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January 30

MS power point 2007

I am a beginner with computers, any tips or links how to get started with ms power point 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhinav52rr (talk • contribs) 04:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Go to Google and do a search for powerpoint 2007 lessons.-- kainaw™ 13:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Windows My Music song attributions

In the "My Music" folder on Windows XP, how does one change the band name on a song? Because for some reason one of my songs is listed as by a band it isn't, and it's weird because you can change the names of songs but apparently not the band. Vitriol (talk) 13:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

If I recall correctly you right click on the file, click properties, click the second tab, click Advanced and put the band name in the Artist field. TheGreatZorko (talk) 14:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Age of Empires 3: Asian Dynasties

When I try to load the game it says the handle is invalid. What does this mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 14:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

You could try re-installing the game. A handle is usually a 'user name'... perhaps it's something to do with that? On the off chance that the game is pirated - it's bound to have bugs etc. in it? Scarian^{Call me Pat} 15:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see anything that specifically mentions the "invalid handle" error, but this page is the Microsoft's Solution Center for AoE III. --LarryMac | Talk 16:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The "handle" referred to in the error message may be a reference. If so, the error was caused by a scenario where some object was created, a reference was made to it, the original object was deleted, and then the reference was used but was no longer valid. That is, the game is trying to use something that is missing. The original object could be lots of things, so the error message by itself doesn't provide much help as to what went wrong. --Bavi H (talk) 05:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Converting a series of JPG pictures to MPEG

Is there a way to have a folder of say dozens of JPG pictures and make a slide show with a stop at each picture of 5 seconds and convert this whole thing into a MPEG video movie? Could this then be uploaded to YouTube (within their limits) to show to others (public or private).--Doug ^talk 15:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

If you have Windows XP (or maybe Vista?), the Windows Movie Maker can do this. --LarryMac | Talk 15:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Great! I have a computer that is about a year old using Windows XP. It also has a DVD burner. However I do not see a version of Windows Movie Maker already there. Should I then download Movie Maker 2.0? Is it then an upgrade to Windows XP (free)? How long would it take to download using AOL dial-up? With this new software then could I burn DVD's that could be watched on a regular television DVD player?--Doug ^talk 16:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

According to the Microsoft pages, MovieMaker was included in XP service pack 2. If your computer is only a year old, it should be running SP2. If for some reason you're not on SP2, you really should invest the download time and/or request an update CD from Microsoft. On the computer I'm using right now, WMM shows up on the Start/All Programs list. I am pretty sure you can create DVDs from WMM, but personally, I use other software for that. You might also be interested in Photo Story, which is a free download from Microsoft, specifically made to do slide shows. The download page indicated 13 minutes for 56K dial-up. --LarryMac | Talk 16:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Great! Thanks, again!! Found it. It says WMM is version 2.1.4026.0 which probably will do this slide show MPEG thing I want to do - as soon as I learn how to do it. I will also download that Photo Story software, as that also sounds like it will do the trick. On the DVD thing, what software do you use and does it cost much? I will also try to figure out if WMM will do approximately the same thing (with no cost - I'm cheap!). It then looks like I already have this Service Pack 2 installed, doesn't it?--Doug ^talk 16:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, things seem to be working out. I have downloaded Photo Story. Looks like a great program also. I am having pretty good luck in doing exactly what I wanted to do - make slide shows into videos that can be used in You Tube. It looks like it saves the video in WMV format, which is something You Tube accepts. I noticed perhaps Photo Story videos are smaller sizes. Am I right on this assumption or maybe I just haven't played with it long enough to confirm this. Don't see where either program saves in a format acceptable to play in a DVD player for television. What format is this? Do you know if either of these programs will do it? What program do you recommend for this? Can the WMV videos I made be converted then into this format for playing onto a television with a DVD player?--Doug ^talk 20:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

You've gone past my knowlege base, Doug. In answer to your previous question, I've been using a program called Sonic MyDVD for writing DVDs, which I don't do very often. It gets the job done, and works with my TiVo files (damning with faint praise . . . ). This page at Microsoft says that you can get a Sonic "Add-In" for Photo Story that will allow you to create DVDs. This MovieMaker page talks about saving WMM files to DVD, but specifically mentions that you need DVD burning software. Their example uses Roxio MyDVD, which is actually a newer version of the Sonic program I use, since Sonic bought Roxio, or vice-versa or something. Basically, I'd say, just poke around at those Microsoft sites; as much as I hate MS, it looks like there is decent information and some good tutorials scattered around. --LarryMac | Talk 20:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Bingo! I have Sonic on my computer and looking it over it looks like I can also make a "video slide show" here also. Actually I believe I can make several in a "Project" since there is 4.7 GB of space per DVD. Those were most useful answers and I do believe I am on my way on these projects. Thanks.--Doug ^talk 22:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

No picture shown from Samsung SyncMaster 913N monitor on nVidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card

I have two graphics cards in my computer: an nVidia GeForce 6100 nForce 430 built into the motherboard, and an nVidia GeForce 8600 GT on a PCI-E bus. The motherboard has one VGA and one DVI connector, the GeForce 8600 GT has two DVI connectors. My Samsung SyncMaster 913N monitor has only a VGA connector. If I plug the monitor into any of the DVI connectors using a VGA-DVI adapter, I get no picture. If I plug it into the VGA connector, I get a picture from the GeForce 6100 nForce 430. Fedora 8 Linux recognises both graphics cards but only attaches an X screen (number 0) to the GeForce 6100 nForce 430. Why am I not getting a picture from the GeForce 8600 GT? It can't be broken, because otherwise Linux wouldn't have recognised it. Is my monitor incompatible with it? JIP | Talk 19:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Might be that the input is DVI-D and only supports a digital signal (see DVI)87.102.33.230 (talk) 07:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd very much doubt Nvidia are building graphics cards that only take digital DVI anymore. Have you tried both ports on the graphics card? Have you tried a different monitor? TheGreatZorko (talk) 09:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It's the monitor that would only have dvi-d...87.102.33.230 (talk) 10:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

according to the web GeForce 8600 GT has dvi-i meaning it should have vga output.

Looks like your linux has found the cards - but has not turned them (the the GeForce 8600 GT) on...

Ask a linux expert about doing this..87.102.33.230 (talk) 10:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You will need to change a setting in the BIOS which selects where to try finding the graphics card first. It's currently set on the onboard graphics so only the onboard graphics is available, once you switch it to PCI-E your 8600GT should work fine. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I did find a setting in the BIOS to select the preferred video device. This launched me to one hell of troubles - gdm would only work in single user mode, not in normal mode, and I had no idea how to make it work in normal mode. I even tried to reinstall Fedora 8 Linux (it would have been safe, as all my personal stuff is on a separate partition), but I somehow ended up in a state where the computer would not boot up a Linux kernel, no matter where it was loaded from. I reset my BIOS and now everything is working, even when the monitor is connected to the nVidia GeForce 8600 GT card. Do I need a monitor with a DVI plug instead of a VGA one to take full advantage of the card? JIP | Talk 21:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't need to use DVI at all. You're problem is strange to say the least, as linux shouldn't really care what it's outputting to. Have you tried asking you're question on the official forums for your linux distro? TheGreatZorko (talk) 08:51, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The GeForce 8600 GT card only has DVI connectors, no VGA. I have posted the question to the Fedora Forum but have received no answer. JIP | Talk 15:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

MSN Live Messenger

hello,

basically i had live messenger....then removed it form my computer (via control panel > add/remove programs).....but now im trying to get it again....basically i downloaded it from the MS website...and now i need to install it.....BUT when i open 'Windows Live Installer' it says it couldn't install 'Messenger' (although it managed the toolbar).......help!...what can i do to make it live?

--81.79.201.21 (talk) 20:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can always use alternative programs such as Pidgin or Miranda IM. They lack such functions as voice chat, but they're free, open-source and support many protocols (MSN/Live, AIM, ICQ, IRC, Jabber/XMPP/Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, QQ) --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 19:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

can you see the messenger application on the add/remove programs list? If no, what error message do you get when you try to install Messenger? Kushal^t 21:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Cash Box

Does anyone use Cash box [1] on a mac os x? I want to try it (and probably start a stub on it too but I wanted to have someone's opinion who is already using it. Kushal^t 20:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, no. I have not forgotten that we have WP:NN. I am not sure how notable cash box is. Kushal^t 12:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia from the MS Office Research task pane?

