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January 16

AIM

When i am on AIM and i try to share pictures with my buddy not by email but clicking the little buton that says pictures at the bottom of the IM with (user name from (user name) window it say (user name) is unable or does not support this feature.Ive have searched all over the AIM help pages but it say that this mesage only comes up when you are trying to use a video or talk thing plz help thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.235.174.162 (talk) 03:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

One of you may not have the latest version of aim. Just a guess though so i could be wrong. BonesBrigade 03:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Alternative to Parallels Compressor? (Compressing a virtual disk)

I use Parallels Desktop for Mac 3.0 and I'm having trouble compacting my virtual hard disk file using the built-in Parallels Compressor (it terminates immediately because of "the unrecoverable error"). This is apparently not uncommon and I'm not sure the company knows what is going wrong (they told me to try defragmenting the drive, which I had already done many times, and to run scandisk, which found no problems). I'm wondering if there isn't another way to compress it, maybe another piece of software, maybe some sort of work-around or trick that somebody knows? The file is a .hdd file, and takes up about 20 GB of space on my Mac even though the drive itself contains only 9 GB of files, the extra 11 GB (!!) is just being wasted because it isn't compressed. Any suggestions? I know this is a long shot (nobody on the Parallel's support forum seems to have a clue) but thought I would ask. Any thoughts? In the future I think I'll have two partitions, one that is a small "core" one of just the things Windows XP needs to run, another that I install and delete stuff from and occasionally just flush, since I have so many difficulties getting these things to compress and they end up taking up sooo much more space than they need to. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 04:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I want a cheap web domain name and domain-based email but I don't need hosting - any ideas?

I have a site set up and hosted. But no domain yet.

What I want is to get a website domain to point to the hosted page - and I want email address capability. So, say if I got "guroadrunner.net" , I want the site to point to my Geocities page, but I also want an email address like " me @ guroadrunner.net "

I don't want to pay for a hosting plan nor do I need hosting.

Throw out some names -- are there any domain companies offer domain pointing and email without requiring a host plan ? Guroadrunner (talk) 12:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, see List of domain name registrars. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:07, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Almost any domain registrar will not require a hosting plan if you don't want it. Godaddy.com works fine for this, I've used it many times to just point domain names at pre-existing hosting (and it is very cheap). You can set it up to redirect to your page. To make it so that your page transparently is hosted by geocities but has the other URL is a little more complicated and involves setting up the DNS settings correctly (and I don't know how that would work on the geocities end of things) but should be possible. I believe you can have domain-based e-mail separate as well, but I think that costs extra ($10 for two years or something like that). --24.147.69.31 (talk) 19:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Found one! Yahoo Customer Email -- http://order.sbs.yahoo.com/ds/LearnMore?.pnew=BM0&d=&.p=YD1&.src=sbs - $34 for a year and I get a domain name free. Anyone have any better prices that include a domain name? Guroadrunner (talk) 20:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

!!! You have got to be kidding me. I have already pointed out a list of 10. You can get domain names for 3$/yr, and email for 10$/yr (that I know of, you can probably find cheaper). Also, 34.95$ should be rounded up to 35$. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

GoDaddy.com will set you back only $10 a year for the .net name and another $10 for two years of e-mail for it. Don't pay more than you have to—you're just throwing your money away if you do, especially when you are only asking for such bare-bones services. GoDaddy is a reliable and well-established company. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 21:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I am doing something very similar to what you want to do. I have a domain "example.com" from GoDaddy, Google is my free e-mail server, and I am using GoDaddy's free hosting. However, all I have on my GoDaddy page is a php header script redirecting to my free hosting website.

Need help installing Ubuntu

I currently have Windows XP pro on one partition, and Red Hat Linux Enterprise WS on another. I dual boot at start up using GRUB. I want to get rid of Red hat linux and install ubuntu in its place. Please give me step by step instructions as to how I can get this accomplished? Also, in case it helps, I have PartionMagic 8 with me on my Windows partition. Please help.--202.164.138.44 (talk) 12:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

First, make sure you backup everything you need on your Windows partition, since a single mistake can wipe everything out (or at least make it difficult to restore). Then, restart the computer with an Ubuntu installation disk inside. Follow the instructions, and when you get to the partitioning part, delete the Red Hat partition (triple-checking that you are not touching the Windows one), and use the freed up space to set up partitions for Ubuntu (the instructions should tell you what exactly you need to do). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Once you're in ubuntu, hit alt+f2 and type "gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst" (that's ELL ESS TEE not 1st) and scroll all the way down. Take out the RHEL entry :D --f f r o t h 03:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys! That worked like a breeze. Only trouble now is that Ubuntu has some trouble recognising my monitor, and seems to be stuck at 640*480 resolution. A google search seems to suggest that lots of other people are also having the same trouble...--202.164.142.253 (talk) 16:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Try running sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg from the command line (or use your package manager of choice to locate the appropriate X server package and reconfigure it). Have the specs for your monitor handy for answering the various questions. (You can usually find the relevant information online by Googling for the monitor's model number.) When you're done, restart your X server (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, or log out and select the appropriate menu option). If the reconfiguration doesn't work for some reason, as a last resort you could just edit the X server config file (found under /etc/X11/) yourself. Remember to save a backup. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

How can I host my own wiki?

How can I set up a wiki like conservapedia, anarchapedia, wikinerds, or wikipedia itself? I previoulsy hosted a project with wikicities, but I'd like to know how to set up a wiki hosted by my own organization. Can someone please give me info on how. --Gary123 (talk) 12:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

That depends on what you already know how to do. The easiest way is probably by using WOS. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Does your organization have a web server? If so, put mediawiki on it (along with PHP and MySQL). It is rather easy if it isn't a Windows server. -- kainaw™ 13:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually even on a windows machine it's not very difficult. I did it years ago with relative ease (PHP, MySQL and Apache install just like any windows software), and it's probably only gotten easier. Setting up image resizing and formula rendering was a little tricky, but only a little. If you want to use IIS instead of Apache, that could be a bit more difficult.

In case none of this makes sense to the OP, MySQL is database software that stores all the content you post to your wiki, IIS and Apache are webservers, they send out the wiki's webpages to anybody looking at the wiki and PHP is a scripting language that's used to translate the content in the database to webpages that the webserver can send out. For certain features, such as image thumbnails or mathematical formulas, you need to install additional software. risk (talk) 10:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

"The easiest way is probably by using WOS", well, no, the EASIEST way is to find someone who has a wiki server online you can buy an account on to run your own wiki with. I can't believe there wouldn't be such a thing, not EVERYONE runs their own server... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.4 (talk) 14:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

No, the E-A-S-I-E-S-T way is to read the original question, especially the parts where "I previoulsy hosted a project with wikicities" and "hosted by my own organization". -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Apologizing for your comment will also be easy. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah lets all keyboard in apologies for online *rolls eyes* --f f r o t h 19:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hm? When a well-meaning individual makes a comment on Wikipedia which is in any way inappropriate, he apologizes when called on it. That's how it's been ever since I joined. Are you saying we should stop doing that? Does civility not extend to online communication? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Many webhosts will include a 1 button install for Mediawiki, under CPanel. If this is not the case with your hosting then see this page. You need PHP5 and a MySQL 4 database, but most good webhosts will come with this.TheGreatZorko (talk) 09:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there another meaning to "hosted by my own organization" that I'm not aware of? Sure, it's quite possible the OP meant using a webhost, or that he didn't but the best solution to his real problem is to use a webhost. But until he clarifies, we should assume that he really wants what he asks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

All the wikis that he named all run on Mediawiki software though (I think), so I'm not sure what you think he is requesting. If it is permission to use the software for his own means, well of course he can. Mediawiki is open source and can be used for commerical uses, as long as you abide to the GFDL licence. If he means hosting the wiki on his own server then the guide I linked to also covers this.TheGreatZorko (talk) 10:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the OP does want to use MediaWiki to run the wiki. He also said he wants to host it on his organization's server. He requested to learn how. Your link to the installation guide does more or less answer his question, but referring to his "webhost" is irrelevant.

Again, this depends on which parts of the process he needs assistance with - does his organization already have a server, or does he need to set one up (for a lightweight endeavor this may amount to just taking a computer and delegating it as one)? Does he already have a domain name, or does he need to register one? Does he need help with the installation of Apache, PHP, and\or MySQL? Does he need help creating a MySQL database? Or maybe all of these are covered and he just wants to know how to install MediaWiki? All this discussion is pointless until the OP specifies what it is that he wants exactly. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 11:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

"Windows Explorer" right click options

Does anyone know of an add-on for Windows (in my case XP) that will allow the addition of customised right-click options to the "Windows Explorer". I know it is possible since I have seen applications such as Winzip and Clipfile which do this. An example of what I want to do is to add an option "Autorename" which will inspect the file name and if of the form "Copy of abc.xyz" rename it as "abc_yyyymmdd#.xyz" where yyymmdd is the files datestamp and # is a unique letter within that folder. I would like to "write" the autorename function in a language such as basic or perl rather than in C. Any ideas folk? -- SGBailey (talk) 14:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC) I can't help you, but perhaps it's helpful to recall (for googling) that many such programs (like winzip you mention) call this "shell integration". perhaps searching on that might get you to the answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.4 (talk) 15:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

First write the command-line program (in any language) that will take a file name/path as its input and will rename it based on whatever. Once you have the program, then you can either:

1. Just use it with the "Send to" menu.[1]
2. Fiddle with the registry to make it an integrated part of the shell.[2]

Both are pretty simple though the first one doesn't require any mucking around in the registry. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Object Oriented Programming

