Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

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December 15

What is the name the computer we (most of users) use??

What is the name of the computer that we use, many people name him pc, but pc means personal computer, and him is not the only personal computer that existed 201.79.11.127 (talk) 00:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is a single good answer for all contexts. Plain "PC" is commonly used, but overbroad. "PeeCee" has been used to specify the narrower meaning, but seems to be generally pejorative. Wintel is another possibility if you consider the ability to run MS Windows as the defining characteristic of this class of machines (which may inadvertently exclude some of the earliest ancestors, and inadvertently include the newest Macintoshes). The historical name, IBM PC compatible, is nicely descriptive, but not popular anymore (probably because makers of these machines don't like to emphasize the fact that their basic design is that old). --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 01:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The history is that all small computers (like Apple II, TRS-80 and Commadore PET) were called "Personal Computers" - then, when IBM came out with their first small computer, they called it the "IBM Personal Computer" - which got shortened to IBM PC. This machine became spectacularly popular - and pretty soon there were people making clones of it, which were generally called by the name of the manufacturer plus "PC" - so we had the Amstrad PC 512 for example. Generically, these were all "PC-compatibles" - which gradually got shortened back to "PC" again. So by a long process of name lengthening and shortening, we have PC's - and Mac's (which while they are Personal Computers - are NOT PC's!). Technically, we should only use the term "PC" for the hardware of the computer - but alarmingly, there is a tendancy for some people to talk about "Software that runs on the PC" - when they really mean "Software that runs under Windows on a PC". This is alarming because we also have Linux and various BSD-Unixen that also run on the PC - which typically won't run Windows software - so misusing the term PC in this way makes talking about this kind of thing much harder! SteveBaker (talk) 14:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

OpenOffice 1.1 > .doc files: conversion en masse

I have a folder containing subfolders containing OpenOffice files which I'd like to convert to .doc files or .pdf files. I would not like to do each conversion manually. Can I feed the folder into a program that will make a batch conversion automatically on all files within the subfolders? --Seans Potato Business 01:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I found a Python script which does that for you. This OOO-wiki article may also be helpful. ›mysid (☎∆) 12:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm using Windows XP... gave up on Linux a while ago after spending months trying to get all sorts of different things working (with limited success). --Seans Potato Business 22:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Huh? OpenOffice and Python run fine under Windows. When people suggest gently pressing the accelerator pedal, do you reply "I'm driving a Ford. I gave up on Chevy ..." :-) ? --75.19.73.101 (talk) 07:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

But the script linked to contains lines like /usr/lib/ooo-2.0/program --Seans Potato Business 18:01, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

can linux run windows programs?

Can I run windows games on linux? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.53.169 (talk) 02:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Possibly yes, through the use of the Wine compatibility layer. It's a good idea to consult the Wine AppDb to determine if your game is playable on Wine. Splintercellguy (talk) 05:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WINE certainly allows you to run quite a lot of Windows software - but it's fairly poor at games because they rely heavily on Windows graphics libraries that don't have an exact counterpart under Linux. So you might be lucky - you might not. Alternatively, there are quite a few systems out there to let you run Windows INSIDE a Linux window, so at least you don't have to reboot into Windows to run your game. SteveBaker (talk) 14:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

...such as QEMU. ›mysid (☎∆) 15:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

He said windows games, so unless he has 8 cores and 16GB of memory, that's not the way to go --ffroth 20:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You don't want an "emulator" - those are very slow. You need something like VMware which is a 'virtualization' layer that literally runs both operating systems at the same time. Sadly, you still need to have Windows installed on the machine to do that - but at least you don't have to keep rebooting from one to another - and you can still do stuff like deal with your email WHILE the game is running under Windows. (Check Comparison_of_virtual_machines). Nifty stuff. SteveBaker (talk) 04:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Wine is not actually an emulator. It does interpret some library calls to redirect them to the appropriate Linux equivalent, but that's mostly it.(mostly.) On programs that work with Wine (and only some do) they often wind up being as fast, or (rarely) even faster than they do on windows. Some programs run slower, of course. I've noticed that disk access seem to be a bit slower in Wine, so that's something to keep in mind, depending on the application. If we're talking about games I recommend Wine's closed-source cousin, Cedega which is similar, but can also handle programs containing DirectX calls, and is specificaly tuned to work well with many big-name titles. I don't want to give the impression that either of these programs work perfectly, but properly configured they can do pretty well. 72.10.110.107 (talk) 15:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

In addition to those, lots of games have been ported to Linux - Doom 3, the Quake series, the Unreal Tournament series, and pretty many others. So if you want to try some new games you could buy some new ones, or download free ports of some games. And Wine Is Not an Emulator, and I've actually found it to be of comparable speed to my old windows installation - though I never tried it with games. - brian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.211.113 (talk) 05:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's not forget Cedega "which is designed specifically for running games written for Microsoft Windows under Linux". It is not free, though - in fact, I personally have found it to be ridiculously expensive. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 10:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

IPX on Vista

Is there anyway to get IPX to work on windows vista so I can play games over a LAN? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.53.169 (talk) 03:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems there is officially no way to get it to work. But you may want to try these instructions I found (at your own risk of course). ›mysid (☎∆) 12:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Easyjet and Paypal are spamming me

I'm getting unwanted email from easyjet and paypal. Doesn't the EU have a law requiring easy unsubscribing methods? Why don't they have to have a link at the bottom? By far, that's the easiest method. Is there no law requiring this? I've logged into both website, unchecked all the relevant options I can find with no effect. Aren't they breaking the law? To whom can I report this? --Seans Potato Business 03:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Those emails might be fishing attempts. Be careful not to click any links in them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.124.101 (talk) 06:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, most probably they are phishing emails with counterfeit sender addresses. Those people don't care about the EU or the law. ›mysid (☎∆) 12:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

To be completely clear: Firstly it is almost certain that these emails are NOT from EasyJet or PayPal - please don't blame those sites. These emails are from some criminal pretending to be them in order to pursuade you to visit a fake version of those web sites and enter personal data such as bank accounts that would allow the criminal to extract money from your account. This is called 'phishing'. Accordingly: DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS IN ANY OF THOSE EMAILS! DO NOT REPLY TO THESE EMAILS! No legitimate online service is ever going to ask you to do this kind of thing. Furthermore - being criminals - they aren't going to respect any efforts you make to try to stop them. Notably, if there are "unsubscribe" links they either won't work - or are actually a part of the scam. If you click on them, it will make the criminal believe that you were actually taken in by his scam - so he'll try again with even more vigor to try to scam you. Expect to see emails that appear to come from all sorts of legitimate businesses. I even got one claiming to be from the Wikipedia donation system claiming that I needed to provide more information...yeah - right! You can't stop these from coming - you simply have to ignore them. If you have a decent email client (I use "Thunderbird"), you can 'train' it to toss out the vast majority of this junk automatically...and in some cases warn you when you get an email that's likely to be a scam. SteveBaker (talk) 14:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Very good advice from Steve, BUT if you have previously used EasyJet and Paypal, the mails might be legitimate. You might have signed up to recieve "newsletters and offers" when creating your user account with these organisations. DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS IN THE EMAIL but you might want to visit the "your account" pages at Easyjet and PayPay and change your account settings to stop newsletters and the like. Astronaut (talk) 20:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• A good way to 'find out' is set up a new email address, and foward your emails from the contacts you have. This will send all legitimate emails to a new inbox, so even if your email client feeds em to your inbox, only your address book names will reach the other inbox. 217.43.4.35 (talk) 01:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Downloading problem

Hi I just was wondering how to dowload from this site. I want dslfor my old computer but i dont know how to download from that site [[1]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiggerthecharles (talk • contribs) 08:05, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You will have to pick one of the mirrors. Specifically, the file you most probably want is ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/dsl-4.1.iso ›mysid (☎∆) 12:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WinXP Display Properties - Desktop tab freezing

All of a sudden, the Display Properties dialog box on my computer has decided to chuck a tantrum, and now I can't get into the Desktop tab. All the other tabs in the dialog work fine, but every time I click on the Desktop tab, the dialog freezes and I have to force quit it. Any suggestions on how to fix this? (I'm running Windows XP SP2, by the way.) --Lumina83 (talk) 09:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Anyone? Surely someone out there knows how to fix this? --Lumina83 (talk) 08:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Firefox plugin idea

Good morning/evening, everyone. I've been thinking, is there a plugin for Firefox that would do the following: Say I'm visiting a website and find a word or phrase that I'd like to look up somewhere. I'd select it with the mouse cursor, right click and in the popup menu I'd have an option to search the phrase in Google, Wikipedia, what have you... and the other service would pop up in a new tab with the search results. Is there something like this? Just curious. Cheers, enjoy the weekend! --Ouro (blah blah) 14:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Try Mozilla Add-ons' list of search extensions. Something like SearchWith? --h2g2bob (talk) 16:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, thanks, I'll look over there. --Ouro (blah blah) 18:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

That hit the spot! Thanks a bunch, h2g2bob! --Ouro (blah blah) 18:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Firefox 2.0 already has this feature built in. Select a word or multiple words, right-click the selection, and on of your options on the menu is "Search Google for <whatever text you selected>". The search engine is whatever search engine you have selected on the search toolbar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.130.188 (talk) 23:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

UDF ?

I've a zipped file on my computer. If I try to unzip it there only appears a text file saying:

"This disc contains a "UDF" file system and requires an operating system that supports the ISO-13346 "UDF" file system specification."

My OS is Windows XP. Also, because it speaks about a "disk", I'm afraid I should have originally burned the file on some CD/DVD. Is there anything easy to be done? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.149.216.233 (talk) 15:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Universal Disk Format is a file system for DVDs, just like FAT and NTFS are for regular hard drives. I'm not an expert at this matter, but I guess your file is actually a disk image of some sort ripped from a CD or DVD. Does it have a weird extension like .iso or .nrg? And how big is the file? Admiral Norton ^(talk) 18:56, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, nobody would have problems if the world used WinRAR --ffroth 20:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not at my own computer now, but I can remember its size was about 2 gigabytes. The extension was probably .iso (?), since Windows decided to call the format "PowerArchiver ISO (somestuff)" or something like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.248.153.173 (talk) 14:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the Loop device article will provide some clues. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If it is a disk image, you could try mounting it with http://www.daemon-tools.cc. I seem to recall it mounting udf files and it will definitely mount .iso. - bwe —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.211.113 (talk) 05:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

What software to use? InfoGraphical document

What options do I have to create such infographical docs?

Like:

[[2]]48 KB [[3]]36 KB [[4]]27 KB

Of course, I don't want a program like Illustrator that gives you the chance to start from scratch. I am searching for a point-and-drag solution.

Thanks in advance.

217.168.0.96 (talk) 15:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

While any SVG program will do great for those, I'd probably end up using Dia. It is tailored to diagrams. -- kainaw™ 16:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Printing off Googlebooks

How do I print off pages from books I've found on Googlebooks? DuncanHill (talk) 17:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

If it's a book you can download, download it and print it. If not, take a screenshot, print that. Otherwise, you're not supposed to print the pages off, so trying to just save them or print them won't work. --140.247.153.63 (talk) 19:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - it's just rather annoying to have to download a whole book when all I need is a printout of a page or two. DuncanHill (talk) 01:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Proxy

I'm currently connecting through a big ISP. Is there a way to use a proxy to conceal my identity from the ISP and the outer Internet? If it matters, the ISP uses dynamic IP. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 19:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You will appear to be the proxy (masking your identity as long as the proxy's not compromised by hackers/police) to the outside internet. To your ISP, it will appear that all of your connections are going from you to one server (the proxy), so it's obvious you're using a proxy. If they have deep packet inspection equipment (it wouldn't even have to be deep; they probably have dedicated equipment to just strip out proxy forwarding requests from HTTP headers for law enforcement purposes) they can also see where you're using the proxy to go, which I guess is another place your anonymity could be compromised. Note that nobody will be fooled here; it's trivial to "the outside internet" to see an incoming IP address and find out that it's hosting a proxy serve, but they can't see who's behind it if the server is well-secured. --ffroth 20:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 21:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

DIV and SPAN question

I'm trying to create a page with a set of boxes on the left side in an alternating arrangement. I could do this very easily with TABLE tags but that would not only be clunky but it wouldn't really work right if the user had CSS disabled (I want the page to fail gracefully). Anyway I'm trying something like this:

	<div id="boxes">
	<div class="box" id="bx1"></div><div class="box" id="bx2"></div><br/>
	<div class="box" id="bx2"></div><div class="box" id="bx1"></div><br/>
	<div class="box" id="bx1"></div><div class="box" id="bx2"></div><br/>
	<div class="box" id="bx2"></div><div class="box" id="bx1"></div><br/>
	</div>

With the divs set to have a fixed height and width (150px by 150px). It doesn't work right, though. Instead of being side-by-side the DIV elements only want to sit on top of each other vertically. Not really what I want. I've tried playing around with block vs. inline elements but inline elements—which can live side-by-side—cannot have their heights and widths set, apparently. What's the CSS solution here? I'm pulling my hair out. It seems like it shouldn't be too hard. --140.247.153.63 (talk) 19:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably adding something like div.box {float: left;} would do the trick. Also, to make the (X)HTML valid the id attribute would have to be different for every box. --Dave the Rave (DTR)talk 19:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, having re-read what you said, I'd recommend adding something like div#boxes br {clear: left;}. --Dave the Rave (DTR)talk 22:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You know you want them all to be 150px wide and sit left to right. So, set position:relative and set the left:0px on the first one, left:150px on the next one, left 300px on the next one... Relative positions can be clunky, so you will probably want to opt for position:absolute. Then, you'll want to set your main content div to absolute and position it where it needs to go. -- kainaw™ 20:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Divs can't sit next to each other. You can float them, which works but is nasty, or you can just make them inline elements like spans. See the display property to heal all your woes --ffroth 22:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Floats aren't nasty when properly used! Inline elements you can't set the height of the element, just like what the OP had said. I personally don't like setting position unless I really have to, as it doesn't fail very gracefully. To the OP, you need to use classes instead of ids, but I still don't quite understand what you're trying to do. Are you trying to have a table-like thing with 8 boxes arranged to 2×4 arrangement, or have a bunch of boxes on one side while the content is on the other side in 1 big box? In the first case, I would just use <table> and be done with it, since the data is in table form, and that's how you're supposed to use it. If you insist on CSS, I would group the divs in rows first, and set floats to the divs inside, like this:

HTML:

<div class="boxes">
    <div> <!-- Row 1 -->
        <div class="box bx1"></div>
        <div class="box bx2"></div>
    </div>
    <div> <!-- Row 2 -->
        <div class="box bx1"></div>
        <div class="box bx2"></div>
    </div>
    <div> <!-- Row 3 -->
        <div class="box bx1"></div>
        <div class="box bx2"></div>
    </div>
</div>

CSS:

.box {
width: 150px;
height: 150px;
}

.bx1 {
//Or left, depends on what you want
float: right; 
}

If it's the latter case, you don't have to split your content up, just have a bunch of floating boxes before the content and you're done. Remember though, floated content must always come before non-floated content.--antilived^{T | C | G} 22:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

SVG Images

Can any SVG images be opened and altered as if they were saved in some image editor's proprietary format? Like suppose you made a picture of a circle and saved it as SVG, can I open it and stretch it out into an eclipse, leaving any other parts of the image untouched? Seans Potato Business 22:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can modify individual elements independently in SVG. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• Note that Inkscape is a free and good vector graphics editor that saves as SVG by default. You should download it and give it a whirl. --Sean 00:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, you can even edit it in Notepad, since it's just XML. (I'm replying to sean's potato business, stupid non-indent bullet users) --ffroth 06:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• Be more polite. I'm not stupid; bullets do indent, and don't suffer the problem of two consecutive posts at the same indentation running together. --Sean 23:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

And at any rate, you can't realistically do nontrivial edits to SVG files, since they're even more opaque and non-human-editable than most XML files, in that SVG isn't really XML. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

installing windows XP onto a computer with Windows vista

Ok, so I hate Vista, as I'm pretty sure everyone who has ever used it does. I have a Windows XP disc and want to install XP onto my computer. When I try to do so, it says I cant because the version of windows that Im running is newer than the disc. How do I fix this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.53.169 (talk) 23:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

See [5]. Agree 100% on the Vista thing, BTW. I like most stuff Microsoft puts out, but they seem to be really dropping the ball bigtime in the past few years (for a good reasoning why, see [6]). According to [7], the hard drive will be formatted anyway, so you might just format it yourself or uninstall Vista. Might try asking at the Microsoft forum, too. The Evil Spartan (talk) 01:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

December 16

Need to read my Mac OS 9 cdrom on a Windows XP computer

I have a Mac OS 9 cdrom and there was some things I wanted to grab off of it. Problem is that I'm using Windows XP and putting the disk in doesn't do anything.