Hi,

how can I add Wikipedia to the MS Office Research feature so that I can search Wikipedia directly from the Research task pane?

thanks. AJUK ^Talk!! 20:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

January 31

Freeware Cartoon makers

Does anyone know of some simple easy to use freeware cartoon makers? Possibly that would allow me to put it on youtube? --Gary123 (talk) 00:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are talking about 3D animation projects, Blender (software) will blend it! Kushal^t 00:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Visit the english Wikibooks for free books to jumpstart your animation career! Click here to begin ... Kushal^t 00:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you mean cel-based cartoon art, I'm not sure if there is any freeware way to do it that is simple and easy. A non-freeware approach would use Adobe Flash. Looking through Category:Animation software (which I found by looking at what categories Flash was in), Express Animator seems to have a free two-week trial, and KoolMoves has some sort of shareware version too. I've never tried it, but Synfig seems to be totally free, though from its Wikipedia page it seems to suffer a number of open-source plagues (not enough developers, no attention given to binaries, etc.). The free pickings seem pretty slim. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 02:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Default font for notepad in vista

What is the default font in vista's notepad on installation? Wiki seems to imply that it's (still?) lucida console or lucida sans, whereas some other sites seem to imply consolas, but neither of those looks quite right... is it just me?? 210.138.109.72 (talk) 01:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You know that you can always change it, right? Kushal^t 02:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Anecdotal evidence: it's definitely lucida console. I just logged into an unused account and checked the font. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

OK thanks. I know it can be changed... I'm just the kind of guy who can't sleep at night when I've changed the settings but can't simply reset them to the defaults > <210.138.109.72 (talk) 09:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally speaking, I very much like Arial Narrow. Kushal^t 12:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia freezes Internet Explorer

Strangely, I can browse/edit wikipedia with no problems when I am not logged in. As soon as I try to Login on my user name, wikipedia will freeze my browser, every time. This has been going on for several months. Any ideas?? 69.124.194.70 (talk) 01:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I know this may be cynical and not really helpful, but it's not Wikipedia that is freezing IE, it's the other way around. 210.138.109.72 (talk) 01:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you have access to another computer/web browser, can you try logging in from that? Please let us know. Kushal^t 02:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I tried intasalling FireFox, and here I am. However, if I experience any crashes I will come back and report it. MrPrada (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Had this problem also. Go into task manager and look for a process called "ctfmon.exe" and kill it (right click - end task). Should solve your woes. 195.194.74.154 (talk) 15:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Nope, that didn't do it. 69.124.194.70 (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Get Firefox AJUK ^Talk!! 00:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I have had the same problem on my work computer and that is where I would like to use wiki the most. I hear what you're saying about firefox, I use it at home however, our corporate IT department doesn't allow it at work. So... I am stuck. I can hit any other web site and I've hit thousands without trouble. If I go to Wikipedia.org however, the browser will just sit unusable with a blank screen for several minutes. Once it's loaded it's fine. I have just stopped using wikipedia.org but it's a shame because I believe in it's value. Anyway, thought I'd add to this thread.. thanks.

Formulas

Why when I type $\hbar =$Dirac's constant$={\frac {h}{2\pi }}$ it is in big print but when I type $c=$ speed of light it comes out in little letters? and how could I make the latter big? Zrs 12 (talk) 03:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It is your web browser, not the math module. In the first example, PHP is turning the formula into an image on the fly and sending the image to you. So, you get the font size used by PHP on the Wikipedia server. In the second, there is no need to use an image, so it is just sent as code-style text (usually fixed-width). Apparently, your web browser is using a small font for fixed-width text. -- kainaw™ 03:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you're logged in to wikipedia, the "preferences" page has a few choices for math rendering which will affect the way those things look. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 04:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you add \,\! to the formula, it will force it to render as an image for all users, no matter their preferences. For example : $c\;\!$. You can also use \textrm to write text inside a formula, for example: $\hbar ={\textrm {Dirac's\ constant}}={\frac {h}{2\pi }}$. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Zrs 12 (talk) 13:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

How do you make a WYSIWYG Editor for websites?

I want to make a WYSIWYG Text Editor (to replace <textarea>) but I can't find any information on how to do it. Thanks, 86.41.136.50 (talk) 13:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Um, it's a huge amount of work to write your own text editor from scratch. Perhaps you mean, "Is there some sort of WYSIWYG Text Editor applet that I can just drop into my website?" I don't know the answer but I'm pretty sure WordPress has something like that inside it, so you could take a look at their source code, I guess. But you'd have to have a pretty good understanding of both Javascript and PHP to make something like that work. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 14:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

No, I need to make one myself because 1. I want to learn how to do it, and 2. none of the WYSIWYG editors I found do what I need them to do. For example, I make hyperlinks using a <link> tag (which gets converted to <a> tag when you view the page), obviously no WYSIWYG Editor available can handle that. I have looked at the source code for a simple one, but it is so long and complex I don't know where to start. What I need is some info on how they are made. Thanks, 86.41.136.50 (talk) 14:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Check out the source and developer docs for WikED. --Sean 14:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, first you need to spend a few years to learn how to program. Then spend next 10 years working full time coding the WYSIWYG editor. Or hire a few programmers, then you may be able to finish the task in just 4 to 5 years. Creating software at that level of complexity typically requires at least 10 to 20 man-years of work. - PauliKL (talk) 23:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Pushy web pages

Is there a way to keep Safari from allowing web pages to push themselves to the front when they load? I normally have several tabs open at once and it's annoying to me that various sites feel the need to show themselves once they start loading. Right after web pages with sound, this is the most annoying thing in the way of web page design. Dismas|^(talk) 14:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Just FYI, Firefox can do this, under Preferences => Content => Javascript => "[] Allow raising or lowering page". --Sean 18:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hard drive max

What is the theoretical maximum size a hard drive can be? 195.194.74.154 (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, with memory becoming cheaper and with flash drives becoming bigger, I'd assume that the "limit" would be huge... Possibly many terabytes in size? I don't have a definitive answer, but would assume that there is no limit as memory is so easy to expand nowadays. Scarian^{Call me Pat} 15:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of variables that would need to be defined before attempting to answer that. What form factor? 2.5" "notebook" size? 3.5" "desktop" size. IBM mainframe DASD? How many platters? Strictly within the personal computer universe, there might be BIOS and operating system limitations, which are artificial, but then again, there's no use in having a gigantic drive if you can't access all of it. So, my answer is Big. Really really big. Like space. --LarryMac | Talk 16:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There used to be a limit of 137 GB. The software couldn't handle anything bigger than that, but that was 10 years ago when hard drives were in the 20 - 40 GB range. When XP got Service Pack 2 (or was it 1?), it corrected that problem that allowed single drive partitions to be greater than 137 GB. Useight (talk) 16:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the biggest, standard/cheapest commercial one (available to the average Joe) I've heard of is around 320gb... but, yeah, they can definitely/will definitely get bigger. Much bigger. Scarian^{Call me Pat} 16:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

When you throw in terms like "standard" and "cheapest" it muddies up the waters a bit, and strays away from the original question; however there are terabyte+ drives available at most large electronics stores. --LarryMac | Talk 17:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Formats have limitations. FAT32 has them. even ext3 has limitations (just outrageously HUGE). But we are not talking about format limitations, are we?

I read in Scientific American quite a while ago that they went from recording data directly on the platters to a form somewhat perpendicular to the platters. SciAm said this bumps up the "size" or capacity of the hard disks considerably. Kushal^t 17:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they have perpendicular recording now, which is what finally allowed standard 3.5" internal drives to increase up to the current 1TB. But a drive of that size will cost $300 to $400, depending on the brand. Useight (talk) 17:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In Currys in the UK i bought a 500gb HD for £90...so about $180.....which i thought was pretty cheap...(its a 'SUMO' one thats all i know) :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.76.110 (talk) 18:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

As with most technology, if you don't purchase the absolute best, in this case 1TB, and go down a notch or two, there will be significant savings; my semi-recently purchased 750GB cost $170 (but it's an external USB drive). You can still get it for the same price here. Useight (talk) 18:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

1) 1TB is not the "best", there are plenty of larger drives already available (albeit with large prices). 2) You got 3/4 the capacity from the guy above you, for only a $10 savings, that's not significant. 3) As with most electronics and computer gear, wait a week, prices will change. --LarryMac | Talk 19:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The guy above got 500GB. No-one's yet mentioned less than $300 for 1TB. Algebraist 19:37, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I could swear that used to say 1TB from Currys, although the page history is clear. My bad. However, on the newegg page I linked, there's a 1TB Western Digital drive for $282, which I know is pretty close to $300, but if you poke around that site there's an internal 1TB drive for $255. Anyway, this is way off-topic from the original question regarding the theoretical maximum size of a hard drive. Which I'll once again say is "big. really big." --LarryMac | Talk 19:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Theoretical size of a hard drive is limitless, because you could (in theory), just make the platters larger, which would raise the capacity.techguyss (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I assume we're talking about 3.5" drives. I guess they do have larger drives than 1TB, I thought all the 1.5TB and 2TB were actually multiple drives inside a single enclosure. Useight (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Extracting part of movie file

What free (speech) software for Linux command line is there that would allow me to extract individual frames of a portion of a movie file (Quicktime) into PNG images? Mplayer seems to be useless for this [2]. Thank you! —Bromskloss (talk) 16:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Just extract them all and delete the ones you don't want.. --:D\=< (talk) 16:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that would use too much disk space and computing time. The size of the movie file is 170 GiB. —Bromskloss (talk) 17:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well you can split it first using transcode. --Kjoonlee 18:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I have never gotten it to compile (lacking root access). :-( Anyway, I'm weary that it might perform just as badly as ffmpeg, on which it relies (like Mplayer, mentioned above). I did get ffmpeg to compile, but just as described in the Mplayer link, it doesn't output the frames I want! It seems it can't be trusted. —Bromskloss (talk) 18:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

biggest memory

hi,

basically what computer/hard drive etc has the biggest memory in the world and where is it? (in gb please ;))--81.79.76.110 (talk) 18:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You say hard drive, but you also say memory, which refers to RAM. Which are you actually asking about? Useight (talk) 18:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