Can I use Hylemorphism to help conceptualize object-oriented programming? How? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.4 (talk) 15:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Possibly, although it is an imperfect analogy, so a deep discussion of Hylemorphism is probably not interesting. Socrates theory of ideal forms is often mentioned when explaining the difference between classes and objects. Taemyr (talk) 15:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

whoo-hoo! I never heard the connection, but am glad I made it myself. So, even though it's imperfect and not warranting deep discussion, Taemyr, could you expound the analogy here ad hoc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.4 (talk) 15:36, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Boot message

I was messing around with songs on FL Studio when my computer locked up. so i restarted and i got an "unmountable boot volume"message. is my computer ruined?the juggreserection ^IstKrieg! 15:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Run chkdisk. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 15:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

chkdisk is definately the way to go - although you'll need your original Windows XP CD. Without that you're in a bit of a sticky situation. Kavanagh21 (talk) 01:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Video Card

How do I find what kind of video card I have? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 21:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

On Windows XP, you can right-click on a blank part of the desktop and then select properties. From the properties window, the settings tab will often give you some information, and if there is an Advanced button, perhaps more detail. --LarryMac | Talk 21:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Under Windows XP bring up the start menu, and click "Run" then in the box that appears type "dxdiag" without the quotes (To do the same under Vista just type dxdiag in the search bar). On the Display tab will be the name of your graphics card along with other information.TheGreatZorko (talk) 09:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

On Mac OS X click on the Apple, and then About this Mac..., click on More info, then Graphics/Displays on the left column. Mac Davis (talk) 12:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

accounting and machines

Will accountants be ever replaced by machines such as computers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.90.44.64 (talk) 21:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by it. If you mean, "will many people just start using computer programs instead of accountants," the answer is clearly yes and we already see this (I did my taxes last year entirely by myself using TurboTax, which made it easy enough that I didn't feel it was worth hiring someone to do them for me). If you mean, "will we start letting computers do all accounting work, including in big corporations," the answer is probably no, because 1. people don't and probably won't trust a computer 100% when the stakes get really high, and 2. there is still a lot of work for a very clever accountant that is more flexible than a machine is going to be. People like human judgment, and they like human judgment when enhanced by things like computers, but not replaced by it. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 21:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

In the foreseeable future. As long as there isn't a major "paradigm shift" in the next few hundred years steering human interest away from science (though it's practically certain this will happen eventually), computer systems could well be far more advanced than humans ever could be. Even if computers are a little duller than people, I'd be far more likely to hire computers who work 24/7 with no vacation or weekends. Anyway, you could always simulate an entire person and give him weekends and breaks and everything (but have billions of them so who cares) and pay them with worthless virtual currency and let them live their own virtual lives in ignorance, but give them real work.. so if computer power grows enough, that's the most brute-force way to replace human workers.. showing it's at least possible with enough power --f f r o t h 03:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Accountants have many kinds of duties. Bookkeeping is highly automatable and is largely done by computer. But validation — checking that the entries in the database are legitimate according to law and the accounting rules — is not. (For example, a computer system can check that a payment to a supplier matches a purchase order or a delivery receipt. But it cannot tell whether the payment is for a legitimate business purpose or is a fraudulent back-hander.) Analysis and forecasting also rely on human judgement. List of accounting topics should give you some idea of the scope of the profession. Gdr 18:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

January 17

can I get there from here? A very small virtual machine just for a web browser.

Can I get there from here? I'm running windows 2000 and would like a TINY (and I mean tiny) virtual machine running a web browser, I think Opera has the smallest footprint. I'm thinking of something that's a smaller image than Damned Small Linux. I want the emulation software to have a tiny footprint too.

If all I want is Opera running on a tiny stripped-down linux, and the former really doesn't have any dependencies (statically linked with QT, its gui framework) then could I fulfill my dream of a 20-50 megabyte image for that? Actually I just looked and DSL *includes* firefox in the fifty megabyte download, and also another tiny browser!

How would I go about getting DSL *without* the other stuff than a web browser?

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.4 (talk) 00:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You can check if Puppy Linux has a smaller one. Here there are some, with BareBones Puppy weighting 39mb only, although I am not sure if it even has a browser. If DSL works for you, you should keep it. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 03:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, BareBones Puppy (per description at the wiki page) has no window manager and only the browser. That may be the smallest (useful) distro that you may find. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 03:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Who needs a GUI? Use links or lynx --f f r o t h 03:07, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Bash script help

I want to make a very quick CPU benchark, and I came up with this.

 #!/bin/bash -e

 seq 1 $0 | factor > /dev/null

 exit 0

You time it, and it should give you a number you can compare with other computers. But it won't recognize the argument! Could someone tell me how to insert the first command line argument into the $0? Thank you. This is my first attempt at any kind of computer programming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.239.184.49 (talk) 01:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

That is because $0 is usually the name of the program being executed. You want $1 instead. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 01:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Worked beautifully, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.239.184.49 (talk) 02:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Accessing router without browser

The D-Link DI-524 offers a web interface to configure and query it. One of the status pages indicates the current wireless connections. I have been trying to access that information from the router without the web interface (with an API, a web service or command line) but haven't found anything. Does anyone know a way to access it without using the port 80? Thanks. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 03:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should use the telnet command. type telnet, then router's IP, then the port you wish to use. Obviously not 80 or 81. That might be a beginning, it might not. Mac Davis (talk) 05:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you expect to work? These routers are very very very simple devices and often have no form of communication besides HTTP (or UPNP if that counts). --Jmeden2000 (talk) 16:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I nmaped the IP and got only ports 80 and 515 open. I was hoping there were some kind of API or at least some automatic way of querying information (more exactly, being notified every time a wireless device connected to it). Guess I will have to write some perl or python script to retrieve the page, parse it, and generate the information. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there an "enable SNMP" option anywhere? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Google questions

I've got a site going and now I want to take care of two things, but I can't seem to figure out how:

• I previously had an account with Google Adsense. I need to keep that account, but I also need to change the country of that account. Here is the answer how[3]. Except one thing— I'm supposed to email google about it, but they give no address. I can't find an address. Can you help? I can call headquarters soon I guess.
• Those little abstracts under each site that comes up when you search for something in google— right now mine is horrible. It consists of the alternate text for an image. How can I get a nice description?

ThanksMac Davis (talk) 05:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

As for #2, my site's Google abstract is taken from a <meta> tag. Add something like this to the <head> section of your HTML on your index page: <meta name="description" content="This is what I'd like the abstract to say."> --24.147.69.31 (talk) 14:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Kubuntu questions

In Kubuntu 7.04, how do I set a mount command to always occur at startup? Also, is there a way to make sudone programs' KDE windows display differently from those of programs run from my normal account? NeonMerlin 07:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Add the mount to /etc/fstab and enable the auto option. You can find a plethora of documentation how to do this if you search for fstab. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.75.77.106 (talk) 14:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean "display differently"? If you mean have a different color title bar, talk to the window decorating people (Emerald). If you mean treating the window differently than others, ask the compiz people. If you mean putting a notice somewhere in the window, you'll have to get every program to do it individually and hope it looks consistent. A lot of programs do that automatically- I use xubuntu and Thunar (file manager) and Mousepad (text editor) both display a banner across the top alerting you when you're root. IIRC SUSE does the same thing with YaST- it gives you different options based on whether you're root or not, and puts a little red border around everything when you are. That's hardcoded into YaST though.. not a feature of the window manageer AFAIK. --f f r o t h 02:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Video Cards

How do I switch my video cards that are on my computer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 12:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Assuming your computer actually has a video card (and not on-board video), you purchase a new one, put on your static-safety strap, open your computer, remove the old one (at most, it is held in with one screw at the back of the computer and a clip in the middle of the computer), put the new one in (reverse process of removing the old one), close the computer, turn on the computer, install the drivers for the new video card. Keep in mind that the video card you purchase must be compatible with your motherboard. For example, you can't shove an AGP video card into a PCI slot and expect it to work (or expect your motherboard to continue working). -- kainaw™ 14:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, some video cards require a separate power connection (or two--more expensive cards)--check the power supply requirements! Epylar (talk) 19:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

sorting problem (question moved from Language desk)

hi. everyone.... i have some problem regarding sorting......

1.as we all know that we can search numbers in c and c# that user enters,is there any way by which i can files from harddisks by general coding........