Can anyone suggest something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.187.82 (talk) 04:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If they are programs that you wish to use, you cannot transport things written for Mac OS9 to a Windows computer; it will do you know good to try to run them. If they are documents, then you will have to find a Apple computer (OS X/Leopard will suffice), grab it from the CDROM, and email it to yourself. Occasionally, the files will still not rener correctly on PCs, as Finder had a weird format for documents. However, this usually won't happen; if it does, you can try back here again (there are ways of decoding the files). The Evil Spartan (talk) 05:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If I recall, there was some wallpaper on the CD along with a few video clips that I wanted to check out. My Mac is no longer being used at the moment, but I do have access to a computer running a Linux distro. Can I mount the CD that way? Thanks for your reply. 64.252.187.82 (talk) 06:13, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

You might need something that can read HFS+. --Spoon! (talk) 12:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Try MacDrive7 for PCs... http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/ --66.136.247.203 (talk) 06:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

zapgrab not working properly

I have zapgrab (freeware screen capture utility)on a computer at work and one at home and it works fine on those and I think it's great.

I have a new, second computer at home (Windows Vista OS, if that matters). Unfortunately Zapgrab doesn't seem to work properly on it. What happens is I click grab and make a box around the item, I notice that the box is opaque white (on other computers it doesn't obscure the items I'm trying to grab). When I paste into an application like PowerPoint or Word or anything else, I end up with a black box instead of the image.

I've downloaded and redownloaded (http://www.zapgrab.net/) zapgrab several times in an effort to get it to work. I've googled it and I'm starting to think I'm the only person who has ever had any problem with it.

Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.154.53.28 (talk) 04:10, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I think Vista's graphics system works differently due to their use of translucency etc. Have you tried turning off Aero? —Random832 16:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I've since realized that if I kill the process DWM.EXE that zapgrab will work. How do I turn Aero off?

I don't know if is too late for this comment but I had the same issue running ZAPgrap on vista. It was happening because a compatibility issue. This workaround worked for me: 1. Right click on ZAPGrap properties. 2. Compatibility Tab. 3. check mark Disable desktop composition.

That's it. Everytime you run ZAPgrap the color scheme will be temporarily change to Vista Basic. This change will not affect the quality of the captures. I hope this help you.

telephone receiver symbol in MS Word

Hello, I want to insert a small symbol(?) or image of telephone receiver in my letter head against my telephone numbers. Now I have <tel.*******> in my letterhead. I want to replace those three initial letters of the word 'telephone' with a telltale symbol. I have seen it done by others. But I can't find that symbol in Word. Can somebody help me? Dhwaga —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhwaga (talk • contribs) 05:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

"Insert | Symbol" Font=Wingdings. In Word2003 it is on the top row. -- SGBailey (talk) 06:16, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Unicode also has some telephone signs, such as ☎ and ✆. ›mysid (☎∆) 09:20, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Sony NWZ-S616F mp3 player

When will the Sony NWZ-S616F 4GB Walkman MP3 Player be available in Australia? --Candy-Panda (talk) 07:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Not being able to see the progress of some downloads, why?

How don't some servers let you see the progress of a download? How do they do it? All you can see is a blue rectangle sliding from left to right repeatedly in the progress bar. --Taraborn (talk) 10:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

They simply do not report the size of the object you're downloading. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:20, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, okay, didn't know that. I thought that it would be the other way round: that they actively did something to hide the size of the file. --Taraborn (talk) 10:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

When a server sends a file to the browser, it has to enter in an HTTP header that tells it what kind of file it is (so the browser will know what to do with it—open it as an HTML page, open it as a movie in the browser, download it to the hard drive, etc.). One of the fields in the HTTP header is the size of the file to be downloaded. If that isn't filled in, then the browser has no idea how big the file it is downloading will be, and so can't estimate how much of the file it has left to download. The HTTP header of a generic file to be downloaded might look like this:

     Content-type: application/x-download
     Content-Length: <file size>
     Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=<name of file when downloaded>
     Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

That would tell the browser, "I'm going to send you a bunch of binary information, of exact <file size> length, and you should download it (don't try to open it in the browser!) into a file named <name of file>. Here it comes!" --24.147.86.187 (talk) 15:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

AVI to RMVB

Hello all, I've been trying to find a program that converts avi to rmvb, but all I seem to find are demos. Can anybody tell me the name or a link to download a free complete converter? Also I know that RMVB files are smaller, does that affect the quality of converted avi? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.232.118.116 (talk) 13:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggest look into MPLAYER. It's free. Also it's command line driven (but there may be a GUI front end as an add on-not sure). It doesn't know RMVB by default, but I googled for mplayer+rmvb and found this discussion that links to dll for using rmvb. http://www.moviecodec.com/topics/805p1.html

When converting any lossy media, you often lose some quality. Mplayer will give you full control over compression values. You may have to experiment for best results. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.130.188 (talk) 22:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Windows explorer error

I use windows XP and sometimes this error message [8] appears when I try to open folders that contains things I copied from DVDs or the camera. On clicking the "Close message" button, it closes all open folders at that time. Any ideas on how to stop this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neemsay (talk • contribs) 14:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Try this:

1. Right-click on My Computer
2. Click Properties
3. Open Advanced
4. Click Settings under Performance
5. Open Data Execution Prevention
6. Select the first option.
7. OK, OK, OK...

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 15:04, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I found it is already set to the first option :s any other suggestions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neemsay (talk • contribs) 16:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Virus scan? Explorer is trying to access something that's off-limits to it, like another program or something in driver/kernel space. Could be malicious --ffroth 03:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I scanned these folders but nothing came up. Why should that folder be considered off limits anyway? it just contains things I copied from a DVD ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neemsay (talk • contribs) 08:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

(Windows XP Pro, SP2) PIDs over 28000

I'm just wondering if it's normal for processes on a WinXP (Pro, SP2) system have PIDs over 28000 (right now the largest is 28648). I disabled Fast User Switching yesterday, and today (after my sister logged out and I logged in) noticed that the PIDs (in Task Manager) are unusually big. Is this normal? --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 15:04, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Open-source alternative to .NET

Is there a completely open-source development framework with capabilities similar to those of Microsoft's .NET and the associated languages? I am not asking about implementations of .NET itself, such as Mono (software), which is considered by some to be "dangerous to depend on" due to patent issues. Thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:13, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

It rather depends on what capabilities in particular you care about. If you want a dynamically-compiled object-oriented language with automatic memory management and a pretty comprehensive runtime library, i.e C#, then OpenJDK may be what you want. If you want a single runtime system on which you can run programs written in a variety of programming languages then OpenJDK may also be for you (in addition to Java you can run JRuby, and some dialects of Scheme and Lisp); more generally the Parrot virtual machine (originally developed for Perl 6) can host a wide variety of languages (albeit with varying degrees of maturity). And of course, if you truly want "runs everywhere, library for everything", there's always C. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

...and if you want a pretty efficient pure-functional programming language (which may suit a mathematical brain better than the aforementioned), with a reasonable set of libraries, then there's Haskell. Or Scala on OpenJDK. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look into those. I'll also focus my goal a bit, in case there is more to be suggested. As far as the language goes, C# is indeed what I had in mind (though I come from a VB background). Among the languages you have mentioned, I'd say Java is closest to it; But I have the impression that C# is more "advanced" and "powerful" than Java. Is there, then, anything more reminiscent of C#? As for libraries, it should be as easy as possible to create applications with a Windows-like GUI, other than that - the more powerful and easy to navigate, the better. Also important is the availability of a powerful IDE, a la Visual Studio. You've mentioned C - it is probably too "hard-core" for me. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

C# really is a pretty close copy of Java, with a few improvements and a few more "improvements". Bar the differences in the libraries (C#'s is mostly the Windows API with wrappers, Java's its own largely-platform-independent library) the two languages are exceedingly similar. GUIs are straightforward in Java (and in fairness, in Python, Perl, Ruby, and a dozen others too). As for IDEs Eclipse and NetBeans are popular and powerful, and support many languages, including all of the above. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• Let's be honest here. The only reason C# exists is because Microsoft found itself unable to control Java. C# does indeed have a few minor improvements over Java, but the idea that the very minor differences are going to make or break your ability to write a high-quality system is nonsense. Programmers put people on the moon with assembler. If you want something like C#, but are wary of Microsoft's historical treatment of its developer base, you can go with Java without a second thought. --Sean 23:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

SQL Server Service Manager?

What does the SQL Server Service Manager do? I have it in my system tray but it's never "connected" as far as I know, and it takes some serious system resources. Can I safely exit it?

Thanks in advance,

Perfect Proposal ^{Speak out loud!} 16:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Basically, the SQL Server Service Manager provides an interface to any instances of the SQL Server database management system that may be running on your system. As for whether it's connected - if the icon in the tray includes a green arrow in a white circle, then it more than likely is connected to at least one instance. And as for shutting it down - that's a whole different ballgame, because there are quite a few applications out there that use SQL Server as their data store, and shutting it down may prevent these from working properly (some even have a scaled-down version of the SQL Server DBMS embedded in them).

I would suggest that if it's your work machine, consult the IT department. If it's your home machine and you know you're not running any seriously heavy software, you may be safe enough to close it - try pausing it for a session or two and see what happens (you can always start it up again, if something starts acting funny)Gabhala (talk) 18:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Measuring Angles of a Triangle

Hello. I am making a program that can calculate angles of a triangle given its three side lengths. In the Turing (programming language), I can calculate the cosine/sine value of a degree. How can I calculate the degree given a cosine/sine value (i.e. reverse the cosd/sind predefined function)? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 16:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Just in case there is no language feature to do that, I will provide a mathematical answer which might be useful: For a given value $y$, set $x:=0$ and repeatedly calculate $x:=x-{\frac {\sin x-y}{\cos x}}$ until the result no longer changes. Then x will be the value (in radians) satisfying $\sin x=y$, which you can easily convert to degrees. The calculation for inverse cosine is similar. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• This page lists various compositions of basic math functions. --Sean 23:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

It appears that there are arctan and sqrt functions in the language. From the link above, you should be able to compute arcsin and arccos. Then you can convert from radian to degree if you want. --Spoon! (talk) 04:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I got it! It was arccosine. Thanks to everyone. --Mayfare (talk) 21:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to open and edit a MS Outlook msg file?

Is it possible to open and edit a MS Outlook msg file? If so how easy is it to do? (Should msg be regarded as reliable evidence?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.74.84.54 (talk) 17:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks pretty easy to me; the message body seems to be stored in the clear. But I don't have one handy to test. As for "reliable evidence", it is always evidence of what, but assuming you mean evidence as to the veracity of an e-mail, to my knowledge there is really no way to ever guarantee reliable e-mail evidence. At best you could maybe get the e-mail server to affirm that a given e-mail passed through it but even then there are other issues involved (if their SMTP isn't authenticated, for example, anyone could send the e-mail posing as anyone else, and all of this assumes any accounts have not been compromised). I'm not sure how the courts treat e-mail messages but they are a pretty insecure message format in most cases as they are almost always sent and saved in the clear and without much by ways of guaranteeing that the person who it says has sent it actually sent it. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 17:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If the questioner means "How easy is it to tamper with an MSG file?", the answer is "Trivially". Just open MS Outlook, drag the file from the desktop into the Outlook Inbox, open the message, click "Edit Message", type whatever you like, close the message, then drag it back to the desktop. Job done! --Heron (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

PC game suggestions

This is a rather spurious and unimportant question, but my guess is whoever is monitoring this board will have some suggestions. I'm looking to buy Christmas presents for a group of friends, and thought that an online pc game would be a cool way for everyone to game together. Any suggestions on an older pc game with an online mode? I'm not necessarily talking mmo, just allowing players of the game some multiplayer or coop over the internet. I'm looking in the $10 to $25 price range, but finding something that is old enough to be that cheap, online and any good is proving to be more of a task than I thought. Thanks for any advice in advance! Newsboy85 (talk) 19:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Worms Armageddon! It's so much more realistic in 2D... --Seans Potato Business 23:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Doom is THE way to go. Is there anything more satisfying than turning your friends into pixelated meatloaf with a rocket launcher? I think not. 216.178.51.214 (talk) 04:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Team Fortress 2 is fun if you've got enough friends to form two teams, and they're comfortable with FPS games. Otherwise I like Seans's suggestion. 72.10.110.107 (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

StarCraft is a classic, and even still played a lot, even over nine years after it's initial release. This (as well as any other good RTS game) might draw some more long-term gameplay than a standard FPS, depending on the preferences of your friends. At least with me, FPS games haven't endured time as well as RTS games have. —Akrabbim^talk 18:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I like Rise of Nations - it's not too old, but it runs well on old PCs, is easy to LAN, is very deep with multiplayer options, easily modded, and is a lot of fun. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 05:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 or DEFCON are both pretty fantastic. If you want something free then have a look at Soldat or Scorched 3D, both of which work great over and online. Worms World Party or Worms Armageddon are good too. If you prefer tactical games then the older Rainbow Six games (Raven Shield is the best in my opinion) are fantastic TheGreatZorko (talk) 13:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Google searches