What I've found so far, supercomputers are normally measured by teraflops and the number of processors it has, as opposed to its hard drive capacity or RAM. I'll keep looking. Useight (talk) 18:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

A problem is that you can always make a bigger storage facility by giving your supercomputer more hard drives. I don't know how big the biggest single hard drive is, but the biggest digitised data stores seem to be of the order of a few petabytes (see article for a partial list). A petabyte is either a million gigabytes or 2^20 gigabytes depending on who you ask. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Algebraist (talk • contribs) 18:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

btw, see question 'Hard drive max' above: apparently 1TB (=1000 or 1024 GB) drives are readily available. Algebraist 18:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

i meant what is the biggest memory storage 'place' in the world, eg i have a 40gb laptop/300gb external HD...but what the biggest in the world, im guessing a supercomputer of some sort. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.76.110 (talk) 19:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In that case see my answer above. The largest listed there is 15PB; the true largest probably isn't a whole lot bigger. Algebraist 19:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

When did Brussel change their telephon numbers from 6 figures to 7

Wel, anybody who knows when they changed the amount of figures? Very thankful for answer! Al the best, Charlie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.247.50.178 (talk) 19:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me I put this question in the wrong forum - but with all you smart computer people maby someone of you know where to find the answer........................ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.247.50.178 (talk) 19:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

1. No bold text here, please.
2. This is not a forum.
3. Maybe they just ran out of phone #s?

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 19:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Also 4. Please do not crosspost questions. They obviously ran out of numbers - Poland moved from 6 to 7 digits a few years ago just because of this - but the OP asked for a date - which I cannot provide. --Ouro (blah blah) 21:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Appears to be 14 September 1996: See [3] and [4], about a third down the page (search for "Belgium"). x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. If the first link contains anything relevant to changes within Belgium I can't find it, while the second one clearly says that: "a similar move has already been made" in Brussels. So whatever the right answer is, it must be earlier than July 1996. --Anonymous, 00:52 UTC, February 8, 2008.

Advice on Information Technology Degree and employment opportunities it may offer in France

Hello,

I'm a 24 year old Irishman living in France and I'm seriously considering taking the following course from Oscail, Dublin City University's distance learning programme.

http://www.oscail.ie/it.php

I have some questions that I hope someone can answer for me.

I decided to take this course because I have no third level education at the moment and it has been difficult to find work in France . I have an interest in computers, Internet and generally in technology. But what jobs would this qualification allow me to actually do?

Also what would be the French equivalent of this course or the qualification it offers?

Does anyone know the types of jobs that would be available in France if I was to finish this course with the diploma and if I was to finish with the BS?

Thanks for any help, David —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.7.72.178 (talk) 20:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Say, if you understand French, perhaps turn to the French Reference Desk on the French Wikipedia, located here. I'd say you could be a system administrator or something, but ask them, maybe? --Ouro (blah blah) 13:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Slideshow software for very large number of files

Hi, Wikipedians :)

I'm having some software trouble, and was hoping someone could advise me. I'm trying to set up a slideshow of random images from an extremely large collection (tens of thousands. Potentially eventually hundreds of thousands)

I had been using Irfanview for this, but the problem is when adding images it uses a listbox control to hold the filenames. As the OS I'm using is Windows 98 (I know, I know), the listbox, and therefore the slideshow, is limited to around 32,767 entries, and I can't find any software that will do a better job.

It seems the ideal thing would be some kind of slideshow program that will just read a random line from a very large text file of image names and display it, thus not having to hold the entire list in memory.. but I can't find anything to do that (I'd write my own too, but I'm having a hell of a time getting smooth image resizing in Delphi)

So.. basically, any ideas for a slideshow program on Win 98 with the ability to display from an unlimited collection of images?

Also, I know that the practicalities of putting together such a slideshow can be argued, especially that it'd probably take years to see all the images, but this is a part of a larger project I'm working on.. there are reasons to my madness :)

Any help greatly appreciated. --Monorail Cat (talk) 22:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Irfanview has command line options to start a slideshow from a folder or a text file listing, see Irfanview's help for details. I tested it and it uses the options selected in the Slideshow dialog box, so you can select the random ordering there. I'm unable to test if this will alleviate the limit or not.

If that doesn't work, maybe you could make a program to make sub-slideshows. For example, it could create a random list of 100 images, send that to Irfanview as a slideshow, wait for it to finish, then repeat. The disadvantage is there might be a noticable change when one slideshow finishes and the next begins. --Bavi H (talk) 07:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Linux on SONY VAIO VGN-NR21M/S

Do you have any experience with any Linux distro running on notebook SONY VAIO VGN-NR21M/S? Thanks for info. --147.229.206.243 (talk) 23:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't but can give you a pointer - rather than asking here, turn to a Linux support forum for any particular Linux distribution you favour and ask there. I personally wouldn't touch a sony laptop, and have asked a similar question a few months ago, and one of the top suggestions for Linux-friendly laptops were IBM/Lenovo. Hope this helps a bit. --Ouro (blah blah) 12:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Just some peripheral data - I have successfully booted an Ubuntu Live CD on my Sony S150, although I did not do an extensive checking of capabilities. But live CDs are easy to get or download for Ubuntu and other distros, so why not just give it a try? --LarryMac | Talk 14:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

February 1

3.5 floppy

i have successfully saved articles from the wikipedia online reference and now i can't seem to find a way to recall the information from the disk. it shows up on the "my computer" element of the desk top, but i havn't found a way to see it in its entirety. lookin for characters on tool bars or icons in the desk top.63.215.29.80 (talk) 00:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

After seeing your questions on the Help Desk and then here, I can only assume that you put a floppy disk in your drive, told AOL to save the page on the floppy, and now you can't find it in the My Computer window. There are many possible problems. First, are you certain that you saved it on the floppy? If you don't select a place to save, AOL likes to put things in some weird place called a file cabinet or something similar. Technically, it is not on your computer at all. It is on AOL's server. Assuming you actually saved it to your computer, did you specifically select the floppy drive? It should be marked as either an A: or B; drive. If not, it is most likely saved either on your Desktop or in your My Documents directory. Assuming you did save it on the floppy without problems, is the floppy any good? Is the drive any good? Floppies are not dependable anymore because they are not in high use. About 5 years ago, I was involved in purchasing floppies for the University I worked at. We purchased them in lots of 10,000. A third of them were completely unusable right out of the box. Another third would fail after a little use. The floppy drives were no better. Half the computers on campus had bad floppy drives. The quality surely has gone down since then. So, let's assume you saved it on the floppy and the floppy works. Is the floppy still in your floppy drive? If not, there is no way your computer will be able to pull up the file. If it is in your drive, what do you see when you click on My Computer and then the A: drive? You should see the file. If you double-click on it, Internet Explorer will attempt to open it and show it to you. It is very likely that it will look funny because it probably didn't save any of the images or style sheets. But, the content of the page should eb visible. If none of that has anything to do with your problem, please explain in detail what the issue is. -- kainaw™ 04:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Code Question

Could someone please give me the code for the "not equal" sign? (i.e. "=" with a mark through it) Zrs 12 (talk) 01:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Still working on the code, but here's one: ≠ Useight (talk) 02:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, in Unicode it's 2260, and in programming languages it's often referred to as <> or !=, but I doubt any of those helped. Useight (talk) 02:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

U+2260 in hex equals 8800 in decimal, you could use &#8800; in HTML. List of XML and HTML character entity references shows &ne; also. And Help:Math leads me to \neq for TeX. Any of that helping? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 02:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

No, thanks though. I need the LaTeX code for it to type a mathematical formula with it here on Wikipedia and the symbol at the bottom of the screen (≠) gives me an error message when I try to use it. Zrs 12 (talk) 02:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC) Oops srry reposted after an edit conflict and didn't see where you gave it in LaTeX. So, yeah, thanks, that's it. Zrs 12 (talk) 02:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Are the Wikimedia servers still in Florida?