2.similiarly we sort numbers in c and c#.which is the most efficient sorting that take min. time-:

a.)if numbers are sorted already
b.)if numbers are given in reverse sorted order  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Awdesh (talk • contribs) 13:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC) 

Look at disk IO operations, such as fopen and fgets. Those are used to read data from files. As far as sorting, the fastest "common" sort is quick sort. If the numbers are already sorted, it hits a worst-time that is no worse than the slow bubble sort. -- kainaw™ 17:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Unexplained computer shutdowns

My work computer has been subject to sporadic and unpredictable shutdowns since at least last November. I'm not doing anything abnormal on it other than work, Wikipedia, and downloading stuff now and then. I used to leave it on overnight then started powering it off before I left for the day, which seems to have made a slight improvement, but not much. The pattern of shutdowns that I started keeping track of is as follows:

11/27: 3

11/28: 1

1/9: 4

1/14: 2

1/16: 7

Yesterday was a record, with shutdowns occurring less than an hour apart. Been using a new surge protector since November at least. Phone and monitor are the only other things connected to it. I've never experienced this sort of thing with any other computer I've used. Other than switching out the HD, what could be causing these shutdowns? Anti-virus scans don't turn up anything. 47 out of 74 GB are free. BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 17:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You mean it's literally turning itself off, rather than crashing? Could be heat.. many computers shut down when they get too hot. Maybe the vents in the case are full of dust or something? Friday (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe the IT guys raised the heat issue when I brought this to their attention. They did mention that they eventually had to switch out someone else's HD as it kept on shutting off, but his I think were more frequent. You can see that last December was trouble-free. This one will just completely shut off in the middle of any possible task. BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 17:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hard drive? I can't see how this would be relevant. If your disk fails, your computer won't be able to work right, but it won't just turn itself off. It may produce errors and crash, but it should stay on. Or by "hard drive" do you mean the actual computer? I've heard the term misused this way before. Friday (talk) 17:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It is almost always heat-related. The big issue is "why"? It could be a bad drive that is producing enormous amounts of heat. More common, one of the fans is flaking out and stops spinning. The little CPU fans are the worst for doing that. It is possible that the thermostat is bad and is reading high temps when the temperature is normal. It is possible that the power supply is failing and producing too much heat. It is possible that the heat sink on the CPU separated slightly, so it isn't cooling properly. All-in-all, this is one of the most difficult computer problems to fix because there are too many factors involved. When my computer did this, I replaced the whole motherboard, CPU, and fans just to take care of it in one fix. -- kainaw™ 17:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

When this used to happen to me, I got a vacuum cleaner and sucked ALL the dust out of my pc case including the power supply and the heatsinks (you'd be amazed how much dust can live in heatsink vanes') which fixed the prob instantly. I don't recommend this fix tho in all cases as some people have found that their vacuum cleaner wands can become statically charged when used, which isn't a good thing to be ramming into a pc. 86.21.74.40 (talk) 17:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about flipping back and forth between terms. By "hard drive" I did mean the computer itself. I've had a spare computer sitting in my office for a couple months now as a backup, one of the older models without a CD burner. Before I switch out, as everyone's computer gets imaged as they call it, I want to get all my personal stuff off and wipe the history of what's been downloaded, which is another issue. BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 17:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the problem is electrical. I'm not really familiar with surge protectors, but maybe they just don't cut it. FWIW, I used to have a problem with my computer shutting down spontaneously. I got a UPS and I haven't had the problem since (plus, it allows some flexibility in case of a blackout). Or maybe the PSU is too weak. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

If you have a can of compressed air or a hairdryer that blows out cold air, you might want to blow out the dust inside the casing of the computer (unless it is so gross that the dust would just float around). Just make sure to be safe and not touch any parts of the computer with the can or the hairdryer.

I know it is silly, but could you check the power connectors to see if any of them are shaky? Kushal^t 18:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

If you meant the power cord, that is firmly in there now. BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 18:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, its absurd, I know. However, it works in some cases. If you do not open the casing any often, I doubt that any internal connections are loose. If I were you I would just let sleeping dogs lie and not mess with the internals unless I knew exactly what I was doing (or I owned the computer;) ). Looking forward to your updates. I hope your problem will be solved soon. Kushal^t 23:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Idle time on Linux and Windows

Are there any methods to finding the amount of time idled after a specific time? i.e. implementing something similar to a screensaver? In Linux, cat /proc/uptime gives me the uptime and total idle time but not the time idled from the last "non-idle" event. And I have no idea how to do this in Windows.

Any help would be appreciated. x42bn6 Talk Mess 17:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What are you trying to do? The "idle time" reported by /proc/uptime is the time spent in the system idle loop, and is usually no more than a millisecond or two at a time. Even when your computer isn't "doing anything", it will periodically exit the idle loop to see if anything needs to be done, and if you're running an "idle monitor", that counts as "something to be done". --Carnildo (talk) 21:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

For example, I want to find out when a system has been idle for 30 minutes so I can execute another program. Kind of like a screensaver. x42bn6 Talk Mess 21:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean "idle"? Devoid of mouse interaction or keyboard input? Try asking the X server, not the kernel --f f r o t h 06:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure that's right? I thought it was interrupt-based. --f f r o t h 06:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, no user-activity. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

HTTP Guide

I have some 50,000 words I want to search for with Google. I'm completely new to HTTP, but managed collect enough information to write a C program for searching for a given word. The problem is an average search seems to require to receive about 20 Kbytes, and I'm only interested in the amount of hits the word gets. For example the following gives 243,000 hits and 17 Kbytes:

GET http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ulkomainen
Host: www.google.com

As said, I don't know anything about HTTP. Also I almost copypasted the program from msdn, so something explaining how to just not receive some data would be useful. What can I do/read to get less bytes? --212.149.216.233 (talk) 18:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

When you read in the data, look for the phrase " of about <b>". The numbers after that are the number of estimated hits. Once you read in the number of estimated hits, close your http connection and go on to the next term. There's no law claiming that you have to read ALL of the data before disconnecting. -- kainaw™ 18:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

true, but unfortunately, the Google servers won't send this information back to the user character by character, so you're always going to get back extra information beyond the
tags that you are looking for. Actually, I didn't say this below, but your best bet may be to try and make a GET request for the Google WAP page - this has no images and is likely to be much smaller in terms of size. It would take some checking though to make sure that the hits returned are identical to the general Google search. Kavanagh21 (talk) 01:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this an automated script? I thought Google provided API in google labs for developers who wanted to use google. Perhaps it is overkill in this case? Kushal^t 22:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

• I write similar stuff in Visual Basic - it depends on how you are accessing the data. If you are using Windows Sockets, then you could just collect the chunks of data you need, and then close the socket once you have all the information you want (using Winsock, data comes back as packets, which you can choose drop if not required). If you are using the Internet transfer control (or something similar), then you can't help but recieve all of the data from your GET request. The problem is, once you make the GET request to Google, their servers will fire back ALL the information on that HTML page, regardless of what bits and bobs you actually need. Kavanagh21 (talk) 01:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

You have to take the data and parse it for what you want. I don't use C but in PHP this is trivial—you read the HTML in as a string and then parse out the numbers you want. It's just string manipulation at that point. Note that if you IP makes 50,000 quick requests to Google it may block you; it is against their policy to make automated searches of Google without using their API (and registering with an API key), if I recall. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 03:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Horror of horrors! What would I do if I were blocked from Google? My entire online existence would be at stake ... Kushal^t 01:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Last I heard, google had discontinued the use of the search API, so that route's a no-go.

I've written a script to do exactly this. (Matter of fact, it's running now.) Bear in mind (as 24 mentions) that google discourages (but does not outright prohibit) automated queries like this. I think their Terms of Service say that any automated queries must be limited to less than 1,000 per day or something like that. So it's going to take you at least 50 days to get all the counts you're looking for.

Bear in mind also that google word counts are not nearly as definitive as we'd like them to be (where by "we" I mean all of us who are desperately trying to use the counts to gather statistics or resolve word-usage questions even though the data really isn't good enough for those sorts of applications, nor indeed intended by google to be useful for those sorts of applications at all).

Yet another thing to consider is that google seems to tailor the estimated word counts, based on... something. I once noticed that the estimates differed by a factor of 10 based on which browser I used. It turned out that one browser had the cookie for my google userid and the other didn't. Why google would give me different counts when logged in as me versus anonymously is beyond me, but there it was.

As an indication of how variable google's word counts can be, here are counts for the words "the" and "cat" on various dates, culled from my data:

date	the	cat	ratio
2006-09-24	14,530,000,000	686,000,000	0.047
2006-10-16	13,960,000,000	51,300,000	0.004
2007-11-23	4,940,000,000	416,000,000	0.084
2007-12-04	548,000,000	46,900,000	0.086
2007-12-14	1,220,000,000	51,400,000	0.042
2007-12-15	10,210,000,000	811,000,000	0.079
2007-12-19	9,900,000,000	811,000,000	0.082
2008-01-13	9,340,000,000	808,000,000	0.087
2008-01-17	9,450,000,000	808,000,000	0.086

I'm afraid the obvious conclusion is that google counts really aren't deterministic enough to do any kind of meaningful statistical analysis on. I wish it were otherwise, and I bet a bunch of other people do, too, but I really can't complain. (And if google ever did want to make this data useful to the people wanting it, clearly it would be much better to have a separate, simple "estimate word count" interface, so we didn't have to waste google's time doing dummy searches and our time ferreting out the count from all that "unnecessary" other stuff on the results page.) —Steve Summit (talk) 01:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Commafied and aligned your table. --Anon, 03:38 UTC, January 19, 2008.

