Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Wikipedia:Reference desk/headercfg

August 22

converting lat/long to pixel coordinates

How would one go about converting a series of latitude and longitude coodinates from a given map projection (say, Robinson) to pixel values (that is, assume that said map is a raster image of given length and width, and say we know exactly which pixel the prime meridian is on)? It seems like something that should be out there already, but I am not having an easy time finding the relevant code. I am sure it is some sort of nasty matrix transformation? --24.147.86.187 00:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting question. For a small-scale map a linear scaling would do the job, but I assume you mean a map large enough so that noticeable curvature in the lines of longitude occur. Even worse would be projections that tear the map into strips. I know of a site that seems able to do what you want (or, at the very least, they can calculate the distance between two map points), perhaps you can ask them how they do it: [1]. StuRat 04:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but I'm not too clued up on how to interpret maps (what with curves and things), but here's my input: This sort of thing is technically doable both manually and programatically, all depending on how technical you want to go. For example if your map's horizontal axis goes from 0° to 180°, then if your map image is 600 pixels wide, then you know that 0° is pixel 1, and 180° is pixel 600, and therefore 90° is pixel 300 -- that sort of thing. Or by distance you would calculate your unit on your map image, i.e. 1 pixel = x miles/killometers. If you measure 10 miles on your map then on the image that's 25 pixels. Problems of course come in with things like distortion, curves, etc. 1) Do you require this to be done on only one map, or several? 2) How important is accuracy? Rfwoolf 16:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone heard of this? Windows XP cannot ALT-TAB or switch tasks properly

I upgraded to Windows XP about six months ago and there's a feature called ALT-TAB.

For reference, I have "group similar taskbar buttons" unchecked because I dislike that function.

Before Windows XP, if I have a window open then I click in the start menu to another menu, then I hit ALT-TAB, it'll go to the previous window. But in Windows XP, ALT-TAB goes to a random window and not my last window. I basically have to click back and forth between then in the start menu 10 times before ALT-TAB between them works like in previous windows versions.

In additon, I may also have two notepad windows lined up as I'm using them both together--sy NotepadWindowA in the left corner and NotepadWindowB in the right corner--and well when I even click back and forth between them in the start menu (not the window, but the start menu), Windows XP refuses to keep both Notepad windows in the foreground and instead randomizes all window-on-top orders when I click between them in the start menu. I basically have to click back and forth between then in the start menu at least 10 times before clicking back and forth between them in the start menu works like in previous windows versions.

I've been trying to find information on google and it gives no information. Is there even a name for these Windows XP bugs/features so I can look for it? Juanita Hodges 02:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Vista? Linux? Sorry for the unhelpful answers but XP does have its quirks --froth^t 04:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I also use XP with "group similar" unchecked and I don't have this problem, for what it's worth. -- BenRG 10:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If you hold down ALT while pressing tab multiple times I believe it lets you choose between the available windows. Not quite the answer you want but it makes it a little bit easier, perhps? I don't have the same problem you describe; I'm pretty sure mine goes back to the window of the application I most recently used. --24.147.86.187 14:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all, unchecking "Group similar taskbar buttons" is, as far as I'm concerned, the only way to go. I change all computers I go near to that. Secondly, you speak of the "start Menu" when in fact I think you're talking about the TaskBar. The Startmenu opens up a whole lot of program shortcuts etc - whereas the taskbar at the bottom next to the start menu where open programs sit. About your problem, one thing I can think of is that perhaps you have a 3rd party tool installed that has messed with the way windows is handling its... windows. Good luck Rfwoolf 16:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If you do Alt+Tab but don't release the Alt key, does it give you the list of open windows? 68.39.174.238 18:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I meant task bar. Anyone know the proper name for these Windows XP problems so I can google for it? Juanita Hodges 21:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't know if this helps, from Alt-Tab: Applications have some say in where they are located in the Alt-Tab order. The list of windows is altered by the creation and destruction of windows, programmatic hiding, showing, raising, and lowering of windows, and alterations to the window z-order.

So it seems that some programs override this, one example of something like that was Adobe 7.x

Also, familiarise yourself with these commands: Alt + Tab, Alt + Shift + Tab, and Alt + Shift + Esc

The article Alt-Tab is worth a read-through.

Rfwoolf 14:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

GoDaddy page appears for all invalid domains

I'm on Sympatico (provided by Aliant in eastern Canada), and no matter what domain I look up (even if it's a single word, like an invalid TLD) takes me to a page titled "This Web page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com!", at 68.178.232.99. I only have access to a Windows machine on this connection at the moment so the ping command is the best I have, but WTF? Is this the ISP doing something like what Verisign did awhile ago with their SiteFinder service? --Silvaran 03:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

GoDaddy cybersquats a lot. Or else it could be your ISP or spyware on your computer. Juanita Hodges 04:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Turns out I had chosen a domain that was "parked" by GoDaddy as the default domain on my little d-link router/switch. So this gets sent to clients through DHCP, and everything (including ping) appends this domain and does a second look-up. Since GoDaddy has a wildcard set up on that particular domain, I always get a parked page. SO it was my own stupidity... ahh well... --Silvaran 17:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that GoDaddy (the company) is not the one that does the cybersquatting; they are a domain registrar and cybersquatters use registrars to squat. --140.247.240.228 19:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Mm, I don't think so. --froth^t 01:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Need HDTV 1080i recorder

Not a camcorder, mind you, just a way to record 1080i broadcasts, primarily for time shifting (recording them while at work then playing them later). A standalone unit that attaches to the TV will work, either recording to a built-in hard drive or burning to DVD. Alternatively, it can hook up to the computer and use it's hard drive and/or DVD burner. So far, the only thing I've found close seems to be the Sony RDV-D60C, which doesn't appear to be for sale yet, at least in the US. I've found lots of camcorders that claim to record 1080i, but they want to record it on tape, which does me no good. Also, I don't want to pay for a camcorder I don't need. Any recommendations ? StuRat 04:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I only heard of the hard drive things like tivo. Juanita Hodges 04:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Does TiVo do 1080i ? StuRat 04:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Lord knows. I have a DVD-RAM recorder now. It depends on the show whether 1080i is important. I prefer to tape everything as a noisy neighbor or dog and ruin a show if not taped. I like the DVD-RAM disks as when the recorder breaks down, the taped shows are still good and I only need one thing that can play may DVDs I rent, too. They don't even make a DVD-Ram recorder that has High def inputs (mine has outputs but not inputs). They should make some recorder that has High def inputs and outputs. The only thing I can think of is one of those recorder types that are basically just a hard drive and that's it-- no CD shaped disks. If you find something good, please leave me a talk message especially if you find a disk version. Juanita Hodges 04:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Do a google search for "atsc capture card" and you'll find any number of gadgets which plug into your computer and allow you to same the video stream to your computer hard drive. --136.186.1.191 07:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course, if you're in in a country that uses DVB, you'll need a DVB capture card, not an ATSC one. --136.186.1.191 07:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Tivo Series 3 support 720p and 1080i recording. --24.249.108.133 15:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

How about the cheaper TiVo HD ? I can't find any documentation on if it can record 1080i or only 720p. StuRat 15:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. See here, near the end of the page, just before "Conclusion." --LarryMac | Talk 18:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

So it does record 1080i (and 1080p if you can find anyone broadcasting it), right ? Also, what happens if your subscription runs out, does the unit cease to work in any way or still work on a basic level ? StuRat 21:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe that TiVo has made their newer units reliant on a continuing subscription. --LarryMac | Talk 14:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I use a pcHDTV card on my Linux system to record broadcast HD content using MythTV for time-shifting. I don't burn the content to DVD, though, since I don't really care about archiving the content. -- JSBillings 11:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

That's one way to go, but doesn't that require a fast computer, say 2.8 GHz or above ? StuRat 15:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

File Format of Azureus download

in what file formst does Azureus download? If a file (say, bloomer.avi or diehard4.avi) is being downloaded through Azureus, then what does a Network Administrator see on his screen? Is the full name of the file being downloaded visible to him? If you change the visible name of the file being downloaded then is the Network Administrator still able to see the original file name?

It comes down to this: If you're downloading what you're not supposed to be downloading, then expect to get caught. Capuchin 11:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Like any P2P program, it downloads things in the format that people upload them in. If someone seeds a .AVI and you download it, don't expect it to come out as a .RM or .WMV. 68.39.174.238 18:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

What he/she is asking, and I don't know the answer, is what would P2P traffic look like to a network administrator? Obviously it will look like a lot of activity on non-HTTP ports (torrent programs use lots of weirdo ports and I imagine the activity is very distinctive looking), but would the network admin be able to tell what files were being downloaded over the ports? I don't know enough about protocols to answer this, personally. --24.147.86.187 00:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well the answer is nope, unless they have a deep packet inspection appliance, and nope in all cases if you enable encryption and "disable incoming legacy connections" --froth^t 01:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well my question is exactly what 'Froth' and 24.147.86.187 are talking about. Does P2P traffic give any clue regarding the type and name of the file being downloaded? Also 'Froth' has explained regarding utorrent but can anyone explain regarding Azureus?

Come on, if you are on a propriety network of any company which takes their IT half seriously then you are crazy to download anything against that might be against policy, no matter how small you think the chance of getting caught is. "Deep packet scanner" my butt, we bust people with simple scans of proxy logs and profile caches. Those sockets if they aren't blocked will be like a red flag that something is happening on your machine which would be more then enough reason for a half alert admin to investigate further. On the otherhand, if you're talking about the computer at the dog wash or hair dresser that you work at, then you're probably safe... It comes down to a very simple question, yet I'm stunned people are surprised when they are walked off the job site, IT DOES HAPPEN: If you think getting a pirate version of die hard 4 is worth losing your job over then go for your life. Otherwise, rip it off DVD or find a friend who downloads it at home.Vespine 05:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, Azureus also has options to enable encryption and disable incoming legacy connections, though these two options are probably named differently. Also, if Network Administrator suspects you of downloading illegal torrents he can just block you from accessing any torrents. And like Vespine said, pirating is not worth loosing your job over. — Shinhan < talk > 14:59, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Websites Hacked?

