the results of a EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM view just after doing a VACUUM ANALYZE):

Aggregate  (cost=44360.44..44360.44 rows=1 width=0)
  ->  Hash Left Join  (cost=42395.22..44342.86 rows=7029 width=0)
        ->  Merge Left Join  (cost=40677.03..41127.79 rows=7029 width=30)
              ->  Sort  (cost=28626.47..28644.05 rows=7029 width=28)
                    ->  Index Scan using main_index on a  (cost=0.00..28177.35 rows=7029 width=28)
              ->  Sort  (cost=12050.56..12228.48 rows=71169 width=58)
                    ->  Seq Scan on b (cost=0.00..4465.69 rows=71169 width=58)
        ->  Hash  (cost=1430.15..1430.15 rows=30815 width=30)
              ->  Seq Scan on c (cost=0.00..1430.15 rows=30815 width=30)

Now with enable_seqscan disabled:

Aggregate  (cost=75750.29..75750.29 rows=1 width=0)
  ->  Merge Left Join  (cost=70878.75..75732.72 rows=7029 width=0)
        ->  Sort  (cost=70878.75..70896.32 rows=7029 width=30)
              ->  Nested Loop Left Join  (cost=0.00..70429.63 rows=7029 width=30)
                    ->  Index Scan using main_index on a  (cost=0.00..28177.35 rows=7029 width=28)
                    ->  Index Scan using b_index on b  (cost=0.00..6.00 rows=1 width=58)
        ->  Index Scan using c_index on c  (cost=0.00..4705.79 rows=30815 width=30)

So the estimate is considerably higher. But see what happens when I use EXPLAIN ANALYZE:

Aggregate  (cost=44360.44..44360.44 rows=1 width=0) (actual time=5050.772..5050.775 rows=1 loops=1)
  ->  Hash Left Join  (cost=42395.22..44342.86 rows=7029 width=0) (actual time=4072.397..5021.447 rows=7960 loops=1)
        ->  Merge Left Join  (cost=40677.03..41127.79 rows=7029 width=30) (actual time=3785.948..4493.221 rows=7960 loops=1)
              ->  Sort  (cost=28626.47..28644.05 rows=7029 width=28) (actual time=503.664..533.751 rows=7960 loops=1)
                    ->  Index Scan using main_index on a  (cost=0.00..28177.35 rows=7029 width=28) (actual time=0.298..148.873 rows=7960 loops=1)
              ->  Sort  (cost=12050.56..12228.48 rows=71169 width=58) (actual time=3212.388..3488.106 rows=77850 loops=1)
                    ->  Seq Scan on b  (cost=0.00..4465.69 rows=71169 width=58) (actual time=0.066..474.231 rows=71169 loops=1)
        ->  Hash  (cost=1430.15..1430.15 rows=30815 width=30) (actual time=285.829..285.829 rows=0 loops=1)
              ->  Seq Scan on c  (cost=0.00..1430.15 rows=30815 width=30) (actual time=0.035..154.118 rows=30815 loops=1)
Total runtime: 5053.691 ms

With enable_seqscan disabled:

Aggregate  (cost=75750.29..75750.29 rows=1 width=0) (actual time=1613.781..1613.784 rows=1 loops=1)
  ->  Merge Left Join  (cost=70878.75..75732.72 rows=7029 width=0) (actual time=1068.327..1584.194 rows=7960 loops=1)
        ->  Sort  (cost=70878.75..70896.32 rows=7029 width=30) (actual time=1059.543..1090.613 rows=7960 loops=1)
              ->  Nested Loop Left Join  (cost=0.00..70429.63 rows=7029 width=30) (actual time=0.575..676.770 rows=7960 loops=1)
                    ->  Index Scan using main_index on a  (cost=0.00..28177.35 rows=7029 width=28) (actual time=0.383..127.476 rows=7960 loops=1)
                    ->  Index Scan using b_index on b  (cost=0.00..6.00 rows=1 width=58) (actual time=0.046..0.050 rows=1 loops=7960)
        ->  Index Scan using c_index on c  (cost=0.00..4705.79 rows=30815 width=30) (actual time=0.198..183.827 rows=37904 loops=1)
Total runtime: 1614.366 ms

What gives? Why isn't it using my indexes unless I force it? Why is the estimator so wrong, even after I ran a VACUUM ANALYZE? I'm using PostgreSQL 7.4.8. grendel|khan 17:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I wish I knew. I've experienced similar apathy by the optimizers in Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. —EncMstr 17:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I seem to recall having run into this or a similar problem before and it being explained within the postgres docs as something that they don't intend to fix because it would require sacrificing some code purity. I'll see if I can dig up the specifics. -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T19:10Z

MySpace Detector

I was wondering if it is really possible to know who was looking at your profile on MySpace. I have heard conflicting answers....