I know Wikimedia mover to California. Did they move the servers? Jet (talk) 07:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

No, they're staying at the datacenter in Tampa. --Dapeteばか 16:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

MacBook, Black MacBook, or MacBook Pro

Should I get a MacBook, a Black MacBook, or a MacBook Pro? Jet (talk) 07:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Well what do you want it for? If you just want a cheap laptop that runs OSX then I guess get a MacBook, although you might find the MacBook Air more to your suiting. It isn't out yet though I don't think. If you need a powerful work laptop (that runs OSX) then a Macbook Pro would be what you want. You should know that you can get a laptop that is quite a bit more powerful for the same amount of money a Mac costs, if you don't care about OSX TheGreatZorko (talk) 08:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

In fact, The MacBook Air seems to be available now: [5] jeffjon (talk) 14:33, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that even a "regular" MacBook is a pretty powerful machine. I use mine for a wide variety of processor-intensive tasks (virtualization—including virtualization of DirectX games, photo manipulation, video editing, desktop publishing, etc.) and it does them all very, very well. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 16:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The black one is pretty impressive looking but scarcely better than the white macbook (which I have - 2ghz dual core, 1gb ram). The Macbook Pro is nice but personally I think unless you're after a real power-house of a laptop the macbook will do fine. Of course your best bet is to go off and read reviews of each of them to help you make up your mind. With that in mind (http://www.notebookreview.com/), happy hunting ny156uk (talk) 17:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The short answer is ... it depends on what you want it to do. Could you delineate a few main tasks that you want you computer to accomplish? Kushal^t 01:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes if you want to accomplish editing a home movie while balancing your laptop on the end of your knee and listening to your ipod and eating a p'zone and admiring your designer jeans and staring frantically as your iphone gets hacked from 30 miles away while wondering why apple built in forward-obsolescence so you inexplicably can't boot Leopard through Boot Camp, then buy a mac. If you're really crazy about OS X, then you're really crazy :D\=< (talk) 02:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Right, and then you can think about which of the many flavors of Vista you'd like to get ripped off with so you have essentially a Mac-like GUI layered over Windows XP and wonder why so much of your processor time is devoted to anti-virus and anti-spyware. And then you can wonder why you bought into an operating system that is only seriously updated once a decade, by a company that is about as forward-looking as a rear-view mirror. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 17:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Any half-paralyzed invalid with an opposite half a brain doesn't need antivirus software, and nobody actually buys vista anyway --:D\=< (talk) 18:50, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Froth, a hundred million mindless zombies have already done so according to New York Times [6]

The most recent version of Windows, released almost exactly a year ago, has already been installed in 100 million computers.

or are they mindless zombies? Kushal^t 01:54, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I mean, I use Apple Mac OS X and I know that they are not invincible. Kushal^t 02:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Embedded images to attachments

Can I make Gmail convert an embedded image in an incoming mail to an attachment, particularly if it can't find where the image is embedded? NeonMerlin 08:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Download mails as POP using the free software, Mozilla Thunderbird? Kushal^t 12:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

You need to enable POP access in your Gmail settings and then you can use Mozilla Thunderbird to access the email. As far as I know, you cannot download spam with POP (IMAP allows access to spam). If you don't want to spend hours downloading every email since the beginning of time into your computer, IMAP is a good option too. Mozilla Thunderbird supports POP as well as IMAP. (This is original research, I know but it is not an article) Kushal^t 02:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Tape Drives

Hi. I was reading 81.79's 'biggest memory' question, and in the Petabyte article that Algebraist linked to, in the 'Petabytes in use' section it says that CERN has 10 PB of data stored on robotic tape store. I thought tape backups were an old, slow, unreliable technology and generally no longer used. Or, is this kind of tape store different to the one I'm thinking of? -Joe^Talk_Work 08:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Tape is still used as one of the more common backup medias, actually. Mostly for the reason that per megabyte it works out quite a lot cheaper than hard drives, and can be more compact. The fact that it is slow to access doesn't really matter when being used for backup purposes.

See the article on Magnetic tape data storage TheGreatZorko (talk) 08:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Tape also allows for inexpensive off-site, fire-safe storage. There's an old joke in computing:

Q: What data transport method has the highest aggregate data transmission bandwidth?

A: An 18-wheeler full of magtapes!

Atlant (talk) 13:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Is this joke actually true? If so, in what sense - What is it that we are measuring? Is it ${\frac {Data\cdot Distance}{Cost}}$? Would a cargo ship be more effective? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

If one ignored the time spent creating and reading the magtapes and merely considered how long it took the truck to move (in the good old days) a terabyte of data from, say, Boston to Waltham, the joke certainly could have been construed as "true". Nowadays, when a truck probably holds a petabyte of data easily, it's probably still true in the same limited contexts as originally.

Atlant (talk) 15:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I've heard similar jokes. We IT guys are a laugh riot! But anyway, cost isn't usually a factor in bandwidth calculations. --LarryMac | Talk 14:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hm? Surely with unbounded resources you can get virtually unbounded bandwidth? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, of course, but that's the point of measuring bandwidth - the resources are not unbounded. Of course the strict definition of bandwidth is all about analog frequencies and such, but as most commonly used, it is a measure of capacity. cf. flow rate. Still, cost does not play a part. --LarryMac | Talk 15:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Did they mean 'resources=memory capacity' or 'resources=money' here. And shouldn't that last sentence read 'cost is a major factor'?87.102.12.64 (talk) 15:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC) Oh hang on I've got a cold - understood first joke though - wheelbarrow of SD cards. Ignore me.87.102.12.64 (talk) 15:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The latency (engineering) makes the cargo ship ineffective. Kushal^t 16:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The version I always heard was "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes". Which is sourced here: q:Andrew S. Tanenbaum --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sound superior to IP over Avian Carriers. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys, that was all very useful and interesting! --Joe^Talk_Work 09:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Early computer displays

Why were green monochrome displays used in the 1970s and 1980s? Was to due to its supposed improved reading visibility? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.27.213 (talk) 10:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Cathode ray tube says:

An oscilloscope trace can be any color without loss of information, so a phosphor with maximum effective luminosity is usually used. The eye is most sensitive to green: for visual and general-purpose use the P31 phosphor gives a visually bright trace, and also photographs well and is reasonably resistant to burning by the electron beam. For displays meant to be photographed rather than viewed, the blue trace of P11 phosphor gives higher photographic brightness; for extremely slow displays, very-long-persistence phosphors such as P7, which produce a blue trace followed by a longer-lasting amber or yellow afterimage, are used.

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

There were multiple driving forces. Vector graphics systems were green for the reasons cited above. When raster-scanned character cell terminals arrived on the scene, I'm not sure why IBM settled on green for their ubiquitous 3270 terminals, but the reasons cited above are still reasonable and maybe it was just market expectations from the vector-scanned days. Digital Equipment Corporation, on the other hand, used cheap television monitors for their VT05 that, by default, had P4 (white) phosphors. Later, European health-and-safety regulations led to a lot of terminals with amber phosphors. but these were actually terrible screens; images "burned in" to the amber phosphor very easily. And after that, full-color terminals became very affordable so the whole thing became a "user preference" item.

Atlant (talk) 12:59, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Customized context menu search

In Firefox, if I select text and right-click, I get the option to search for that text using whatever search engine is active in the upper-right-corner search menu. I search frequently with Google, Wikipedia, and WordReference. Is there a way to directly add all those links to the context menu? I've found this: [7] which, is pretty good, but it would be even better if I could directly place all those options in the root menu instead of selecting from a second-level menu each time. Thanks, jeffjon (talk) 14:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

SearchWith was suggested to me in a similar situation just over at the RefDesk a few weeks back. I recommend it, even though it too operates from the second level. But it does its job fine. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 15:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Links

In Wikipedia, how would one provide a link to a specific part of another page and not just to the heading of another page? Zrs 12 (talk) 15:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

You can link to a section using #. For example, I can link to this question using [[Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing#Links]]. -- kainaw™ 15:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

You can also link to things that aren't section titles. To do this, add {{anchor|anchor name}} to the target page in the desired place and link with [[Target page#anchor name]]. 131.111.8.104 (talk) 17:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

weird behavior of fsquirt.exe

Windows XP SP2 has a program %SystemRoot%\System32\fsquirt.exe which can send and receive files via Bluetooth. This program is acting weird:

• When called from "SendTo", it receives the file being sent as a commandline parameter, and you just have to select the device. But when called as fsquirt file.txt it doesn't detect it.
• When you drag a file on fsquirt.exe, it again offers to send the file, and you just click "Next". But when I rename it into, say, Bluetooth.exe, it won't work this way.

All these ways will pass the filename to the .exe, as fsquirt.exe C:\autoexec.bat

• Drag C:\autoexec.bat over fsquirt.exe = "Send autoexec.bat"
• Drag C:\autoexec.bat over fsquirt.exe renamed to anything.exe = "Welcome to Bluetooth File Transfer Wizard"
• Call fsquirt.exe from SendTo = "Send autoexec.bat"
• Type fsquirt.exe C:\autoexec.bat = "Welcome to Bluetooth File Transfer Wizard"

but they all should work the same way (you can test with a program that prints all commandline parameters). Why is that so? --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 18:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Trying to get Windows to be consistent is a road to madness. The renaming thing suggests that there's some code in Windows somewhere that says:

if (filename == "fsquirt.exe")
  treat_it_specially();
else
  treat_it_in_the_usual_way();

You could probably create a small executable called "fsquirt.exe" that just prints its arguments and watch it in action. --Sean 22:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I did one with Multimedia Builder ($me->skills['c++'] == 0;), and here are the results:

• Command line, fsquirt.exe file => my app opens, says file
• I drag a file over my new fsquirt => ..."Send file over Bluetooth" opens :?
• I even tried renaming putty-0.60-installer.exe to fsquirt.exe and even it does the same.

When I drag something over my new %userprofile%\Desktop\fsquirt.exe, SysInternals' Process Explorer shows this windowsism (screenshot).