As powerful and as fast as Google is, why doesn't the search engine support partial word or case-sensitive searches? I'm sure this has been discussed by somebody, somewhere....--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd imagine that partial word is a lot more computationally intensive than whole words, depending on how they index things. I'd be surprised if case-sensitivity was hard, though. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 21:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not that Google has to "search" for pages containing a partial word or a differently capitalised word - the problem is that Google also has to find the most relevent searches. That means that it has to search every page on the Internet to count how many links there are to every one of the possible candidate pages in order to figure out which out of the millions (or perhaps billions) of pages that match your search terms should be presented to you. Since it's quite utterly impossible for even Google's vast computer arrays to do that when you type in the terms, it has to have pre-computed for every possible search word which pages have the highest 'page rank'. It's a massive table of words versus URL's - but it would be incomparably more vast if it also had to have entries for partial words and alternative capitalisations. You can read PageRank to find more details - but the 'Cliff Notes' version is "They make that restriction for a very good reason." SteveBaker (talk) 04:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I had to read your response (which was very good) a couple times before I understood, but I get it. You use the phrase "incomparably more vast"..... just how much more vast? 1 thousand times? A million times? A trillion times? Google has lots of money and lots of computers, couldn't they just build a bigger index? Perhaps they believe the added value would be trifling compared to the resources they'd have to invest. But I think the results would be pretty cool. For example, it would be useful to do searches to see whether a word that is capitalized/punctuated in a certain way has more hits than an alternative punctuation, etc.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 04:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Well if they had a big table somewhere with every possible word they ever saw on a website (possibly a few million words) with the top-ranked sites for every word - then to increase the size of that table to include every possible PARTIAL word - and every possible CaPiTaLiZaTiOn of every word would require much more storage space. If you imagine a fairly typical six letter word like "search", you'd need to add s*, s*h, s*ch, s*rch, s*arch, se*, se*h,....etc....SEARCH, Search, SEarch,...etc...S*, S*h, S*H, S*CH, S*Ch, ...etc. It's not hard to imagine that there would be many hundreds of possibilities for just that one word. That would mean that the table would be many hundreds of times larger - and the time taken to build it would be many hundreds of times longer and the server computers that run Google (which use a 'distributed' table searching method) would need hundreds of times more processors and memory to do it. Basically, it would be REALLY bad news for Google share-holders - and might not get them any additional users or (more importantly) more advertisers. So why would they do this?

If they resorted to a blind search, they'd have to examine several trillion web pages (I think that's how many there are now) for instances of your phrase. This would probably tie up the whole of Google's massive computer farm for several seconds (which is how they can do this internally - but not offer it to the public) - and then sort the resulting hits (of which there may be millions) according to their page rank...which is something that one computer could do in a few minutes probably. So that's a method that they won't likely offer to the public anytime soon.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I have heard that Google supports regular expressions (not sure if thats what you meant, but seems close enough) on their internal searches, so if you work there you can use them. The reason they don't do this for everyone is just what the first answer says, its just takes too much time to return a quick search. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.211.113 (talk) 05:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Screenshots

How would I make a screenshot of my computer? DuncanHill (talk) 20:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Seriously? PrintScreen then paste usually does the trick on a PC.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Someone was asking for one to help solve a display problem on wp, and it's something I've never needed to do before. DuncanHill (talk) 21:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I did that, but now I can't upload it because it is a .bmp and apparently Wikipedia doesn't want any .bmp files, whatever they are. When I was 13, my school had a new computer suite installed, but my year group weren't allowed to use it, as we were 1)"never going to need to use these things", and 2)"too old to learn it anyway". DuncanHill (talk) 21:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Paste it into MS Paint and you should be able to save it as a PNG, I think. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 21:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[ec] Try opening the file with Microsoft Paint (under Accessories) or a similar application. It will allow you to save the image as any one of a number of formats. (.bmp = bitmap, a file which explicitly specifies the color values for each pixel, as opposed to .jpg, which uses compression) -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 21:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Right! I think I've done it now! (Didn't know I had MSPaint before this either!). DuncanHill (talk) 21:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

MSPaint wasn't in the accessories, don't rightly know where it was, found it through the search thingy. DuncanHill (talk) 21:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

o_o --ffroth 03:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If I were you, I'd download a copy of GIMP - it's a WAY better program than MSPaint and it's free. It has an 'Acquire' button in the 'File' menu that can screen grab either the entire screen or just one window with a bazillion options. Once you've captured the image, you can save in '.png' (which is probably the best format for Wikipedia) - or any of a couple of dozen other formats. It's also a great paint/image-processing program - better than Photoshop IMHO. SteveBaker (talk) 04:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

How about screenshots for macs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.193.9.8 (talk) 20:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure GIMP runs OK on the Mac - but it's possible you have a better 'native' solution available. Sadly I'm no Mac expert. SteveBaker (talk) 22:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I read the GIMP article, then looked at their website, I have no idea what they are on about - tarballs? binaries for Windows?DuncanHill (talk) 03:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Head over to the MacGimp project: http://www.macgimp.org/ - they speak fluent Apple there, you should be right at home. SteveBaker (talk) 03:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm on Windows. DuncanHill (talk) 03:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - I confused you with 63.193.9.8 who wanted Mac advice. There is a Windows installer for GIMP: http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/ SteveBaker (talk) 18:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you use Windows? If so, you want Gimp for Windows. Binaries are programs you can run on your computer. You download it and run it. It installs Gimp. You will want to find 3 or 4 "Gimp for the absolute beginner" lessons online (Google for some). Gimp has a very steep learning curve just to get started. After an hour or so of banging your head and trying to understand the introductory lessons, it will suddenly all make sense and become very easy. Then, you will probably use Gimp for all of your graphical work. -- kainaw™ 03:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

In case you've read "programs you can run on your computer" and wondered "what else is there?", the answer is source code from which the binaries are compiled. On Linux, it is common to download the source code of a program and compile it to a binary on your own system. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the info - I found a thing called GIMPShop, which is meant to be an easier to use version, will have a play with it. DuncanHill (talk) 14:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

GimpShop is Gimp with a PhotoShop-style interface. It is easier if and only if you already learned to use PhotoShop. As with Gimp, if you've never messed with layers you will have a very tough time just jumping into GimpShop (or PhotoShop or Gimp). -- kainaw™ 18:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Accessories in WinXP

I just discovered MSPaint on my pc, but it wasn't listed in the "accessories" thingy accessed from the start box. What else is normally in the accessories? DuncanHill (talk) 21:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If you're referring to XP, it is commonly Accessibility, Communications, Entertainment, System Tools (important), calculator, dos prompt, notepad, wordpad, explorer and of course paint. Sandman30s (talk) 23:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Got all those and a few more too - was just a bit worried there might be something else obvious hiding away! DuncanHill (talk) 23:04, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Another one is charmap.exe which has been around for more than a decade. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Now that one wasn't there! And it's useful too, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 03:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Restricting login times on OS X

My brother seems to be wasting solid nights on the computer, and then as a result not going to school in the morning. I had set up our wireless router to simply block traffic between 11.30PM and 7AM, but that was unfair for other family members. Also, the times seemed to confuse the router - sometimes it would block during the day, or not at all. Recently, I've begun SSHing to our iMac and giving it something along the lines of "sudo shutdown -h 23:30", but he can obviously just switch it back on again. I've been thinking about setting up some sort of cronjob to automatically create a /etc/nologin file at 11.30PM and then delete it 7AM, but I have no idea whether it's even possible or not, let alone how to do it. Alternatively, could I create a cronjob to issue a shutdown command whenever the Mac is on between those times? I'd really appreciate any help or suggestions. Thanks :)--saxsux (talk) 23:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• I dunno if OS X has normal cron jobs, but an entry like:

* 0-7 * * * shutdown -h now

would cause a standard Unix system to shutdown every minute it was up between midnight and 7am, which would presumably make it annoying enough for him to go find some other thing to do. That said, technical solutions to social problems are notoriously ineffective, so perhaps some good old fashioned parenting is in order? --Sean 00:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Take the computer out of his room? DuncanHill (talk) 01:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Or just take the keyboard and/or mouse. (Yes, you can operate OS X without a mouse, but it isn't easy.) --24.147.86.187 (talk) 02:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not a laptop - right? You can buy gadgets that will turn off the power to the computer (or perhaps just to the monitor) at specified times. This one for example. The idea is that you plug the monitor power cord into this box - which has programmable timers and a physical key-lock that locks in the settings and prevents the monitor cable from being unplugged. Then this gadget plugs into the wall. When the timer says "Bedtime" - the monitor turns off. Some of them have countdown timers that give the kid 5 minutes and 1 minute warnings. Software solutions to this are possible - but I'm pretty sure a smart kid could get around any of them if determined enough. SteveBaker (talk) 04:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

But then you can just unplug the computer from that and plug it straight into the mains. I like the cron idea, you can't touch that unless you're root. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

No - you can't unplug the monitor from the timer gizmo because the mains connector is trapped inside the locked box. Take a look at the link I provided - there is a diagram showing how it works. You can't subvert it unless you have a power cord that you can unplug at the monitor end of the cable AND a spare cable. The cron idea isn't bad...but I bet a smart kid could figure out a way around it. If you have physical access to a computer, there aint no such thing as security! (My son would probably: Boot Linux-for-Mac from a memory stick or a Live-CD, log in as root, mount the main drive, change the crontab file - reboot...done!). SteveBaker (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

This is all very lolly but you have to realize that without some corporal pushishment element it will be impossible to enforce. The power limiting that steve proposed is just stupid- you can completely switch out the power cable for another. Giving someone physical access to a machine and trying to keep them out of root is similarly laughable. Maybe you could do something to the circuit breaker to cut off his circuit every night, and lock that down, but only if you can be sure that he's not going to steal power from a neighbor or buy a few UPSes. Taking the keyboard/mouse might work. By far the best solution is to turn off his MAC address's internet access through the router after a certain time, and restrict connectivity by MAC address. If he knows how to change his MAC address though you can do nothing to keep him from finding out another computer's address. --ffroth 05:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

You are assuming the monitor has a replaceable power cord...many (most even) do not. The iMac has a weird power cord (http://www.welovemacs.com/9225035.html) - which costs $35 to replace. So immediately, the kid won't be able to circumvent the power cord lock-box/timer. If he can afford $35 for a new cable - then just plan on surprising him once or twice at 1am and confiscating his replacement power cord. He'll run out of money for buying replacement cords much faster than you'll run out of patience. Trust me, Froth and Antilived are wrong - those power cutoff units will work very well indeed. Using it to cut off the monitor power is a better idea than cutting it off to the main computer box because by shutting off the monitor, you don't have to worry that you're trashing the vital piece of homework assignment he just spent 3 hours typing in. SteveBaker (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

He can always cut out the lock box entirely and mend the broken part of the cord, using half of the lock-box cord and half of the monitor cord. You'll run out of money for buying replacement lock boxes much faster than he'll run out of patience. Unless you give him a good whooping every time he does it. --ffroth 04:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a 'reversible' operation - so I think it's safe to assume that you'd notice if that had happened...and then your reaction is to sell his computer on eBay and give the money to the WikiMedia foundation. SteveBaker (talk) 17:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The only thing weird about that power cable is that it's in apple's designer color scheme, otherwise it looks like a standard C5 connector, and I found prices as low as $3 on google. The older iMacs use a C13 connector, the same as almost all other desktop computers and monitors —Random832 15:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If doing something on the Internet is the reason your brother is staying up, you may try setting up your router to block Internet access just for his computer's MAC address during certain times of the day. --64.236.170.228 (talk) 14:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

You're sure that Mac's don't have replaceable MAC addresses? Er, let me pretend to be a determined kid for a moment. Yep - it took me 18 seconds with Google to find http://slagheap.net/etherspoof/ ...trust me - physical security is the ONLY way. SteveBaker (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not simply move his computer to a more "public" part of the house? Or the garage? --66.136.247.203 (talk) 06:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

December 17

Why do some kinds of malware, especially trojans, have weird names?

Like the Swizzor trojan, the Vundo trojan, the Zlob trojan. These are strange names. Why do they have these weird names. MalwareSmarts (talk) 02:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Bored programmers. Generally, there is nothing to tell what name the original author gave to the virus - so generally the people at the anti-virus agencies who discover them just pick an arbitary name. Sometimes from the behavior of the thing - sometimes from some piece of text found inside the virus - sometimes just whatever pops into their heads at the time. SteveBaker (talk) 04:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it might also be to confuse people who aren't that knowledgeable about computers - if you see zlob.dll you probably figure its some important system file, but if it was InternetWorm.dll people would probably catch on. This would be especially true with trojans, as they're supposed to remain unnoticed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.111.211.113 (talk) 05:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

They are often purposeful names based on common Windows libraries. Hit ctrl-alt-del and look at the processes running in Task Manager. You'll see things like rdpclip.exe, csrss.exe and ctfmon.exe. Would you notice if you also had rcpclip.exe, csrs.exe, and clfmon.exe running? -- kainaw™ 13:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

A corollary to the original question would be - why do legitimate processes have such weird names? DuncanHill (talk) 13:14, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

This goes back to the stone age of computing. File names had two limits. There was the hardware limit (such as the 8.3 name limit in DOS: 8 character name and 3 character extension). Then, there was (and still is) the programmer's limit - how much is a programmer willing to type. Stack on top of that the requirement that processes have unique names (since object oriented programming wasn't around yet to put processes in unique scopes) and programmers were stuck with finding short, yet unique, names. Suppose you just wrote a program to scan the Wikipedia reference desk for unsigned comments and then sign them. What would you call it if you were limited to 8 letters? How about wrducbot? -- kainaw™ 13:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Hehehe! That's pretty funny. Your idea of life in the computing stone age is a little too recent! In the stone age, the nearest thing we had to a cross-platform operating system was UNIX. Back in the mid 1970's it had a 14 character limit (because you had 16 byte directory entries with 14 bytes of filename and 2 bytes of inode number) - but by the late 1970's UNIX gave you arbitary length filenames that could contain any characters except '/' and '\0'. Then (in the early bronze age) came CP/M with it's crappy 8.3 alphanumerics-only (kinda) limit - then (in the iron age) PC-DOS and eventually, MS-DOS which were initially both CP/M compliant and contained the same limits as it did, but with slightly more lenience about what characters you could put into the filename. So, no originally, file names could be much longer, 8.3 filenames were a temporary aberration courtesy of "Digital Research Corp". However, I'm not sure that the OP is asking about the file names - I think we're being asked about the names you hear them referred to in discussion about viruses - which might happen to be the same as the filename - but not alway so. SteveBaker (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Also worth noting is the fact that under Unix, the system calls dealing with filenames all passed general-purpose strings back and forth, such that when filenames were expanded from 14 characters to arbitrary-length, most application code didn't even need recompiling, let alone rewriting. Under MS-DOS, on the other hand, many of the key interrupts (i.e. system calls) used a rigid data structure which could hold exactly 8.3 characters and no more. So even when that platform was dragged kicking and screaming into the arbitrary-length-filename modern age, for quite a few years every file needed two names, an arbitrary-length one and a backwards-compatible 8.3 one, for the benefit of all the extant programs that still used the old interrupts.