I try going in to the website at http://www.goskateboardingday.org and it keeps redirecting me to this: http://ertugrulgazi.byethost31.com/hacked/ . Anybody else experience this? If so please reply as I'm pretty sure my computer is spyware free. 71.112.226.247 06:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Nope, goes straight to the site. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Could be you've got spyware in your browser that's redirecting you to another website. You might try and disable browser plugins and see if it still does it. Since you have spyware, I'm going to save time and assume you're using Internet Explorer, in which case go into Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, Enable thirdparty browser extensions, and uncheck it. Once you've restrated your computer, go back to http://www.goskateboardingday.org if it works this time, they you've got spyware.--69.118.235.97 12:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Never mind everything I just said, you don't have spyware, I just went there in IE and got the same bad redirect that you got to http://ertugrulgazi.byethost31.com/hacked/. My guess is it's a browser exploit that only works in IE.--69.118.235.97 12:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It does the same thing in Safari after a second. Basically someone found a way to insert <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;URL=http://ertugrulgazi.byethost31.com/hacked/"> into the "poll" part of the page. Pretty primitive; my guess is that their "poll" script was not secured against an SQL injection or something along those lines. Any time a web page allows user input it introduces opportunities for exploitation if the web designer does not know about properly escaping characters, etc. I have seen (and helped correct) very high-profile, official sites that suffered from this simple flaw. If that's the case they are lucky that the "hacker" just wanted to point them to a different page, rather than, say, deleting their whole database. --24.147.86.187 14:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

24.147.86.187 has it exactly right, as I can see in Lynx. Damn script kiddies. --h2g2bob (talk) 21:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Even Firefox redirects to this page... Stupid scripts... --_{Hdt83 Chat} 01:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a pretty neat prank to me; I wouldn't even call it hacking to get the point to deciding whether it's leet/skiddie --froth^t 03:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I can see that several days after the question was answered the website is still hacked. To be precise, in your index.asp page, in the featured event table on the left, there is code saying: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;URL=http://ertugrulgazi.byethost31.com/hacked/"> Remove this code to stop the problem for now, and make sure to escape characters such as ' and " when user input is allowed. -- StevenMc, 09.50, 27 August 2007 (BST)

duplicates in outlook express

Are there any freeware programs to remove the duplicates from outlook express? All I can find are fee based programs by mostly MVP's (Microsoft very important person?), while the OE programming error that causes the duplicates is obviously correctable by Microsoft but not being attended to by Microsoft - possibly for no other reason than the financial benefit of those MVPs. Clem

Fonts in PDF

I have a PDF file where there's a character that appears as a square. Is this supposed to be a square or is it a missing character? Is there a way I can find out how to fix the missing character? (I didn't think that PDFs worked on the basis of fonts, but it's a character in a formula, so i doubt it's a square... i might be wrong). Capuchin 14:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If properly made PDFs package their needed fonts with them. If improperly made, they don't, and rely upon the user's system fonts. To find out if there are font issues, open up the PDF in Adobe Reader, then go to File > Document Properties > Fonts. That should, I think, tell you if anything has gone horribly wonky. --24.147.86.187 14:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It just gives a list of fonts used in the document and not a lot else. They all say either Embedded or Embedded subset next to them. Hmmm. Capuchin 14:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Then it might be a problem with the font itself being displayed correctly on your machine. I've had trouble with embedding fonts in the cases where the original font files were only postscript or only truetype or only something else, I can't quite recall, and the final PDF would come out looking quite incorrect. (I think it was in cases where I did not have PostScript equivalents for the fonts but I might be wrong.) --24.147.86.187 14:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay I'll try it on my home PC, if anyone else has any ideas, please do chime in :) Capuchin 15:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know all the ins and outs of how this is done, but there's some fonts that are set up in such a way that they will not allow you to embed them in PDFs (I think it's due to copyright, but don't exactly know why they'd do it, as it makes the font rather less useful). Now, if the person that created your original PDF didn't check that the file had created properly, or ignored the error messages on file creation, it's quite likely the missing character was never in the PDF. I've met this problem myself - the only ways around it are to use a different font, or probably to do something illegal. Seeing as you're the user, not the creator, if this is the issue there's nothing you can do, short of guessing what should be there or contacting the creator and asking them. --jjron 08:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It's a paper published by the IOP, I can't quite work out how to contact them though, it's surely something they would want corrected. Capuchin 09:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Edit: Found their customer service desk, they'll throw it to the right place. Hope I don't end up looking like a fool when they say "yeah... it's meant to be a square." Capuchin 09:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If you have no luck there, you could tell us the 'missing' character in context or link to the PDF if it's on their website; someone may or may not be able to suggest what it is, or at least take a shot at whether it really is a missing character. Good luck. --jjron 01:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

How accurate are biometric tools at the present time ?

How accurate are biometric tools at the present time ?

How accurate are the biometric tools used in various large scale biometric programs operating at the present ?

Why is there little resistance to having biometric information taken ?

Oh and will answering any of the above cause you to be put on a list ? (just kidding with the last question there). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.161.29.246 (talk)

See the top of the page. Do your own homework, please --lucid 00:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:AGF is another good one to read, as is WP:BITE DuncanHill 00:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:AAGF is another good one to read, as is WP:CIV --lucid 00:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Could some one actually answer this question ? I would like to see an answer. I also do not see how saying how accurate they are would answer a homework question. Lucid did I miss something ? If you know the answer Lucid, please reveal it. Dbmoodb 01:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, but biometrics is a good place to start. It's just the individual questions that might not be answered (as before, do your own homework). x42bn6 Talk Mess 11:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Hit Highlighting in SQL Server

I've been looking into the text search capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server, and I like how it lets you put full-text searches right in your SQL WHERE clause. I think it would be an excellent search platform for a couple of my applications, but it seems to lack two important capabilities:

First, the ability to take your search results and get a little excerpt from the full-text field that contains your search terms. I think I've explained that poorly, so let me give an example. When I do a Google search for "rats", the results page doesn't just display links, but also little excerpts from the pages:

Rat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rats are various medium sized rodents. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat - 68k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Rat Management Guidelines--UC IPM

UC home and landscape guidelines for control of Rats.

www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74106.html - 50k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

I want it so that, when I make a full-text query for "rats" part of my SQL Server search, it can generate a list similar to the above.

Second is the ability to provide a view of the document where the hits are highlighted. To give another example from Google, I did a search for "discrimination pdf" and got this:

(PDF) The Evolution of Price Discrimination in Transportation and its ...

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML

decreasing price discrimination. This is described in detail in Odlyzko (2000b) and .....

www.rnejournal.com/articles/odlyzko_RNE_sept_2004.pdf - Similar pages - Note this

When I click on "view as HTML", it gives me an HTML version of the PDF where every instance of the word "discrimination" has been highlighted yellow, and every instance of "pdf" has been highlighted blue.

Are these things that SQL Server can be made to do? Perhaps with the help of third-party add-ons?

--Ryguasu 15:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with MS SQL Server - but I'll have a guess in case it helps you. The SQL server will only 'serve' the data to you, but you'll need an application to take that data and display it as you wish. You can do a search for all entries in the database that contain the word 'rat', but then once that 'view'/'table' has been fetched for you, you will need to display it, and iterate through the data for the words 'rat', and tell your application to highlight it or put it in bold. To put it another way, your SQL server is your 'back end' where the data lies, but you will need a 'front end' where your users interact with this data - it is in the front end where the highlighting/bolderising comes in. You yourself are probably using Microsoft SQL Server to interact with your data as a front-end as well, but that's not really how the users will be doing it, unless you'll be telling them to open Microsoft SQL Server. Hopefully someone with more knowledge on Microsoft SQL Server can clarify. Rfwoolf 16:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that the "Microsoft" in front of "SQL Server" entitles you to some super advanced superset of SQL that has these capabilities. Likely (and this is the best solution IMO) you're stuck with SQL and you have to write your own clever script to parse results --froth^t 03:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me get you started.

PHP: $highlighted_results = str_ireplace($searchterm, ''.$searchterm.'', $results);

Perl: $highlighted_results = $results =~ s[$searchterm][$searchterm]ig;

You're probably using ASP if you want to use MSSQL rather than MySQL so these won't help much. Sorry! JoshHolloway 18:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

At what size does 720p HDTV become unwatchable?

I'm considering buying an HDTV. Seems like most of the marketing buzz is all about 1080p. But 720p sets are generally less expensive. So what what size does 720p become noticeably fuzzier or less sharp than 1080 (if at all)? --24.249.108.133 16:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It depends on distance from screen - an 80 inch projection at this resolution might look OK from the back of a lecture hall, but a 23 inch LCD would be noticeably blocky i you were sat within a couple of feet. Obviously both these extremes are unlikely, but even at more moderate distance from the screen, it has a big impact. Davidprior 23:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's say I'm 6' away. Would a 42"-47" 720p make my eyes hurt? --24.249.108.133 03:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it won't make your eyes hurt, but you would be able to tell the difference. If you do decide to get a 1080p, Westinghouse has a 42 inch model (TX-42F430S) for US$1080 at Best Buy (that's exactly $1 per line of display, coincidence ?). StuRat 05:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Fading text in Flash CS3

I'm trying to make a little custom way to on-the-fly generate a small bit of text in Flash CS3 that will fade in, stay on screen for a second or two, and fade out.

Now I've done this in a way that I feel ought to work, but it doesn't work. I'm not sure where my error is.

I've created a library movieclip called fadingText that I have exported to Actionscript so that I can create new instances of it on the fly. Basically I call a function within fadingText from the main timeline which causes the fadingText to create a new TextField() inside itself with the text displayed on it. The fadingText then tries to set its alpha to 0, and then starts a timer which increases the alpha by .1 or so over a given duration. When alpha==1 (100%), it starts another timer that doesn't trigger for a few seconds (allowing the text to just be displayed). After that timer calls, it calls another timer which reduces the alpha by .1 or so until it is 0.

To me this seems like it should make sense: set some text within a movieclip, cause the movieclip to fade in and then fade out. Except it doesn't work at all. The text doesn't fade at all, no matter whether I set its alpha or the movieClip's alpha or whatever. The TextField() created on the fly just does not seem to be affected by the alpha setting.

In trying to debug it I tried creating a random square on the fadingText movieclip. This will be affected when I changed the movieclip alpha, and fades in just fine, but instead of fading out it just immediately vanishes. Then it will occasionally re-appear or fade in again. I suspect that somehow its alpha is being set from one of the many fadingText's I have created from the main timeline, though they are supposed to be independent entities.

What am I doing wrong, in terms of the fading or the creation of the movieclip instances? Any suggestions? If there is a better way to create fading text, I'm happy to adopt it, but remember that it must be done on the fly and the fading duration should be variable through Actionscript (in other words, setting up a long shape-tween won't cut it). --140.247.240.228 19:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I know nothing of Flash but couldn't this be achievable without flash, using simple javascript? Although it only work on uniform background, can't you just set the colour of the text slowly to the background colour according to the timer. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it would't work with Javascript in this instance. And the background isn't uniform.

In any case, I figured out what was going wrong. First thing is that dynamic text fields in flash don't let you apply filters (like adjusting the alpha) to them unless you embed all characters of the font.

Second of all, my stop() commands on the timers weren't working, and the way to guarantee that they worked was to instead issue them against event.currentTarget rather than the timer object variables.

Blah. So it all works now, after like, 5 hours of frustration! --24.147.86.187 11:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

August 23

Digging info about an ELF file

I was sent a C program, but didn't get the source code, just a precompiled ELF executable (grmpff). I can't seem to run it on my Linux computer (the program is called "abc"):

-bash: ./abc: cannot execute binary file

Are there commands I could use on the file to extract information about for which processor and operating system it was compiled, what libraries it needs etc., to try to figure out what would be needed for me to be able to run it? —Bromskloss 07:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

file is a good start. What does it report about abc?