I know nothing about myspace, but if it allows you to embed images from external sites you can do some trickery with scripts on a server you control to get viewers' IP addresses. Another possibility would be some Javascript tomfoolery, but I suspect that the myspace people (justifiably) disallow any browser scripting. I think I have seen flash videos posted on myspace pages, too. With some ActionScript I think you could possibly write a flash program that reports an IP address to a location of your choosing. -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T19:08Z

I could (very well, I don't use it) be wrong, but I didn't think MySpace did block JavaScript (or at least, don't completely...) _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 19:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Would that work even if somebody was looking at the google cache of the page? [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 19:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Potentially, it would depend on the implementation. If you added JavaScript to load an external image, passing parameters, then providing you added something (eg the time) which would make this URL different, to the last time it was accessed, then even though most of the page is coming from the browser's cache, the browser would consider that image to be a different one to the one it had in cache, and still go out to the web to retrieve it... _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 19:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm only gonna give you more conflicting answers, I'm afraid. MySpace could (and probably do) log the IP address of people viewing your profile, and if that person was logged in they could log their identity. Whilst they could choose to make this information available to you, I don't believe they do, and it would be unlikely due to privacy concerns. Now, there is one workaround that I read about a while back (whether it still works I don't know). That worked something like this... basically if a user is logged in, they are given a unique cookie identifying them to MySpace. To prevent cross-site scripting, the visitor's browser will only give access to this cookie to the site which set it. However, it would potentially be possible to add JavaScript to your MySpace profile, which could access this cookie (the browser would allow it, since your profile is on the domain that set the cookie). This JavaScript could pass these details to a third party, to be logged in some way (I believe in this example it loaded an image from an external web server, passing the details as parameters to be logged). You could then access that 3rd party site, and check who'd visited your profile. Of course, you'd either need to be pretty net-savvy to set that up, or find someone offering such a service. Whether that trick any longer works I don't know (if MySpace are sensible they'll only store some kind of ID in their visitor's cookies, which means at best you'd get a seemingly random string of characters, which you can't easily associated with a person...). _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 19:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about what MySpace does and does not allow on individual pages since I don't really care about that site, but you probably could set up a web beacon to get IP numbers and a count of how many page views your are getting. As for using Javascript to get usernames, I wouldn't do it if I valued my account - MySpace might think you're a cracker or a phisher and ban you, since they've had problems with those people in the past. (Lots of people had their accounts cracked, and couldn't do whatever people do on MySpace) There is also this thing: Month of Myspace Bugs, which promises a new MySpace bug every day of April. --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 00:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Endnotes in OpenOffice.org Writer

Is there any way to insert 2 references pointing to a single number (in the footnotes/endnotes). Like this:

Someone said "hello world."^[1] ... Later on, Someone also said "goodbye".^[1]

1. Someone, Some Book or Other, 2007

Something like that? --h2g2bob 19:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Create the first footnote as usual (Insert > Footnote). Then point to the second occurrence and then use Insert > Cross-Reference > Select the appropriate footnote from the second list. You will probably have to superscript the number/letter yourself, though. x42bn6 Talk 22:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

That works a treat - thanks very much :D --h2g2bob 00:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

FOS Distributed Database Engine

Is there a free-open-source database engine that will handle distributed data? For example, I want to have a few hundred databases, all with the same table structure, but each containing different data. Then, from my computer, I want to do something like select avg(sbp), avg(dbp) from patients where dob>'1980-01-01' and lastvisit>'2006-01-01'; I want this to query ALL of the databases as though they were all just one database. The catch - we have no money. So, I'm looking at hacking Postgres or MySQL if I can't find something already created. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Does this describe your situation? —EncMstr 19:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks. I'm experimenting with it now and it looks great - especially since I don't have to write it. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

email

How can one determine if a received email message was sent from the USA or from outside the USA?