(In fairness, Unix had a small version of this problem, in that under V7 and 2.8bsd Unix, there was initially no readdir library, so some programs rolled their own 16-byte-directory-entry-readers, and did need to be upgraded when readdir and arbitrary-length filenames came along.) —Steve Summit (talk) 03:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Also be aware that many virus programmers are from all over the world. "Zlob", for example, means "wickedness" or "malice" in Slovenian (which might be a coincidence, but I'm just pointing out that seemingly meaningless words might not be so meaningless). --24.147.86.187 (talk) 15:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Music file editing

Hi, I have a CD which contains a recording of some music performed by friends. It’s currently in MP3 format and I’m useing Vista on my computer. The problem is I have about 30 seconds of banging chairs and laughter ect. at the start and end of the clip. Is there some share ware that I could download that I can use to “lop off” these sections of the recording? Failing that, what software could I buy that will do this? Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 07:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Audacity will do that. It's cross-platform and free. There are other options at List of free audio software. --Kateshortforbob 10:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't use Audacity, since that would be destructive. You want to directly cut the file instead of decoding, editing, then re-encoding it. This is called transcoding and you should avoid it if at all possible.

What you need is something to directly cut the MP3 files. You can try searching for "mp3 direct cut". Lots more info at http://hydrogenaudio.org --Kjoonlee 20:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Whilst you are correct about avoiding the repeated decoding and re-encoding of MP3's, it may not be possible to avoid doing it once. True, if the only thing you ever want to do to it is crop the junk off of the ends - then, by all means seek a solution to doing that without transcoding - but if you ALSO want to do other processing (noise reduction, fade in/out, bass/treble boost, whatever) then you'll have to transcode anyway. The trick in that case is to ONLY do it once. So load the track into Audacity, save it out in something without compression (WAV for example), do all of your processing - then do a one-time conversion back into MP3 when you're completely done. If you plan to write it out to a CD-Audio disk then you don't suffer any penalty at all because the recording software has to decode the MP3 anyway - so you might as well do that yourself and hand the CD-Audio recorder a WAV file instead of an MP3. SteveBaker (talk) 20:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, if all you want to do is fade out, you can adjust the amplitude on a frame-by-frame basis without reencoding. I think at least some of the more advanced "direct cut" programs support this. --Kjoonlee 22:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

mediacoder

I'm trying to recode FLVs into AVIs but all it does is make them into 1 second movies. Can anyone help me figure out what I'm doing wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.169.187.67 (talk) 08:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Get MediaCoder PSP Edition, its freeware, legal, and encodes everything fully.

This might be what you're using, I don't know, but I know that it encodes FLV's to AVI's

What are you using to play the AVI's btw, cuz this might not work for it? 75.23.79.10 (talk) 21:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Real Player. It plays AVI's. When I recode them (I do use mediacoder by the way), the properties state that the movie is only 1 second long, but the flv's are around 5 minutes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.193.9.8 (talk) 20:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Making a digital disk of jpeg pics and background music.

I bought a new Dell PC last year with which I am very happy. I am not a techie but I do a lot of digital photography and I copy music onto the PC too. All I want to do is send friends and family a disk with family and scenic pictures on it, with background music they can listen to whilst watching the pics. But although I can copy music OR pics onto a CD-R disk with no problem, and whilst I can copy zillions of pics onto a DVD-R disk no problem, whenever I try to copy music to the latter I get a message from my Roxio "Burn CDs and DVDs" centre telling me that the DVD-R disk I am trying to write music to is not capable of having music copied to it. And every time I ask a sales person why not all I hear is a lot of "white noise" from them. It seems there is so much confusion out there that I have resorted to ask the question here ie please, what disk should I use, and how do I go about copying both my jpegs and music onto it? Many thanks for reading this and hopefully responding in due course. Thanks 81.145.240.102 (talk) 20:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

OK - first of all, dumping a bunch of music files and '.jpg' image files onto a DVD will NOT result in something they can just stuff into their DVD player and hear your music playing while they watch the pictures. To make that happen, you have to make a movie from the images and the music - which is going to require some specialised software.

Presuming you understand that - but you really did want to just put some music and some images onto the DVD so that each one can be read on a computer by clicking on it - then there should be no problem with copying '.mp3' music files onto the DVD along with the '.jpg' images - they are all just files. What's probably happening is that you are trying to write music to the DVD as if it were a compact disk audio disk (the kind you could play in a portable CD player for example). If so, this is by no means an easy matter - mixing CD audio and data files on the same DVD disk is really hard to do.

So, if your intent is to give your family a DVD with a slide show with music playing over the top of it, you'll need some kind of a movie making program...you didn't tell us whether you're using Linux or Windows - so I'm going to guess the latter - and because of that, I'd better defer to someone else to answer the question: "What is the best movie making software that can be had for $0 that lets me make slideshows?"

SteveBaker (talk) 21:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Windows Movie Maker, adequete for this use. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks both. I did find I had Windows Movie Maker on my PC and I succeeded in making a movie of jpegs and music that I copied to both a CD-R and a DVD-R, both of which played back magnificently on my PC - but neither of which will play back on my DVD player - I keep getting a message saying 'Invalid Input'. Any suggestions or criticisms welcome. Thanks again. 81.145.240.102 (talk) 11:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

If you simply copied an AVI file to the discs, then that does not create something that is readable by a DVD player. You need to use an authoring tool, as briefly described in the Windows Movie Maker article. It would help to know the version of Windows you have, as well as the version of WMM. --LarryMac | Talk 17:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain there's a PowerToy to handle this dilemma. I'll give it a look and give you a link if I can. RockMaster-talk|contribs 03:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Windows XP - and Windows MM Properties say -Version 5.1 (Build 2600.xsp2.qfe.070227-2300. Service Pack 2) AND ALSO Windows MM Version 2.1.4026.0. Thanks for your help - sorry for causing so much trouble. 81.145.241.150 (talk) 19:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I have a DVD recorder that I use to record things off TV. To be able to play DVD-R (or DVD-RW) disks elsewhere, I must finalise the disk. Maybe, Windows Movie Maker has the same feature; so could that be the cause of your problem? Astronaut (talk) 03:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

December 18

What specs are needed to run the game crysis with every single thing on max ???

What specs are needed to run crysis with every single thing (antialiasin, textures.......) on max, run the game on ultra high settings, playing with at normal speed?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.210.75 (talk) 03:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest taking a look at the crysis article if you havent already. BonesBrigade 03:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by BonesBrigade (talk • contribs)

I hear that CryEngine2 is horrifically bloated and slow, and that even $5000 perfect systems can't run it at max settings --ffroth 04:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't call their engine "bloated and slow" - the problem is that this is a game that has AMAZING amounts of high-end graphical content. They designed it (and the engine that drives it) to be something they can use for many years to come - so they pitched it at hardware that doesn't yet exist - and I'd agree that there is probably no hardware that money can buy that would run it smoothly at it's highest quality settings. It's actually pretty amazing what they've managed to do with current PC hardware. So rather than "bloated and slow", I'd say "fast - for what it does - and definitely ahead of it's time" (but "ahead of it's time" isn't necessarily a compliment in this context!). As a games programmer myself, I have to tip my hat to those guys for a job well done. SteveBaker (talk) 14:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe System shock was designed in the same way. The CD version shipped with textures so large that no currently machine could possible run them in full-screen mode. No machine available at the time could run the game at 640x480. Today, of course, this limitation is laughable. I can run a couple different copies of it at the same time, without slowing down or seeing the dreaded "salt the fries" message. --Mdwyer (talk) 17:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

CON

I am using Windows Vista. Why can't I create a folder named CON? The error message says "The specified device name is invalid." Also, why is is that if I type "=rand (200, 99)" into word I get 500 pages of help files pasted to the document? 70.162.25.53 (talk) 04:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Astonishingly, Windows still has a few filenames reserved for devices, inherited from MS-DOS. These names refer to I/O devices which you can, so the theory goes, access (i.e. read from and write to) just as if they were ordinary files. For example, CON refers to the "console" (keyboard + screen), LPT and/or PRN refers to the printer, etc. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

But if you know how to use the Command Prompt (if it still exists on Vista), simply prefix the full path with \\?\

example: \\?\C:\con

note: even if you create a file or folder with the same name as device (that includes con prn aux nul com1 com2 com3 com4) you won't be able to use it unless you like to mess with command line (I do).

note 2: If a file is named dev.ext Windows Explorer will see it as dev (here dev = any device, ext = any extension).

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 17:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The rand function is explained in this Microsoft document as a means of inserting sample text, similar to Lorem ipsum. =rand(200,99) is feeding 2 parameters to the function, which requests 200 paragraphs of 99 sentences each. The sample text is comprised, as you've discovered, of Word help files. --Kateshortforbob 10:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

.Mac Web Page

Can anyone please advise how I can add more photos to my existing web page which is http://homepage.mac.com/johnluckie/PhotoAlbum3.html. Many thanks.--88.110.51.242 (talk) 09:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, that code is pretty dense, you clearly made it with some sort of page generator or HTML editing program. So the answer is probably to do it something similar to the way you did it before. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 15:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for this input but I used Mac's iPhoto on System X Tiger which will generate a web page automatically, but so far as I can see does not allow one to add to it once it is in place--88.110.51.242 (talk) 18:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC).

Hmm, yeah, that would be tough. My suggestion would be to make a new set of photos in iPhoto and then generate a second page. You could either add it as a link to the first page or try and merge the pages together. The latter would take some knowledge of HTML and Javascript though and might produce problems if you didn't really know how iPhoto was generating the page. But anyway, the problem is that iPhoto generated a somewhat complicated page. It could be edited, but it would take a lot more knowledge than you have to do so, and would take a lot of time. It is easier to probably just generate another page in iPhoto rather than trying to add to that page. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 20:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure that you are right, Thanks!--88.110.51.242 (talk) 07:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Hard disk compatibility

I'm looking to buy a parallel ATA hard disk (that will live on the same cable as the an old disk or a CD drive) for a computer about 6 years old. I see that some disks are labeled ATA/100 and the rest lack any such label. I hope you can help me with these questions:

1. What ATA version should I assume disks have when they don't say "ATA/100"?
2. What happens if I get a too modern ATA version? Will it not work with my computer?
3. What happens if I get a too old ATA version? Will it work? Will it be slow?
4. How do I figure out the capabilities of my computer and my current disk? (The computer is currently running Windows XP.)

—Bromskloss (talk) 09:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter, since all PATA drives nowadays should come with ATA/133, the last of the PATA standard (AFAIK). They're all backward compatible with previous standards so it should be fine. --antilived^{T | C | G} 21:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, good, that's what matters most. How about size restrictions? My computer has a 60 GB disk now. Can it handle, say, 300 GB or is there some limit between the two values that might be a problem? —Bromskloss (talk) 22:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no hardware limit that I know of (other than what you can buy) but older operating systems may have a limit. XP's (with SP2) limit hasn't been reached yet though. TheGreatZorko (talk) 13:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

i'm sure there's a name for this, tell me it

In digital arithmetic (the kind computers do in binary and we do in denary (or whatever, it's a silly word)), not all incrementations are born equal. For example, 163 + 1 -> 164; only one digit changes. However, 169+1 -> 170; two digits change. In the pathological(?) or degenerate(?) case all digits change (e.g. 999,999+1 -> 1,000,000). Is there There must be a term for this case or phenomenon; tell me it, please. Also, ellaborations as to the philosophical, metaphysical, or algorithmic consequences of this inequality of arithmetical additions under digital "representation" of number would be assuredly welcome. 86.146.254.177 (talk) 15:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with addition. It is solely based on the base you are using. For example, in binary 1+1=10. In decimal, the same values 1+1=2. If "carrying the one" is an issue, just use a larger base. Another way to look at it is with vectors. Each value is the length of a vector from an origin. You are appending one vector to the end of the other and measuring the total distance from the origin to the tip of the second vector. How many digits are used is based on the base you use to measure the distance. -- kainaw™ 15:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point. It is clear that this phenomenon has nothing to do with numbers on their own. It comes from the connection between the numbers and some system used to represent them. Radix systems are mathematical constructions too. Your suggestion "use a different system and then it won't happen" is irrelevant - it is still a feature of the particular system, one that the OP is interested in exploring.

I don't think there is much to explore, though. The phenomenon of calculations for one decimal place effecting a higher place is called a carry, but I don't know of a special name for the "pathological" case. I also don't think it has any serious philosophical or metaphysical implications, and its only algorithmic consequences have to do with the design of adders. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You may be interested in reading the articles: Gray code and Hamming distance.—eric 16:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You may also enjoy our Carry look-ahead adder article, where this phenomenon is exploited. Nearly all "serious" computer ALUs note this phenomenon and exploit it for faster operations.

Atlant (talk) 17:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Atlant and EricR 86.146.254.177 (talk) 18:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That article is terrible, last year it took me 3 hours to go from "cool, neat idea" to "cool, it works" in a logic simulator. Anyway, you can also precondition the inputs to create a more efficient adder. Add the OR of the inputs with the AND of the inputs (essentially taking the positions where either input is 1 and adding the carries).. this is equivalent to the sum of the inputs. You'll still need carry logic but you'll never have 0+1, only 1+0, including in the carry logic, which lets you do some weird logic optimizations. --ffroth 18:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and you can also precondition it so that the probability of a carry is only .25 instead of .5 by doing (X XOR Y) + 2(X AND Y), basically a clearer version of the last one in which it's obvious what's going on (places with no carry added to a left-shift-one of the places that have a carry). Not really helpful though in optimizing. And all of this is from that book recommended in the last digital logic discussion Hacker's Delight --ffroth 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I might call it a "gang carry" or a "cascade". (But I don't know about anybody else, and those certainly aren't official terms or anything.) —Steve Summit (talk) 16:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

When one digit rolls over and the next one increments, that's a "Carry" - I'm not aware of a term for when one carry causes another, which causes another and so on. In the simplest adder circuits, the case when the number rolls over and ALL of the digits change state at once, that represents the slowest path through the circuit - and is typically the most power-hungry and the most cross-talk inducing - so from an electronics engineering perspective, it's the hardest case to manage. Hence there are all manner of designs for adders that attempt to deal with that. Aside from that, it's hard to think of any other deep significances. SteveBaker (talk) 17:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You guys have no imagination... (OP)86.146.254.177 (talk) 18:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I somehow got the impression you wanted an actual, truthful answer. If it's imagination you want, that's an ENTIRELY different matter. Did you know that every time your car odometer rolls over, a pixie dies? If you take out your calculator and add 0.001 to 99.999, Bill Gates will send you $100! It's a little known fact that the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids using the additional acoustic energy from a row of abacusses that were instructed to add 123456 to 987654. If Babbage had ever finished the analytical engine and added 4567 to 6543, the resulting ground shaking would have destroyed the earth! OK...I'm bored now. SteveBaker (talk) 20:32, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Playstation 3 hardrive upgrade

If i bought this hardrive, Momentus 7200.2 160GB, would it be compatible with my playstation 3? Also would it allow me backward compatability with the playstation 2? --Hadseys (talk • contribs) 19:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a 2.5" SATA drive, right? That is what the PS3 uses. What PS3 do you have? -- kainaw™ 19:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• A forty gigabyte plastation 3 --Hadseys (talk • contribs) 20:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Nothing that you can do to the Playstation hardware (unless you are a Sony Engineer I guess?) will give you PS2 and PS1 backwards compatability. That's built into the operating system and hardware. TheGreatZorko (talk) 13:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh - I see, OK. This is a very messy situation!