The results do always use "about" as in "Results 1 - 10 of about 127,000,000". Should we get a clue from that? Kushal^t 01:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Best Video Software

What's the best video editing freeware? I'm hoping to find the equivalent of Audacity or GIMP, but for video instead of sound and images. Thanks. --71.117.42.164 (talk) 22:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You might peruse Category:Free video software. Of those the ones that sound like what you might want are Jahshaka (Cross-platform), Kino (software) (Linux only), or Cinelerra (Linux and OS X). Like most free software, most of them suffer from poorly thought-out interfaces (programmers make lousy GUI designers), are somewhat slow and/or buggy, and have little to no documentation about them. (Open-source software's a great idea but cutting out the "management" level has its detriments. Programmers alone are not enough for complicated products designed to be used by people other than programmers.) --24.147.69.31 (talk) 22:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Cinelerra is alright in the usability aspect. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your quick responses thus far. So am I correct in assuming that there is no editor that stands out from the crowd, such as Audacity or GIMP? --71.117.42.164 (talk) 23:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

My understanding of it—from a similar search I did a few months ago—was that there wasn't, though Cinelerra was more widely used than any other, I believe. But maybe somebody else knows better. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 23:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Does a MS Windows port exist for Cinerella? Kushal^t 23:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Not according to our article. And sorry, I forgot to mention I'm running Windows XP. --71.117.42.164 (talk) 23:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Enter Cygwin? Kushal^t 02:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Will Cinerella work under Windows XP if Cygwin is installed? Kushal^t 01:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear OP,

Have you ever considered dual booting between MS Windows XP and Kubuntu (or any other Linux Distro)? I think I can recommend a dual boot if you know what you are doing. Kushal^t 13:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I have never used it yet, but I think HandBrake deserves a try. Kushal^t 20:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

iTunes update

when an update for Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird is released, there are release notes on their website that I can see. Does a similar thing exist for Apple iTunes for Mac? A cursory google search revealed non apple websites and the site:apple.com did not help much either. Kushal^t 23:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Apple do publish release notes for all their software updates on docs.info.apple.com. For example, there's a list of security update notes here. You can also access a link to the update notes in Software Update in Mac OS X. --Canley (talk) 23:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Mac OS X checks periodically if any updates are required and shows you a list of the available updates. You can then decide how to proceed. I just checked myself and was informed that a 44MB update for version 7.6 was available.

Under the Apple menue, item "Sotware Update...". The item below, "Mac OS X Software", gets you to more detailed notes on the various updates available. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 00:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I see it now. Thanks a lot! Kushal^t 03:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

If you have a choice, don't upgrade to itunes 7.6, it breaks the windows apps of the hymn project. Was about to buy an album when I noticed that.. they lost a customer. --f f r o t h 06:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

What is the Hymn project? Unless you are talking about this [4] (just googled it), I am completely blank on this one. (I do not have it on my computer.) I want to support the anti-DRM movement and so I do not buy DRMed music as far as practicable.

I saw that QuickTime was updated as well. Kushal^t 00:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

January 18

Voice Modulation

Does anyone here know where to find some open source voice modulation software that isn't a plug-in for another program? Specifically, one that can modulate in real time. The effect I'm most interested in is something similar to that sense in The Matrix where Neo screams as his throat turns to metal ("the mirror scene", if you will). Chris16447 (talk) 01:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

To those unfamiliar with the movie, that effect appears to be (largely) ring modulation. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Csound should do it, although setting it up is nontrivial. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:42, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

You can achieve effects like that in real time using any AudioUnit aware application in MacOS X. You probably want the flange effect cranked up to crazy levels. --24.249.108.133 (talk) 23:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Although it is designed for phonology and speech research and analysis, you can do some very strange things to voices (and other sound) in Praat. Pfly (talk) 23:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Booting from a copied virtual drive (but with non-virtual questions too)

OK. So I'm using Parallels Desktop for Mac. Bear with me. This question might be answerable even if you don't know anything about virtualization, as I'm not sure where the problem lies.

My preexisting virtual disk which normally runs Windows XP Home (and does that just fine) has 3GB of data on it. I want to copy it to another virtual drive that I can boot off of in its place. (There are reasons for me wanting to do this that we need not go into, it has to do with how Parallels handles drive space. The existing drive is taking up over 24GB of space on my drive; if I can get it into the other one it will take up only around 3GB. Long story.)

I can load the drives into the virtual machine as if I were just plugging in hard disks. I used GParted to create a partition on the second (the target) drive, and tried to use its "copy" function to copy from the first (source) drive to the second.

It copied fine, from what I can tell, but I can't boot off of the other drive. I get a "No boot device available" error from the BIOS. I've gone in with Windows XP Recovery Console and run FIXBOOT and FIXMBR but neither of those things worked.

I tried copying the source drive to a new, blank target drive using dd, thinking that maybe it was something about GParted's copying that made it fail. dd claimed that it copied everything over but then the target drive could not be read at all (either by GParted or by Recovery Console). So that seemed to be a bust too. The only odd bit is that GParted thought that drive was formatted as FAT16 whereas I am pretty sure I selected FAT32; anyway I don't see why either should make it totally unreadable.

I tried using Parallels Transporter, which allows you to migrate drives to different virtual machines, one the GParted-copied drive and it ALMOST seemed to work—it started up Windows and got as far as the blue "Windows" screen before it just stopped responding. Any clue what is going on there? Running FIXBOOT or FIXMBR had no effect.

So, here's the question -- how can I go about copying the one drive to another in a way that will make the second drive bootable to Windows XP, in Parallels? I'm not really sure where the problem lies -- should the GParted copy partition have worked normally? If not, does that mean the issue is with Parallels in some way? How would you handle a situation like this if it wasn't virtualized? I know that what I'm doing is something of a hacky work-around but it feels like it should work. All of this effort is being made, by the way, because Parallels Compressor is hoarking on that big virtual disk and the Parallels support people aren't being of any help as to why. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

China

Are there any ways to get around China's block? I have a friend who's going through withdrawal.69.246.23.58 (talk) 02:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 03:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Sudoers file with wrong permissions?

Whenever I try to use sudo on my mac, I get:

sudo: /private/etc/sudoers is mode 0666, should be 0440

What the hell?! I haven't even touched it. How am I supposed to fix it if I can't use sudo? I could pop in a liveCD, but is there a way to fix this without booting linux? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgrasell (talk • contribs) 04:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

google.com/search?q="is+mode+0666,+should+be+0440" --f f r o t h 06:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, why don't you just log in as root to change the permisisons? If OS X has some lock-its-own-users-out mentality, surely theres a recovery mode of some type. (see FIRST result) --f f r o t h 06:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly enough (froth will laugh deliriously at this, but I'm sanguine, I can take it) I don't even know how to log in as root on this, my main machine these days, the Mac I'm typing this on. Whenever I need to do something as root (which is very, very rarely), I just use su. But I honestly don't know how I'd fix the problem the OP complained about if it happened to me. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

If you've enabled root, su - will work too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.8.37.162 (talk) 06:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Disk Utility's "Repair Disk Permissions" feature should fix this (I just tested under 10.5.1, pretty sure it'll work under earlier versions as well). If for some reason that doesn't do it, I'd recommend booting in single-user mode or from an installer DVD; both of those will get you root access without going through sudo (or needing a root password). Speaker to Lampposts (talk) 23:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The disk permissions thing works. Thanks guys.--Ryan (talk) 01:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I never even thought about using sudo on this macbook. Kushal^t 14:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Hosting an mp3

What is a good website I can use to host an mp3 so I can stream it on a blog or other such webpage? It doesn't have to be free--just reliable.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 04:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Salut!

If you have Google's Gmail, you could start by looking at Google's Google Page Creator. Upto a hundred megabytes is available for free of cost. Care should be taken to link the pages as http://example.googlepages.com and not http://www.example.googlepages.com For a real world example, take Benjaminrogerstexas http://Benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com works but http://www.Benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com does not work. Hope that helps. Kushal^t 00:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Kushal, I have gmail and shall give it a try. --The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 03:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

You are very welcome, sir! Kushal^t 04:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Please let us know how your experience went with streaming mp3. Kushal^t 13:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

• I've been very pleased with http://www.ripway.com/ You need to sign up, but its safe, and you can download your music from other computers, etc. 86.139.90.67 (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Close rs232 serial port using turbo c

Hai, I am doing a project in turbo c for communicating between two PC's using rs232 seerial port.So i wrote a code in turbo c using ("dos.h and bioas.h ") these header files i send the data in 38400 baudrate. In another pc using hyper terminal i recived the data using the same baud rate.Data's reciving correctly.but i had problem is if I Closed my program but ("not closed turbo c editor"). the port is not closed. so i can't use other serial port communication programs such as ("Hyper termial ").after i run my program and close my program without close the turbo c editor. then i am unable to open the port in other language and other application unless closing the turbo c editor. so i want solution for this problem.Please any one give idea or send code in turbo c.please...

thank you,

R.Rajesh kumar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.63.175 (talk) 05:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Please forward VB topics?

07:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)192.248.92.4 (talk)NUSRA

I'd start by reading Visual Basic. -- SGBailey (talk) 10:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Protecting a backup

I am backing up my data on a DVD. What is the best way of encrypting these data, so they can be safe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.37 (talk) 11:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

You could use TrueCrypt to make an encrypted container file on your hard disk, copy the files into it, then burn the container file to the DVD. -- BenRG (talk) 20:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Toast 8 also allows for disc encryption. --24.249.108.133 (talk) 01:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll give TrueCrypt a try. Thanks! 217.168.1.14 (talk) 11:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Colorspaces and desktop publishing

I've dabbled in desktop publishing for a long time but I never quite wrapped my head around colorspaces in a way that sometimes matters (it probably doesn't help that I started in the desktop publishing world dealing with exclusively black-and-white media). How do I guarantee that what I see on my screen will look similar to what gets printed up? (Obviously there will be some inherent different due to the medium change, but I've noticed that by fiddling with the color settings in InDesign and on my Macbook I can have the same RGB/CYMK values look radically different (different enough for the tasteful to become garish) and I'm never really sure which of those is the best setting for approximating, say, a standard color laser output, much less printing it up on a real press. Things always end up being a little off when I get them printed—bluer than I had wanted, for example—and while none of this is ever the end of the world, I'd like to have a little more control over things. What do people normally do here? --24.147.69.31 (talk) 20:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at our article about Gamut; the differences in gamut between your display and, say, a CMYK printing press are probably the biggest sources of surprises to designers. And, of course, our color space article can help you understand the transformations that take place as you go from RGB to CMYK and the like.