In general, you can't. For example, when I use an Austrian cybercafe to send from my gmail account (which is sort of associated with my Oregon, USA address), how would anyone know? Google might, but they aren't going to share the information. I don't suppose you can email them and ask them where they are? —EncMstr 20:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

When you receive an email about the only thing left which describes its history is the email headers, unfortunately the very nature of email means email headers are notoriously easy to modify, this would make it just about impossible for anyone to track. If however it has not been modified, there are ways to view the email header and try to ascertain from that the original sending domain and from that possibly the country, but it is by no means a fool proof method. Vespine 04:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That's kinda fudging the definition of "sending" the email as I would believe it is the web interface for GMail that initiates the SMTP connection to whatever servers it has, and I assume those servers are in the US. I mean, I could use VNC through some ssh tunnel in Russia to some Chinese computer and then telnet from that Chinese computer back over to some server in Oregon to send an email to the next room. The "data" of the email body, subject, recipients certainly is going all over the place, but the actual "email" is sent possibly even locally to a user on the same machine that I telneted to without even touching a SMTP server, (just an example, I don't live in Oregon).

I really don't know enough about the SMTP protocol to say this is always the case, but often you can see the originating (SMTP server) mailer through the email headers, and use that as a judge. Root⁴(one) 03:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sticky "" - keys on keyboard

On my standard USA keyboard (using Windows XP) I have problems with ' or " keys. For some reason when the key is pressed once nothing is typed. When any following key is pressed then ' or " sign appears on the screen along with the sign pressed (two come together). Reinstalling keyboard driver does not help. How do I make it type ' or " after one key pressing? - Fo63 20:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Is Windows configured to use a USA keyboard? I know when I moved to Holland I was confronted by this weird behaviour that you describe (pressing the " (shift+2) key followed by SPACE gets me a " without a space). I don't understand what the benefit is to it. I'm not sure how to change it once Windows is installed, but there must be a way. Try checking 'Regional and language options' in the control panel and make sure there's nothing European in there. --Seans Potato Business 22:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it is/was a way to generate umlauts (e.g., ü). See compose key.

Atlant 22:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the normal behaviour for USA keyboards with a layout for languages where accented characters are common (for instance, on the common Brazilian layout for USA keyboards, typing 'a gives you á, and "u gives you ü; the ABNT2 keyboard has separate keys for the accents and the quotes). See dead key for more information. --cesarb 00:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Future of open-source projects

I'm just wondering about these open-source software projects such as openSUSE and Ubuntu etc. Since for-profit companies are involved, couldn't they be reaping all this work from volunteers and then when/if Linux use hits a certain percentage and it becomes economically viable, couldn't they just start charging for the lot with no free downloads? Since OpenOffice is released under the LGPL, I'm guessing this means Sun can't do that? But what about Novell? --Seans Potato Business 22:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

They could start charging, but there is no way they could prevent anyone else from distributing them for free - their open source licenses will almost certainly insist that the same license remains with the work and any derivatives. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 22:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

A number of Linux distros are provided on a charged basis. Both Red Hat and SUSE have charged for Enterprise versions, though your payment is mostly towards the additional technical support that these products have. The main guarrenty that Linux as an entity will remain free (if not the indivdual flavours of the OS) is that the original source code was released under the GNU licence and all derivate works HAVE to also comply with this license to remain legal. Even if every single Linux provider decided to become exclusively fee based it would be very possible for a third party to create another free Linux distro very quickly. Elaverick 22:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

mp3 player (moved from WP:RD/M)

I have an RCA Lyra mp3 player, not sure of the the model but its a 2GB flash player with MP3, WMA and FM radio capability. Heres the problem: when i plug it in to my XP-based computer, it pops up in My Computer as an Audio Device, not a usb mass storage device. it doesnt have a drive letter and its folders dont behave normally (with regards to drag and drop, copy and paste, and the menu u get when u right click). how can i stop the computer from recognizing it as an mp3 player and just treating it like a usb thumb drive? i've done it with other mp3 players before.. why is it not working now? im hoping i wont have to install anything. RCA's stupid useless website doesnt help and a quick google doesnt bring up anything useful. Can you.. or can you tell me who can? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.53.180.84 (talk) 22:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

Are you sure the device does, in fact, report itself as a USB MSC (mass-storage class)? If the device itself doesn't support being accessed as a mass storage device, there's little to nothing you can do. From your description, it sounds like this MP3 player is a MTP device. -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T22:42Z

The consumer review website

I was about to contribute a review about a pair of bluetooth headphones I've been wearing to a consumer review website. I did a search on google, not realising just how many consumer review sites there were. Is there a "the" consumer review site? The idea doesn't work as well if people's contributions are split across several sites (I guess it keeps them from charging money for access) (imagine competing Wikipedias) --Seans Potato Business 23:05, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The industry is to big for a "The" monopoly but CNET is one of the largest sites for reviews and consumer reviews for just about everything tech or gadgets related. http://cnet.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.53.180.34 (talk) 01:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

Slashdot is good for it. And free. And hilarious. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 11:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

March 29

How does a keyboard work?