The deal is that the version of the PS3 with the 40Gb hard drive does not come with the "Emotion chip" that enables it to emulate the PS2. That chip (which basically contains a PS2 which in turn contains a PS1!) is in the 20Gb and 60Gb(NTSC) versions of the playstation - but for some reason was not included in the 40Gb, 60Gb(PAL) or 80Gb versions. Changing the hard drive in your PS3 will increase the amount of space you have for downloaded games and other stuff - but it doesn't affect whether you have the chip or not - so you still won't be able to play PS2/PS1 games. There are PS3's (the 60Gb(PAL) and 80Gb versions) that have bigger hard drives and that don't have the "Emotion chip" but can run SOME PS2/PS1 games via software emulation. But for some reason known only to SONY, that software was not included on the 40Gb PS3. I can't imagine why not - except perhaps that SONY wanted a bigger differentiator between the cheaper 40Gb PS3 and the higher end versions. There is a really nice table in our PS3 article that neatly explains what's going on: PS3#Retail_configurations.

So, sadly, no. There is nothing that I'm aware of that will allow your PS3 to play PS2 and PS1 games. Sorry. SteveBaker (talk) 14:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I continually see the PS3 80GB version criticized for only being able to play some PS2 games. I tested all of my PS2 games on it. Every one played without any trouble, lag, or messed up graphics. The only thing it doesn't do (and the emotion chip doesn't do either) is vibrate the controller. In my experience, it is proper to state that it plays most PS2 games since I haven't found any that it doesn't play. -- kainaw™ 15:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I bow to your superior knowledge! I presume the reason the controller doesn't vibrate is that the PS3 controllers didn't have vibration gizmos in them until fairly recently - and I presume support for it didn't exist back when the emulators were being written. I've never tried running a PS2/PS1 game on my playstation. (But then it is about 18" wide by 3' long and 4" deep - and the only game I get to play on it is the one I'm writing!) SteveBaker (talk) 19:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

After googling, I found some lists of issues with PS2 emulation. For example, the videos in FFX-2 do not have subtitles on the PS3-80. I wouldn't have noticed since I never turned subtitles on. Some games did have problems that were fixed during upgrades. To upgrade, you need a network connection for your PS3. I have no clue how to get the updates on CD so you can install them without the network. The PS1 games (of which I have none) have a lot more issues. So, it is probably best to google for PS3 compatibility with your favorite PS2 game before considering getting rid of your PS2 console. It wasn't a choice for me. My PS2 just stopped reading DVD disks. It only played CDs. That pushed me to purchase a PS3 and I had to get the 80GB since the 40GB wouldn't play any of the PS2 games. Another issue is those cards. The PS3 doesn't have card slots. I had to get a converter ($12 online) to plug them into the PS3 so I wouldn't lose all my saved games. I'd hate to do that Chocobo run in FFX again. -- kainaw™ 19:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Using a Wireless router as a network card...

I will be moving, and the house I am moving into has an existing wireless network, I have no problem connecting to the network(and actually have both my laptops and a desktop here in the same room with the wireless router all connected wirelessly, but I have now moved my regular desktop to the house here, and I moved it into the rear of the house(into the office, which I cannot figure out why the network doesn't originate there anyway). I was going to run cat5 to it, but I figured out that will be quite a bit of cable, and thresholds to cross, and don't really want to bother figuring the best way to do it, so I was wondering if I can use my existing wireless router(the one from my house) to connect just that one desktop to the existing wireless network?

Basically I'm wanting to use a router as a network card, is this possible? Dureo (talk) 19:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The "client" router has to support wireless bridging/repeating/client mode, which isn't too common. Make sure you disable DHCP on it. Alternatively, just buy a wireless PCI card. --ffroth 19:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Also I hear that this is a ridiculously difficult hack and almost impossible to pull off for most routers. You're going to have an internal network within the internal network, and God help you if you're trying to access another device in the house on the "outside" internal network. You really need enterprise networking equipment for this sort of thing --ffroth 19:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Guess I'll just get a wireless card, too much work :), I kind of dislike the DSL, it seems inconsistant speed wise compared to the comcast I have at home, maybe I can talk my girl into changing to cable ;P. Dureo (talk) 05:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

On that note, I now have managed to collect 1 yahoo DSL wireless router/modem(hers), 1 netgear wireless router, 2 linksys wireless routers(one hers, one mine), and 1 linksys wired router... I cannot figure out how I managed this. Dureo (talk) 05:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Unix question: * with spaces in it

How can I do * when I have filenames with spaces in them? Suppose I have the following files:

• donald duck
• mickey mouse

If I write "for i in *; do echo $i; done"; it will print the following:

• donald
• duck
• mickey
• mouse

How can I do it so that it considers the whole filenames instead? JIP | Talk 19:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It may be your shell. I can't test it because I'm using bash and it returns the file names (with spaces) for me as you would expect it to. It does not break the file names up. -- kainaw™ 20:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Both bash and plain-old sh on my machine (OS X) keep the filenames together, for what it's worth. Friday (talk) 20:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

So it seems. It works now. Thanks! JIP | Talk 20:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah - it should work OK. The parsing of the command line into tokens happens before * is expanded into more tokens - so this shouldn't be a problem. Which shell are you using - and are you sure this is the EXACT commands you are running? SteveBaker (talk) 20:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. JIP, please have a look at the following:

for i in *; do ls $i ; done # ls tries to look for four files
for i in *; do ls "$i" ; done # ls lists two files

--Kjoonlee 20:28, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Further Unix question: How to get rid of the extension

So I made this script to convert Ogg files to MP3 files:

#!/bin/bash
basename=`echo $1 | awk -F . '{print $(NF-1)}'`
basesongname=`echo $basename | awk 'BEGIN {FIELDWIDTHS="5 256"} {print $2}'`
albumname=`pwd | awk -F / '{print $(NF)}'`
artistname=`pwd | awk -F / '{print $(NF-1)}'`
oggdec "$basename.ogg" -o - | lame -b96 - "$basename.mp3" --tt "$basesongname" --ta "$artistname" --tl "$albumname"

It works if the filename of the Ogg file does not contain dots before the extension. But for example Deee-Lite has songs such as Try me on... I'm very you and E.S.P., which confuse the heck out the second line of the script. How can I make awk print out everything before the last dot? Or is there a ready-made command for it? Of course, I could always code one in C, but I'd rather avoid a homemade solution if a globally available one exists. JIP | Talk 20:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

echo foo.bar.baz | sed -e s\/.[a-zA-Z]*$\/\/

--Kjoonlee 21:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

basename foo.bar.ogg .ogg

--Kjoonlee 21:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

"When faced with a problem, some people say 'Let's use AWK.' Now they have two problems."

basename=${1%.*}

The ${variable%pattern} expansion gives the value of $variable with the minimal trailing pattern match removed. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That stupid lame writes the song, album, and artist names incorrectly. It reads them as UTF-8 but writes them as ISO-8859-1, resulting in such gems as "Nahkatakkinen tyttö" from the album "Kerjäläisten valtakunta" by Dingo. And of course my media player shows the names as lame wrote them. All this makes me think the concept of an enumerated character set should have been invented anywhere else than in the USA. JIP | Talk 20:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Just use something like EasyTag. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

What is a "channel business"?

I first came across this term when I saw an IT business related magazine called "Channel Business", the online version of which is at http://www.channelbusiness.com. Flicking through the magazine I saw it repeatedly refer to 'channel businesses' without ever giving any clues as to what one is! here is an example of an article, from another source, using the term. It also talks about "pushing through the channel" leaving me even more confused. The channel article is no help. Any ideas? Tempus123 (talk) 22:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That is because channel in this context is part of distribution (business). A channel business generally does not sell directly to customers, but uses a system of distributors and resellers. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. This is making some sense to me now. Tempus123 (talk) 23:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

December 19

Finding a specific file with cmd.exe

If I was looking for a specific file (say, "file.txt") but I don't know what folder it's in, is there a way to search for it using the command prompt? 63.24.178.157 (talk) 00:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

C:\dir /s file.txt --24.147.86.187 (talk) 00:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

or, to be more exact, use: dir /b /s file.txt

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 12:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Hacking into runescape.

How do you hack into a runescape acount? (Superawesomgoat (talk) 01:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC))

Probably the same way you hack into any account—try to find a way to guess or steal passwords. In any case, Googling "hack runescape account" comes up with a number of dubious options. Most seem to involve trying to phish for passwords, a strategy which only will work if you know how to be convincing and the person running the account you want is extremely naive about the ways of the internet. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 02:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedia, how can I gain illegal access to others' account for malicious purpose and have everything recorded on the Wikipedia server? First the Pacific Mall now this? --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Who said anything about malicious purpose? :) -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you think of a non illegal reason to be attempting to break into an account you don't have access to? Runescape has quite a lot of password recovery options if it is his own account and if not it is automatically illegal under US law (which is what Wikipedia follows if I recall correctly) regardless of purpose TheGreatZorko (talk) 14:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Firefox three

The Firefox 3 betas are out and I've installed them etc. When they release new versions or non-beta ones will my beta rv 2 version automatically update via the "check for updates" or will I have to download and install it all over again? Thanks for your help! xxx Hyper Girl (talk) 11:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

sue linux

can i sue linux?am a borne and bred windows user,two days ago i got a suse linux enterprise 10.1 cd.i have neva used linux before.i had 80 gb hard disk,anyway linux was hard to install and i just blindly followed the default setup options.i have know lost 20 gb hard disk.i cant see one partion.my pc is showing three partions and i have three where has one gone.please whoever is going to answer me please try to explain thoroughly,am not a linux newbie am a linux moron.i know squat bout linux,its the hardest thing after calculas.i still have the cd and i also have an xp cd.help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.22.166.182 (talk) 13:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no individual or organization called "Linux", so no. Under some stretch of the imagination you might be able to sue Novell, but there is really no reason to do so. It is likely that when you have installed Linux, you have paritioned your hard drive in a way that does not utilize all available space; However, I don't know why that would happen if you did indeed follow the instructions. I would suggest you try installing again, paying more attention this time to the partitioning part; If that fails, you should probably contact Novell for support. If you supply more details about what you had previously, what you did and what you have now we may be able to help more. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Short answer: We aren't allowed to give legal advice here - so I'm going to give you a dope slap instead.

Firstly: Linux is an operating system - not a company - it's written in much the same way that Wikipedia is - by a vast team of mostly anonymous volunteers - good luck with tracking down the one person whom you think is liable for your disk lossage!

SuSE is the German company (now owned by Novell) that compiled this particular version of Linux, packaged it onto a CD and probably wrote the 'installer' program. The software was licensed to you under the GPL (which you agreed to somewhere during the installation procedure during your 'blindly following the default' phase) and it says (see sections 11 and 12 if it was GPL 2.0) that by agreeing to this you understand that there is no warrantee and that the authors and distributors won't be held liable...yadda, yadda, yadda. I can't give you legal advice - but you might maybe want to read what it was that you agreed to here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

Secondly: You havn't "lost" 20Gb - it still there, you simply chose of your own free will to reformat it to be a Linux partition - since you were trying to install Linux at the time, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. I use SuSE Linux (I have 10.2) and I know for sure that one of the questions that you "blindly followed" was "ARE YOU REALLY, SURE THAT YOU WANT ME TO REFORMAT BIG CHUNKS OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL HARD DRIVE FOR LINUX TO USE? [Y/N]" (well, not those exact words - but you get the message). You agreed to do that - what did you THINK would happen?! SuSE's Linux installer did precisely what you told it to do...what's wrong with that?

Thirdly: The problem you actually have is not that this 20Gb chunk is "lost" - it's that Windows is too dumb to see Linux partitions. So from your Windows perspective, it's an unusable/unrecognisable chunk of disk space that it ignores. But when you run Linux, that 20Gb will be where Linux is installed - and it'll be perfectly usable. Better still, because Linux is smarter about these kinds of things than Windows is: from within Linux you'll also be able to mount your Windows partition as well as your Linux partition - so all 80Gb will be there for you to use.

Conclusion: No! (Er, that might be construed as legal advice - I struck it out so please don't read it.)

SteveBaker (talk) 14:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(This is, by the way, why I find the "just install linux!" crowd so irritating. Most people care barely deal with Windows XP; they can't deal with Linux. I don't have time to deal with linux and I'm more computer savvy than the average bear. I think it's obviously got places where it's a better OS but primarily in the hands of an expert user and/or hobbyist.) --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(This is, by the way, why I find the "linux is too hard" crowd so irritating. Most people have grown up with Windows and understand it reasonably well - the only reason they find Linux difficult is because they havn't grown up with it. My 16 year old son grew up with Linux and he managed with it just fine when he was just 8 years old - you don't need to be an expert - you just have to NOT assume it's a Windows clone. You open applications in Linux with a single-click instead of a double-click. Windows users keep starting two copies of every application - which understandably annoys them. Linux users click once on an icon on the Windows desktop and wonder WTF the icon is highlighted yet nothing is happening! It's not that one way is better - it's that they are different. (Actually - bad example - Linux is better! Why does it take two mouse clicks to do this in Windows? Highlighting the icon with a single click doesn't seem to have any function whatever - why do I need to double-click?). I came to computing from the UNIX/Solaris/IRIX/Minix/BSD/Linux route - and I find Windows difficult and frustrating. Installing Windows from scratch on a Linux box if you have little Windows experience is every bit as hard as installing Linux on a Windows machine if you have little Linux experience. Installing Windows on a Linux box SO THAT IT'LL DUAL BOOT is absolutely impossible. Why is it in any way surprising that the mirror-image operation is somewhat tricky?! There is a symmetry here that's a consequence of people not being willing to change or to learn something new. The problem is one of xenophobia - not technical difficulty.) SteveBaker (talk) 15:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Every Linux user I've met spends half of their time compiling, partitioning, mucking around in a console mode, and other sorts of things which are way beyond the technical difficulty of most computer users. Hell, I can barely get Unix-y things to work correct on something as slick as OS X, and I'm pretty damned competent! It is a rare, rare Darwin port that actually works well (Inkscape and GIMP get my unabashed approval, but so, so much is barely functional without spending hours trying to figure out what is wrong). Obviously if a kid grows up learning Linux they'll have no trouble with it—the same could be said about any operating system that a child has interest in, they count as "hobbyists" in my taxonomy, but if you wanted to make another grouping for "kids" that would be fine too, but you know as well as I do that the fact that children can use technology means really zip as to whether it is going to be impossible for most of the adult population—I'm talking about people who are not computer savvy. And for most users I have met, technophobia and technical difficulty are basically the same thing. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 22:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Can you please also state your sample size and distribution? Partitioning? Why on earth would they do that live? Mucking around in console mode? You mean that "evil little black screen with text written on it"? Heck I've seen people spend hours deleting files by a very simple rule, and they do it by opening the folder in Windows, look through all one thousand or so files for files that fit the rule and delete them, something which can be done by a one-line script in a minute. From an efficiency stand point, which is easier? Just because you have grown accustomed with Windows and its pathetic command line doesn't mean command line is evil, or useless, or both.