Ah, there we have something.

abc: ELF 32-bit MSB executable, SPARC, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped

My computer has an x86, not SPARC. —Bromskloss 09:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like you'll need a SPARC then ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.49.213.95 (talk • contribs) 09:54, 23 August 2007

or an emulator that can emulate SPARC; but it would probably be easier to ask the person to send a Linux x86 executable instead. --131.215.159.28 20:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Question Related to VBA in MS Excel

My question is regarding using VBA in MS Excel. I have an Excel sheet which has data in 3 columns A, B & C. Column A has some names, Column B has data (date of birth) in Date format & Column C has the age in number format. The data in the sheet is like:

Column A	Column B	Column C
Name	DOB	Age	ROW1
ABC	21-Aug-01	6	ROW2
XYZ	11-Jun-03	4	ROW3
RST	15-Dec-06	1	ROW4

This sheet has a command button also which has the following coding in it:

Private Sub cmd_butt1_Click()

 Dim i As Integer
 For i = 2 To 6     'iterates through rows
     MsgBox ("Row ID: " & i & " value: " & Cells(i, 2).Value) 'displays row number and the 
     value in that cell of column 2 i.e; column B.
     'Output will be like: "Row ID: 2 value: 21-AUG-01"
 Next

End Sub

My question is that now if I delete Column A from the sheet and make the following changes in the above code:

MsgBox ("Row ID: " & i & " value: " & Cells(i, 1).Value)

because now after deletion of column A, column B should have the column index as 1.

When I execute the code by clicking the command button cmd_butt1, it displays the following output:

     Row ID: 2 value: ABC

i.e; it shows the value of column A which I have deleted already whereas it should now take column B as Column A i.e; rowindex should be 1 and not 2.

Also how can I get the number of rows which are having some data. Like above worksheet has data in only 4 rows.

Are you sure you've deleted Column A not just just hidden it? The behaviour you describe seems impossible if you have. Does the column header of the dates say "A" or "B"?

There are various ways to get the "number of rows containing data". Depending on exactly what you need you could use one of the following (see Help for details)):

• the UsedRange property of the worksheet
• The COUNTA() worksheet function, which tells you how many cells in a range are not blank - you can use it in VBA as Application.CountA()
• ActiveSheet.UsedRange.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeLastCell)

Hope this helps AndrewWTaylor 15:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Are there any public domain wiki engines/softwares?

I'm seeking a public domain Wiki engine that operates in PHP and that I can install on my own server. Do you know of any? Guroadrunner 12:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Try checking out the Comparison of wiki software article. -- JSBillings 12:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Media Wiki, the software which Wikipedia uses, is freely available. Google for it or click the link on the bottom right of every page. JoshHolloway 12:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Wait, the engine for Wikipedia is public domain? All I'm trying to avoid is being stuck into a situation that the engine is GFDL, which may mean I would need to license the content I put on my wiki into the GFDL. Guroadrunner 17:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Mediawiki is open source, but not public domain. I'm pretty sure that the licensing applies only to the code, and not to the content. You are free to apply any license you'd like the to content of your wiki. Just like editing a file in Microsoft Word doesn't make your document the property of Microsoft. --Mdwyer 17:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki is not public domain. It is also not GFDL. It is GPL. I am not a lawyer. But it's my understanding that the GPL cannot put any restrictions on your content. It's entirely possible to use GPL software to handle proprietary data, this happens all the time or else no one would ever use Linux. 69.95.50.15 17:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Good to know. I will further this question along at another part of the Wiki RefDesk by asking if GPL for an engine has any licensing affect of the content put in the Wiki itself (but I think the above answers cover that) -- I already think I'll use either PmWiki or one of the others that operate with ease. Guroadrunner 23:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

GPL puts no restrictions on what you do with the content created by the GPL's software. The license only dictates how you can distribute/modify the software itself. --24.147.86.187 23:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The more people who affirm this, the more I feel secure with building a web site using someone else's Wiki engine under the GPL (I don't know how to build my own Wiki engine). Guroadrunner 00:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right to avoid the GPL like the plague (because it is one) but your wiki's content is safe from its clutches. It's only when you're writing code that incorporates GPL'd code that you need to start worrying. --froth^t 21:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I think calling it a plague is a bit much. Free software is generally a good thing, and I think viral licensing is not a bad idea, though there ought to be developed protocols for combining free licenses a bit better. --24.147.86.187 21:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Yep, there are plenty of GPL game ENGINES where the CONTENT (areas, characters, items) are copyrighted. I can think of around half a dozen off the top of my head. In short, it's the software that's GPL, not the content --lucid 21:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

iPod transfer

I didn't get a definitive answer the first time, so I'll just ask again. Is there any way to transfer all of the music and videos from an iPod to a new computer? I know there's a method that's described on the Apple web site, but it requires having the old computer. Is there some other way?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 14:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The files on the iPod are simply hidden files, in the usual way that the Mac OS GUI and Unix hide files. Through the terminal, use the shell and unhide them, or grab any of several utilities off the web that will do it for you. Once their unhidden, they can be accessed from the iPod just like any other files you've placed there.

Atlant 15:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, just make sure your windows explorer is rigged to view hidden files and you should be fine. The file names, however, will be a bunch of gibberish, but the artist titles, song titles, etc, will still be stored within the mp3 file.

--Cacofonie 21:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow! That was really simple! The songs aren't registering in iTunes until I try to play them, but hey, go through a few folders a day and the whole library will be back! Thanks a lot! Big problem number one, annihilated!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 23:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Probably an even easier way that should work, including allowing you to keep all playlists, song names, etc in iTunes is to set your library to an external hard drive (iTunes will handle the transfer of all files for you). Then on the new computer, copy necessary database files from the old iTunes folder to the new iTunes folder, set your library to be the same external drive, plug in the iPod and sync away. Note that I'm making the assumption that you already have the stuff on a hard drive accessible through iTunes, not just on the iPod; if that assumption is wrong, then just ignore me ;) . --jjron 01:50, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Having just reread the question again, I think my assumption is wrong. However, in future, keeping at least a backup of your library on an external drive is a good idea. --jjron 01:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

If you're on a Mac, Senuti is a very good program; it will even copy over the play counts and ratings from your iPod. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 17:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

"Adobe Printshop Software"

Is their a such software as Adobe Printshop and if there is where can I buy one (tell me websites and stores, if you would)?

--Writer Cartoonist 15:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's an Adobe title. The Print Shop is a package from Broderbund that has been around for years and years; there is a link to the publisher's site in the article. --LarryMac | Talk 18:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

There isn't such a title listed at List of Adobe software. Why do you want the software? What do you expect to do with it, if you do not know it even exists? --24.147.86.187 23:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Cron Executing PHP Script

I have a few PHP scripts that I use to create caches or to parse external websites. I tried to set them up to run as cron jobs, but they don't appear to be working. This is a sample of the crontab -l output:

*/15 * * * *,1,2,3,4,5,6 php -f /home/badgmup1/titans.php > /dev/null

* * * * *,1,2,3,4,5,6 php -f /home/badgmup1/players.php > /dev/null

0 * * * * php -f /home/badgmup1/dev_pull.php&dev=0 > /dev/null

The scripts themselves modify a database to do their dirty work - the output is irrelevant. They are all in the crontab of the user that owns the scripts. However, I have discovered that they don't seem to be running - or are failing during execution. Does anything look obviously wrong with any of the syntax? -- Sapph42 17:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Cron doesn't exec your .login, .profile, or other login scripts when it runs. This means it is often missing some environment variables or paths. Try it again without the /dev/null and see what gets emailed to you. Check the system logs to see if cron was unable to start your task (is bin/php really in the path, or do you need to specifiy it explicitly in the crontab?) --Mdwyer 18:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

For titans and players, I get this from cron: 'No input file specified.'. For another one I have that runs dev_pull.php&fetch, I get '/bin/sh: fetch: command not found

No input file specified.'

Looks like my php syntax is wrong. Quotes perhaps? -- Sapph42 19:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Even with quotes - 'No input file specified.'. -- Sapph42 19:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The line with & needs to be quoted, because the shell interprets it. Can you get rid of the ampersand completely? Your cron entries are very odd. What is the point of having *,1,2,3,4,5,6 as the day of the week, that just means it'll run every day in addition to monday through saturday, redundant. -- JSBillings 10:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that after I pasted it in. I found out there were two issues involved. The main was that apparently scripts executed through the CLI do not take GET variables. The line had to be adjusted to say (for instance): 0 * * * * php -f /home/badgmup1/www/dev/dev_pull.php dev 0 > /dev/null. The CLI delimits arguments by spaces, and they are loaded into $_SERVER['argv']. The second issue is that I had the incorrect path. :|. -- Sapph42 11:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

gsmarena.com

which country does this mysterious website belong to? I call mysterious because they do not give their country or address anywhere in their website.

Its whois data lists an address in Bulgaria — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 17:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Corrupted registry on an OEM machine

Hi everyone,

I recently rebooted my Dell Inspiron 6000, to be greeted by a giant blue screen saying:

Stop: c {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file): \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate

Doing some research, I happened upon this suggested, Microsoft Fix. I procured myself a HOME XP cd, booted, and used the recovery console, but the fix told me to copy c:\windows\repair\system , and this directory did not exist. System, software files are stored in the repair folder but they exist as .BAK files.

Now, XP came installed on the laptop, and is, I think an OEM-version. Is there anyway to open up those BAK files and use them? Or is there some workaround for OEM-installed computers?

I would be eternally grateful for your assistance
--Cacofonie 21:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The .bak file might just be a renamed file for something else. Do you by chance have a recovery disk or partition? I had this problem two days ago and that fixed it. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 21:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Forums hosting service

Can someone recommend me a more reliable hosting service than IF for my forums, I've heard Invision boards are relatively easy to bruteforce. I'd greatly appreciate it to be free. Thanks in advance.

is the best --froth^t 23:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

And regarding brute-forcing, I don't really see the difference between Invision Power Board and vBulletin - both have security mechanisms. x42bn6 Talk Mess 10:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Brute forcing what? It's not like IPB makes its password hashes public information.. --froth^t 21:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

August 24

itunes music cards

Hello there,

I recently bought my first itunes music card and i went to the store to redeem it but after i entered the code correctly (checked code many times) it wouldn't recognize my card as a "free music card".

please remedy

thanks

142.161.239.199 00:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/ ~ lav-chan @ 02:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

PHP Lexicon

Hey there, I'm writing a search engine in PHP and I need a way to distinguish between proper nouns and regular English words. Does anyone know of a fast-access lexicon implemented in PHP? Or maybe it wouldn't have to be implemented in PHP, but accessed via PHP? It also wouldn't need to have definitions, just a comprehensive list of English words. I'd very much appreciate any direction in which you folks could point me.

Thanks. Codeblue87 01:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are lots of world lists around (i.e. [2]). The difficulty would be that to use it with PHP you'd have to load it up into PHP, which could be memory/processor intensive unless you do it carefully (i.e., have the words indexed by first three letters, or more if necessary). It wouldn't be too hard to set up a system like that, using a sufficiently large word list—a lot of processing done at one time (dividing up a text file of words into multiple text files of words by their first three letters) would relieve the processing needed to be done later. --24.147.86.187 02:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually have a good Lexicon class implementation in C++ that can read in from a file. Is there a way to make an instantiation of this Lexicon class from a .php page? So far I've looked at COM objects and SWIG, and both have left me feeling confused. Thanks for your help. Codeblue87 03:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, that sounds like more trouble than it is worth.