I was wondering if someone could tell me how computers are able to take the words entered on a keyboard and translate them into digital information? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.31.231.229 (talk) 00:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

There are a few articles you may want to look at: Computer keyboard#How it works, Keyboard technology. --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 00:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Bittorent Trackers

Are Bittorent tracker computers that run special server software, computers seeding the torrent with a normal client, or something else? Please explain!--Ryan 01:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

A tracker is a server that coordinates the torrent - it is special software, but it is open-source. There is an article here: BitTorrent tracker --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 01:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The BitTorrent specification (if you can call it that) is open, and there are open implementations of the BT tracker and client. There are also closed implementations. -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T01:36Z

data recovery

I am writing a paper on how the FBI recovers evidence from hard drives even after the files have been deleted/erased. 72.40.60.1 02:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)jc

Sorry all, can anyone please lead me in the right direction on this topic72.40.60.1 02:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)jc

See data recovery, although it's emphasis is on data accidentally lost. Also see undelete. StuRat 02:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Computer forensics is good, although much of the content needs to be interwikied. Splintercellguy 03:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It may be interesting to note that if someone erases something from a hard drive with a secure erase procedure, the data is not recoverable (at least not from that media). -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T04:03Z

Like # dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda? (from dd (Unix) --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That may not be enough, given the right tools. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.25.65 (talk) 09:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

Data remanence is a great article that descusses how to get rid of data properly. Capuchin 11:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

/dev/urandom only gets about 6MB/s, so you better ask the Feds to give you a few hours notice. :) --TotoBaggins 18:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't quote me on this, but I'm sure I read somewhere (probably a webpage for a 'deletion' program that securely removes your data) that writing over data once doesn't always mean the data isn't recoverable - and they said in fact that when formatting your drive for this purpose you'd in fact have to do it 'several times'. What was great about this program is that it would overwrite the data several times with gobbledy-gook and then erase it. Rfwoolf 12:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

This is paranoia. A single overwrite of all data on the hard drive with ones or zeros or gibberish renders the original data unreadable (assuming of course that the data is actually, physically overwritten). You may be thinking of the infamous Gutmann paper which has been wholly misinterpreted by many an internet fellow. If data on a hard disk has been overwritten, the best you can hope to do is get a probability that a given bit was different before, and this only by statistical analysis and an MFM. Given that analysis of an entire disk platter with an MFM would take about a year of continuous scanning and generate a metric crapton of data, this isn't exactly a feasible recovery method. Secure agencies use much more stringent methods (multiple overwrites), but this is just extra paranoia (the NSA also physically destroys hard drives in a big hard drive shredder). -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T12:42Z

It isn't exactly pure paranoia. Because disk read/write heads have a certain width and because they are only positioned to a certain accuracy, it is possible that a single over-write will be slightly mis-positioned compared to an earlier write, leaving behind a thin "stripe" of the original data. It won't have any effect on the normal read operations of the disk because the new data will certainly overwhelm any remnant "stripe" of old data, but if you are willing to use other methods to read the disk, the "stripe" may, in fact, be readable. Multiple write operations are assumed to have enough distributed positioning error that they will obliterate any remaining "stripes" of good data.

Another term for this whole process is "Data Security Erase".

Atlant 13:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not pure paranoia. I acknowledged that it is theoretically possible to recover some "truly" overwritten data from hard disks (I just noticed we've been ignoring other media here) with SPM techniques. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's "practically paranoia", since it is not (yet) practically possible to recover significant amounts of data using these methods. The best kind of paranoia has a dash of hard science mixed in for flavor. :) -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T17:22Z

Is this the Peter Gutmann paper? It details several techniques which easily (that is, less than $1500 and a day) recover data from several previous write cycles. —EncMstr 17:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It is. $1500 can get you an MFM setup, not the ability to recover overwritten data. See [3]. -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T18:00Z

Is there a way to rip Zoomify images?