• Why do you think that making something not designed to be ran on a system to run perfectly is easy? Try running the exact same Linux version of the programme in Windows, would you expect it to work? This has got nothing to do with Linux/Unix, but rather your biased view point, which blames everything on Linux/Unix. Ironically, Mac OS X, something that you use, is also based on Unix, and yet you can manage that without problem. It's not the operating system, it is very capable. Rather, it is cluelessness and prejudice, people never give something a proper try, and often stumble into something unsuitable to them, like Gentoo or Slackware, when they really should be using Ubuntu or Fedora, giving bad experience and prejudice ever after.

• OK let's take the normal web-surfing, email and light office application for example. Windows, you get IE, Outlook, and Wordpad, anything more you have to shell out for MS Office (suppose the user is clueless enough to not know about OOo, which is a reasonable assumption). In a distro like Ubuntu, you get Firefox, Thunderbird, and the whole OOo suite. For someone who had never touched a computer before, which one is easier, have to install something extra and have no idea how, or have everything they need right out of the box? When they used enough of the software, they might be dissatisfied and want to get an alternative. The Windows approach is to search on Google and Download.com or whatever and most of the time return shareware which you have to pay, and sometimes fraudulent ones loaded with spyware. On Linux, you can just use a package manager (comes with the system) to search and install thousands of free, safe software with just a few clicks. For someone who had used a computer for a few months, which one is easier? --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• The tone and content of your first two paragraphs make .187's point better than s/he did. --Sean 12:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

OK - I'm tired of this. 187 clearly has NO CLUE about Linux and if Sean thinks 187 made any kind of a point then he doesn't understand squat about the matter either...Every Linux user I've met spends half of their time compiling, partitioning, mucking around in a console mode, and other sorts of things which are way beyond the technical difficulty of most computer users.??? WHAT!!! WHAT??? Oh come *ON* that's utter bullshit! It's been 10 years since that was true!

Let's actually blow away this fucking stupid myth shall we? Let's actually analyse that statement.

The actual truth about a typical Linux user (such as the tens of thousands who use it in offices working for various governments and big companies - who are neither hobbyists or young or geeks) goes something like this: My wife (who now uses only Linux but who is not at all computer literate) has never in her entire life compiled, partitioned or mucked around in console mode. I very much doubt she even knows that there IS a console mode - and the word "partition" refers to what happened to Germany at the end of WWII. She auto-boots into KDE - she logs in - she clicks open some combination of browser, email, money manager, office tools, photo albums, music players - she sets her desktop theme to all sorts of horrible shades of pink and has photos of the family for her screen backdrop - and it's no different for her than when she used to run Windows - except we don't have to flush the viruses and bogus toolbars and crap out of her machine once a month and she doesn't have to call me to 'defrag' her hard drive up once a month or reinstall the OS whenever things get too screwed up - because things DON'T get screwed up. That's not because I set those things up for her - we installed SuSE 10.1 on her laptop using the default settings - and I don't think I've touched it again since.

The people who compile - are mostly the enthusiasts, the geeks, the programmers - and they do that on Windows too. As for "partitioning"...that's complete bullshit...I think it's been 10 years since I last "partitioned" - and that was when I wanted to repartition a WINDOWS partition so I could dual-boot Linux - if Windows worked properly - I'd never have to do even that! These days the OS installer does all of that stuff for you. You don't "compile" to install software unless you want to. You grab an RPM or do an 'apt-get' and you click on it to install it! That's *IT*...precisely the same as using a Windows installer.

Mucking around in console mode IS something I'll admit to doing...but I do that under Windows too (I'm a big fan of Cygwin) - for some tasks it's a million times more efficient than using GUI tools in either OS...that's your choice - the same set of file managers and CD burners and all of those common tools exist for Linux as for Windows - and these days they are all installed by default with your OS distro. I doubt I've manually installed a single package on my 'workhorse' laptop. (I *DO* install stuff by hand and compile a lot of shit on my deskside machine - and putting up a web server, firewall, file server, mail server and Wiki on various machines around my house did involve quite a bit of messing around - but most of those things are beyond "difficult" under Windows - they're either utterly impossible without buying a $1000 commercial license - or they are impossible period! But I'm a software developer - and I write OpenSource stuff - so OF COURSE I DO THAT!) You have it completely backwards. The reason you find me doing that is the reason I got Linux in the first place...it's not that because I have Linux, I have to do that!

If you only do the kinds of things that 99% of Windows users do - you can hardly tell which OS you are in. You have a bunch of 'big' applications on your desktop - you click on them to get them running - and then you sit inside the application doing whatever you do. For applications that are available on both platforms, you really can't tell. Firefox, GIMP, Inkscape, OOffice, Eclipse...whatever - they are identical. OpenOffice versus WORD/Office or FireFox versus IE7 or Thunderbird versus Outlook isn't really a good way to debate this...they are applications, not OS components and they are pretty similar in operation and general reliability. I worked for 10 years in a Linux-only software house - and we certainly didn't spend any significant amount of time repartitioning drives or installing drivers or any of those "scare story" things that Windows users think we do. We installed SuSE in about the same time it takes to install Windows - and we were ready to work.

The issue of shell-based tools versus GUI-based tools is also a completely bogus non-event. You can run Cygwin under Windows and there you are in bash with the same set of a bazillion command line tools - and you can forget you aren't running Linux anymore. Or you can sit in Linux and use a butt-load of k* tools under KDE and have a command-line-free experience if that's what turns you on. It's not about that anymore either. Windows stability (in XP at least) has FINALLY caught up with Linux...in 9 months of Windows use, I've had one BSOD...that's one more than I've had Linux crashes - but not too bad.

The true differences are in areas like security: Windows STILL isn't safe to use on an open 24/7 web connection - and you've got all of these annoying "don't click on attachments, don't turn on Java/JavaScript" things to worry about - plus, if you don't have a raft of anti-malware shit on your machine, you're toast. I've been running Linux since before there was a Linux (it was called "Minix") - I've never had one single intrusion, virus, NOTHING - and I've never taken any precautions beyond turning on the firewall in SuSE. Linux is also free and open. That matters - really - for the PRECISE same reason it matters that Wikipedia is free and open. A typical user may not notice that - but if you have to get into the 'down and dirty' side of things, it matters a lot. I don't want to find that some imperial edict on behalf of Microsoft means that if my computer can't dial up headquarters every so often, it's going to lock up my system. I don't want them bundling up patches in a way that I can't pick and choose which ones to take. I don't like that IE is interwoven with the windowing sytem which is interwoven with the operating system. I want to use open standards like OpenGL without some faceless corporation deciding that in the next release they're going to deliberately make it go slowly so I'll have to switch to their API and lock myself into their inelegant interface forever. MS API's are UGLY...horrible, horrible things for a programmer to work with. I could go on. But the things that most people complain about (on both sides of the debate) are NOT the real arguments. SteveBaker (talk) 22:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Steve, take a deep breath! My point was that many Linux users have a siege mentality which causes them to bite the newbies in counterproductive ways. Linux has been my primary system since the early 90's so I'm not clueless on this topic, but I long ago realized that the sort of "but the command-line is superior" argument that Antilived made has lost before it begins. Also, FYI, Linux was certainly not called Minix; I think it was called something horrible "Freax". --Sean 13:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

The reason we have a siege mentality is that people are besieging us with that kind of ridiculous, outdated view of the operating system! If I posted that Windows sucks because you get BSOD's all the time - then Windows users would be in 'siege mentality' mode because WinXP doesn't crash a whole lot - that's an outdated meme dating back to WinME and before. Well, it's the same deal here. When Linux was new, it was very much a matter of setting everything up yourself and it was painful as all hell! But over the past maybe 5 years, that has changed dramatically - to the extent that my wife (who is about the least technical person you're likely to meet) can be perfectly comfortable with it. All the time, experienced Windows users (most of whom have never used Linux for more than an hour) spout these lies and misinterpretations - what do you expect us to do? Nod our heads and accept this bullshit?

Most Linux users don't bite newbies - but in any community (including those of Windows users) there are a few annoying idiots. If you want to see newbie biters, make a comment on the GIMP developers list for example! Ouch!!! But hang out on an actual, typical Linux User group mailing list for any amount of time (I belong to the North Texas Linux User group) and you'll find that not only are we polite and helpful to newbies - but if you are a newbie, you can bring your computer to one of our meetings and our team of crack install guys will actually install Linux for you while they feed you free coffee and donuts. Then later, we'll even feed you free pizza while we run presentations from various gurus who are visiting the area - or from local Linux experts! You'll walk away with a nicely set up (and 'performance tuned') machine, a set of free CD-ROMs with the distro on them - and some email addresses of people you can call if you get into trouble! How friendly is THAT? You even get to choose which of a dozen Linux flavors you'd like us to put on there for you! Other Linux user groups I've visited have been every bit as friendly. Does that sound like biting the newbies?

I'm also strongly of the belief that the command-line is superior for most things - but not for everything. If you look at my desktop on any given day - you'll see four tiled shell windows open to various commandlines - plus a browser and maybe one or two other tools. The real message is that it's not one or the other - but that the smart user keeps all of the tools in his toolkit rather than throwing half of them away.

Linux was never actually called anything other than Linux - but Linux's predecessor as "free Unix for small computers" was Minix - and Linus actually used Minix to get Linux going. Early versions of Linux used the Minix file system - and for a long time, even though Linux grew it's own file system, it had to be booted from a Minix partition. I transitioned from Minix to Linux - and at the time, it was hard to tell the difference (except that Linux was OpenSourced and Minix wasn't). SteveBaker (talk) 14:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that "just install Linux" is rarely a good answer to anything, the task that this user was attempting to accomplish (install a second operating system on a machine while leaving the current one unmolested) is ludicrously easier with Linux than with Windows. The last time I tried that with Windows, it just formatted my existing partitions without asking. --Sean 16:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes - indeed, it seems that the OP may actually have succeeded into doing that (With SuSE, just saying "Yes" and "OK" to everything pretty much does that)...but that's not the problem here. The issue (at least as I read it) is that Linux's re-partitioning of the drive to carve off a not-unreasonable 20Gb chunk for it's own use caught the OP by surprise. So now (in Windows at least), (s)he is "missing" 20Gb of space. It is not at all unreasonable to be surprised and upset by that - and that's not what the dope-slap was for. The slap was for expecting to be able to sue someone over it...and (worse still) asking that on a site that SPECIFICIALLY says that we can't give legal advice. SteveBaker (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

PS: While I'll be lining up with every one else to administer a dope slap, I'm forced to wave around the WP:BITE flag, first. --Mdwyer (talk) 17:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess someone has to! SteveBaker (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

20GB swap partition? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Mediawiki systems and reversion of multiple article edits by same user

I run a mediawiki system external to WP. I am not an admin on WP so am not wholly familiar with all the admin tools. I just know what I know. I have heard of, even read about, but cannot find despite searching for an hour, information about reverting the edits made by the same user over a certain time period.

The siutation I envisage is "User:Userbot" unleashes a tranche of edits to say 1,000 articles that prove all to be rubbish edits. We need to be able to revert all those edits in one go.

Please will a kind soul point me to the documentation that tells me about it - I can't see the wood for the trees. I know it's hiding in plain sight, but I can't find it! Fiddle Faddle (talk) 15:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's a feature of the MediaWiki software (or if it is, I can't find it on my private Wiki either) - I suspect there are special bots for doing this. SteveBaker (talk) 15:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sure I saw it on the mediawiki site, but can I find it again? Not a chance. I was even awake at the time. I was researching bots and vandalism. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 15:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

And the answer is I can Fiddle Faddle (talk) 16:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Or, on closer reading, no I can't! Fiddle Faddle (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Playstation 1 Emulation

I quite recently found my PS1 and a collection of games in my attic and got all exited about being able to play them again. Then I remembered I don't own a television anymore so I have nothing to plug the playstation into. Also on closer inspection the laser lense appears to have been cracked somehow. This leaves me with a bunch of games I want to play but can't. I am aware of emulation and often use ZSNES to play old snes games. What is the easiest way to run my old PS1 games in my PC? I'd quite like to be able to use my Xbox 360 controller (bought for my PC - it has a USB connection and is a fantastic pad) if that is possible. TheGreatZorko (talk) 15:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

List_of_video_game_console_emulators. Some games actualy look better emulated than on real hardware because of improved 3d rendering. 72.10.110.107 (talk) 15:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

So which on this list is the best? There are rather a lot TheGreatZorko (talk) 15:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I tried many of the emulators, and I think that "PCSX", is by far the best emulator for PS1. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.1.104 (talk) 15:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Java, C++, C# or Python??

This isn't really a question. I'm want to hear you opinion on what you consider to the best programming language of the four: Java, C++, C# or Python, and why you think that. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.1.104 (talk) 15:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Best for what purpose? --140.247.236.151 (talk) 17:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Just best in general —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.1.104 (talk) 17:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Programming languages are tools, and just like tools there isn't a "best" one (which is the "best" screwdriver?). They all have their advantages and demerits, and the same feature is an advantage in one circumstance and a demerit in another. You could talk a look at Comparison of programming languages. If you're asking because you want to know which you should spend your time learning, the big answer really is "it doesn't matter much", as they're all fairly similar. If you want one that's the easiest to learn, without being a toy, that's probably Python. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Wrong analogy: "Which is best - a chisel or a screwdriver?" ...well, you can kinda-sorta undo some screws with a chisel - and you could try chopping out a mortise and tenon joint with a screwdriver - but neither does the other's job terribly well. If you make fine furniture with hand made joints that fit together with glue and no screws...get a chisel. If you are someone who makes decking around people's pools...get a screwdriver. SteveBaker (talk) 18:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Asking a "Which programming language is best?" question is kinda like tossing a hand grenade into a hand grenade factory! However, I'm resisting saying "C++ utterly, utterly rooolz!" (damn! I said it) and going for a dispassionate review.