Here's what I'd do: download one of those word lists above, pick the text file you like the most, then write a little script (in PHP, in whatever) that divides it up into multiple text files based on the first three letters. Once you have all of those, then you can write a quick PHP function that will take a given word, get its first three letters, load the appropriate text file into an array, and check if the word is in it. --24.147.86.187 11:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The Printshop

Does the Printshop have Garamond 3?

--Writer Cartoonist 02:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, various versions of this question have been doing the rounds this week. See Free Downloading and Garamond and Adobe Printshop from the Miscellaneous Desk. --jjron 10:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

We haven't even established there is anything called "Adobe Printshop." If you want Garamond 3 so bad, why don't you just buy it as a separate font? --24.147.86.187 11:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

color space

I know there's an extension of POV-Ray that allows light intensity to vary by factors of more than 256; this can make a difference with indirect effects like radiosity (i guess) even with standard output. So I'm curious: when Hollywood does digital effects, do they use standard 24-bit color or more precision than that? Related question, how many colors should I expect to be able to distinguish by eye on my monitor? —Tamfang 06:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

(32 bit colour is more common nowadays - that's 3 x 8 bit RGB plus 8 bit exponent - giving an accuracy of more than 1% in colour and a range of +/- 2¹²⁷ which is about +/- 10³⁸ this in general is known as high dynamic range lighting High_dynamic_range_rendering. - though that's really just 24 bit with an intensity additon - this would be the minimum for hollywood at least..)87.102.79.29 12:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

There's one thing I don't quite understand about 32 bit color. Isn't intensity already specified by the RGB combo ? That is, 0-0-0 RGB would be equal values of red, green, and blue, but pure black, while would be equal values of red, green, and blue, but pure white. So how would the intensity byte figure into this ? Would 0-0-0-0 be even blacker than pure black and be even whiter than pure white, somehow ? StuRat 13:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Think of it as being illuminated - 255,0,0,10 would be pure red lit (or glowing very dimly). 255,0,0,250 would be a pure red star - very very bright.

So 255,255,255,200 would be pure white but much brighter than pure white 255,255,255,100 - think of a white wall on a dull day and a white wall on a very clear day - both are still white - but one is brighter.

Yes. The fourth value is really a brightness factor. - so anything with 0,0,0,x would be black no matter how brighlty illuminated.

I thought the 4th value was always the alpha channel... --froth^t 13:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

..Depends... though if you are using HDR you need an exponent (OR use 16 bit colour values instead - leaving space for 4 in a 64bit unit - RGBalpha.... There are numerous ways to store the data.87.102.79.29 13:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Currently computer monitors scale these 32 bit values if used since they can only usually display 24 bit values - have you ever played oblivion? - this game gives a good example of how 32bit values are used.87.102.79.29 13:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

This link High_dynamic_range_rendering#Preservation_of_detail_in_large_contrast_differences might answer your question better than I can - see the image on right - in this case not oblivion but far cry87.102.75.201 15:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Please continue answer below:

Does Color depth#Beyond truecolor answer your question ? StuRat 13:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Your second question ("Related question, how many colors should I expect to be able to distinguish by eye on my monitor?") is of interest to me so I've posted a similar on the science page see: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Colour_question_.(related_to_one_above.) I'll pop the answer here anyway if I get one.87.102.79.29 13:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

MAIN QUESTION ANSWER see Digital cinema - the answer is - more than 24 bits.. quotes a 12bits per component - 36bits - so that accuracy will be continued down the production line to post production..87.102.79.29 13:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Simple Question about Myspace and HTML

Or at least i hope so! you know the part in a profile that says "About Me:" in myspace? and usually you enter things in the text box and it appears below that part?

Is it possible to write some code to appear ABOVE that? heres the start of my code....

<span class="orangetext15">Join the Chillspot Experience:</span><br>

This basically makes a bit of orange text just like the words "About Me:".... but i need them to be ABOVE that section. is this in any way possible? if so, what is the code please?

172.133.149.52 06:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Quick Java question

I'm trying to translate some relatively simple Java code into PHP. I don't know Java but most of it is just juggling variables and that's pretty straightforward. One line that I can't figure out, and that I couldn't find anything on with a quick Google search: for (;;) { Obviously it is the beginning of a for loop but what do the two semi-colons (without any other variables or instructions) indicate? How would I do this in php? Is it basically just an unconditional loop (later on in the code it breaks out of the loop)? --24.147.86.187 12:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

It's an infinite loop. There's no stopping condition. Also synonymous for while(1) {...} or while(true) {...}.

The same construction is valid in PHP. --Sean 13:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense. Thanks. I guess I in general never create infinite loops (seems like a scary thing to do), which I guess why I never recognized it. --24.147.86.187 21:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Generally, the reason for constructs like that is that there is a condition that breaks out of the loop in the middle. Its good for when you don't want to duplicate code, as in instead of

pre();while(test()){ post(); pre();}

it may be more intuitive to write it as

while(true){ pre(); if(test()){break;} post();}

this is especially true if you have multiple tests (or a select case statement), each of which could possibly break you out of the loop. Root⁴(one) 01:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

DOS Torrent

Does a DOS version of Torrent software exist? 82.198.250.7 13:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Almost certainly not, given that DOS has pretty much gone the way of the Do-do and the number of people who would be interested in such a program is probably pretty much just one (you). What's the specific purpose for? If you want a command-line torrent program, though, you could probably rig it up via perl and have that run from the DOS prompt, but it would take some workin'. --140.247.240.228 18:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

If you just want a command line bittorrent software, there are probably plenty out there for linux. If you're looking for that software because the computer is actually that old, I doubt it will be able to hold the data at all. You might also try something like DeLi Linux for really old computers, but STILL probably not that old --lucid 21:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Effort formula to move a load up an incline with weight on two wheels

Hi, Can you advise if there is a fairly simple formula that can compute the amount of effort needed to raise a weight load up various encountered inclines on a two wheeled cart with known wheel radius? Use would be for ramping a boat on a sulky by hand and understanding the effort needed to do so after taking a measure of the incline. It would also help one understand what aids need be employed as tire stops, pulleys, winches or perhaps motorized assists given any given incline. For this tire flex, bearing friction, and surface changes could be considered constant, Plenty of discussion about wheel impacts on inclines but have yet to find anyway to quantify the portion of load need for effort given an incline plane. Can you advise what this formula might be?

You may have more luck with this over at the mathematics or science reference desks — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 14:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Quickly (in brief)

Force needed = mg sin(a)

Where (F)force = newtons, m = mass of cart (kg), g=gravity acceleration (9.8m/s/s) and a = angle of incline (0=flat 45degrees=1 in 1 slope)

This formula excludes friction which might be approximated to be proportional to the mass of the load

F = mg sin(a) +mk

what k is you would need to find experimentally..87.102.75.201 14:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Video recording

I have a digital video camera Sony DCR TRV15E.I like to convert the video taken on the tape to CD's on my PC.How can I do it? -Amrahs

From what I could find on the web, that particular model has a Firewire port. If your computer also has Firewire and you have Windows XP (or later), then you should easily be able to bring the video into Windows Movie Maker. Here is an article from Microsoft talking about the process. Once you have the video on your computer, you should be able to burn it to a CD or DVD, again depending on the specifics of your computer. What is it you want to do with the discs once you have created them? --LarryMac | Talk 17:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to manipulate strings in dos/batch (windows) without using anything but the built in windows commands (not using temporay files)

Hi I am a novice in dos scripting, and have been quite successful in writing small dos/batch scripts to do some tasks. But one thing I haven't figured out yet is how to avoid using files for storing temporary data. My scripts always have to write to some temporary file when using string manipulation.

What I want to accomplish is to avoid using the harddisk when I use findstr and find and type, so basically, can you point me to some sources where I can grasp how you use escape characters in combination with stringparameters.

This is an example script where I use a temp file to extract a string

@type "%~f1"|findstr /R /I ".*ProductCode>.*</ProductCode>" >%TEMP%\result.TD

ROUND0

@call:Extraction "<ProductCode>" "" %TEMP%\result.TD >> %TEMP%\result.TD

ROUND1

@call:Extraction "</ProductCode>" "" %TEMP%\result.TD >> %TEMP%\result.TD

ROUND2

@call:Extraction " " "" %TEMP%\result.TD >> %TEMP%\result.TD @for /f %%a in (%TEMP%\result.TD) do @set TRXCODE=%%a @set TRXCODE=%TRXCODE:~0,-1% echo %TRXCODE%

The extraction routine also use a temp file. Is it possible to pipe my way around...instead?'

I know it's easier to just use a java script or something, but...some code snippets that does string manipulation/substitution without using temp files....

Possible?? Asked by Danni 85.81.121.107 19:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

GAG. Do yourself a favor and use bash. --froth^t 20:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with froth that you are really trying to do things which are beyond the complexity of the DOS batch scripting, and so the only "solutions" are hack-y workarounds, which is a really bad approach (especially if you are planning to have this work on other people's computers). I have little doubt that whatever you are trying to do, there is a better way to do it. In any case I can't really figure out what you are trying to do. Instead of piping into temp files, can't you just pipe into a variable (i.e. %%result)? --24.147.86.187 21:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The trouble with using bash, or indeed Windows PowerShell, is that you generally can't assume a machine has it installed. So if you're writing code to run on someone else's machine (as opposed to your own) they're an unappealing option. You might wish to write in VBscript or Jscript, which are far more fully featured than BAT script; you can generally assume a windows machine will support these via Windows Script Host. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless you're using a pretty old version of Windows, none of this has anything to do with DOS. cmd.exe is a Win32 executable. It's a lot more capable than command.com. That said, I have no idea whether it can do what the original poster asked.

If you're just using batch files to avoid dependencies on installed software, I must point out that any system that supports Windows batch files will support Windows executable files. There are a gazillion languages that can compile to self-contained executable files. (Personally I'd use Glasgow Haskell. Haskell is pretty good for shell-scripting stuff.) -- BenRG 00:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've typed that license key like ten times already!

Just another thing to bog my success. I've got an Office 2007 Upgrade disc, and a Microsoft Works 9 disc. Now, on the side of the Office packaging, "Microsoft(R) Works 6.0--10.0" is listed as a product that will allow the installation. So I go and buy Works 9. I install it, agree to the EULA, then put in the Office disc. I type the license key in (after so many times, it burns itself into your memory), and lo and behold, it can't find a previous version of Office! Why not?! I've got what the packaging tauts as a qualifying upgradeable product, so why can't it install?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 20:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

On this one, perhaps you've got to call Microsoft and hash it out. One thing to potentially try is to at least run Works once before trying to install Office, though I doubt that will fix it. --24.147.86.187 21:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd do that, but Microsoft is stubborn enough to charge me $50 to call them. I probably could get Works support for free right now, but the problem is really Office.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 21:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey man, you're the one so hot to trot about upgrading to Vista. ;-) Personally I would have avoided it for a year or two until they got all the bugs out, at the very least. --24.147.86.187 23:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Office 2007 is annoying.. not that works is better but seriously 2007 is screwed up :x --froth^t 00:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I did wait for like six months. And I was sick of XP. It's been five years already! Office 2007, annoying? Well, it does have its flaws, but I don't think it's that bad. It's better than Wordpad and Works, at least.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 22:47, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

If you want change you can just tinker with Linux, free of charge, until your brain melts... --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed- vim is much more powerful than Word ;) --froth^t 18:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Wireless Internet Lock

Hi! Does anyone know if there is any way to set-up your wireless internet so that in order to connect to the internet, you must have a password? I don't mean encrypting it - not a WEP key or something. What I am thinking of is something where every time you open your browser or something, you have to enter a password to allow access to the internet...