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 15:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Another screenshot: [8] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grawity (talk • contribs) 15:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Buying a video card

I'm in the market to buy a new video card. What do you guys think of this or this? Other ideas? I've got a buget of up to $300. What's the best card I can get? Useight (talk) 21:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Traditionally, ATI cards do not behave quite nice with GNU/Linux or other free operating systems. I am not sure about this particular ATI card. I also have no idea on how ATI has changed since AMD bought it as AMD at least tries to be free software friendly. Kushal^t 22:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm using Windowx XP. Useight (talk) 22:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Since you have Windows XP, just purchase the most recent ATI or nVidia card you can afford. You only notice video card deficiencies when playing games that are ridiculously graphics intensive. Cards for those games are more expensive than $300. My last video card was $580. So, either get the most recent version for $300 or keep saving for the latest and greatest model for around $600. -- kainaw™ 22:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I would like to play Crysis on high on 1024x768 resolution. If you spent $580, you must have gotten the 8800GTX or something similar. Do you think an 8800GT would let me play Crysis on high settings? I have an FX-60 2.6GHz and 3GB DDR. Useight (talk) 23:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The 8800GT you pointed out earlier will easily run Crysis at high on the settings you want. You could probably run Very High if you were under Vista TheGreatZorko (talk) 12:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The 8800 is merely the recommended card. That implies to me that the developers had their hands on 9800 cards for development. It isn't abnormal for ATI and nVidia to give developers experimental cards so the games can be developed beyond the specs of what is commercially available. -- kainaw™ 01:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

If you have a named brand computer (like Dell or HP or something) its wise to check that the card will actually work in your computer before buying.--TreeSmiler (talk) 01:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I built my own computer (computers are really the only thing I know a lot about, so that's why I'm answering questions here a lot), but I just wanted a second opinion before replacing my old GeForce 6800GS. I think I will go with this XFX 8800GT unless I can find one that has more factory overclocking. Useight (talk) 02:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

C++ versus Java

Hi:

Is it just me or do some of you also feel that Java is much cleaner and more consistent than C++ (efficiency aside)?

129.97.252.233 (talk) 22:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I prefer C++, actually, at least for procedural-based programming (as opposed to object-oriented). Useight (talk) 22:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Java is usually "cleaner" and "more consistent" in that there is one and only one official Java parser/compiler. There are many C++ parser/compilers. Therefore, you run into instances where sometimes main must return void. Sometimes it must return an int. Sometimes you have bool defined. Sometimes you don't. If all of your work is written for one and only one C++ parser/compiler, then you will have clean and consistent code. Also, as a side note, you don't have to know anything about reserving and freeing memory in Java. It attempts to do it for you. By removing all that code, you end up with cleaner looking code. In the end, it is a matter of opinion. If you have a high affinity for parenthesis, Lisp may be the cleanest and most consistent code in the world for you. -- kainaw™ 22:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The presence of an "official" compiler and interpreter completely discredits java in my opinion as a legitimate programming language. The only reason Sun bothered to create a java specification is so they could call their little javac/java lemonparty a Computer Language. Now that it's been actually formalized, thoretically there should be fully open-source compilers and interpreters competing with the official implementation, but there really aren't. And the official implementation is only recently open-source, and it's not entirely open- Sun refuses to allow third parties access to their mind-boggling deep-magic-at-the-foundations-of-the-universe computer science turing theory..... stuff. Didn't this come up a couple months ago? Well, if nobody can find the link just know that it was so impressive I was on my knees facing the Sun. But it's not open, which makes java just stupid --:D\=< (talk) 01:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and certain things in C++ are up to the implementation to decide how to handle, but usually that's just how to handle bad code, and if you follow the official specification your code should compile on any specification-compliant compiler --:D\=< (talk) 01:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Java is much cleaner and more consistent than C++, because they have very different design goals. One of Java's was to be clean and consistent, while one of C++'s was to be backwards-compatible with C. Those two things are pretty much incompatible goals. --Sean 17:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

"Java is usually "cleaner" and "more consistent" in that there is one and only one official Java parser/compiler.". There are actually a number of different compilers, virtual machines, and class libraries out there. I use IBM's at work, for instance. 81.187.153.189 (talk) 00:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Computer performance improvement with more memory

I have a Dell Dimension 2400 with 512 MB RAM. If I put in another 512 MB, what improvement in performance would i notice?--TreeSmiler (talk) 23:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Having only 512MB RAM isn't good at all. You'll see noticeable differences in upgrading to 1GB if you're running Windows XP. Boot time should be quicker and game loading time should be better as well. The 2400 is a pretty old computer, so I'd actually recommend getting a newer one if budget allows. Useight (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Extra memory will usually result in improvement. When you don't have enough memory, your hard drive is used. If you have a hard drive light, you'll it blinking all the time. Since it takes far less time to access memory than a hard drive, you get better performance with more memory. If, on the other hand, your hard drive light hardly ever blinks, you won't see much improvement as everything is already being done in the memory you have. With only 512MB, I would expect your hard drive to be doing a lot of overtime. -- kainaw™ 01:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

My mother had a very similar computer and I upgraded her to 1GB of memory last winter. Among her most immediate improvements were that the computer started up much faster, programs were much quicker to launch, and she no longer got virtual memory notices. Big improvements all around for not a whole lot of cash. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I have a slow startup problem --TreeSmiler (talk) 01:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

If you have Windows XP, you have already met the minimum recommended requirement with 512 MB. Before upgrading, it is advisable that you try to determine the cause of the slow startup. Do you have any application autoloading but you don't want it to? Do you have too many fonts that you don't use? Do you think you could disable some system services? Kushal^t 15:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC) A little reminder: Please back up unreplaceable data before doing anything that is potentially irreversible.

February 2

Why does linux suck?

Just trolling in the title to get people to look at the question :) But I have a more specific question- everyone at work agrees that PuTTY is FAR better in every way than "ssh" on xterm/gnome-terminal. Also everyone agrees that WinSCP, being just fantastic, is possibly infinitely better than FileZilla, which is generally worthless and let's face it downright hated. So why is it that the windows implementation of *nix programs and protocols is often so much better? And is there any progress on porting WinSCP back to linux? :) --:D\=< (talk) 01:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that putty is far better etc. Most importantly, putty doesn't do X - you can't for example, run Firefox on a remote server, and get the GUI to work. Whereas you could do much, much more through SSH.--Fangz (talk) 03:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

That's not true. PUTTY supports X forwarding. It is under Connection->SSH->X11->Enable X11 forwarding. --Spoon! (talk) 05:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Well for a shell. I know you can do a lot with ssh but I'm talking specifically about xterm/gnome-terminal.. putty is a much more fully-featured, customizable terminal emulator --:D\=< (talk) 04:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

1) There IS a *nix port of PuTTY, you know. 2) It would be helpful if you told us some specific criticisms rather than just about things being "better" or "worthless" or "fantastic" or "hated". Marnanel (talk) 03:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Have you used WinSCP? This is a matter of common sense --:D\=< (talk) 04:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I've used both PuTTY and WinSCP. Neither one works completely. In PuTTY, either the backspace or the delete key is always broken. It constantly has display problems requiring me to clear the screen and restart. Eventually, it just locks up and I have to restart it. WinSCP is a big headache. It tries to be a cool handy program, but if it was done properly it would be embedded into Windows Explorer. Like KDE, I should be able to type a url into the Windows Explorer address bar and move files around securely without running an extra program. If you want to see how SSH/SCP/SFTP is merged seamlessly into an operating system, check out KDE (which happens to primarily be a *nix windows manager). -- kainaw™ 04:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, no no no. KDE is just realizing that Hey, "explorer" and "internet explorer" sound and function alike, let's integrate them into the same program for the new Windows 98 release. Not until the turn of the millennium did Microsoft realize that the web is good for more than listing files and it doesn't really make sense to integrate the two features.. inexplicably KDE still hasn't realized this and still insists on making one super-app that does everything, and does it OK. Konqueror is an ugly mess of special pages, plugins, handlers, and settings for all of its different modes. --:D\=< (talk) 08:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You do realize that KDE 4 has broken the file management app off into a new program, right? (Took 'em long enough...) -- Kesh (talk) 01:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Nobody can fix anything if all you're going to do is say "look at it for yourself and you'll see why I don't like it". That's not a bug report, that's whining. Marnanel (talk) 05:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't really know, since I don't use them much - my PuTTY's main function at present is to be a desktop icon...but my guess would be simply that windows-like applications are usually more user friendly. I find Linux-like programs are intended to be more functional than easy to use, which makes them (mostly) better but a bit more cumbersome, therefore, a windowsy version of a *nix progam is generally more pleasant, even if it looses some functionality...but that's just me. Trimethylxanthine (talk) 04:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps "everyone at work" is uncomfortable with command line tools? APL (talk) 06:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