Atlant (talk) 15:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

See also Color management. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Desktop Expresscard readers?

Does anyone know if there are external Expresscard readers for desktop computers (either USB or Firewire)? A Google search seems to only return USB/Firewire adaptors for Expresscard slots. But I have an Expresscard flash memory drive I want my desktop to read. --24.249.108.133 (talk) 23:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Expresscard is based on PCI-Express, so your best bet would be a PCI-Express -> Expresscard adapter. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

January 19

Compressing a video file

Dear All,

Hi.

I need help compressing a file... its a movie AVI file... how do i do that? i tried to send the file via email.. for some reason its not working.. the file size is not even big... its almost 3 minutes long...2.0 megapixels ... sorry i really need help its for a school project... I'm not really a what you call a techie...

--202.175.29.2 (talk) 03:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC) xsy

If you are on a Mac, you can use iMovieHD. If you are using Windows, you can use Windows Movie Maker. If you only want to compress the video just import it to the application and export it in the desired settings without any editing.

Hope that helps,

Kushal^t 13:04, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Many (most?) video files already are compressed and can't be compressed any further. See data compression and video compression.

Atlant (talk) 15:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

What type of codec is used for the file anyway ? If it's a file you downloaded through the net, odds are that it's already compressed in mpeg4 or a variant of it, and it would be pointless to compress it any further. Try to play it and see the property of the file in windows media player (there is a video codec and an audio codec). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Esurnir (talk • contribs) 20:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you upload it to a website and then email the recipient just the link? E-mail providers have certain limits on attachment size. Gmail has 20 MB, Yahoo! Mail has 10 MB but some providers are really stingy. Kushal^t 01:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

"Live" screensaver?

What would you call a screensaver that prevents burn-in whilst still leaving the screen contents legible for most, if not all, of the time? Rawling4851 13:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

It might interest you to know that burn-in is a thing of the past. Online your monitor is a plasma TV, you should be able to keep the same image on for months if not years without fear of burn-in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.18 (talk) 13:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Presumably, in the above answer, the word "online" was meant to be "unless". But even LCDs suffer some temporary ghosting if a static image is left on them for hours on end. Plus screen-savers can still be fun.

Atlant (talk) 15:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

At work, several of our LCD monitors have a permant burned image of the system login screen. It seems to be related to the brand of monitor; the GNRs have it and the Neovos don't. All about 3 years old. --80.176.225.249 (talk) 20:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

What makes you so sure that Rawling uses an LCD? I know I occasionally use my 10-years old CRTs, and since they have several advantages, I am considering buying a new one. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:24, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Heh; yes, I am using an LCD, but given that they, plus other modern displays such as plamas and (am I right) DLPs can suffer some kind of burn-in, this isn't wholly irrelevant. I was just curious if anyone had made screen-savers that specifically didn't make the sceen content illegible... Rawling4851 20:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

DLPs are absolutely immune to burn-in. They may be the one kind of display that I can think of that is, although LCDs are immune to permanent burn-in damage.

Atlant (talk) 21:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

sandisk sansa c250

This is a 2 GB flash memory mp3 player. If I deleted every file and folder on it, have I bricked it? When I turn it on, only the navigation key backlights turn on. I tried both the recovery mode and diag mode as in RockBox but to no avail. The device does not even show up in my macbook now. Is there anyway I can make it reusable again? Please help. Kushal^t 15:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I guess if it were mine, and if I were feeling it was likely in trouble, I'd 1. reformat it, 2. try and reinstall whatever software the company had available for it on their website. --24.147.69.31 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The main problems are that the display is not showing anything and that the computer does not show anything when I connect it to the computer. Kushal^t 22:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Right. So again, I'd reformat it, and then probably install any drivers/firmware updates available from their website. It sounds to me like you've either got some sort of hard disk problem (which formatting/error checking might help) and/or you've deleted whatever firmware bits that it had to interface with the computer. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 17:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Mac OS X does not even "see" the device when connected. Maybe I can ask someone on Windows XP or Windows Vista to lend me his or her computer. I will update you on any thing that I get. Thanks a lot. Kushal^t 00:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

File transfer on Lan

I got multiple computer on my soho local network, connected through a 802.11g wifi. I would like to transfer file between multiple computer, both using Windows XP.

What is the fastest way to do that (in terms of file transfer speed I mean). Right now I tried the "normal" copy and paste (i think it use the SMB protocol or something like that) and utorrent (was quite surprised to see that bittorent was slower in my case but anyway). Is there any other type of file transfer protocol that would be faster to transfer "big bulky files" ? And for a collection of small files ? Esurnir (talk) 20:12, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, torrents aren't optimized for speed, they're optimized for bandwidth, so that isn't necessarily the best way. If bandwidth isn't an issue, FTP is probably as fast as anything else, and reliable. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 20:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I fail to comprehend the distinction between bandwidth and speed. Perhaps bittorent slower because of his non-sequential nature (which would stress the hard drive with too much random i/o ?) In good condition, what can I expect from a 802.11g connection in terms of "usable" bandwith.

Oh and right now I get 1mb/s with standard transfer and 700kb/s with bittorent.- Esurnir (talk) 20:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The absolute maximum is 54 MBit per second according to 802.11g. That means you can get a maximum of about 7 MBps? As a layman, I would say I would be satisfied with 3.5 MBPS. Kushal^t 01:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

rsync if your files don't change much? Or get 20 times the speed with wired gigabit ethernet. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Programming manual of style

Did someone or some organisation published instructions for achieving a good programming style? I mean for example how variables, functions are named and case used, how brackets are used... Thank you. CG (talk) 20:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

One of the oldest (but good) books was titled The Elements of Progamming Style. There was also a specific Fortran version. More recently, Brian Kernighan has certainly written a good book about programming in the C language including style advice; see his The Practice of Programming.

Atlant (talk) 21:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, but I think that the article Programming style answers well my question. CG (talk) 08:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Computer hardware for dummies

Hi. Does anyone know of a good source of information about computer hardware - of the kind that a technically oriented layman could use to make better decisions about which to buy? (Yes, I am looking at one, but I was thinking about something more oriented towards the stated goal). Thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 21:24, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Newegg seems to be pretty good. You can also look at reviews in Amazon.com. Amazon has a wealth of reviews. Kushal^t 01:45, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Tom's Hardware Guide? --Ouro (blah blah) 07:33, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Tom's seems to be more oriented towards people who are already "hardware experts" and want to learn all the specific details about new innovations (I'm looking for something that starts with the basics and moves on from there). Also, it seems to be structured as a bunch of unrelated articles, when I would like something a bit more coherent. Newegg's knowledge center seems to be just a collection of links to other sites. Reviews can be helpful but still not what I am currently looking for. I'll be glad to hear any other suggestions. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

How about Anandtech for reviews? You can often find good reviews on websites of PC magazines, like PC Pro, PC Format and others. Finally there are sites dedicated only to one category of hardware - like DPreview, which is dedicated to digital photography. --Ouro (blah blah) 10:54, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Again, I'm not looking for collections of articles. I am looking for a coherently structured guide. Let's take RAM for example - it should have a page which describes what RAM is, what types of RAM exist, what are the advantages of having greater sizes and FSB speeds of RAM, what are the possible compatibility issues, a few words about which are the respected brands, and so on. Then it might have links to pages with more in-depth information about specific RAM-related topics, but again, something which is a compilation of knowledge, not just some article that one guy wrote once about his impression from some new device. Of course, it should have this for any type of hardware. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's always this Wikipedia thing... they got lots of articles on RAM and stuff. --Ouro (blah blah) 15:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, as I have subtly mentioned, I am well aware of Wikipedia, but it is not a guide, thus its value for the stated purpose is diminished. A google search has produced this, which is more in the spirit of what I'm after, but I'm not sure it satisfies the "good" criterion, and it appears to be seriously outdated. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it's at the level you're looking for, but the information on this page and its subpages is current and (in my estimation) quite accurate. -- BenRG (talk) 19:22, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

This will be useful, thanks! -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

virtualPC, qemu, etc I can run *UNDER* windows 3.1

Is there any vm software I can run UNDER windows 3.1? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.4 (talk) 22:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

You'd probably be better off scrapping Windows and putting on some Linux variant and run a virtualizer under that (maybe one that was running 3.1, if you need 3.1). It's pretty unlikely that there's much of anything these days that could run under 3.1, much less an OS virtualizer. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 03:45, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Why would you even need a virtual machine for Windows 3.1? It runs in real mode anyway. --wj32 ^t/c 05:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually Windows 3.1 only ran in standard (286 protected) and 386-enhanced mode. Windows 3.0 was the last version to support real mode. -- BenRG (talk) 12:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

January 20

Blocking Texts

I have tried to talk to a customer service rep for this problem, but unfortunately I can't understand those from India that well. SO... I'm going to ask it here and maybe get a more easy to understand response. Someone, for the past 8 months, has been texting my phone "PLEASE CALL". I have called them and told them to stop but they outright refuse that they are the right person. The phone I have is this one. How can I block their texts? I really need to know. Thanks, 76.196.0.96 (talk) 01:34, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think you'll have to contact your cell phone provider to handle this. Do they have a storefront location where you could speak face-to-face with someone? They may be able to help. Otherwise, I'd say to attempt to escalate the call to a manager or higher level tech support person, and hope that you get someone with whom you can speak. Best, UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

wireless monitor

Is there any monitor that conects wirelessly with the computer? (like keyboards, mouses do).217.168.1.14 (talk) 02:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I know there is a USB monitor. Kushal^t 15:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Displaying a 1024*768 image at a 24-bit color depth and refresh rate of 50Hz requires a transfer rate of 1Gbit/s. Articles like Wireless USB mention transfer rates of up to 500Mbit/s. So it looks like it will be a while before it would even make sense to make a wireless monitor. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I was talking about a wired usb connection ... and that in itself is something new to me. Kushal^t 20:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

This is clear to me - I was responding to the OP. I gave "Wireless USB" as an example only because it seemed to be the best relevant match. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I am just curious. How did you come up with 1 GBit per second? Kushal^t 00:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

1024*768*24*50 Trieste (talk) 02:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Of course, this analysis comes with a few reservations:

1. I rounded the result.
2. I have assumed that every bit of information actually needs to be sent. If we compress the image (perhaps in a lossy way) before sending it and have the monitor uncompress it, we may be able to reduce this but I think it will be too heavy for the monitor.
3. I have only given the information-theoretical lower bound. We may actually need much higher transfer rates due to technical reasons.

-- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

This makes me scratch my head - check this out - while reading my response to your post, basically almost nothing moves on your screen - normally, right? - so maybe an algorithm could be figured out only to transfer information on relevant changing pixels, without having the need to send the Wikipedia logo umpty times per second. You'd kinda need a decoder (a hardware one, maybe?) on the receiving end to manage this. Then the required bandwidth goes down by one or two orders of magnitude. Of course, for videogames or movies it's exactly the opposite. What do you think? --Ouro (blah blah) 11:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Update: what if a part of the subsystem responsible for generating graphics was in the monitor - I'm wondering whether the bandwidth requirement could still be reduced due to part of the image being text, which can be drawn from information on font, colour, location on screen, and needn't be sent as image. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you're inventing the wireless X terminal! --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 11:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... kinda, maybe. Is this plausible, what I wrote? Seems sound to me. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Its totally plausible to me. I mean the sky may be the only limit in the technology but boy what a great limit it is! We have just a fixed spectrum to broadcast in and anything that helps squeeze and cut down the bits needed to be wirelessly transferred is a potential money making machine. Yes, text could be separately sent and so could stationery images ...

With today's technology, I would not play games on wireless monitor due to the enormous potential lag. So, the only remaining thing is watching videos ... maybe you could figure out some deal with Apple, Inc. for its Apple TV patents. lol Kushal^t 12:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Horror of horrors: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advise. If it was not clear to the reader, let me clarify that the above post is about a hypothetical situation and does not create an attorney-client relation. (Lest I get banned from the Wiki world). Kushal^t 12:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

For games, movies and graphic-intensive stuff that does not need top quality, the graphics could be compressed (lossly, heck, MPEG?) so they fit. Do we need to patent this somewhere? :) --Ouro (blah blah) 12:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course, it should all be possible, the only questions are the cost, the quality, the compatibility issues and the overall complexity. I don't think that with our current technology, any of this is justified for solving the relatively marginal problem of a cord between the computer and the monitor. In any case the problem with wires is when there're too many of them - if you eliminate them from the mouse, keyboard and (if possible) printer and speakers, having the power and monitor cables left isn't really a big deal (I'd love to see wireless power, though). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

They're already dabbling in that, though. I was kinda freaked out when I read that report on wireless electricity transfer by means of two resonating items-that-I-forgot-designations-for, last year there was something like this, not? --Ouro (blah blah) 17:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

EVE subscriptions

I am interested in the game EVE Online, though I am unable to pay for a subscription, due to me being a student. I know there is an option of paying for the subscription using ingame currency, and I am wondering how much time I would have to invest to be able to afford paying that way. How much virtual currency does the subscription cost? Being that I can't play for huge amounts of time during the week, would I be able to generate enough income to pull this off? —Akrabbim^talk 03:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

If I remember correctly from the short time I played (before I left due to skepticism regarding the developers' integrity), the exchange rate was around 10M isk for the equivalent of 1$. When you're just starting out you should be able to gain about 1M isk, the equivalent of 10 cents, per hour. This is really bad. Also, if you use all your in-game currency to pay for the subscription, you won't have any left to buy in-game stuff. Of course, if you've been playing for 5 years and you're the CEO of a mega-corporation you might be able to make more isk, but in your situation this is not really an option. If you are unable to work IRL to raise the necessary cash, you should forget about the game for now. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 10:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Localhost

According to my security history, there was an intrusion attempt on my computer by localhost (127.0.0.1). I've already figured out what localhost is, but what does an intrusion attempt by it mean? 69.40.255.101 (talk) 04:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

If you own computer is trying to intrude into your own computer... you can probably ignore it. 127.0.0.1 is your own computer. --wj32 ^t/c 05:22, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I know that Google desktop uses this loop. Kushal^t 14:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

What software recorded this log? Kushal^t 19:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I have Google desktop installed, so it might have something to do with that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.40.255.101 (talk) 00:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Password for folder

How is it possible to set a password on a folder or file, using Vista? --ChokinBako (talk) 05:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Vista Ultimate will do it, as I think will the Enterprise version. Apparently, you right click on the file or folder, click the Advanced button, and check off 'Encrypt Contents'. Otherwise, you may want to look at TrueCrypt. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't used Vista, but I think you're talking about NTFS encryption, which has been around since Windows 2000. I don't recommend using it unless you know what you're doing, since it has a lot of gotchas (detailed in the article). You're probably better off with TrueCrypt, which has a much simpler security model. -- BenRG (talk) 12:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

He didn't outright ask for 'encryption', so I assumed the level of security wasn't a huge concern. If it is, I'd always take TrueCrypt for sure. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

According to the lead in the above article, it appears that EFS is supported in all versions of MS Windows Vista. Can anyone confirm that? Kushal^t 14:33, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it is only available in Enterprise, Business and Ultimate editions, not Basic or Home Premium. [5] dbfirs 17:37, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I see the article has been updated to reflect this as well. Thank you once again. Kushal^t 19:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

flow chart

i wud like to have a help about how would a flow chart for payment of telephone bill would be like. my requirement is to develope a flow chart which wud help in studying a software developed to build a automatic bill payment of telephone. it will b for d company n what possible sections will be there its on you guys.. PLEASE HELP ME OUT ............ ITS URGENT!!!!!!!!! its my project

thank u —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aadish (talk • contribs) 08:14, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Languages to learn to get a job as a programmer

I am a electrical/electronics engineer with basic knowledge about computers. I want to take a job as a Computer engineer and I like to become a programmer. What are the languages I should learn to become a programmer? And what are the recommended text books on computer science and programming languages I should learn? (I don't want the name and author of text books but the name of the topics/subjects I should learn)-Thanks.

I assume you mean programming languages. It doesn't really matter what languages you learn because once you learn one well, the differences between languages end up being relatively small. That being said, C++ is probably your best bet if you want to be a professional programmer. If you learned that fairly well (which will take some time—it's not easy!), you'd have no problem transitioning to all sorts of other languages that might be needed (like Java or scripting languages like VB.NET or PHP). As for text books, if you are just beginning programming, the Art of Computing Programming volumes by Don Knuth are classic ways to begin thinking about programming though are not written for any particular language (they are very easy to follow and very readable—they're wonderful). Programming itself is learning how to think through code; the exact language you use only matters in so much as the particular implementation you are trying to enact. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 17:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Since when is VB.NET a scripting language? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I consider it closer to a scripting language than most. Anyway, it's a lot easier than C++, which was my only point. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It depends on the market you are aiming at. C and C++ will always be a good start for learning, as they are the base for newer object-oriented languages like Java and C#, and scripting languages like Perl, PHP and Python. Learning C virtually opens the full programming environment. However, you won't find many jobs as C or C++ programmer, mostly because companies are porting everything to framework-based languages like VB.NET and Java. For working, the best options are Java plus some framework knowledge like Apache Struts, or VB.NET. Don't waste your time with C#, for every job asking it there are six or seven asking for Java programmers. As for books, Core Java is a pretty good one, I used it for learning Java. For C, there are some classic books, but most times you can learn it well enough with web tutorials. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 18:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Please bear in mind that C and C++ are two very different beasts. For learning C, the Kernighan/Ritchie book (cover shown in the article) is a must IMHO. For learning C++, get some books on object-oriented design, and focus on the C++ standard library. Avoid explicit dynamic allocation in C++, except in constructors or well-behaved member functions. Remember that, in C++, resource acquisition is initialization. Following that advice will help you stay clear of the zillions of memory-leakage problems that riddle C code. And learn how to program exception-safely. The Exceptional C++ books by Herb Sutter are good in that respect. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Learn C++ to understand mainstream object orientation; learn Lisp to understand dynamic typing, multiple dispatch, generic functions, and automatic storage management; learn Prolog to understand logic programming; and learn Haskell to understand functional programming and lazy evaluation. Once you know those four you will find it straightforward to pick up any other language. Gdr 20:22, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Determining a microprocessor instruction set

Howdy, does anyone know the general procedure for determining a PC's processor instruction set (x86 or AMD64, for instance). Chances are this would be for someone running windows. I can reasonably make educated guesses based on the age of the computer, but is there a way to know for sure? Thanks, --TeaDrinker (talk) 20:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

CPUID. Especially the programs listed under CPUID#External links --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Outstanding! Thanks, that is exactly what I needed! --TeaDrinker (talk) 18:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

C++ struct

What's wrong with the following (besides lacking such advanced ideals as encapsulation)? It seems no different from the basic examples I see in tutorials, but won't compile in Bloodshed Dev-C++ ("expected constructor, destructor, or type conversion before '.' token").