Thanks so much! -- Vamooom 21:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

You connect the access point to a proxy, which on the first time a computer connects, redirects them to a login page; and after they login, subsequent connections from the same computer are passed through. --Spoon! 01:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Any free software that can do this? I don't think squid or privoxy can. --froth^t 05:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You're looking for a captive portal. F 12:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

UC Berkeley does this with its AirBears network. However, I'm not sure what the software is; if you want, post on my talk page, and I'll try to look it up. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 17:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

PHP user security

I've been programming in PHP for a long time but I never really wrapped my head around the best way to do user security (i.e. if I have a part of a script which requires a password, how best to deal with that). Obviously sending passwords in the clear (via GET or POST) is not really very secure. What are the various options that are used for this, and what are their ups and downs from a practical point of view? Keep in mind that in many cases I have only limited control over server settings. Thanks! --24.147.86.187 23:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I think one way would be to set up a login form with a https connection. Check the input to that against a database of username/password pairs with the passwords stored as md5 hashes. If successful, provide a random value (a token) to store in a cookie, and anyone from that IP address is logged in, provided they have that token (cookie). The token should expire after a while. This solution would require a second database table with username, token, ip and expiry time. That's the sort of solution I'd aim for, though I must admit to not being very experienced in these matters. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you use HTTPS if you don't have much server access? From what I can tell HTTPS requires you to be able to exec() cURL, and I'd be pretty surprised if my server allowed me to exec() random files I uploaded to it. I don't have that much security access (and I'm not going to be getting it anytime soon). --24.147.86.187 03:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

No... you just have to set up your server to accept connections on port 443 and be able to negotiate SSL. There's absolutely no way you can configure the server to do this if you have limited control. After a weekend of frustration I was completely unable to get Apache2 for windows to do it (and I had direct access to the machine). Later I found an installer than includes openssl and ssl extensions as part of the package, but you're not supposed to distribute it or somtehing o_O Anyway yeah, just set up to accept SSL connections, then just point your form action to https://whatever.com/whatever.php. You can use md5 hashes in a text file or database to validate logins and the builtin php session functionality to keep a login persistent across pages --froth^t 05:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I have very limited control over the server, and as you said, that probably won't work if I have limited control over the server. --24.147.86.187 11:59, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yep, even if he has openssl previously installed and his server daemon just happens to be set up to recieve connections on SSL, you'll still need root access to bind the server to port 443. Unless it is already- try going to https://yoursite.com/yourpage.whatever and if it just happens to work and connect securely, then skip everything I said up above until "anyway yeah" --froth^t 16:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I am he and he is me. Anyway I checked the phpinfo(); and openssl isn't installed (and that means it never will be — I'm dealing with a university-as-host here, and they don't change things nor do they really know what they are doing). I think what I'll end up doing is just sending the password in the clear at first and then just use sessions after that. It's not perfect but since this is a very low-profile project at this point, it'll work; for anything serious I'll get into the ssl stuff. thanks! --24.147.86.187 18:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

August 25

Mmorfe, DVD Burner Specifications

I'm confused about DVD burner specifications including all the writing and reading speeds and what they actually mean.

Appreciate your help.

Mmorfe 00:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The speeds are maximum speeds for doing the specified action: reading, writing a R, or writing a RW disc. For CD the numbers are a multiplier for a CD playing audio in a CD player. However in normal burning the speed is nowhere near the claimed speed, and gradually increases as the burn continues. If you have a slow computer or slow disk drive you will have to set a lower speed for the burn. For example when I had a Pentium 166, the burn would always be reliable at 4x, and would work some of the time at 8x. Also for RW disks the speed may not be the maximum speed of the burner or the disk, but some other lower speed that the firmware thinks it can do with that brand of disk. All the new burners for sale now are fast, any faster and the disk would disintegrate. At the fast speed they are very noisy. Graeme Bartlett 11:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

japanese.exe

About 8 years ago, I bought a computer which had several games installed in it. One of them was named japanese.exe. In that game, a Japanese girl has to whack squid-like things with a hammer. Where can I find that game again?

Good luck. Its probably a Dōjin soft. If it were a well known game its filename would probably be different. — Shinhan < talk > 15:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

CDs

I have this CD that plays on a CD player but when I try to play it on my laptop it first registers as a blank CD, then when I try to access the CD drive it asks me to insert a disk. All other CDs work, but not this one. There isn't supposed to be any protection on the disk. What could be the problem? LCecere 06:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it one of those 'special' cds that have extra things on them like photos/etc? If so I understand that some of them don't always get recognised by your PC as they aren't sure what to treat them as (audio or data). Alternatively try it another PC/Computer and see if it works there. It could be that your CD player is less bothered by small scratches than your PC is. ny156uk 14:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

One obvious thing to check is the extent of damage on the CD, are there any obvious scratches? The other thing to consider is that your Computer's CD drive might need to update its drivers etc. What operating system are you on? Some software can scan CDs and pick up what's on them, and be able to tell you how many audio tracks / data tracks there are etc- for example using Nero's diskinfo (That is, the 'diskinfo' function inside the Nero program). If you're in Windows, try this: Insert the CD, go into My Computer, find your CD drive's icon, right-click it, and see what options you have. For example you can click on "Open" to see if it can read any contents. Another idea is that your CD has an autorun statement for computers - what this does is it will automatically do something when you insert your CD, and, if your operating system can't support the actions of the autorun, it might fail or just do nothing. That's why using the right-click "Open" command you're telling it to just access the drive - ignoring any autorun files. Rfwoolf 17:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

PNGout

Hi. I downloaded the PNGout and I don't know how to install it and how to use it. --Jackl 11:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

If you have the command line version, then the easiest way to use it is to drag a PNG file to the pngout.exe program icon. The dragged file will be optimized using the standard settings. This only works with one file at a time, but you can write a batch file to run pngout in several png files at once:

for %%f in (*.png) do pngout.exe "%%f" "optimized\%%f"

Get a .bat file with this and pngout.exe in the same folder, along with a bunch of png files. Then just run the bat file, and pngout will throw the optimized versions in the "optimized" folder that will be created. — Kieff | Talk 06:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

newsgroup reader for windows XP

Hi, my 2 newsgroups that i look at are now subject to lots of spam.

1) is it possible to set up a kill file with "google groups?"

2) if not , is there a FREE safe newsreader (free agent has been cancelled)

3) (unrelated) how i do get my name to come up when i post rather than my email (yes i'm that good!)

TIA

I don't think Google Groups supports any killfile functionality. Wikipedia has a list of news clients, many of which are free software. I'm not sure which to recommend. I use Thunderbird, but its killfile support is pretty limited (which hasn't been a problem for me). Since you'll need an NNTP server for your client, you might just want to find one that does a good job of filtering out spam for you. I think many of them do, but again I don't know which to recommend. -- BenRG 00:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Changing just the container of a video

I occasionally download 720p versions of television shows (that's right, I'm bad to the bone!), and are encoded in H.264 in a Matroska container. I'm thinking of getting an Apple TV and I know that plays HD H.264 videos in whatever container apple uses (mov, is it?) Here's my question: to reencode such a video would take a ginourmous amount of time, but since it is already encoded in H.264, is there any easy way to just simply change the container so that it would work on an Apple TV? I imagine that would be MUCH quicker. --Oskar 13:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Apple TV plays back .mov Quicktime containers as well as 'naked' .m4v (h264) files. If you can open your Matroska (?) movie in Quicktime Player Pro, select all, copy and paste into a new movie (File -> New Player) and save it as a self contained .mov, that might work. Also you can do Window > Movie Properties -- select the video stream, click the 'extract' button and save out that file. Again, I've never even heard of Matroska, so I don't know if it will work. But good luck! --72.202.150.92 18:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you can use VLC's Streaming and Exporting Wizard for this, but I've never needed to even play a Matroska file, so I'm not sure. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 16:59, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

VLC plays Matroska fine (oh, and by the way, it's an excellent container) and it would work to do that, it's just that it would reencode the entire thing. As I said that would take a humongous amount of time, and I don't want to reencode it. I just want to change the container. --Oskar 14:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

IP Adress?

What is the danger of revealing one's IP Adress? When I do a WHOIS search on many, all I get is their ISP's adress and info.

Perfect Proposal ^{Speak out loud!} 15:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you read about WikiScanner? You can find out the approximate location of the IP. And, if you are law enforcement agent you may be able to ask the ISP to tell you who used that IP address at some precise time (Which they may not want/be able to give you). — Shinhan < talk > 15:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

If you're doing something illegal, then law enforcement can get a court order to force your ISP to look up who had that IP address as a certain time, and they'll give the police your name. No other danger really, though it's possible to "be hacked". A hacker can run nmap on your IP address and get a list of what programs are listening to internet traffic on each port, then look up buffer overflow vulnerabilities and the like for those programs, and possibly run arbitrary code on your computer. Just stick with windows, while it might be much easier to find a vulnerability, I'd think there'd be much less to do after gaining access. What are you going to do, inject shellcode? Oops no shell. Hm. --froth^t 16:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Hooking a laptop 2.5" drive to a desktop PC

Unidentified HDD connector

Hi, I am looking for a way to connect a laptop hard drive to my PC. For this, I must know the connector on it and get the necessary adapter. Unfortunately, I can't detect what type of connector it is (Wikipedia is rather lacking images of connector types). I don't think it's either IDE or SATA. In the picture to the right is the hard drive in question and its connector (apparently wafer-like, with 44 pins), taken from a SCENIC 510 Mobile AGP laptop computer, somewhat old, fabricated before the year 2000. The initial problem was that it didn't boot from the hard disk (a "NTLDR missing" error), and since the laptop won't boot from anything else, even though the BIOS settings instruct it to, I want to see whether I can save some of the files on it by connecting it to my desktop computer.

My desktop computer has internal IDE cables, but I have the possibility to attach a SATA drive to the PC by using a rack connected to it by USB already holding a SATA hard drive. So, I would need an adapter for whatever connector type my laptop drive has to either IDE of SATA.