Firstly: everything (and I means EVERYTHING) depends on what you need to do with it:

1. If you need speed and you are a kick-ass programmer who doesn't make mistakes - C++ is the only answer.
2. If you need to be able to run in a web browser - Java is the only answer.
3. If you need to create masses of Windows GUI elements and if you don't give a damn about portability - C#.
4. If you need to produce one-time throw-away programs really quickly, or if you want a language you can embed into another application for scripting/plugins - then Python.

Secondly: A good programmer has a whole raft of tools at his/her disposal - including a good working knowledge of at least a handful of programming languages. You have to be ready to use whichever one you need for a specific job. Not one of those four languages you mentioned can cover 100% of the tasks you will be likely to encounter.

Here is what I've been using over the past month or so:

• I mostly worked in C++ because I'm a games programmer and speed is everything.
• I used a graphical scripting language called Kynapse to throw together a behavior to test an animated character at work.
• I used PHP so I could modify MediaWiki for my own nefarious purposes.
• I used JavaScript AND PHP AND C++ to write a fancy web-based photo album application for my son's website.
• I used Python to modify a loader for a custom 3D file format for blender.
• I used Java so I could fix a bug in a web-based car driving game I wrote for the MiniOwnersOfTexas car club.
• I used an obscure language called NQC to program a Lego robot I was playing around with one evening.

I probably know 20 languages well enough to "get by" and half a dozen well enough to program quickly and efficiently. However, mostly, if I have a quick job to throw together, I'll use C++ on my Linux machine simply because I'm more comfortable with it (after 20+ years of writing in C++ - I ought to be!) - not because it's necessarily better than the others. But other programmers might choose Python for that. I NEVER use C# - Java is better for almost everything and (most important of all) Java is portable and C# isn't - and there is nothing worse than having a program that runs on operating system A that won't run on operating system B - or vice-versa.

Overall, C++ is my favorite. It's fast. You can compensate for a missing language feature yourself - but if the core language is bloody slow (as all of the others you listed are) then there is no way to recover that. However, C++ is like an attack dog - if it's on your side and obeys your commands - it's handy thing to have in a fight - but if it ever gets the idea that you are weak - it'll assume the alpha dog position and rip you limb from limb! Bugs in C++ programs can be exceedingly hard to find and the consequences of almost any error will be a core dump with no error message. If you can program well enough that you don't often make mistakes - you can tame C++ and make it work for you - but if not...choose Java! SteveBaker (talk) 18:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm starting to love C++, too. One difficulty I have is that the hardware hackers I work with have been using nothing but C and assembler for 30 years, so they fear it. I'd love to use Boost.org libraries, but I know if they ever saw an error message like this, g++ would be banned from the building. --Sean 12:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The thing about that is that C++ is almost a perfect super-set of C. Almost all C programs can be compiled and run by the C++ compiler and you'll never know the difference so long as you ignore the compiler warnings! C programmers can therefore transition over to C++ gradually. Picking up the features of the language that they find useful - and ignoring the ones they don't like. Practically all modern C compilers are really C++ compilers with some features and warnings turned off anyway! SteveBaker (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I like Java best. I'm forced to use C# in my current job, but still find Java easier and more elegant. Perhaps it should be mentioned that of the four languages listed, C++, Java and C# are much more like each other than Python. Python is an entirely different paradigm, whereas Java and C# are like more elegant versions of C++ - Java more so than C#. I have a strong experience in Java and some experience in C# and C++, but I have never learned Python. JIP | Talk 19:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

C# is basically Java with Windows firmly bolted to it - but the folks at Microsoft are just genetically incapable of making ANYTHING elegant, so C# is never going to be a pretty thing. In a sane, non-monopolistic world, C# would have vanished overnight.

Java is basically C++ with all sharp, pointy objects locked away in a safe place! It's elegant alright. Java has its roots as a network-safe language. It has to run in a sandbox and it has to not allow programmers to make loopholes and escape from the sandbox.

C++ programmers can do amazingly efficient things with pointers that make Java programmers turn pale and shake at the knees...and justifiably so. However, I maintain that if you write C++ code using only the feature set of Java, then C++ is every bit as safe and elegant as Java. Experienced programmers know when to leave the sharp, dangerous bits of the language shut away in the cabinet - and when circumstances demand a full rack of ceramic kitchen knives, some bloody great meat cleavers and a chainsaw or two! The ikky problem with that otherwise, reasonable approach is that not all programmers are good programmers. It's been said that the best programmer in any large group is 100 times more accurate and productive than the weakest ones - and that's easy to believe. If you leave a poor programmer in a room full of sharp, pointy objects and he may run amok. You make one error with pointers and you've got a bug that could take you weeks to find! So if you don't need the performance you get with all of the dangerous bits of C++ - lock them away and use Java. Good programmers will hardly notice the difference - but crappy programmers will suffer far fewer missing fingers and toes!

Python is definitely the weird one of the bunch. Syntax is very different from the others - also it's lack of declarations and all of that runtime typing stuff is very different from C++/Java/C#. It's lack of those things make it more of a "read only" language. It's harder to understand a Python program that you wrote a year ago than it is to do so in C++/Java. It's OK for really short, simple scripts - or programs you're going to run once and then throw away...but I definitely wouldn't want to write something large and permanent using it.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Scaling up low-res images

Ages ago I remember seeing a number of clever programs listed here that can do a pretty good job of scaling up low-res images (that is, a better job than Photoshop, for example) by doing all sorts of interpolation and extrapolation. Anyone know what I am talking about? Any amount of pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated, thanks. --140.247.236.151 (talk) 17:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This might not be what you're looking for, but you could feed the image into VectorMagic. The resulting vector image could then be scaled without limit. See also List of raster to vector conversion software. --Mdwyer (talk) 17:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That's not what I had in mind (there were some raster-to-raster programs awhile back that I recall seeing) but I'll give that a whirl too and see what the results look like. Thanks! --140.247.248.40 (talk) 18:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If it's pixel art, you might be interested in pixel art scaling algorithms. ›mysid (☎∆) 19:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not pixel art. I recall reading about a few programs on here maybe a few months ago that did a much better job of rescaling low-resolution images than you'd expect—there were a whole host of them, I guess they were used by professionals mostly, but I can't recall the name of them and can't find any articles about them. Sigh. --140.247.248.40 (talk) 19:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The thread was a conversation about "Why does a computer draw big boxes when I scale up instead of a nice line?" Most of the thread explained pixelation and then some algorithms were mentioned along with programs that implement them. Hopefully that helps you find the thread. I'm rather certain it was at least 2 months ago. -- kainaw™ 19:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This page might be helpful; it visually compares a bunch of algorithms, and has some further links. -- BenRG (talk) 22:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Anyone wanna help us by setting up a bot?

Hello,

I help at a MediaWiki site, and we really need some bots over there, that DONT use IRC, as we cant use it. Anyone got any ideas or can help?

Let me know

Bluegoblin7 17:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

A "bot" is a very general term. What do you want to do? Since you run your own site, it should be easy (and preferable) to set up a script on the server to handle any maintenance issues that you want. -- kainaw™ 17:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't actually run the site. I'm just an admin and one of the most active editors. But anyway, what were looking for is Anti-vandal (if its possible without IRC), Delivery, Assessment, Archive and probably sign. If you can't run it, code would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Bluegoblin7 18:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

What you do is have a script that hits the "recent changes" page. For each change, it clicks on "diff". Then, for each diff, it decides what needs to be done (if anything). Then, delay to be nice to the server and hit the "recent changes" again. No IRC is required. You can have it run on the webserver or on any computer with access through the web to the site. This is not something you want someone to write and send to you. It will certainly need to be developed through trial and error. If you can't write it, you won't be able to maintain it and will end up just shutting it down to avoid problems. -- kainaw™ 18:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I just thought - if the site owner is nice, he may let you have direct access to the database - then you won't have to screen-scrape anything and you'll lighten the load on the server. -- kainaw™ 18:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok thanks for the help... Bluegoblin7 18:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You can almost surely find the code for any of the bots on Wikipedia and just adjust it for your needs, most likely. --140.247.248.40 (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

AIFF vs WAV

When I'm decoding FLAC audio files, I am given a choice between converting them to AIFF or WAV format. I intend to convert the AIFF or WAV files to AAC before uploading them to my iPod. Which should I choose, or doesn't it matter? Many thanks. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 22:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't matter - both formats are lossless. SteveBaker (talk) 22:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. You're basically talking about apples and apples there. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 22:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Picking a motherboard and CPU

So, I'd like to build my own PC. The procedure looks hard, but do-able, so I don't think that I'll hit a very major (as in, explosions, doom and gloom) snag. But I'm falling at the first hurdle: I just can't figure out which CPU and which motherboard are for me. There are an absolutely baffling number: the advice I've gotten is to make sure my specific CPU model is supported by a prospective motherboard model, which is a lot of help considering I don't know which of either I'm eyeing up.

Memory type shouldn't be a problem (DDR2 is the standard for new PCs, right?), and I'm not too bothered about out-and-out processor clock speeds - I'd much rather have an okay processor with a good quality motherboard than the other way around. I'm not aiming for the bleeding edge, but I'd like it to not be completely and utterly obsolete for 4-5 years. Does anyone have some fairly recent advice on this, or even just on how to narrow down the ridiculous amount of information there is out there to just what I'm looking for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.138.230 (talk) 22:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and, it might be a good idea to say what I'll be using it for: this would be my main toy at home, which means that the most used programs will be something like firefox, my homebrewed python MUD client, pidgin aka gaim, and vlc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.138.230 (talk) 22:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

For a workload like that I think pretty much any CPU will do. Of the applications you listed only VLC needs significant CPU, and any modern processor should be good enough for VLC. If you're worried about future-proofing then you might want to get a processor with 64-bit support. Aside from that I'd go with the cheapest one you can find. If you have extra money, I'd spend it on a name-brand motherboard and power supply, a good monitor and ergonomic keyboard, and quieter mechanical components (fans and hard drive). -- BenRG (talk) 23:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not use Windows. So, I start by seeing which CPU will work best with the flavor of Linux I will be putting on the box. Then, I get a motherboard that doesn't have driver issues. Then, the motherboard will limit my choice of power supply, memory, video card, and harddrives. Finally, I find a case to cram it all in. It usually works well. I have had problems. I found that a video card I purchased sucked too much power, requiring me to return a 350W one and get a 500W one. I purchased a case that hid the power button behind a door - what a pain. I thought a motherboard I purchased was SATA, but was actually IDE. Luckily, I was able to return the drives and get new ones. For the most part, it works well to go from OS to CPU to Motherboard to Accessories. -- kainaw™ 23:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

December 20

Suggestion for Wikipedia software.

After much frustrated searches, I have struggled to find a decent source of career/study path information. I think that wikipedia has a very thorough source which many students would find helpful in there quest. After asking around, I have encountered that this is a common problem shared by many people at this stage of their life. Therefore with the links and sources that are available to the user, i believe that a more user-friendly interface would be extremely useful to address this dilemma. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.196.138.99 (talk) 00:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Umm...what are you exactly proposing to change? If you'd like to make a proposal, go to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). If you would like help choosing a career path, you might want to ask a counselor to help. bibliomaniac15 00:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It appears to be a complaint that Wikipedia's search function is not very thorough. That is a well known problem and there is a reason for it. If the search was improved, the whole site would slow down and become sluggish to the point of barely being usable. That is why most people use Google with site:wikipedia.org in the search query. -- kainaw™ 01:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

That's sort of a lame explanation, if I say so. I don't think there's a rigorous reason why Wikipedia could never in fact have a better search engine. Ten bucks says the guys from Google could come up with a solution. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 01:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure - they have an easy solution. Purchase a few thousand extra servers. Create an index of all the popular search terms for every page on Wikipedia. Have the search function use the search indexes on the new servers instead of the unindexed Wikipedia database. Note: Purchasing more servers and placing them in more locations (even weird ones like Moncks Corner, SC) is the Google solution to their own search problem. -- kainaw™ 01:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia could "partner" with google to use their algorithms and servers in exchange for a "powered by google" logo. Mozilla already makes millions from their partnerships --ffroth 03:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be contradictory to the non-profit status of the Wikimedia Organization? bibliomaniac15 03:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, it is unnecessary. If the Wikipedia search doesn't turn up anything interesting, you just select Google from the drop list of search engines and click search again. Google is used to search Wikipedia for whatever you are looking for. -- kainaw™ 03:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Being non-profit doesn't mean you can't take in money, it just restricts what you can do with it. Mozilla is non-profit as well. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

hardware or software?

I just got an iPhone and can already see some of the shortcomings. I was wondering, of these things, which could be updated by new software or it would require new hardware.

1. Horizontal or vertical picture in all programs
2. some keys are missing on the keyboard
3. uses the edge network, not 3G
4. regular earphones aren't usable, only headphone+microphone
5. camera doesn't capture video, just takes pictures
6. after a while safari just saves the URL of the page you are at, not the actual stuff you have entered into text fields and whatnot

thanks for any insight schyler (talk) 01:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably all could be fixed by a homebrew firmware. Which is why people like custom firmware so much, and why the DMCA exemption committee granted an exemption to the DMCA for cell phone mods (though it has expired and wasn't renewed) --ffroth 03:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

They are going to release a 3G version next year sometime--droptone (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Can I use avast! and ClamWin on the same computer?

They might make the computer unstable or the antivirus might fight wit each other. Jet (talk) 04:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: I asked this question on Yahoo! Answers and I place the text into the public domain.

Gotta love yahoo answers. "they will fight and crash your pc. you can run as many spyware tools at a time you like. they play good together" --ffroth 09:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It is not a good idea nor is it better security to run two anti-virus programs. Even running one forces a huge performance hit and only adds a very small layer of security; adding more only increases the performance hit without increasing the security. If you want security against viruses in Windows, 1. don't run as administrator, 2. don't execute sketchy code. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 00:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

If you run them in real-time scanning / resident mode at the same time (which ClamWin doesn't have, AFAIK), you'll notice a performance hit. Otherwise, there won't be an issue, beyond the normal performance hit from a virus scanner. But yeah, avoiding sketchy executables is the best security you can get. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I am going away from the question with this. However, sometimes, there are some problems in applications in pre-vista OSes (including XP) have some problems in running without root privileges. Not that Vista is perfect, though.

regards, Kushal^t 01:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Understanding problem

sir, i could not understand this line Bi-directional language support is available for Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi message content. @ page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Hotmail at para Features -->Additional information --> Languages please help -Matt59.94.128.238 (talk) 04:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

see Bi-directional text --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 05:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

AceText alternative for Linux

Hi, does anyone know of a software with capabilities similar to those of JGSoft's AceText that will run on Linux? Thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 11:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that there is a single program that does that. There is an advanced clipboard utility (klipper), note-taking tool (jots), multi-pane text editor (kate), and many word processors. They just aren't all encompassed in one tool. -- kainaw™ 13:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Does any of those allow organizing notes in a hierarchical structure, and accessing them with features similar to "AceType" and "SequencePaste"?