So you're saying Linux sucks because you don't like a select few applications? Isn't that like saying a car sucks because you don't like the colour of the upholstery? JIP | Talk 07:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Read the first sentence.. anyway it was just sort of something I noticed, that linux programs tend to be crappy graphical frontends to the real command-line program that the cli developer decided to teach himself qt over a weekend and glom together some widgets. Windows ports tend to look a lot better and make more sense interactively.. I far prefer the glossed over WinSCP interface to FileZilla, which is basically just a big smattering of widgets to paste FTP commands together, not a real graphical application. --:D\=< (talk) 07:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how your criticism of FileZilla supports any of your points, since FileZilla was, until recently, a Windows-only program. --Spoon! (talk) 09:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, it just seems like the de facto graphical scp/sftp client for linux --:D\=< (talk) 10:20, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed and if memory serves me correctly in the past it was primarily thought of as a FTP client and download manager not a SFTP/SCP client. I'm not even sure if it supported those protocols from the beginning Nil Einne (talk) 15:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Now the OP's argument is making sense. It isn't that the Windows programs function any better. They actually function worse. It is just that they look better. In the OP's opinion, applications that look prettier are better. That is merely one way of judging a program. As I stated before, PuTTY can't properly handle the backspace/delete keys. So why would I prefer it over SSH in the shell? It also doesn't tunnel X. So why would I want to use it to run applications remotely? It does look pretty, but putting lipstick on a pig doesn't make it anything other than a pretty pig. -- kainaw™ 17:17, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Now, as I mentioned above, PuTTY does tunnel X (Connection->SSH->X11->Enable X11 forwarding); so please don't mention things that are false. And it does have settings for how to handle the backspace and other keys (Terminal->Keyboard); perhaps you need to set it correctly. In my opinion the comparison between PuTTY and OpenSSH has nothing to do with operating systems because both PuTTY and OpenSSH can be used on both Windows and Linux (OpenSSH can be used with Cygwin in Windows). I agree that it's just a matter of personal preference. --Spoon! (talk) 22:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I use ssh in an xterm all day every day, and I have no idea what the OP is talking about. It does exactly what I want and never gets in my way. Diff'rent strokes, I guess. Froth, I've noticed that you tend to divide computer topics into well-defined sucks/doesn't-suck categories (your inexplicable screed against Java above is an example, along with your MacOS opinions). There are often reasons that design choices are made which don't suit you; not every application is right for every user. --Sean 17:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, froth, maybe we can begin to bond over our frustration with *nix, even if we don't see eye to eye on the Windows/OS X thing. Personally I suspect most of your frustrations with *nix like things (and mine as well) come from the developing environment. A bunch of loosely communicating programmers might be able to come p with killer command-line tools, but they are a lousy way to develop software that will work well in many different contexts and with many different expectations. There are a few exceptions to this (I think Firefox does alright at this, Inkscape okay, but GIMP is pretty lousy in this regard as is OO.org), but on the whole open-source software is characterized by lousy interfaces, an immense amount of useless features (even though its practitioners claim to hate "feature bloat", the programmers themselves rarely seem to know what the users are actually going to want to use, and seem rarely to think that they should ask or observe), and often serve to at best attempt to emulate already-existing software but slower and less effectively. I think there's a lot of room for a third approach here, one that takes to good parts of open-source software and takes the time to make them work reliably and easily for those of us who don't want to hack our own machine every day to get things done. (This is, incidentally, one of the things I like about OS X—it's essentially a very very pretty, and expensive, *nix GUI. I can drop into bash in a second or I can have all of what I want to do handled in a lush and reliable way.) I think the programmer-center approach favored in much open-source software, especially *nix culture, leads to some really awful development decisions. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 17:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, of course everyone knows that the best way to transfer files over SSH is with rsync. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Meh. If you have an actual question, by all means let's hear it. But if you just want to fight silly religious wars, take it to a forum. Friday (talk) 19:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

As a counter-example, I find that Samba has far fewer issues than Windows' built-in file sharing, which likes to stop working for no reason whatsoever. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 09:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

??? [Windows file sharing] It's got LOTS of reasons to stop working. It just doesn't want to share them with you. Or me. Or anyone else, for that matter..... -SandyJax (talk) 16:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Windows Media Player is Kaput

When i try to play a Mp3 or audio stream that uses windows media player from a website the following page phrase comes up:

This program cannot display the webpage

  Most likely causes:

You are not connected to the Internet. The website is encountering problems. There might be a typing error in the address.

  What you can try: 
    Check your Internet connection. Try visiting another website to make sure you are connected.  

    Retype the address.  

    Go back to the previous page. 

    More information 

This problem can be caused by a variety of issues, including:

Internet connectivity has been lost. The website is temporarily unavailable. The Domain Name Server (DNS) is not reachable. The Domain Name Server (DNS) does not have a listing for the website's domain.

What could be the problem.--logger (talk) 06:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Is it with any and all web streaming audio that you tried? If you are connected to the Internet, and you have Mozilla Firefox installed on your computer, could you try it? Kushal^t 08:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You could also try VLC media player. Try the "open network" option. If you need help with a particular stream, please come back. I hope that helps. Regards, Kushal^t 15:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Audio Quality Metric

Is there some kind of audio quality metric, sort of like SSIM for video? im trying to compare the difference between 32 64 and 96 kbps aac and the original sample. Kingpomba (talk) 07:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably, but considering transparency isn't ubiquitous at those bitrates, I'd say you'd be able to listen for compression artifacts and rate them subjectively.

You probably want to do an ABC/HR test so that bias doesn't creep in. --Kjoonlee 13:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

HSDPA vs. HSUPA

If I have a notebook that says it can handle HSUPA, will it work with services that advertise themselves as HSDPA? Does HSUPA capability imply HSDPA capability? Cheers! —85.227.205.90 (talk) 13:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Technically I would suppose it's possible that a network or device only has HSUPA capability. However this would seem unlikely to me since from what I can tell HSDPA proceeded HSUPA (not surprisingly) and networks+devices are much more likely to have HSDPA then HSUPA (since the downlink tends to be much more important and as I said it's older). So I would guess your notebook has HSDPA and HSUPA. Why don't you just look in the features in more detail or ask tech support? BTW, do you want high speed uplink or downlink or both? Nil Einne (talk) 15:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Mostly, I want it to work at all. The spec lacks details and the support doesn't answer. It's promising to hear that you have the same feeling as I, anyway. Now, I just hope it works under Linux. Anyone knows if that might become a problem? —Bromskloss (talk) 16:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Changing a color in an image

I have in an image.

How can I change ALL of the pixels with color X to color Y using the Gimp/Irfan View/FastStone Image Viewer?

X and Y are exact colors like #F3D19C or #00FFA1. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.166.63.3 (talk) 14:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

First result for "Gimp replace color" --24.147.69.31 (talk) 14:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Laptop blackouts

This isn't a serious problem yet but sometimes when I leave the laptop on for a while it goes completely dead out of no where. Even though its plugged into the AC, the battery light doesn;t even show up. Then a n hour or few later its back to normal. --Grondor (talk) 14:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

How old is this laptop? How old is the battery? Are either still under warranty? Nil Einne (talk) 15:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Press Control and Alt and it should light back up, I just recently discovered this myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.125.158.40 (talk) 15:23, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

CMOS problem

I have a PC with Compaq board my question is i change the CMOS clock cell called Button cell but it does not work.what should be the problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.103.9.48 (talk) 14:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

In future, please put your questions under their own subheading Nil Einne (talk) 15:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure you used the correct cell? What are the symptoms from which you deduced that the cell is not working? Kushal^t 01:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC) Sir the BIOS seetting are not saving as the date and time option.

Mock Laptop

A friend of mine gave me an extra fake laptop (the kind they put on display at stores), the outside seems real but the inside is hollow and the screen is plastic. Is there any way to make this work, maybe switch out for a real screen and add a motherboard? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.125.158.40 (talk) 15:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Its possible I guess, but it might cost a fair bit. You'd have to get the parts from the manufacturer, as laptop spares are different for each model, and thats assuming the mock laptop design is based on a real model in the first place. But it sounds like a fun project to try, and you'll learn a lot about computer working in the process. Good luck! Think outside the box 16:15, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

If you have assembled a desktop computer before, you can understand what uphill battle you are fighting. assembling a laptop is considerably more difficult than assembling a desktop since space is such an expensive commodity. Please use caution and double check everything you are doing with someone knowledgeable. Kushal^t 01:42, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

It'd basically be very similar to you having just an empty PC case and a plastic mockup of a monitor - you still have to get all the insides and install them properly. Have fun. --Ouro (blah blah) 20:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Fortran program copied from manual doesn't work correctly

The following program is directly copied from "Fortran 95 Handbook: Complete ISO/ANSI Reference":

     PROGRAM TEST_FLIPPED 
     PRINT *, REVERSE ("I have flipped for you.") 
     CONTAINS 
     RECURSIVE FUNCTION REVERSE (PHRASE) RESULT (FLIPPED) 
         CHARACTER (*)              PHRASE 
         CHARACTER (LEN(PHRASE)) FLIPPED 
         L = LEN_TRIM (PHRASE) 
         N = INDEX (PHRASE(1:L), " ", BACK=.TRUE.) 
         IF (N == 0) THEN; FLIPPED = PHRASE 
         ELSE; FLIPPED = PHRASE (N+1:L) // " " // REVERSE (PHRASE (1:N-l)) 
         END IF 
     END FUNCTION REVERSE 
     END PROGRAM TEST_FLIPPED

It's supposed to "[reverse] the words in a given phrase", but when I compile it with gfortran and run it, it prints out the single word " you.". What could be the problem? —Keenan Pepper 15:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It's a typo at the end of the recursive call REVERSE (PHRASE (1:N-1)) - the last bit should be "N minus one" instead of "N minus ell". Hope this helps. 84.239.133.86 (talk) 20:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

That's weird, because I'm using an official digital copy of the manual and it definitely has a lower case ell. Maybe it's an OCR error or something. Thanks! —Keenan Pepper 05:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