If anybody has any advice on how to fix the drive and make it bootable (it won't boot from the Windows boot diskette), or if somebody knows the connector type on the drive, it would be of immense help. Thank you in advance, Danielsavoiu 15:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

SCSI? — Shinhan < talk > 15:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that the drive is not inside some kind of custom enclosure with a proprietary plug? My laptop hard drive is like that. If you take the drive out of the little mounting enclosure you might find a standard 2.5" PATA connector (If this is the case, you will need to buy a little adapter to plug it into your desktop's IDE cable.) -- Diletante 15:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe that your BIOS won't boot from anything else. Are you sure that your boot order has cd rom before hard drive? Just boot from your windows xp disk and enter the recovery console, then type fixmbr and fixboot. That should restore ntldr. --froth^t 16:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I have seen plugs like this on early 2000s laptop hard drives. Note that the hard drive has not connector other than the IDE-like socket. I believe the plug combines the functionality of power and data transfer, thus 40 pins equivalent to the IDE standard and 4 pins for power. Your best bet is a 2.5" external USB enclosure. I have one that I like very much and works with drives similar to this, but I can't recall the model number and can't seem to find it. Scratch that, closer examination reveals minor dissimilarity to my hard drives, making my suggested USB enclosure incompatible. Very likely proprietary in shape, if not in design function. Freedomlinux 04:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Take the hard drive out. I'm guessing there will be a little plastic piece that will come off the front of the drive, and behind that, a regular PATA connector.

Before SATA arrived, 2.5" drives used a 44-pin connector that was electrically compatible with ordinary 40-pin PATA (IDE) connectors but physically smaller. It also contains the power connection so there's no big honking 4-pin Molex connector that's practically as big as the rest of the drive.

Computer shops can sell you an adapter that will let you plug a 2.5" drive onto an ordinary 40-pin PATA cable and its associated 4-pin power connector.

Atlant 11:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

You can try this . Feel free to ask me further questions, I'm a freelance pc professional--Doktor Who 12:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Upgrading to Xbox360 Elite

I currently own an Xbox360 and am considering buying an Elite for the HDMI and larger hard drive. How can I transfer my game saves and purchased Live Arcade games from my old HD to the new one? --72.202.150.92 15:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Says here in Xbox 360 Elite#Retail Price and Xbox 360 accessories#Storage that you can buy the 120GB drive by itself and it comes with a special transfer cable for this exact purpose. Don't know if the full Elite box comes with the cable or if you can buy the cable by itself. Perhaps you could borrow the cable from someone who bought the drive? CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 21:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The cable is free from Microsoft (click "How to get your Free Transfer Cable" at the bottom"). JoshHolloway 23:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

echo

What's the term for unnecessarily calling echo in a shell script when you can equivalently use the < operator? --froth^t 17:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

< is usually an input operator, I don't see how you can use it equivalently to echo, which is a program that displays a line of text. -- Diletante 17:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

It's like when you want to write a line to a file. You can either:

echo EXAMPLE | filename
filename<EXAMPLE

Apparently the first one annoys purists to no end since it actually starts an additional process, while the 2nd stays within bash. I know theres an article on this specific topic on wikipedia, but I can't find it. I think it's a 4 letter acronym that has something to do with useless echos --froth^t 18:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah I found it eventually, sorry. It was UUOC, and cat not echo. And streaming text from a file into a command, not from text to a file. x_x --froth^t 18:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

But those two statements are not equivalent, with the piped echo the program will get the string "EXAMPLE". With < the program will get the contents of the file named EXAMPLE. Maybe you are thinking of using cat? edit: ok I must have started wrting this reply right after you found the answer which I didn't see. -- Diletante 18:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

In some shells (bash and ksh at least), you can replace the first of these lines with the second:

echo text | command
command <<<text

...as another simplification. Here documents are more generally applicable, but look less pretty. --Tardis 17:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Infinities, NaNs and IEEE 754

Why does the maximum value of a floating-point number have to be cut in half just to accommodate infinities and NaNs? Why not declare that (a) NaN occurs only when the exponent is 2^e – 1 and the fraction 2^f – 1, and (b) infinity occurs only when the exponent is 2^e – 1 and the fraction 2^f – 2? Are there any alternative floating-point standards that do this? NeonMerlin 23:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

At a guess you are referring to the maximum value of floating point number is being cut in half to take into account negative and positive numbers. That is why. Mathmo ^Talk 08:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

As far as I remember all special values have the maximum characteristic, so you loose far far less than half of the number space.

No, I'm not talking about signs. I mean that apparently if the exponent portion is all 1s, it's either infinity or NaN, which means that a lot more than two bit patterns are being assigned to two values, in each sign. NeonMerlin 00:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There is the potential to use the mantissa to signal different things with signalling NANs, but I don't know if this standard.

August 26

TotoBaggins's (also known as Sean) code

Hi. I'd like to use User:TotoBaggins's code, at his user page. I think I have already downloaded Perl. What do I do now? A.Z. 02:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Copy and paste and let us know what errors you get back?? Mathmo ^Talk 08:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

You save the code into a file called c:\wiki-blame.pl, and then in a command window you type the following:

cd \
perl wiki-blame.pl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TotoBaggins 'That code on your userpage looks really useful.'

If that doesn't work, come back and tell us (verbatim) what the computer said when you tried it. --Sean 12:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

How do I save the code into a file called c:\wiki-blame.pl? A.Z. 16:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Select all of the text with your mouse, then select "Edit", then "Copy", then open "Notepad", and select "Edit", then "Paste", and then select "File", and then "Save", and type into the little box "C:\wiki-blame.pl". That should work, but I don't use Windows so it's untested. --Sean 19:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I saved the code into a file called C:\wiki-blame.pl.txt, I typed the text in the command window. It replied Can't open perl script "wiki-blame.pl": No such file or directory. A.Z. 02:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict with dr.ef.tymac. I'll read your post now, dr.ef.tymac)I tried typing "wiki-blame.pl.txt" instead of "wiki-blame.pl", and now it responds Can't locate File/Slurp.pm in @INC (@INC contains: C:/Perl/lib C:Perl/site/lib.) at wiki-blame.pl.txt line 88. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at wiki-blame.pl.txt line 88. A.Z. 02:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

That means either: 1) you do not have a required add-on that perl needs in order to run the script the way it is supposed to; or 2) you have the add-on, but perl cannot find it on your machine. the "add-on" can be found here. dr.ef.tymac 03:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Step-by-step: Since you're on a windows box, perhaps a step-by-step walk-through can help track down the source of the problem:

• step: Start Menu :: Run :: Type in :: cmd and press [Enter]
• step: type in perl -v
• step: check to see if you got the perl help message. If yes, perl is good, if not, you may need to re-install
• step: rename "wiki-blame.pl.txt" to "wiki-blame.pl"
• step: go back to the cmd window and type in perl c:\wiki-blame.pl

HTH. dr.ef.tymac 02:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I type cmd but when I press enter a box opens that says "Windows can't find 'cmd'." Then it suggests that I typed the wrong name. A.Z. 03:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I typed 'command' now and a window opened. I typed perl -v and a message appeared. A.Z. 03:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The message seems to be the perl help message, with the name of the website www.perl.com. A.Z. 03:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok. That verifies that your perl installation at least works properly, and the problem is with the script, or something else. dr.ef.tymac 03:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Couldn't there be an easier way to do the same thing that this code does/should do? I think it would be an useful tool. A.Z. 04:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure. If someone had some spare web space that can run CGI scripts, it would be just a two-field web form. I just don't happen to have any. --Sean 13:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

or on *nix, using /home/az/ should work fine. --lucid 21:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Carbon not working properly in Mac OS X 10.4.10

I highly doubt anyone else is having this same problem, so I'm not going to ask. I'm using a 1st generation Macbook. I seem to be able to run only some PowerPC apps: the non-working ones bounce maybe once in the Dock then exit. For example, I can use LilyPond but not StarCraft. Likewise, Age of Empires II no longer works either. Neither does 2005 World Book, but as that's not really licensed for use on my Macbook (only on my iBook) I'm not terribly concerned about that. AOL Instant Messenger (4.7, build 1333 for Mac OS X) doesn't work anymore either. My HP printer's installer software doesn't work either. However, if I check "Open using Rosetta" for any Universal application, it will still open, and Activity Monitor will reveal it is running as a PowerPC process.

Here's the output that I get when I try to run AoK directly from Terminal.app:

fre-74-178:~ chris$ file /Applications/Age\ of\ Empires\ II\ Gold/Age\ of\ Empires\ II 
/Applications/Age of Empires II Gold/Age of Empires II: header for PowerPC PEF executable
fre-74-178:~ chris$ /Applications/Age\ of\ Empires\ II\ Gold/Age\ of\ Empires\ II 
-bash: /Applications/Age of Empires II Gold/Age of Empires II: cannot execute binary file

All the above programs that no longer work used to work fine. Help, please? --M1ss1ontomars2k4 04:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal of Spy Shredder

Please help. I am being bombarded by a very aggressive attempt to get me to purchase a spyware tool called Spy Shredder whenever I am on my PC. I am not a competent IT technical user, merely a browser so any simple advice would be very gratefully received. I should add that under no circumstances will I be forced or persuaded to purchase ANY product marketed so aggressively. I would rather buy a new PC first. Thanks 81.145.241.180 12:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it ironic that most programs that (aggressively, mostly) advertise spyware (or virus) removal are actually classified spyware or viruses themselves? I'm guessing you've been hit by some variant of spyware that advertises an anti-spyware program to, well, remove those annoying messages. But it could be that you have this program but it wants you to buy the full version to remove apparent spyware. If this is the case, then I suggest you follow instructions here. If not, then download Ad-Aware, AVG Anti-Spyware or Spybot - Search & Destroy (I use the second one, but usually they all work well), install the program, run the program, update the program (usually a button away on the main screen of all these programs), and run a full scan. These 3 are amongst the best anti-spyware programs available, and best of all, they are free. x42bn6 Talk Mess 13:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Spy-Shredder itself, is classified as spyware. You need a spyware program. Google Spy Shredder for more info.Perfect Proposal ^{Speak out loud!} 19:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't you mean "you need an anti-spyware program" ? :-) StuRat 22:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia and money

How does Wikipedia make money? Heegoop, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation is non-profit, but the money to run its various projects comes mainly from donations I think. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 21:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia currently makes money via an offset printing process, but hopes to upgrade to a better method, which is more difficult to detect, as soon as possible. :-) StuRat 21:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Money is, in fact, not Wikipedia's primary resource boon: time is. If you calculated how much per hour the people who edit on Wikipedia would be paid were they charging their "normal rates" for their time (obviously depends on skill level, education history, where they live, and everything else), you would find that revenue to be far greater than most corporations, I'm betting (meaning, more precisely, that you would consider the donated time to be equivalent with donated money). --24.147.86.187 22:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a project of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Their finance reports page is here. The vast majority of their support comes from cash and in-kind donations. The 2006 financial statement is here in PDF. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

itunes plus help

I accidentally put itunes plus on an album that I wish to buy but because itunes plus is on the album it is currently too expensive. How do I take itunes plus off the selections?

Thanks

142.161.235.74 20:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

In iTunes go to Store>View My Account in the menus. Log in using your username and password. In your Account Information Screen the top thing listed should be about iTunes Plus. Click the Manage iTunes Plus button, untick the checkbox, and click the Save Changes button. All selections should now revert to the standard versions at the standard prices. --jjron 14:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank-you very much, very useful advice...

OUP/Basic sample

Hi,

I'm looking for a reference implementation or a sample project for OpenUP/Basic. Can anyone point me to one if it exists?

Regards, Masoud Mahanchian 22:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

August 27

Top websites

Where can I find a frequently-updated list of the top 100 most-vistited websites? I've found lists of best-rated websites, but no list that merely counts site hits and is up to date. Thank you for your help.RavenLuna 03:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Alexa? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this a good computer?