I'm looking at this piece of artwork here. It's PD (author died over 70 years ago, published c. 1890), but there's no link to download the full image. Is there anything I can do to get the whole thing short of screenshotting each piece and stitching them together with hugin? (Which I can do... it's just a bit labor-intensive.) grendel|khan 03:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Do they sell any cds of artwork? I'd try the legal commercial route first. In short, yeah, I suspect with the proper tools that it wouldn't be too hard to grab the incoming images as they are being downloaded to the flash player unless there's some sort of encryption/data format obfuscation involved. But Jeez, lets support our public art museums, why don't we? These pieces of art have to be kept up, atmospheres have to be conditioned, etc. Root⁴(one) 04:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd just be uploading the image off the CD to Commons, instead of doing it this way. What did you think I was going through this effort for? grendel|khan 05:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

And there are other ways for museums to make money other than spurious and false copyright claims. Might as well consider advocating that the rob banks, since after all art has to be kept up, atmospheres have to be conditioned, etc... spurious copyright claims on public domain artwork do not really aid museums in the long or short terms and they certainly don't aid culture as a whole. --24.147.86.187 14:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that because you think the "copyright" of the image has expired automatically gives you the right to download and print off a copy that someone went to the trouble of meticulously scanning and presenting online. The museum may not technically own the rights to the original work, but they probably OWN the original work and they certainly OWN the presentation you are viewing. Vespine 05:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Why the scare quotes around 'copyright'? I don't "think" the copyright on the image has expired; it has. It's not an opinion and it's not a gray area. Why does it matter for my purposes that the museum owns the original work? How is this different from pulling a plain JPEG off their site? Are you aware that Zoomify is a simple Flash app that lets the user view an impractically large image, and that the presentation to which you refer is a drag and drop affair to set up? I'm not saying they didn't take the effort to scan or photograph the work in the first place, but I am saying that pulling an image from that site is no different from downloading a plain JPEG or, say, scanning photos of public domain paintings from a book. grendel|khan 05:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, haven't seen the scare quotes article before but I'll pay it, bad habit... Anyway, I still wouldn't be so sure that "no different to downloading a plain JPEG" means it's legitimate way of obtaining it either. If it was that simple, what's the point of the "Copyright © 2006 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco" at the bottom then? Vespine 05:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The copyright notice is partly because they own the copyright to their site design etc., partly because some of the works in the ImageBase might be photos of sculptures and such (which are copyrightable) and part copyfraud. (Here, for instance, a Canadian library claims that an 1854 treaty is copyright "Government of the United States of America", managing to be wrong in two ways at once.) Now, museums in Britain, for instance, can copyright their reproductions of public domain works (and by prohibiting photography in the museum, effectively remove the work from the public domain!), but in the United States, museums can't do that. To be intimidated by yet another scattershot claim of copyright constitutes an unacceptable chilling effect, saying that we ourselves need to scan any art we use. It's definitely not our policy at the present time; consider this enormous set of images which rely on the noncopyrightable nature of copies of two-dimensional works. grendel|khan 06:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

For the record it is not at all clear that they are copyrighted in the UK; it's just that they haven't had a direct ruling on it yet on the level of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (to my knowledge, anyway). However museums in both the UK and the US have all the right in the world to prohibit photography — it is their private space and private property — the question of the intellectual property is totally separate, of course. --24.147.86.187 14:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Another example: Privat-Livemont-Absinthe Robette-1896.jpg. The site it came off of states at the bottom, "No pictures or text may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission of the site owner." On the other hand, I can't nick images from ARTstor here, because I have to agree to a license to get to anything, and part of what I'm agreeing to is not to reproduce the images. I didn't sign/agree to anything to access either the poster I pulled from the Zoomify viewer or that Absinthe Robette poster. If using the latter is kosher, so is the former. grendel|khan 11:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, see a more thorough explanation of copyfraud (this is the article that the above-linked abstract goes to), and see a discussion on Commons about similar claims made by the New York Public Library. grendel|khan 11:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

As for Zoomify — it uses a Flash player to accomplish said zoomification. Look in the source of the page for the word "zoomifyImagePath", and it will have a path after it. Add ".jpg" to the path and you have your high-res image. For this one, it is http://www.thinker.org/media/images/3/332820130166/images/3328201301660070.jpg. Enjoy. --24.147.86.187 14:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent answer. StuRat 17:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Ha. And this after I'd already gone through two hours of stitching together essentially uniform background grain. I should be lazier. At least it's good practice for stitching together other sorts of images. I cropped it losslessly; it's now uploaded at Privat-Livemont-Ameublement-1890.jpg. grendel|khan 18:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

composing music

Please do not double post questions, section moved from Entertainment desk.