There's a message from me for you in your related post.. apologies if I'm already preaching to the converted. I'll assume for now that you were typing on 'auto-pilot' when you entered this.. Note that there are no other lower case letters in there (even if it is case insensitive) next time you will be aware.87.102.114.230 (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I didn't type in anything at all. As I said, it's a digital copy of the manual, and I literally copied and pasted it. —Keenan Pepper 06:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Did it work as advertised when you applied the correction suggested by 84.239.133.86? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 08:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Number of network connections to the same server

I'm using Windows XP SP2. When I'm downloading files, I can download only 2 from the same server at any time. Is there a way to increase this limit? The reason I'm asking this is a solution someone proposed for this question. --Admiral Norton ^(talk) 16:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, if you use Internet Explorer, you can edit your registry. There are two registry keys, one for HTTP 1.1 and one for HTTP 1.0. Google for MaxConnectionsPerServer for details. :) --Kjoonlee 18:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

And if you use Firefox you can edit network.http.max-connections-per-server in about:config --Kjoonlee 20:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

But if the server has a set limit, then you can't do anything about it. --Kjoonlee 20:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Windows games on Linux

Hi. I am using Linux, and I want to be able to run Windows games without having to boot. I do have a copy of Windows XP, but dual-booting won't satisfy this requirement. I'm not impressed with the capabilities of Wine and its derivatives, and I heard that games can need direct access to hardware which virtualization products like VMware don't allow. So, is there any solution to the problem? Is it possible to have two operating systems loaded in memory simultaneously, enabling me to quickly switch between them (assuming I have sufficient RAM, of course)? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Very few computers allow you to run two operating systems without virtualization. You won't find one for home use. What you can do is run Windows on the computer and virtualize Linux. Linux is not graphics intensive and will run nicely in virtualization. Another thing you can look at is running KDE on Windows. There is a port of it now that is sort of a desktop replacement. Then you will have the look and feel of a Linux-based windows manager with Windows still running. I didn't do anything like that. I just don't play Windows games anymore. If it doesn't come out for my PS3, XBox, or Wii, then I don't play it. -- kainaw™ 17:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that a lot of the difficulties in running a virtualizer with games depends on what games you are trying to run. I can run many games that came out a few years ago with great ease in Parallels (on a Macbook); Deus Ex runs as well as it did on my original PC at the time, as does Unreal Tournament. I could run Half-Life 2 just squeaking on by (lowest settings, but still pretty fun) until the very last scene in the game, which apparently went a little too far for it and would cause the game to crash.

Anyway, to be more direct, it sounds like you have already thought of the three options available to you (dual-booting, virtualization, Wine). It sounds to me like you'll have to pick the one which is the lesser evil of the bunch. If I were me in your situation, as I understand it, I'd probably go with dual-booting, as you'll get more performance out of your machine that way (I only game in the most occasional and causal way, and as you can see I mostly replay games that I played through five years ago!). To my knowledge there is no other way to do what you want to do. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 17:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the info. There is actually a fourth option - using two computers. I'll probably end up doing a combination of all four. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Cooperative Linux will let you run NT and Linux simultaneously without CPU virtualization. It's stable and works well (in my experience). -- BenRG (talk) 02:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Cedega is a product specifically designed to allow you to play Windows games on a Linux machine, but it is a Wine derivative, so maybe it's one of the ones that you're unimpressed with. In my experience, It works reasonably well, but there are some games that are spotty, and others that don't work at all. (oddly, on my machine some games actually perform better under Cedega than under Windows2000. Mostly games based on Quake engines.) I've found that the best (but far from ideal) solution to this problem is a combination of Cedega for some games and dual-booting for the rest. APL (talk) 16:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Icons in my taskbar--whats happening?

I running XP. Sometimes I have only 4 icons after a reboot, but sometimes 10 or more. Cany anyone say whats happening here?--TreeSmiler (talk) 17:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

maybe your computer is set up to hide inactive icons? Kushal^t 14:38, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Note the "in my taskbar" part of OP's question. He/she/it has either 4 or 10 programs starting automatically on a reboot. Perhaps OP has more than one login account, and the various accounts have various amounts of cruft auto-starting? -SandyJax (talk) 16:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Web Pop-up effect

How does one make this pop-up effects that is on here [[9]] (link is work-safe)? When one click the first picture on the tutorial, the screen turns semi-black and a white rectangle appears and enlarges to show the enlarged preview. Facebook also uses something similar when one goes to click to add a friend or when browsing the marketplace. Acceptable (talk) 18:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Check out Lightbox JS — Kieff | Talk 18:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

google earth

If I pout references into Wikipedia articles, how long before they appear on Google earth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swithlander (talk • contribs) 18:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with references appearing in Google Earth, what exactly are you referring to? Useight (talk) 21:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

where you put it in the article and when you look at the picture on google earth it tells you what it tis with the wikipedia logo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swithlander (talk • contribs) 22:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

February 3

PMR446 Radios

I have a question which hasnt been answered by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMR446 and alot of other websites.

I understand that PMR446 is the UHF channels that can be used in consumer radios.What I would like to know, is:

If I buy a motorola radio on PMR446, can I join ANY other group of local radios on the same channels?

I work in theatre and need walkie talkies to communicate. If a theatre already has some PMR radios, can I just buy another handset and start using it, provided we are on the same frequency?

Thanks for any answers, I'm not especially technical, at least not within this field!

86.139.90.67 (talk) 00:54, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

A PMR446 handset should talk to any other PMR446, regardless of manufacturer or model. You will, of course, need to use the same CTCSS or DCS code as well as the same channel - these are sometimes called "privacy codes" or "anti-interference codes" by manufacturers. -- AJR | Talk 19:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah!! thank you. So my intended purchase of a PMR motorola unit will work with existing Kenwood radios. I guess those codes are something you just enter into your unit, or are they pre-programmed in? 86.139.90.67 (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Distributed rsync?

Is there something along the line of rsync + torrents? I have a bunch of home servers that have slow upload speed and need to be synchronised regularly. Normal rsync from the central server just take too long and something that combines the concept of rsync and bittorrent would be great in solving that problem. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

How about UDPCast? It's really not like bittorrent but it's supposed to solve the problem of distributing the same file to multiple destinations efficiently. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 05:12, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Except they aren't on a LAN... But setting up a VPN isn't that hard. Will look into it, thanks. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

"Internet Explorer provided by...."

At the top of IE I get the website name then it says "Microsoft Internet Explorer provided by Tiscali". The "provided by Tiscali" bit appeared when I used Tiscali as an ISP, which I haven't done for ages. How do I get rid of the "provided by Tiscali" bit? DuncanHill (talk) 01:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

If using XP Professional:

1. Go to Run, type gpedit.msc, then click ok
2. Go to User Configuaration > Windows Settings > Internet Explorer Maintenance > Browser User Interface using the menu tree in the left-hand column
3. In the right column, double-click "Browser Title"
4. Check/uncheck the "Customise Title Bars" and enter remove details accordingly.

If using another OS, you could try the registy edit described here; unfortunately, I don't have any other OS on-hand at the moment to check.--Kateshortforbob 01:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

You could also follow the registry editing steps here, it looks cleaner. Useight (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, not XP Pro and don't fancy editing my registry. Thanks anyway, cheerio folks. DuncanHill (talk) 04:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Will Tweak UI work? I think it deserves a try. Kushal^t 01:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

^If that doesn't help, you might consider Firefox or Opera (web browser)? --Seans Potato Business 23:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you using IE7? If not I would strongly recommend you upgrade... Nil Einne (talk) 13:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Might there be reason to keep any of this old dev/cad software?

Doing some housecleaning today, I found some old software my parents bought me when I was 11, 12, 13, which they bought to nudge me into programming and other productive computer hobbies other than just playing videogames. I must say it worked, I do this stuff for a living nowadays.

But is there any reason for me to NOT throw any of these away?

• Autodesk 3D Studio R2 and R3 -- these cost about $3,000 back then. But nowadays they only have a tiny fraction of the functionality that the completely freeware Blender is capable of, and probably just the same as 3D Studio Max (which I haven't tried... I am a Blender guy :p). Looking at old SIGGRAPH demo reels for this product from 1994 and 1995, I'm amazed what artists could do with the limited functionality of these old programs. Character animation without bone systems must have been very difficult. Is there any reason to keep these other than as curious artifacts?

• Autodesk Animator Pro -- DOS-based animation software. This is actually pretty powerful software, even if it is limited to indexed 8-bit color modes. A scripting language called POCO was integrated into it to automate many tasks. I am guessing this was probably used in a lot of games back in DOS's golden era.

• Turbo C++ -- 16-bit compiler for DOS programs. Circa 1992. This is where I began migrating from QBasic to C++, although I still didn't understand most of C/C++ until college. Is there any possible scenario at all in which I might in the future exclaim, "oh crap, I need a C++ compiler for 16-bit DOS programs"?

• Turbo Assembler -- bought this out of a bargain bin in my college bookstore a few years ago. I haven't even opened it yet. Seems like it's for Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51. Heh. I've never really touched assembly before except minor curious diddling. Is there any reason I should keep this on me? Can this supply any purpose for some possible scenario that NASM and GAS can't fulfill these days?