I'm looking for a mid-level laptop that I would like to be able to do graphic editing (Photoshop CS3), web design and some mild gaming. The following laptop caught my attention: [3] I have a few questions:

1. Is this a good laptop for the price? (NB: it's in Canadian dollars)

2. Will I be able to run Photoshop CS3 smoothly? (I do a lot of 8.5 X 11 300 DPI print work)

3. How is the Acer brand?

4. Is there a large difference between a Intel Core duo and Intel Core 2 duo?

Thanks a lot =) Acceptable 03:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

4 is really the deal-breaker here. When buying a laptop, you need to get the best you can possibly get because it's nearly impossible to upgrade anything but RAM. The Core Duo is an outdated processor and will bog you down in PS work. Settle for nothing less than a Core 2 Duo. Mild gaming will not work on an integrated graphics card and I imagine that will also slow you down in Photoshop as well. In short - no, you need a C2D and possibly a low-end video card. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 06:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Core Duo may be "outdated" but it's still a beast... Core 2 is only a year old, it's not the lowest common denominator yet. --froth^t 18:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

What about an AMD equivalent? How do the Turion chips compare to the Core duo's and the Core 2 duos? They usually seem a lot cheaper. Acceptable 15:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally I'll be much more worried about the RAM here then the CD. The CD is somewhat outdated but it isn't that bad. Nil Einne 23:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually I just remember the CD AFAIK isn't x64 so with any more then 2gb it's going to have problems with Windows XP (you can increase the limit to 3gb but that adds other potential problems). Since you really should have 4gb with your demands I would recommend against anything other then a x64 computer and a x64 OS. Nil Einne 23:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Erdős number in computing?

Is there anything like this in the computing industry? And if not, who are some likely candidates for it to start with? --lucid 06:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe a Knuth number? At least one guy has calculated his own. As for the equivalent in terms of collaboration on, say, open-source software projects, rather than academic papers, there might be more interesting results. iames 14:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Keymap

I am using Cygwin and just realised that the Swedish characters on my keyboard aren't with me any longer (I think they have been before). I what way should I rub it to get it working? —Bromskloss 07:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you run locale in cygwin to check your locale settings? Also, do you have the same problem in cmd.exe? --h2g2bob (talk) 13:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The locale command doesn't seem to exist. Everything is fine in cmd.exe. —Bromskloss 14:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Vista "Audio Mixer" for xp?

Is there an app that will give me the same amount of control over the volume of my applications as vista does? —Drexalot

Try Power Mixer Lurker (said · done) 13:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Free flash video player?

Anyone know of a good Free Software flash video player? I used to use flowplayer but the author has started including syndicated ads in it. I am talking about a flash movie that is embeddable in a web page, not a standalone desktop player. Thanks. -- Diletante 15:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Look at Flash Video#FLV Player. VLC and MPlayer are among the free software ones. --Spoon! 12:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I already use mplayer, but I need something I can embed in a webpage, not a desktop app. -- Diletante 15:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You know that Flash is a proprietary format, why do you need a free software player? Are you looking for a browser plug-in? Why not use the Adobe Flash plug-in? --24.249.108.133 16:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay I understand. You need a Flash applet that plays Flash Videos.

First, let me mention that, since FlowPlayer is open-source, if there is something you don't like in there, you can just change the source. I doubt that an open-source player would put ads in it. Perhaps you can inquire about this in the forums.

Searching on the internet returns a ton of other possible players. Here are some of them: [4] [5] --131.215.159.4 20:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Emulating a computer that's useless.

I've been fooling around with the registry crashonctrlscrll for a while now, although I was wanting to do a bit more with my PC. Basically, render it "useless" (but not actually, just emulated). Is there a way to make insane error messages show up at mind boggling intervals (every minute maybe?), programs except the antivirus (and tasks that windows requires to run) to continuously quit out unexpectedly, with or without error messages, Windows display that window that it has to shut down messages, CD and DVD drives malfunction (like discs won't spin every other time they're inserted, drive bays won't open/close), and of course, Bsods. Please, no .bat files.

As unusual as this sounds, I'm trying to help my dad out with a computer seminar he's making. He works at the local community college and is giving a class on this kind of stuff. Thanks. --TV-VCR watch 17:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, if you are using a Windows XP-based system, I would suggest to disconnect/take away a ram module; say, you have 1 GB of memory, just cut it at 128 MB. It's the only way that I am aware of an that will not damage anything for sure. With Windows Vista, I don't know what can be done, I'm no longer a Windows user, I use Linux, forever Linux.Doktor Who 17:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This is my old personal computer, I don't have any others to fool with (My mother's computer? Yeah right...). I meant by just adding things to the registry, or error creators, and that stuff. Just anything but getting into the computer's guts. --TV-VCR watch 17:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, not that I necessarily think the above will work, but it is super easy to deal with RAM, it is not a difficult hardware operation. Usually you can just open up the case and see it sitting there, and it snaps right out. In this case you'd probably need to buy a replacement RAM chip, and make sure it is the right kind, because your existing RAM is probably in very large amounts per chip. Anyway, all I am saying is that RAM is really, really easy to deal with, and as far as playing around with the registry goes, playing around with the RAM is far less likely to create a serious problem for the computer. --24.147.86.187 18:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Whatever you do, if you are planning to play with the registry, I recommend installing a virtual machine and using that, instead of your actual registry. Too many "experiments" and your OS will need to be reinstalled. Something like Parallels Workstation or VMWare or whatever would allow you to install a "sandboxed" OS that you could do whatever you wanted to and instantly roll it back to some sort of "safe", working state, without any danger whatsoever of damaing your primary OS. --24.147.86.187 18:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

what OS are you using? What is your system's configuration?Doktor Who 18:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I am using Windows XP Home edition. Well, to be honest, I have a brand new Vista PC, but I'm not in the mood to screw it up. This is my old computer. I don't mind if it gets destroyed from incorrect use of regedit or anything. --TV-VCR watch 19:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Just do a fresh install of windows, disable security updates, then start surfing questionable sites and opening spam email attachments, your computer will be bogged down with malware in no time. -- Diletante 20:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Overclock your RAM too heavily and you'll get lots of errors within seconds until your comp crashes. Beware you're also liable to lose data on your hard disks or at least have partition table corruptions and in Vista maybe even with ones that the stupid OS shouldn't really be accessing (maybe it's the indexing I don't know). Yes I know this from personal experience when I accidently forgot to underclock my RAM while overclocking my CPU Nil Einne 23:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

You're not getting the point. In a nutshell, I just want something i.e. a registry edit that generates errors, Bsods, etc. on it's own. I am not messing with this computer's internal parts, because it is sell-able. Who would want to buy a fried computer anyway? --TV-VCR watch 00:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Just go into the registry then and delete random stuff from it, if you want. You'll get unpredictable results and odds are it won't restart. Why not just delete some random system files while you are at it. --24.147.86.187 03:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You didn't tell your system's specifications, anw, I agree with the last advice; also, disabling virtual memory (provided that you have not more than 512 mb) should give out some error messages, depending on the application that you are running.Doktor Who 09:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

If you want to make a computer useless and full of error messages, you're already running Windows! *rimshot*

On a serious note, just close the three or four security programs you have running in the background and go to a few "wipikedia.org"s and maybe click a few of those "YOU NEED ANTIVIRUS NOWZ!!!" ads and such until you have enough spyware to get crap like this wonderful screenshot, and then if you can try to teach people to remove all of it (good luck). Unless you're much more specific, we can't really do anything to help though, just saying that you want to show error messages is far too generic. This could be anything from rigging a shell script or a webpage to just create a bunch of error boxes, to intentionally screwing up your system files. --lucid 10:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

If you have a programme that random changes the memory at a random location then it will freeze eventually... --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, that's a good one! Will windows even let a userspace program do that though? If it's a low-power CPU I'd suggest totally taking off the heatsink. It should be able to survive for awhile if you don't do much but as soon as the students start doing things, it will crash without the slighest hesitation.. confusing them into thinking that whatever they were doing was causing the problem :) --froth^t 18:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

OpenGL command

Does anyone no what the command for waiting until the screen refreshes in OpenGL (or GLUT)? I'm using gcc on FreeBSD if either of those matter (or if they don't, for that matter). — Daniel 22:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The screen refresh is actually outside of the scope of OpenGL, so yes, it matters. On FreeBSD you are probably using GLX. Any call to glXSwapBuffers should automatically block until the screen refreshes. If it does not, look for some configuration options to set when you create the gl context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.187.22.254 (talk) 00:50, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

August 28

default password

I forget my windows password and also linux password.So I want to know what its default password?Iloveugourab 00:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

There is none, else compromising a server would be so easy. On Linux, you can always boot to some recovery mode to gain root access. Splintercellguy 00:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Boot singleuser. Use the kernel flag "single" to do this, then reset the password. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.78.64.102 (talk) 00:52, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

On some Linux installs the default password for "root" is also "root". (In general, try using the same password as the username.) StuRat 01:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The default password is sometimes "toor" (root backwards) Think outside the box 14:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

For Windows XP, boot in safemode to bypass login details and then change relevent passwords in the control panel. JoshHolloway 11:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

For Windows, use the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor to change the password. --Spoon! 12:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

School Internet Filtering

Okay I fully understand if no-one wants to answer this on moral grounds but I heard this thing on the radio yesterday from this guy saying he bypassed his school Internet filter by changing an option in Google that would allow him to bypass it. I'm really curious as to how this would work. Does anyone know how to do this or how it could possibly be done? Thanks Mix Lord 00:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

If you pick the "Advanced" button to the right of the place where you type in the Google search term, it takes you to a page which contains, among other things, the SafeSearch setting. If it has defaulted to "Filter using SafeSearch", simply select "No filtering", instead. If your school uses it's own filtering system, this won't work, however. StuRat 01:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Or search for something that's on a banned website and click "Cache". This'll show Google's version of the site. JoshHolloway 11:00, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that many institutions with filters will block access to Google's cache, and other similar sites. Lurker (said · done) 13:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

My school blocks the google cache (but only of pages it has blocked). OP, if the school has their network set up perfectly then it's impossible to bypass such a filter. If your school lets you connect your own computer or run arbitrary code on their computers (I'd be wary of monitoring software in the latter case though), then just SSH home, or use a proxy set up on your home computer. If you're still in high school this is real easy (just install privoxy and forward tcp 8118 on your router to the appropriate computer, and configure your browser at school to use the proxy server at your home router's external IP).. if you're at college your parents probably don't want you sapping their bandwidth while you're away, so don't steal. Note that if your school already restricts HTTP traffic through a proxy (rather than just the network gateway, which is how it should be done) you'll have to find some other VPN protocol to tunnel through, in which case you'll have to have some additional software at home to recieve the connection- not to mention the ability to run arbitrary code at school like ssh or stunnel with the proxy patch. --froth^t 19:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I share this because I object on moral grounds to censorship of the internet! And of course I was vague enough to just give you a few leads to figure it out yourself, which is the most important thing anyway :) --froth^t 19:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

BoingBoing also keeps a list of some anti-censorship techniques. From the page: "If your employer or corrupt, undemocratic, dictator-based government uses a filtering service ... you can try the following workarounds". --h2g2bob (talk) 21:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

seminal paper

how to find the seminal paper of a particular topic? i want to find the seminal paper on 'PID Controller'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.69.22.235 (talk) 03:15, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Not intended blanking

Hello, I was referred to this page as a possible source of help with my problem. When I use certain computers to edit pages I end up unexpectedly blanking pages. In essence, what happens is that after I hit the 'edit' button, only a portion of the text that is supposed to load on the edit box ends up loading. As a result, if I pay no attention to checking if the entire section loaded and I save my changes I may inadvertently blank the bottom portions of sections. Here is an example. I was told that it could be a virus, but I find this hardly unlikely since it tends to happen from the computers at school which have no administrator privileges and their memory is cleared up every time after use (they are well maintained too.) Do you know how I can keep this from occurring? Thank you, Brusegadi 04:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I would speculate that the computer doesn't have enough available memory to load the entire page, and handles this situation badly. It should give an error, but instead appears to load part of the page, but otherwise behave normally. One suggestion is to use section edits whenever possible, instead of full page edits. Another suggestion is to switch to a different browser. StuRat 05:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, two possible reasons, neither of which is necessarily applicable to you.