In any case - the features I have mentioned have to do with AceText, while minimized, performing some action when I press some keyboard combination. Is it possible to make this work if I run AceText on Wine or on virtualization software (while working on an application on the host system)? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Treepad does. The advantage of that is that you can share the data files between Linux and Windows computers. The problem is that Treepad is not FOSS. -- kainaw™ 13:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Not being FOSS I can deal with, the problem is that it apparently lacks some features I require. This is certainly something to consider if all else fails, though - thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

DNS Privacy

Hello, I recently discovered that a friend blogger of mine, who got his dommain registered by OVH, got his name written in clear as an answer to a whois request.

His blogging activity being pollitical in nature and not exactly an appology of the work of his own political border (it can become -verry- critical) and the security of his job depends from nearly exclusively on two principle "Loyalty" and "STFU". So you may understand that uppon learning his vulnerability, he was a bit worried.

We are allready trying to see with the registrar if he is able to "mask" his records. If that's not the case, do you guys got any solution ? I'm a complete noob with dommain handling, so I would need your help on this one. - Esurnir (talk) 11:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but from my experience with registrars, they all offer a service to mask personal details in a WHOIS request, for a price around 10$ / yr. 132.77.4.129 (talk) 12:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You can just plain spoof the WHOIS information, but this is considered a violation of many terms of service agreements yet I don't think there is much enforcement of the requirement for "true" information. But I suppose the masked record service offered by the registrar would give you legit information (say some PO Box owned by the company).--droptone (talk) 13:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Freeware solution for accepting 48-bit scans from an image scanner?

I have a scanner capable of outputting 48-bit (i.e. 16 bits/channel) color scans. However, none of the several image editing programs I have seem to be able to accept 48-bit scans directly from the scanner (including two that have limited support for 16-bit-per-channel images). Images imported into the editors via TWAIN would appear as 8-bit-per-channel.

Is there a freeware solution for accepting 48-bit scans from a scanner and saving the scans in a format that preserve the bit depth?

(Update) The problem is solved. Turns out that my set-up was already capable of transferring 48-bit images, just that additional configuration was needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.23.249 (talk) 13:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a version of GIMP called CinePaint that was forked off of the main GIMP branch several years ago specifically in order to add deep-pixel editing. It's been used in a bunch of movies (Harry Potter for example!) so it's pretty reliable. It's free - but it's missing quite a few of the newer GIMP features. It's maintained by a bunch of movie studios. SteveBaker (talk) 17:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Laptop Charger

Mine recently broke and I'm finding it very difficult to get a replacement. I've rang the shop where i bought who referred me to another shop. Although they did sell chargers they could not provide one suitable for my laptop. (mine is 18.5v, while they only did round figures, i.e. 17v, 18v, 19v etc...) They told me to go to the manufacturer. I couldn't find anything on the website and when i rang them they basically told me to go back to the original retailer.

SO I'm coming here for help. The Laptop is a Compaq Presario V5245eu and the charger has an output of 18.5v and 3.5amps. I'm in Ireland so a European/UK power source. If anyone knows where i could get a replacement charger I'd greatly appreciate it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.202.183.77 (talk) 14:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

LaptopsAndSpares.com is a UK online store that sells, well, laptops and spares. In fact, they have the very charger you're looking for, here. ›mysid (☎∆) 15:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a million, that was proving so hard to find. 213.202.183.77 (talk) 15:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I left my laptop (HP Pavilion) charger 200 miles away - an ended up needing a replacement in a hurry. I had the same problem. You can get a generic charger BUT make sure it provides enough current or it'll overheat and burn out in a hurry! Set it to 18v and see if your battery charges. If it does, be happy. If it doesn't, kick it up to 19v and you'll be fine. But I'm VERY serious about needing to source enough current. I'd try to find one that can source at least 50% more current than the laptop demands (if you run one of those cheapie chargers for a long time near to it's current limit, it'll get very hot). Oh - also, be VERY careful - some of those cheap chargers have fine print telling you that they only produce the rated amount of current at the lower voltage ranges...watch out for that! SteveBaker (talk) 17:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Pedagogical cfront

I'm currently helping my co-workers, who are all long-time C programmers, to become more comfortable in C++. I would love to have a book/document/tool that shows (in C) what the compiler is doing under the covers for various C++ constructs. I don't want a real C++ -> C compiler, as that will have a lot of obscure implementation details in the output. I just want to show them the moral equivalents, as in:

Here's how constructors and destructors work. The following C++ code:

 class Thing { /* ... */ };
 void func() {
   Thing first_thing_on_stack;
   Thing second_thing_on_stack;
   // do stuff ...
 }

will compile to something like the following C code:

 struct Thing { /* ... */ };

 void func() {
    struct Thing first_thing_on_stack;
    struct Thing second_thing_on_stack;

    // constructors called in order of
    // object definition
    Thing_CONSTRUCTOR(&first_thing_on_stack);
    Thing_CONSTRUCTOR(&second_thing_on_stack);

    // do stuff ...

    // destructors called in reverse order of
    // object definition
    Thing_DESTRUCTOR(&second_thing_on_stack);
    Thing_DESTRUCTOR(&first_thing_on_stack);
 }
 

Is anyone aware of such a thing? Thanks! --Sean 14:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

When C++ was first designed, the first implementation was the AT&T C++ translator called "Cfront" that "compiled" your C++ code into C - which you could then compile into machine code in the usual way. This did exactly what you're asking for here - and that's exactly how I got to grips with the transition from C to C++. However, with modern C++, there is often no easy way to express what's going on in C terms and the AT&T translator must have long ago ceased to be maintained. However, if you care - you could download the sources for Cfront from here and compile it yourself. It won't accept all of the latest C++ features - but for the basics, it should be OK. SteveBaker (talk) 17:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm far from convinced that this is a good pedagogical idea. You don't want to explain object-oriented programming in terms of procedural programming, you want to understand it on its own terms. Donald Hosek (talk) 18:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

That's true - but Sean is in the position of having a lot of C programmers who work close to the hardware who need to be eased rather gently into C++. Whilst it's true that OOPS is best taught from the ground up, people who care a lot about performance and the details of what's going on do gain a benefit from seeing what goes on 'under the hood'. After all, our CPU's are procedural things - knowing how OOPS maps onto procedural is valuable when clock cycles and bytes count. This isn't an alternative to teaching OOPS - it's a way to get people like this to actually use it in their day to day jobs. I certainly found it valuable. Things like knowing when OOPS will allocate memory behind your back and when it won't - how to avoid static initialisations when programs are running out of ROM memory...what happens if you transmit a class object over a network or load and save it to disk as a chunk of raw binary...those are things that are rarely mentioned in C++ books, but they matter a great deal to people working close to the bare metal! This isn't the only thing you need to do to teach people - but it's a valuable tool for people who know enough to be dangerous! SteveBaker (talk) 21:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What Steve says really is the crux of it. Starting out with "OOP is great because ..." is going to be as appealing to them as "Programming in Haskell is great because ...". It may be true, but it just won't sell. What I can do is show them how C++ is "like C, but more convenient and no slower" by showing them things like RAII on mutexes, which are easier, safer, and no slower than remembering to do the unlock yourself. --Sean 12:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

COPY vs XCOPY

If I read the articles correctly, then the COPY command is used for individual files and XCOPY for multiple files at a time, is that correct? So let's say I have a folder called folder and within it I have a file, file.txt and another folder, subfolder. If I wanted to copy folder and everything in it (which includes file.txt and subfolder), I would use the XCOPY command? When I tried this prior to posting, I typed xcopy folder C:\Documents and it said 1 file copied. But what happened to subfolder? I thought it would copy that also. Is there a command or line switch that allows one to copy subfolders as well as files? Sorry if this is an easy question, I'm not very experienced this. Thanks! 63.28.159.41 (talk) 22:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You need to learn the switches. Type the command

xcopy /? | more

and it will tell you what switches to use. I believe you want to use the switch /E which makes it copy directories and subdirectories.--Dacium (talk) 23:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

This is the third or fourth question on the Windows command shell recently, so I just wanted to mention that trying to do anything non-trivial with it is *guaranteed* to make you cry. If you're trying to do any scripting, you might think about installing something like the Cygwin Unix-like environment for Windows, or using something like Perl or Python. Nobody deserves code like "if %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 goto failed". --Sean 12:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Make executable from Python code

Hi everyone,

I decided to learn a bit of programming, so I just got started with Python (seemed the best choice to start off with, though maybe a bit high level).

I'm starting to get the hang of it, but there's one thing I can't really get my head round : how can I create a Windows Executable from a Python code ?

I searched a bit on google and stumbled upon py2exe. I found it very unintuitive but I managed to make an executable, only to notice I need some DLLs to run it (obviously I have those DLLs, but people who haven't got Python installed won't).

Ideally I would like to distribute the executable to people that haven't got any Python installation. How is that possible (making an installer with the DLL files isn't really a solution) ?

I'm sure the answer must be quite simple (I don't see why it would be that hard) but I just haven't managed to find any information...

PS. I'm not using any fancy modules or anything so no worries there (basically just math and cmath).

Thanks. -- Xedi (talk) 23:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that Python isn't a compiled language - it's interpreted. This is to say, it isn't translated into machine code - so there isn't a direct way to make a EXE file and in order to run it, you NEED the Python interpreter. The tool that you used isn't familiar to me - but I'd bet good money that it puts your Python code into the EXE file along with a teeny-tiny machine code section that pulls in the Python interpreter as a DLL - then passes the Python code to it. Hence, your EXE file still needs the Python interpreter - although now it's a DLL instead of being an EXE. There isn't an easy way for them to fix this. They could put the Python interpreter into your EXE file as well as the Python code - but now your three line Python program is about a 3 megabyte EXE file because every program you write contains the entire Python interpreter...which I guess is why they don't do that.

This is one of the problems with interpreted languages like Python - and, sadly, you're kinda stuck with it. To be honest, if you aren't already a programmer, Python is a poor choice as your first language. IMHO, you should start off with Java...although that also has problems with making EXE files - for the exact same reason as Python does. To make lean, mean EXE files, you need to write in C++.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks.

But may I ask why Python isn't a great choice for a first programming language ? I agree with the Python philosophy more than any other programming language I know of and the language as a whole seems much more intuitive. Granted, it may be at a too high level to really understand many of the things that are going on underneath, but well... What reasons would you give to explain that ?

Thanks -- Xedi (talk) 04:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• There's nothing wrong with Python as a first language. The hard part of programming, the part that beginners (and non-beginners!) struggle with, is learning how to think about the problem at hand, break it down into digestible parts, and solve those parts with code. It doesn't really matter what language you're learning that with, as long as it's "composable" (so that you at least have a chance of learning the Fundamental Law of Software: "Don't Repeat Yourself"). --Sean 12:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

That's true - but that's totally independent of language choice - so we can factor that out from our advice about which language to learn first. Python is really very weird compared to most other languages - learning "weird" first and then trying to adapt to "normal" later is tough. If you learn Python, for example, you'll not understand the need to declare variables or the importance of 'type safety' in most languages - the syntax of Python is utterly at varience with almost every other language. Transitioning from Python to Java/C++/PHP/JavaScript/C#/whatever will be tough. On the other hand, if you start off with Java - then you'll find it easy to pick up C++/PHP/JavaScript/C# and only moderately difficult to get into Python. Since there are many things that Python simply can't do (eg web programming, high performance stuff, etc). Python's niche is in being the scripting language for other applications - and that's not a good place to start learning! I just think you'd be better off learning Java first. Most US schools that teach programming teach Java - I'm not aware of any schools anywhere that teach Python as their first language. There are REALLY good reasons for that. I'm not saying that Python is a bad language or anything - for what it's intended for, it's great - it's just not the language you should learn first. SteveBaker (talk) 13:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, py2exe puts together any files that you need (dlls included), right into the 'dist' directory. Not sure what the issue is there. Just distribute the entire contents of the directory, not just the exe file. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

December 21

Which free MMORPG is the best?

Which free MMORPG is the best? (Superawesomgoat (talk) 01:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC))

drift city. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.45.237.42 (talk) 13:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. Wikipedia is not a message board for discussing which MMORPGs we think are best. If you have a specific question about MMORPGs, please feel free to ask. -- kainaw™ 13:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Weird Website

I stumbled across this weird website called Crazy.com, I was just wondering what kind of website it was.

I Found a Cat in my Hat (talk) 02:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks something like cybersquatting to me—a person registers a "popular" domain name, puts up a "placeholder" page, and then hopes that somebody will want to buy it from them for big bucks. The page has no content; all links just lead to search engine results. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 02:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It's just a parked domain that has signed up to an related link generated service to get Pay per click revenue from viewers. It's affiliated with the Yahoo! Search Marketing advertising scheme. 86.21.74.40 (talk) 02:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Help

IE7 says scripts are trying to run when I create an html file on my other computer. Just a normal HTML files with <html>,<head,<body>,<font>, <h1> tags. Does this mean I have a virus? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.28.254.203 (talk) 02:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Or some other junk loaded on there. What happens if you disable 3rd party extensions (tools -> advanced -> enable third party browser extensions)? Are you sure it's just a plain script-less HTML file? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

sim theme park patch for windows 2000

I've been trying to get the know ancient game sim theme park to work on my windows 2000 computer for a while now. I know a computer programmer made some kind of update to make the game work win. 2000 (which is what i have), but is it safe and how does it work? The guy who runs the website with the homemade update isn't very clear —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.44.168 (talk) 05:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Can't see partitions

Hi. I have just partitionned an external HD/mp3 player in FAT32 in order to have 32 GB w/ a 32K cluster size for music and a 8GB partition with 4K clusters for a load of small text files. I used CompuApps Swissknife (free). I have 2 partitions but they don't show up on Windows explorer (the drive is there as E:). How do I know what I can copy where (ie music on big partition, txt on small)? Keria (talk) 13:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Never mind I just had to unplug it and plug it back in and the partitions show as different drive letters. Keria (talk) 13:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Is this possible with CSS?

Hello,

I've been running a website in old school HTML for a long time now (http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/) and wanted to know if something is possible. I have a large archive of comics. Is it possible to use CSS so that if I change the advertisement layout on one page it will change all the other pages as well?

If so, could you provide me some pointers on where to get started?

Thank you,

--Grey1618 (talk) 14:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Your question is a bit vague. By "advertisement layout", do you mean:

• Change the advertisement from a picture for one company to a picture for another?
• Change the advertisement from a picture and some optional text for one company to a picture and some optional text (and maybe even a link) for another company?
• Change the location of the advertisement on the page?

All of these have a different answer. -- kainaw™ 15:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the vagueness, I'm running google adsense right now. I was wondering if I wanted to change the banner size or location if that would be possible. --Grey1618 (talk) 15:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)