 #include <cstdlib>

 #define         CT_UNTAPPEDLAND         0x0001;
 #define         CF_GREENMANA            0x00000001;

 struct Card //a card in the deck or hand, or a creature in play
 {
       public:
              char name[];
              int power;
              int toughness;
              int dirdamage;
              unsigned long flags;
              unsigned int type;
              unsigned int redcost;
              unsigned int greencost;
              unsigned int flexcost;
              unsigned int damagetaken;
              bool tapped;
              unsigned int fertiles; // used for lands that have Fertile Ground attached
 };

 Card c_for;
 c_for.name = "Forest";
 c_for.type = CT_UNTAPPEDLAND;
 c_for.flags = CF_GREENMANA;

NB: If I move the initialization of c_for inside main(), the error messages are different, though they make equally little sense to me.

Also, what would be the standard way to give the properties default values? NeonMerlin 20:33, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Your code has to be in a main, because those are executabe lines of code that do stuff, not just initialisers. With that done, you'll get a type error when assigning name[] - change its declaration to char * name; instead and it'll work (but be aware that you're doing pointer assignment not strcpy). If each Card has to have a mutable name (which I guess is what you really want) then you need to tell the compiler how big to make the name field (e.g. char [20] - structs have a fixed layout defined when the type is compiled) and strcpy the data in there. Oh, and you shouldn't have those semicolons in the #define lines.-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

As to initialisers, with name as char name[20];, the initialiser could be Card c_for = {"Forest", 20, 10, 3, 0xff003322L, 4, 0,0,0,0,true,0}; -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

If that fixed size for name makes you uncomfortable then declare name as char * name and to give it content you need to manually malloc() storage for it and then strcpy the data in yourself. Of course this in turn means you have to remember to free that data when you dispose of an instance of Card, and it's keeping tabs of internal details like this (and not burdening the caller with maintaining and tidying up these internal stuff) that methods, constructors, and destructors are for. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:29, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Or you can change char name[20] with [i]string name[/i], and then assign it the way you are assigning it. The string class has the kind of constructors you need. Regardless of that, they must be inside the main function or some other function, you cannot initialize outside function unless you are declaring and defining the variable in the same sentence (as Finlay McWalter did. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 01:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Batch zipping of .txt files in a folder

I have a folder with lots of text files, but lots of other files of different types. Is there any (free) software available that can zip each individual text file, from something.txt to something.zip, but leave the other files alone? Ideally it would also delete the text files after making their zipped copies. I have Windows. Thanks. 80.0.110.97 (talk) 23:25, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Can't you just add them using WinZip or Winrar or 7zip and view by file type when you're adding them? Otherwise you can do it the commandline way of something like zip *.txt (depends on what programme you use). --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you're using cmd.exe and Info-ZIP's zip utility, the following command line will compress each txt file in the current directory into an individual zip file with the same base name and then (if the compression succeeds) delete the original txt file:

for %i in (*.txt) do zip -m "%~ni.zip" "%i"

You might want to add other flags after -m (like -9 -X). You might also consider using gzip instead, since it's designed for this kind of file-by-file compression and uses the same compression algorithm as zip (though an incompatible file format). -- BenRG (talk) 09:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

January 21

Keep losing connectivity on wireless connection

I recently hooked up a wireless router in my home but I keep losing connectivity and am unable to regain it. It doesn't seem to be a problem with signal, as that still shows up strong. It's more like access to the Internet can't be transmitted past the router to my computer.

When I connect my computer to the router using an Ethernet cable, I do get connectivity. Furthermore, doing this does allow me to regain wireless connectivity. I am using WPA2 security if that might also have something to do with the problem. Does anyone know of any possible solutions? --71.103.86.9 (talk) 02:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[6] MrsBucket (talk) 13:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you running torrents? some routers are unable to cope with the type of traffic they generate and will cut out/lock-up. --Fredrick day (talk) 13:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not likely to be the solution to your problem, but I get occasional interference between my computer wireless link and my AV transmitter which re-broadcasts a TV signal to another room. I think they use similar frequencies. dbfirs 18:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

But interference is very likely for wireless networking. If you can improve your signal with a better location or antenna, or remove the source of interference you will improve the situation. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

What to do with laptop monitor?

I have a monitor that previously belonged to an Acer Aspire 3620 laptop. The laptop itself is toast, but I think the LCD should still be good. Is there a way to connect this monitor to another computer? - RedWordSmith (talk) 05:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are refering to the laptop's built-in monitor, than probably not. Sadly, It is notoriously difficult to repurpose laptop displays for general purpose use. The problem is that circuitry that on a desktop would be part of the monitor, is part of the computer's motherboard. For some panels controllers can be purchased (sorry, I don't have links handy.), but this would probably cost as much as a new monitor. APL (talk) 17:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Help with deleting photos

I need help please to delete hundreds of photos on my computer. I have only just recently learned how to burn them on a disc so wanted to free up my computer. All that is happening is that they are copying over and over when I try to delete and now I have hundreds making my computer even slower than ever. If you can help could you tell me step by step as I am not that good at this type of thing. Thanks Norma —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.16.22 (talk) 08:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

In general you highlight the file you wish to delete (click once with mouse), and follow your operating system's deletion process. PCs have a delete key. I am unsure about Macs.

Please follow that for a single file and see what the problem is, then come back here and report success or failure, and, if failure, please give full details of what happened. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 09:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

What I do is drag and drop the files to the trash icon in the dock. later, if you are sure that you can delete the files safely, you can right click the trash icon and delete it from there. Kushal^t 03:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Watching videos on iPod and Video formats

I'd like to know how to convert videos of some common formats, so that I can watch videos on iPod. iPod seems to support .mov and .qt only (or some more?), but even when I tried to put some .mov files, it didn't work. May I know if there is any specific converter in-built in iTunes or.. any other converters?

Specifically, I'd like to know how to convert .wmv and .rm files. --61.92.239.192 (talk) 10:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

just google for 'free ipod video converter', but read carefully, a lot of them are full of shit (demos only, etc. really read several of the links first, and find someone who says somethign positive about one (and make sure it's free) ). you might also add "windows" or "freeware" to your search. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.23 (talk) 10:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I've found some. Thx. As expected, there isn't really a direct way of converting stuff...--61.92.239.192 (talk) 13:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

is $336 too much for a 1200 lumen 800x600 projector USED?

There's a projector at a used technical shop across the street from me for $336. They say the price isn't negotiable, and in fact had been $396 until recently. It's a panasonic.

Would I get a good image from that? Is that good for watching DVD's on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.23 (talk) 11:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

It depends a lot on the model. And whether it's the sort designed for presentations or the sort designed for 'home theater'. However, one thing to remember is that it may need a new bulb soon, and those can cost up to four or five hundred dollars, depending on the type of bulb it takes. If you have a model number it would help. APL (talk) 17:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

projector specs for dvd-watching

what specs do i need to watch dvd in good quality at home wiht my family (3-4 members), like resolution, lumens, contrast ratio and anything else. thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.23 (talk) 11:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I have an Optoma HD70 and I'm quite happy with it. [7] It cost me about $1000, but replacing the bulb when it burns out is going to cost me over $300. APL (talk) 17:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Radiation in computers.

I need to know how much/if computers produce any radiation that could cause a disease. Having this argument with my friend. Thanks in advance. Dr Alcohol (talk) 16:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

CRT monitors produce small amounts of soft X-rays, but LCD displays don't. All electronic devices produce small amounts of electromagnetic radiation; the amount produced is unlikely to be harmful but some debate still is occurring; see Electromagnetic radiation and health. Computers with radios in them also contain point sources of EM radiation (the Wi-Fi antenna, the Bluetooth antenna, the wireless internet antenna, etc.). And finally, laptop computers that are actually placed in your lap may caused testicular heating if you are so equipped; this is certainly bad for your sperm count and may be bad for you in general.

But mostly, overuse of the computer rots your brain ;-) ...

Atlant (talk) 17:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

It's worth noting nuclear radiation specifically since that's what people think of. Computers don't put out any more nuclear radiation than any other hunk of metal and plastic. APL (talk) 17:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Or maybe even Ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation is a Bad Thing for computers -- it can cause bits to flip. Traces of radiation can destroy a microchip production line. So, it would figure that they wouldn't emit much of their own. So, EM (magnetic), RF (radio), and IR (heat) are all that's left, really. --Mdwyer (talk) 19:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

So how long would you need to sit in front of the computer to get radiation sickness? I don't care if it's absurd, just curious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr Alcohol (talk • contribs) 08:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Forever. Computers don't produce radiation. Ariel. (talk) 10:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Computers don't, but (as I said above) CRT monitors do: X-rays.

Atlant (talk) 12:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

This link [8] looks useful. It estimates that 3% of the average persons lifetime exposure to radiation comes from consumer products (CRT's: tv's, computer monitors). The bulk is from natural radiation on earth. It's too bad it doesn't give the data source, so you could adjust it for length of time in front of a CRT. 3% seems quite high to be BTW. Ariel. (talk) 13:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Not for a real Wikipedian ;-).

Atlant (talk) 15:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The same length of time you'd need to get radiation sickness from a bicycle. There are no nuclear reactions happening in your computer, it will not produce the ionizing radiation that causes radiation sickness. The only forms of 'radiation' your computer emits take the forms of Light, radio interference, and heat. None of those things will give you radiation sickness. (EDIT Oh, I'd forgotten about X-rays from CRTs. I was thinking of LCDs.)