1. About a year ago there was an issue, I think it was with using the Google toolbar in Firefox. If you loaded a page bigger than say 30kb it would cut the bottom off. I think this issue has been resolved, but that may depend on users having updated their software.
2. I have met this problem with pages, especially big pages, being cut off when downloading on a slow connection, such as a modem (especially if multitasking, such as downloading files, opening several pages, etc all at the same time). Now it's possible that your school connections are slow, or prone to times of overload when very large numbers of people are accessing simultaneously, when this could happen. If this is the case, there's no way of stopping it, you must just ensure the pages have loaded properly. The pages will claim to have loaded properly, so you really have to be vigilant. If this does happen, often you have to use <Crtl><F5> to force a reload, as the refresh button in the browser won't do it. --jjron 08:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

XML extensions

Hi! I'm a newbie working on xml-based formats in developing applications. From the development point of view, is there a difference if I give it a custom extension, of say .ABCD rather than .XML? Is there a deep difference in the extension used for xml files (so as long as it does not conflict with other registered file types)? Regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.78.219.4 (talk) 05:53, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Extensions are used by most operating systems to guess at a file type. There's no requirement for you to use "proper" extensions. For example, I can have a MS Word document with the extension ".ihateword". I can have a pdf with the extension ".pdfsareevil". Some (old) operating systems limit extensions to 3 characters. Those are rare to find in modern times. So, feel free to use whatever you like. Anyone opening the file will easily see that it is XML and not care what the filename is. -- Kainaw^(what?) 12:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Minor add-on: To Kainaw's entirely suitable answer; some applications also use the file extension for various purposes, and failing to use the "proper" extension won't necessarily break anything, but it may give you additional headaches. For example, some Text editors use the file extension to determine what kind of Syntax highlighting to apply to the currently-edited file.

In this instance, you would want to go into the configuration options for your text editor and register the extension "ABCD" (along with xml, xsl, svg, xhtml, ... and so on) so that your application "knows" that abcd is just another type of xml file. dr.ef.tymac 14:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

HQ1

Could you please provide for me any information about HQ1 chipsets that Sony produces them also, if you can give me the datasheet for them?

Thank you in advance

Suliman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.232.75.208 (talk) 09:26, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

The Forum Game

In every classroom, meeting or forum, whether online or not, there seem to be persons who can not resist the temptation to disrupt to the point that it is to them obviously a game. One rule for dealing with trolls in such situations is "Not to feed the trolls." Are there other rules that administrators, moderators and users who merely wish to contribute and learn can follow to play and win The Forum Game? Clem 11:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring trolls ("do not feed" them) is the best method. Trolls want attention. That is why they are trolls. Ignoring them deprives them of what they want and they go elsewhere. It is hard sometimes. There are many trolls here on Wikipedia. I've got into it with a few of them - which is completely my mistake. I know better. I am learning though. Just last week, I pointed out (on the Science RD) that driving slower gets better gas mileage. A troll piped in and said I was completely wrong - driving slower does not get you where you going as fast as driving faster. He equated my comment to a religious argument. Note: He didn't respond to what I wrote. He responded to something different and threw in an insult. I recognized him as a troll and didn't respond - even though I really wanted to. -- Kainaw^(what?) 12:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Why didn't you just answer his legitimate claim about gas mileage? You're both wrong by the way- there's an optimum speed for each vehicle, it's not a general rule about faster or slower --froth^t 19:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

As I stated, he did not respond to what I wrote. He responded to something totally different in a highly confrontational and insulting tone. I'm doing my best not to respond to trolls. -- Kainaw^(what?) 19:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

One problem is that it's human nature to label anyone as a troll who disagrees with us and won't be convinced of our argument. Thus, giving administrators the mandate to ban trolls results in them banning anyone who disagrees with them. The "ignore the trolls" policy gets around this problem, by simply causing those who disagree to disengage. StuRat 13:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's quite fair. Most admins don't ban people as trolls unless they are blatantly being disruptive to the editing process. I think the "human nature" bit is really that when many people who show up here don't get what they want, they behave very poorly. --24.147.86.187 15:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've always found them a bit like fleas - once they're there it's difficult to ignore, and obviously they spoil your experience. I've found that over time I've just become immune (mostly) - persevere and you'll just find the problem seems to go away (mostly). I think they like 'fresh' ones - once you've been bitten a few times they must get bored of the taste.87.102.90.8 13:57, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Also why not take a look at slashdot with the moderation turned down to -1 and learn how the masters do it.87.102.90.8 14:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Or alternatively - give them the scrap they want - get it out of your system (I recommend this!) if so you might want to take a look at the articles linked from Pejorative. Good luck anyway87.102.90.8 14:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I always thought this comic summed it up well. Personally I think a combination of ignoring the quick drive-by trolls (don't give them an audience, hope they find something better to do) and banning the persistent ones works out as well as one can hope for. --24.147.86.187 15:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Programming Language for working with hardware

HI friends...I would like to work with the PC hardware and with external communication devices using PC serial port,USB etc...For that which language wouldbe recommended to learn?...I prefer Visual Basic which can be used to make windows GUI as well as programming to communicate with peripheral devices....Or shall I use C?(can we do those stuff it in C?).I thought C is complicated for these sort of applications.Or is there anything else more specific?...For eg, I want to make interface so that I can copy some data from one medium say, CD drive to a serial EEPROM device or maybe a modem, etc..?..Please help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.249.89 (talk) 11:34, August 28, 2007 (UTC) (I created a separate section for this question. JSBillings 12:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC))

You can use just about any language you like. What you need is a library of functions for working with the serial port or USB port. Since you are learning, I suggest C# or Java. My reasoning is that they are similar to C, Object Oriented, and easier to learn than C. However, there will surely be a slew of radical religious responses claiming that C# and/or Java were designed by Satan to drive all of humanity into the pits of Hell. What you should get from arguments like that is that some people take programming languages way too seriously. It really doesn't matter which one you choose. -- Kainaw^(what?) 12:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Transferring data between computers

I have two computers connected by the same router. Is there any way I can share folders and transfer data from one computer to the other through my LAN connection? One of the computers is running Windows Vista, while the other is running Windows XP. Thanks. Acceptable 13:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You can use Windows networking to do it. There are many ways to do this. The easiest is to right-click on a folder on the one that currently has the files. Select "sharing" and share the folder. It may go through a lot of steps to set up file sharing. Now, go to the other computer and look in the Network Neighborhood. You should see the shared folder appear so you can open it and copy the file. Of course, there are many reasons that the folder may not appear. It is best to try this and then, if it doesn't work, come back for the long process of troubleshooting. -- Kainaw^(what?) 13:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I have such a system at home (in our case we have Windows 98 and Windows XP computers), and it seems to be almost random whether a particular folder shows up on the network for any given computer on any given day. Rebooting everything, including the router, changes the status of each folder (again randomly), so doing it enough times will eventually make the folder you want appear on the Network Neighborhood for the computer you want. StuRat 13:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

If you had a Mac all you'd need to run is a Firewire cable or ethernet cable between the two - with no router. --24.249.108.133 16:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

"If you had a Mac..." is not the answer to any Windows problem. Notice that there are no "If you had Linux..." answers here. -- Kainaw^(what?) 17:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

If you have a real computer, all you need is a length of ethernet crossover cable, which is specifically designed for file transfer. And I seriously doubt that macs can perform the same feat with standard cat5, you need a crossover cable or its non-ethernet-standards-compliant. --froth^t 19:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

If I do what Kainaw suggests, where will the folder be stored? Is it stored on the computer with the folder that I right-clicked on? Thanks. Acceptable 17:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes - you create a "shared" folder just as you would any other folder. For example, go into "My Documents", make a new folder called "Shared", and then right-click on it. That is the computer the folder is physically on. Then, once you right-click and share it, the other computer should be able to see it. If not, come back and ask for further troubleshooting help. -- Kainaw^(what?) 18:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Windows networking is all fine and good but if it's a lot of data, like hundreds of gigabytes, then set up a samba share on the host and connect to it from the other computer. Or use sftp. --froth^t 19:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I should have said this before... I use a USB drive myself. -- Kainaw^(what?) 19:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Malware on Vista

Hi does any one know how I can remover malware of my computer I am running vista thank you weare2good lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by Weare2good (talk • contribs) 15:48, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php?PHPSESSID=e891ea4176f42a6658ddf7c17b05720a

Contrary to the wikipedia article Ad-Aware this does work with Vista (at least according to their 'badge' on the screen. I don't have vista so cannot vouch for it. ny156uk 18:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you but I have spybot but it has not removed eveything so I need something that will remover all spyware ect.Weare2good 18:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

No one program seems to remove everything. The combination of Spybot S&D and AdAware seems to get most malware. --LarryMac | Talk 19:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Software release date database

I was curious if there are any online resources that track the release dates of major software? (ie: when was Photoshop 2.5 released? Or Windows 98SE? Or Netscape 1.1?) --24.249.108.133 16:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Check Wikipedia. For example, the Photoshop page has a link to Adobe Photoshop release history -- Kainaw^(what?) 17:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Interchanging desktop and laptop RAM

Can I take apart my old PC and put its RAM into a laptop and vice-versa?Acceptable 17:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Under nearly all circumstances, no, you cannot. RAM for desk computers is physically different from laptop ram - so they don't interchange. There are rare exceptions. -- Kainaw^(what?) 17:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I found this out the hard way when upgrading an old desktop of mine. >_< CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 18:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Wordpress, Markdown and New Lines

Hello,

I'm using markdown to write the posts for my wordpress blogs and I've run into a minor formatting issue. Markdown outputs the text in HTML format like this:

blah blah blah

blah blah blah

blah blah blah

Which I then copy/paste into wordpress.

The problem is that wordpress only leaves one carriage return after each paragraph, which lumps all the text together.

Is there anyway to fix this?

Thanks for your help,

--Grey1618 22:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)