can you tell me some good user-friendly and intuitive programs to make my own electronic music... orrr if i want to compose midi... or if i want to sample stuff and then compose a midi-like track that uses the sampled new instrument... or if i record myself singing then record myself playing flute or harp how to put them one on top of another or slow one down or synchronize etc.?--Sonjaaa 04:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Look no further then Ableton Live, it does all that and more. I believe there is a free trial you can use to see how you like it.Vespine 04:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

My favorite is Sibelius, for scorewriting, but I know a lot of people that like Finale 2007 too, which is kind of the standard. [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 05:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...Sibelius is the one of the best, and easy to use, but it's more than $400 last time I checked. Don't be fooled into buying the cheap ones like I did, though (MusicWrite is especially horrific). bibliomaniac15 05:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Really? I swear it was $100 when I last checked! Perhaps I was looking at the academic version? In any case, for scorewriters or recording, or editing audio, if you are going to do anything professional and don't have any money, the best bet is to download it :D [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 07:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

question

I was wondering if there is anyway to disable the math-co proccesor on a computer so that if i tried to divide 0 by 0 on a custom made dev C++ program i could cook something on my cpu. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.5.113 (talk • contribs) 06:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

0/0 will always return an error; you can't get around it, you can't cook something with just an illegal op. If you want, run a tight loop instead (while(1);). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.25.65 (talk) 09:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

A somewhat related article would be Halt and Catch Fire. --cesarb 09:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Back in the days of core memory, it was rumored that tight loops (for example, a "Branch self" instruction) could toast the affected few cores, but I never saw it happen myself and I ran quite a few branch-self programs over the years. They never even seemed to heat to the point of causing data errors.

And for divide by zero, the division algroithms aren't written to simply do subtraction over and over again; they're much more clever than that so they'll catch your error.

Atlant 13:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

mediawiki

on a new install of mediawiki, what is the admin's password? 195.194.74.154 11:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe the admin's password (or ROOT user) is set during the installation when you create a database for your wiki.
You can find more information here: Help:Installation
You can also try "sysop"
Rfwoolf 11:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Mediawiki does not have a "root". I believe you are referring to the root user for the database (either MySQL or PostgreSQL). By default, no root password is set during installation. For example, you connect to MySQL using mysql -u root mydatabase. For security reasons, the standard MySQL and PostgreSQL installers now ask you in big bold letters to please set root's password after installation. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

How to do a particular image manipulation

In the image shown here, notice that the wherever there isn't "something", there is a gray background. The darkness of this backgroung varies in the "y" direction. What I would like to do is take a samples of this varying background at any given y and subtract that value all the way across the image at that y. Did I explain that clearly? Notice down the right hand side there is a wide blank space just for this purpose of sampling the background.

Any idea how I can do this? I have GIMP but am not particularly skilled with it and I am not a programmer. The original images I want to process are relatively large tiffs, if that matters. Thanks!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ike9898 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

It sounds to me like you want to (in Gimp) go to Layers→Colors→Brightness-Contrast. Increase both brightness and contrast. The lightest gray will become white and the darkest gray will become black. --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

You could probably get a reasonably good result in the Gimp by applying a mask that was created with a vertical gradient. I thought it was a fun problem, so I wrote some code that does it with Perl. It's not fast, but it does seem to do what you want. You run it with:

 perl -w normalize.pl REFERENCE-COLUMN SOURCE-IMAGE

You can figure out the reference column (x-pixel) on which to normalize using the Gimp's measuring tool. The tool puts the resulting image (with a red line showing the reference column) in out-SOURCE-IMAGE. Here's an example output. Enjoy! --TotoBaggins 19:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use Image::Magick;
use strict;

use constant MAX_COLOR => 0xFFFF;

my $err;

my $fname = shift() or die 'usage';
my $reference_column = shift() or die 'usage';

my $src = Image::Magick->new();
$err = $src->Read($fname);
die $err if $err;

my $height = $src->Get('height');
my $width = $src->Get('width');

my $dest = Image::Magick->new();
$err = $dest->Set(size => "${width}x$height");
$err = $dest->ReadImage('xc:white');
die $err if $err;

$" = ',';
my @colors = qw(R G B);
foreach my $y (0 .. $height)
{
    my @ref_pixel = split ',', $src->Get("pixel[$reference_column,$y]");
    foreach my $x (0 .. $width)
    {
        my @pixel = split ',', $src->Get("pixel[$x,$y]");
        foreach my $color (0 .. 2)
        {
            $pixel[$color] += (MAX_COLOR - $ref_pixel[$color]);
            $pixel[$color] = MAX_COLOR if $pixel[$color] > MAX_COLOR;
        }  
        $err = $dest->Set("pixel[$x,$y]" => "@pixel");
        die $err if $err;
    }
}
my $box_right  = $reference_column + 1;
$dest->Draw(stroke      => 'red',
            strokewidth => 1,
            primitive   => 'line',
            points      => "$box_right,0 $box_right,$height");


$err = $dest->Write("out-$fname");
die $err if $err;

Well don't know if this can help fix it but what if you were to select the region and right clinck and then go into 'layer/colours/invert' and that might help.