Now, of course, nuclear decay happens in minuscule, barely even measurable, amounts in virtually all matter. If you had a bicycle or a stack of books (or a human being) that weighed the same as your computer you'd get roughly the same amount of nuclear radiation. I don't have a figure for this, though. Perhaps someone else can do the math and tell you how many years (probably millions) you'd have to be exposed to a computer to get a dose considered "dangerous".--APL (talk) 14:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

GOOGLE EARTH HATES ME!!!

hi,

everytime i open up google earth (the normal free one) it will work for about 5secs.....possible up to 20secs then a box with a white cross on red background will appear telling me that google earth is experienceing technical difficulties and needs to close....then asks if i want to send info about the problem to google bla bla bla.........then it lets me see the info on the problem.....it says that it is to do with, i think, docs. and settings\[user name]\local settings\temp\google earth [lots of random #s].dmp

help...............how do i make google earth live.............???

thanks, --84.70.111.146 (talk) 17:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

MORE INFO: it seems only to happen in Southern and Eastern parts of England, in particular Essex!!!!!!!! strange!!!--84.70.111.146 (talk) 18:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Try switching from D3D/DirectX to OpenGL mode, or the other way around. That might help. Also, if you are running a dual-core AMD processor, consider getting a processor driver update. This fixes some strange timing problems. --Mdwyer (talk) 19:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Non Destrucitve Partitioning

(I'm using a Mac.) I have an external 200gb hard rive with 3 partitions:

/dev/disk2

  #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
  0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *186.3 Gi   disk2
  1:                  Apple_HFS Time Machine            90.1 Gi    disk2s1
  2:                 DOS_FAT_32 VIDEOS                  30.0 Gi    disk2s2
  3:                  Apple_HFS Data                    66.2 Gi    disk2s3

I'd like to remove the 'Data' partition and resize the 'VIDEOS' partition to fill up the empty space. Is their anyway to do this without losing my Time Maching partition?--Ryan (talk) 19:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If they are laid out as it's shown I don't see why it cannot be done. Try use gparted from a Linux LiveCD to losslessly resize it. --antilived^{T | C | G} 20:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Gparted works wonders and is super easy to use. It makes partitioning totally non-scary. Give it a shot. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I used an Ubuntu liveCD, it worked great. No errors, everything looks clean. No errors yet, and everything md5s the same. Thanks everyone!--Ryan (talk) 23:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

DVD burner for old laptop

I have an old laptop and want to buy a DVD burner for it. How do I know which one is going to fit or are them all the same?217.168.3.246 (talk) 19:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

since space in a laptop is at a premium, you normally cannot get an internal drive, uless you buy from the laptop manufacturer. You will get better luck with a USB connected burner. Hopefully your laptop has a USB 2 port. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure, but all laptop optical drives i have seen, have had the same size and same type of connector. Such form factor DVD burner might be 2-3 times more expensive than 5.25'' DVD burner used in desktop computers. -Yyy (talk) 10:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Questions posted on 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st?

Why can I only see questions posted up to the 17th., despite doing a CRTL F5 refresh? Whats haoppened to later questions, including my own? I had the same problem yesterday. Thanks 80.0.97.32 (talk) 21:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Now after posting this question, they suddenly appear. Why? 80.0.97.32 (talk) 21:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

JavaScript

I was trying to get a piece of code to replace the background of a page with a local image, but I only know how to change the colour of the background. So far I've got

javascript:var nuStyle=document.createElement('link');nuStyle.rel='stylesheet';nuStyle.href='data:text/css,* {background:'C:\Documents and Settings\family\Desktop\Image'; color:#FFF !important} :link {color:#00F !important} :visited {color:#93C !important}';void(document.documentElement.childNodes[0].appendChild(nuStyle));

With Documents and Settings, I've checked out _'s but they didn't change anything. There aren't any double quotes to conflict with the a href tags, so what am I doing wrong? Yamakiri ^T_C § 01-21-2008 • 21:45:11

I might be wrong but have you tried linking to its filename with the file:// protocol? That's more standard for local files than just using a regular command line. Also, couldn't you just do:

document.body.style.backgroundImage = "url('file://path')";

That would seem easier to me than the way you are doing it (though I haven't tested it). --Panoptik (talk) 00:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Firefox doesn't like it... I tried that alone and coupled with the other code. Besides, I'm sure that (excluding the background part) that's the only way to do it. Yamakiri ^T_C § 01-22-2008 • 00:55:33

It works for me in Firefox. I think the problem is your link needs to be of the file:/// sort. How to get the right link is easy: open up the local image within Firefox, and look at how it handles it in the command line. I run OS X so mine command line will look different from yours, but mine is along the lines of: file:///Users/myusername/Desktop/myimage.jpg.

Now note that you can't run this code before the BODY has started to load! That means you either 1. put it in the body itself somewhere, or 2. have to make it run in the onload property of the BODY.

I don't see why you'd need to do anything the way you are doing it up above. Why create a link to a non-existant stylesheet full of values when you can just directly modify the stylesheet values with javascript? --24.147.69.31 (talk) 14:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Question about scripts

Just in the last few days I have been having this problem: When I click Preview on particular articles, the browser grows pale, then I get an error message saying something like "This script has stopped working. Do you want to terminate?" The only solution is to close that page. That just happened on the article Bas-relief to me repeatedly - each time because I had made an error in formating an image I was trying to put on that page. However, it has happened several times today.

I am using Firefox/2.0.0.11 with Greasemonkey. Do you know what is causing this? Many pages, even if I make a mistake, this does not happen. And it happens when I am not trying to put an image on the page. What script is running on Preview? Thanks, Mattisse 22:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

After an experience on an off-wiki site, I think it is Greasemonkey. But I have had Greasemonkey for a while with no problems. Mattisse 22:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I use the same including Greasemonkey, and don't have any problem. Maybe you could try temporarily clearing your monobook.js. The only other thing I could think of would be re-installing FireFox. Do you have a problem seeing it in IE? If it's just Show Preview, we've got a separate monobook script for Quick Preview that's different.Yamakiri ^T_C § 01-21-2008 • 22:18:35

I never use IE. But I just talked to someone on Wikipedia who says he is having the same problem, and he thinks it is a wikipedia server problem. It has been slow lately. If it persists I guess I will have to reinstall. Thanks, Mattisse 22:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

keyboard vs. Tablet pc

What is faster, writing on a keyboard or on a Tablet pc?217.168.3.246 (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Keyboard. On average keyboards are twice as fast as writing, unless you don't use Ten Finger Touch Typing. 70.186.217.199 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 23:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If you know how to type, a keyboard is much faster. Even when doing mathematics, I use a keyboard and formula markup language instead of writing. It takes far too long to write. This holds true for many languages and in some even more-so than English. In Mandarin, the type-ahead features allow you to select whole phrases with relatively few key presses. The drawback is that children who grow up only typing in China have had trouble writing without a magical write-ahead feature. This is really no different than American children who can't spell anything with more than four letters due to knowing only texting. -- kainaw™ 03:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

January 22

Microsoft Outlook 2003

Recently when I try to send an email to a group I get an error message eg "An internal support function returned an error". I can send emails to individuals but not to a group. Any help would be appreciated.220.238.174.40 (talk) 03:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

DRM software

Can anyone recommend some good DRM software for protecting PDF files, preferably free?--Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 12:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Protecting them from what? --Sean 14:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The best you can get is Adobe's own PDF creating software's DRM capabilities and even that can be circumvented within seconds if you know how to do it (I routinely remove passwords from DRMed PDFs using ColorSync Utility, a program bundled with OS X that has rudimentary PDF reading and re-saving ability but, oops!, Apple forgot to make recognize DRM flags). DRM (technical means) is not a good way to enforce copyright. Threat of lawsuit (social, economic means) is a better way. PDF's DRM capabilities are just little flags inside the files that have to be honored by the reading programs themselves -- if a program doesn't honor it, either by accident or choice, then all your efforts at trying to restrict people using the data have gone to waste. In my experience the DRM is nothing but frustrating — why shouldn't I be able to copy something if I want to quote from it? Why shouldn't I be able to print something so I don't have to just view it on the screen? Why shouldn't I be able to save something to look at later? I mean, that's pretty much the range of what you are talking about here. If you are worried about someone totally plagiarizing your work or mass producing it, you can't stop them from doing that, not with any technical means. If I had real motivation to do it (which, as a scholar who maintains large stores of notes and quotes and dislikes all forms of DRM, I occasionally have), at the very least I could just re-type the whole thing or take screenshots of it, as I usually do with things like Google Books or Amazon's "Search This Book" (there are even ways to grab their page views, but since the resolution is no better than a screenshot I usually just opt with those as it is easier). Anyway, long story short: consider your motivations for DRMing, consider alternative approaches to get to them. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 14:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I explain the wastefulness of DRMs to the doctors that want to use them here with this analogy: A DRM on a file is like putting a patients printed records in a briefcase, locking it, and taping the key to the side of the briefcase with a note that says "Do not use this key unless you are allowed to do so." The only people who cannot open the briefcase are those who don't know to look for the key. -- kainaw™ 14:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Network related activities

I want to know that

1- Network related activities list 2- Network related activities categorization/grouping

Network = computer network. Activities = Whom user perform on internet and intranet (LAN & WAN). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aleyali (talk • contribs) 15:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi -- I'm not sure I understand what it is you are asking about. I don't see a question there. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 16:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Checking unreplied emails in GMail

In GMail, can one create a search string using the advanced boolean operators to display sent emails that have not been replied to?

--Jcmaco (talk) 20:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)