Mix Lord 00:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I know of something that can help. ImageJ. It allows you to do some math operations (like subtraction of some constant) over entire images (including 16bit gray level Tiffs). Real simple too. Root⁴(one)

Strange issue with Quicktime

Hello!

I have a Quicktime .mov (3,4GB, DV at PAL resolution) created with iMovie on a G4 mac. Now I have the problem: On my WinXP SP1 the movie won't play with any version of Quicktime,even not the newest. On my Debian, VLC, ffmpeg,mencoder and MPlayer can't view it. Only Noatun/Kaffeine can.
So: How can I convert this movie (as losslessly as possible) to a "normal" format like mp4?

Regards,84.56.25.16 17:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Would PSP Video 9 do it? You should be able to choose the quality and everything there and it converts to MP4.

Mix Lord 00:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Chatbot Website Creation

I have a chatbot and need to know how to create a website that takes in your input and sends an output, I looked up html and basically ended up with this through editing source code of websites like Google:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
  <title>Chatbot</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="test.txt" method="get"> You say: <input name="input"
 type="text"> <input name="id" value=""
 type="hidden"> <input value="Say!" type="submit"> </form>
</body>
</html>

I think it sends the information to the server but I'm not sure. Even if it does send information to the server how do I use it. (my chatbot's written in C# if that helps) What now? Thanks for all the help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.109.79.136 (talk) 20:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

The form's "action" attribute needs to be set to the actual page or program that will receive the input, and of course that page or program must be on the server. Take a look at this lesson and see if that helps. --LarryMac 00:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Document management system for a private person

I have always more and more documents (scanned, in pdf, in html, pics). I would like to better keep track of them and the a directory with folder is somehow too little. I would like to be able to comment them (without changing them), keep notes of what relates to what, etc.

Is there some simple DMS out there for this kind of thing?

Mr.K. (talk) 21:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: I am actually using a free, open-source tool. Mr.K. (talk) 21:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

March 30

BSoD

My computer is display the blue screen of death whenever I try to start it up.

Is it possible to recover any of the data?

yes, probably the easiest way would be if you had a second computer or knew someone that did, you take your disk and plug it into the other computer, then hopefully the other computer will be able to read your disk just like another drive, you should be able to copy files back onto the other computer. This is unless there is a physical problem with your disk which is causing the problems, but it is more likely your problems are other hardware or operating system related. Vespine 01:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The specific BSoD error code would help too. Yes, move the disk. Splintercellguy 03:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You can try booting with a Linux LiveCD and access all your files. --Spoon! 05:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well the most secure thing to do is take out the drive and add it to another machine (as a secondary drive) and then you can easily see what is readible and copy off whatever you need.
But failing that, if the hard drive is experiencing hard drive failure - then perhaps you shouldn't play with it too much until you can get it to another machine to extract the data - I mean don't boot it up a zillion times trying to get it to work - but that said, in some cases you can try booting it up a few times and maybe once or twice you'll get lucky and make it into Windows, at which point you can try burn a CD or copy files from one drive to another. If the cause is NOT hard drive failure, and it's just that your Windows System files have been corrupted, then you can look at try to repair your verion of Windows, which depends on what version you'r running.
I thought I'd add that you don't need a second COMPUTER to extract the data - (if it's the hard drive's fault) - all you'd need is another hard drive on the computer and run an operating system on that (tecnically even MS DOS!) - this might involve setting one drive as the primary and the other as a secondary (this is possible through setting the various jumper pins or via the BIOS - caution is advised!) or via the BIOS you can try tell our PC to boot from the one drive.
Anyways, I hope that gives you some options. Good luck Rfwoolf 12:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, dude can you hack into somebody's myspace account?

So. I'm a software pirater but I'm not a hacker. I know more about computers then most people, and the question I get most asked at high schools are "whoa, dude, can you hack into somebody's myspace account?" I say no, and they're disappointed. So, I was wondering, how is it done? Not like I could ruin my reputation by getting too close to the website, but, it must be easy? [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 04:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I would think a bit of cross-site scripting, social engineering, actual server compromise, or a little bit of all of the above. Splintercellguy 04:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Simple. Guess their password. Most people use lame passwords, like the name of their pet or spouse—or their birthday. I don't know whether Myspace requires use of a secure password, but I wouldn't guess they would. More security-conscious sites require passwords being chosen (by the owner) to contain a minimum number of characters and include nonalphabetic characters, perhaps several. More aggressive techniques include password interception, spying, breaking and entering, etc. —EncMstr 04:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Image layout software with easy soft shadows etc.?

I've been using Photoshop to layout and make some pages where I have lots of photos and put them together as a stacked effect. However, the laziness of me prompted me to ask here, what else are there that can easily add softshadows etc., that are easily done with layer styles in Photoshop and runs under Linux? I know Xara Xtreme can do it but it's not really cross-platform and GIMP is seriously too slow, taking ages to do anything in an A3 300dpi file. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You've asked for only things that run under Linux - so the leaves out CorelDraw s'far's I know - but Adobe (the folks that make Photoshop) have CS2 - which might be your solution if it runs on Linux. Basically, CS2is like Corel Draw, which (at a stretch) is a kind of hybrid between raster/bitmap editing and vector editing. In other words if Photoshop is good for all your images/rasters/bitmaps things, and Freehand is good at your vectors/shapes/mathematically-calculated, then CS2and CorelDraw offer a bit of a hybrid. What would be great about CS2 though is that it would be fully compatible with your Photoshop (and CorelDraw is kinda, too). Rfwoolf 12:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

about SIM

Hi, this is a student working on a project related to mobile technology. I want to know the process in a mobile from user dialing a number; start conversation till he ends the call.From where to where and how the data flows in this process. What is the job of SIM in a mobile phone and what it stores.......

And can we access server that stores the call charges of the particular SIM(for STD,LOCAL etc.;) My project is to impose restrictions on the usage of the cell to a particular amount fixed by the owner of the cell(in cases where it is used by some other person). So; for this can we access the server...

Can any one help me..... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Boddeti (talk • contribs) 07:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

For SIM cards, did you see Subscriber Identity Module? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 07:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Downloading mail from Yahoo to Outlook Express

Could anyone tell me the method required to down load mail from my account at yahoo to my inbox in Outlook Express.

Many thanks.

John F.D'Souza

(email redacted) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.130.9.1 (talk) 10:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

Hello, Mr. D'Souza; I have removed your email from this entry so that it doesn't get harvested by spammers. There are two ways that I know of to access your Yahoo! mail via Outlook Express. The first is to pay extra to Yahoo! for a "Yahoo! Plus" account. The other is to use a third-party program, such as YPOPs!. There is a walkthrough on setting that up at about.com. --LarryMac 13:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Installing PyXML-0.8.4 on Intel Mac

Hello,

I am trying to install PyXML-0.8.4 on my Intel Mac so I can use some of the more powerful features in Inkscape.

I've downloaded the package, but when I run "Python setup.py install" I get this error message: "error: could not delete '/sw/lib/python2.5/site-packages/_xmlplus/parsers/pyexpat.so': Permission denied"

Any suggestion on what I can do to fix this?

Thank you,

-Grey —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grey1618 (talk • contribs) 11:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

sudo? --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Can't believe I forgot Sudo. Mac has spoiled me since my linux days. Well that worked fine, but Inkscape still keeps giving me the error message: "The inkex.py module requires PyXML. Please download the latest version from <http://pyxml.sourceforge.net/>."> Any ideas? --Grey1618 14:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Laptop Vs desktop

I use the PC only to read news using bloglines and google reader. At present, I am using a HP PC with a 15 inch LCD screen. A friend said that laptop would be more convienient for reading than a desktop. He said desktops are good only for watching movies and playing games. He suggets a Dell 14 inch wide screen laptop. Should I buy a laptop? Will it be easier for me to read through a 14" widescreen laptop instead of a 15" LCD desktop? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.121.159 (talk) 12:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

Java question related with keyword

java programming language keyword total 52 .. what is the use of goto and const keyword in java. now it's not use but why not drop these keyword... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.17.76.81 (talk) 13:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

They are reserved keywords though, as you say, they are unused. I can only speculate as to their inclusion; perhaps they exist in case someone at Sun becomes completely evil and decides that Java should support the goto construct. Someone else might have a better explanation. -- mattb @ 2007-03-30T13:57Z