--75.165.32.244 (talk) 02:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Historical value!! These are antiques...I mean they were all made before I was born but still! Turbo C++? Turbo Assembler? I still have these...it wasn't so long ago I still used them! There's no real point in keeping them I suppose, but nowadays they take up no space compared to most stuff, so why not? Just for sentimental value if nothing else. Trimethylxanthine (talk) 02:42, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, rather than throw them away, maybe try selling them on eBay? There are people who collect old software still in the box. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 04:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that AutoCAD has tried to prevent selling old versions on eBay, although perhaps your versions are old enough to avoid their DMCA antics. --LarryMac | Talk 14:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

MSN 7.5 and WLM 8.x

I am using Windows XP and use MSN 7.5 (running in compatibility mode). Someone told me that if I install WLM 8.x, MSN 7.5 will automatically be uninstalled. Is there any way I can use both MSN 7.5 and WLM 8.x on the same computer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.60.87 (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

um, why do you want to use them both?

First, Windows Live is just a new version of MSN, and it would be like trying to use MS Office 2007 and Office XP on the same computer. (Remember, it's Microsoft.) So I doubt you'll be able to use them both.

Second, MSN/Live will only allow connections from *one* client at once.

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 12:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Not true. I can log into MSN 7.5, Windows Messenger and Web Messenger from the same computer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.21.155.93 (talk) 02:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Pregap ripper

Does anyone know of a program that can rip a song found in the pregap of an audio CD? I did a Google search for pregap ripper, but nothing caught my eye there. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, but the article says that EAC will notice the long pregap, so it stands to reason that it would be able to read the contents. -- BenRG (talk) 19:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Editor for Lisp

I'm a programmer-aspirant, about to start learning Scheme. However, I'm not sure whether Vim (my current editor of choice) is the best tool for the job (poor Lisp support?). I tried to get used to Emacs a few months ago, but it didn't work well with my editing workflow: I generally have 3-4 files open, in different editor instances open that are scattered about my screen, not cramped in one window as 'tabs'. This is rather antithetical to the Emacs mindset. Is Vim up to the task (I don't mind about funky IDE-style features) of programming in Scheme, or is there a better tool for the job that doesn't use a monolithic editing model? 79.72.127.118 (talk) 12:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

It's difficult to imagine any features in a lisp-specific editor overcoming the advantage the expertise in your usual editor gives you. I'd say google for Template:Websearch to get a few tips, and then just use that. Vim is one of the deepest and best programs ever written, IMO. Every time I've ever pined for a feature and thought about implementing it, I find that it's already there. --Sean 14:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The best tool to learn scheme is probably DrScheme. The debugging support is particularly good. Morana (talk) 02:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

MIDI file on waste.exe/DAT/176

Just wondering, has anyone else noticed the MIDI file inside waste.exe, as resource DAT/176? --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 12:55, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

CIRCLE ALGORITHM

DETAIL CIRCLE DRAWING ALGORITHM FROM COMPUTER GRAPHICS —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikifrommld (talk • contribs) 14:42, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Midpoint circle algorithm. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

ringtone support in Samsung Juke

Does the Samsung Juke support changing the ringtone to any song in the phone? How can I do it? Kushal^t 15:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Delete RSS Feeds Into Recycle Bin

Hello. Why can favourites be deleted to the recycle bin but not RSS feeds? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 15:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I assume this is an Internet Explorer question? In Firefox you can delete live bookmarks in the same way as any other bookmark. --h2g2bob (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure. --Mayfare (talk) 20:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

If you ask me, system developers are not perfect and do stuff according to their own (collective) logic or lack of the aforementioned. One joke that often comes in Windows world is "Why do I need to start to shut down? The short answer is that because they designed it that way. Kushal^t 21:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess the above does not apply to Windows Vista ... but again "nobody actually buys vista anyway" lol Kushal^t 21:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it's because the RSS feeds aren't actually stored onto your computer... whilst your favourites are stored on your machine for you to call up whenever. (And I quite like Vista ;-) Scarian^{Call me Pat} 22:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

were you being sarcastic? i could not hear any sarcasm in your voice, Scarian. Maybe it is just me. =P Kushal^t 01:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

apple and download

heya everybody

where can you get a thing for mac, like a widget or something that tells you how many megabytes you download every day? thanks --Jane157 (talk) 21:33, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

You could try here: [10]. I couldn't find anything after a brief look but it's the most logical place to start looking. Hope it helps! Scarian^{Call me Pat} 22:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

This, this and this seem to fit the bill, although I'm not sure if any of them can be configured to count from the start of the day rather than from the last startup. I'm not on a Mac so I can't test, sorry. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 22:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Userbox Code

What code would I need to add to my userbox code to give it a designation like User:UBX/sample. How would I give the userboxes I create these designations. Thanks, Zrs 12 (talk) 21:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

This question is probably best suited for the WP:HELPDESK, friend. Scarian^{Call me Pat} 22:02, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Dealio is doing my head in.

How do I get rid of THIS? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Givnan (talk • contribs) 22:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Is that your homepage? I don't understand your question. Could you add more information, please? Kushal^t 03:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This (french) forum post seems to indicate that this problem is caused by adware. Can you try uninstalling whatever extension/add-on started this in all the browsers available (firefox/flock/internet explorer etc)? If whatever you installed was an ordinary application, not a browser extension, uninstall that. You may also want to run a spyware scan. Let us know if any of that works/doesn't work--Kateshortforbob 22:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

What does this .jpg warning message mean?

"Could not open "shoe attachment.jpg" because a JPEG marker segment length is too short (the file may be truncated or incomplete)."

Is there anything I can do to fix this on my end (Mac OS X 10.4.11) Preview, Photoshop etc.

This is the only file that I have never been able to open.

P.S. It is even openable on a really old mac, which makes even less sense. (I hope this shows up...someone keeps deleting my text!) Saudade7 22:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The JPEG file is corrupt. Different software will deal with this in different ways. I would open it on the really old Mac (which is probably ignoring the corrupt part or not even noticing it), and then save the image to a new file. By the way, I don't see any evidence in the page history that anyone deleted your question, but you did delete someone else's question. But no worries, they added it back. -- BenRG (talk) 13:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Batch file environment variables

I am trying to set environment variables with batch files in the Windows Command Prompt by getting user input, something like this:

set /p input = "Type something here: "
echo You typed %input%.
if "%input%" == "stop" goto stop

I run the file without @echo off at the beginning, for debugging. The output looks something like this:

C:\>test.bat
C:\>set /p input = "Type something here: "
Type something here: stop
C:\>echo You typed .
You typed .
C:\>if "" == "stop" goto stop

So basically the variable isn't getting stored properly for some reason. But the galling thing is that if I go back to the command line and check the environment variables with set, the variable input IS defined, and it contains "stop". Any reason why this might be happening? This is happening on a machine running Windows Vista Home Premium, thought the same thing has happened on Windows XP. Thanks, FlamingSilmaril (talk) 22:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why, but removing the spaces around the equal sign on the first line makes it work. I changed the line to this:

set /p input="Type something here: "

Here is the output with echo on:

C:\>test

C:\>set /p input="Type something here: "
Type something here: Hello, world!

C:\>echo You typed Hello, world!.
You typed Hello, world!.

C:\>if "Hello, world!" == "stop" goto stop
C:\>

--jh51681 (talk) 03:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The spaces around the equal sign are significant to the batch processor: User:FlamingSilmaril has effectively created a variable called 'input ' rather than 'input'. To verify this behaviour, type "set x = 1" and "set x=1" in a command prompt, and then just "set" to display all the environment variables: you will see that x apparently appears twice in the list. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that clears it up. Thanks a lot! FlamingSilmaril (talk) 22:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

February 4

Code

What computer language would the most useful to learn? In other words, which code would be useful in the most situations? I don't have any specific application in mind, but if I'm going to learn a code, it should be the most useful one. Thanks, Zrs 12 (talk) 00:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Most major applications, including operating systems, tend to be written in C or C++. More useful for web use would be something like PHP or Ruby on Rails. If you're interested in just writing simple scripts for little things, try Perl or Ruby. --Evan Seeds (talk)(contrib.) 01:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly code, but regular expressions are super useful. :) --Kjoonlee 02:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Code doesn't mean "programming language", but rather a sequence of statements in some programming language. Java can be useful in many situations. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It depends on what you want to program. web pages or flash games or scientific calculations or database searches etc etc...

It is a good idea to learn a simple language if you're a beginner to make sure you understand the basics of programming

Also I recommend being aware of the features in LISP or something similar.

Being able to create pseudocode may be useful if you know someone who can program.87.102.90.249 (talk) 12:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I think PHP is a pretty good language to start out with. You'll get good-looking, useful results very quickly (since you don't need to do anything other than HTML to build an interface), and its syntax is fairly straightforward. Additionally, you'll probably end up learning a good bit about how the web works (HTML, GET/POST file attachments, headers, cookies, CSS, etc.) in the process, so it's like getting two bits of knowledge for the price of one. It's not enough to call yourself a computer programmer, but really any language that will get your feet wet is fine when you are starting out. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 00:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem with PHP is that, while it's indeed a good language for writing dynamic web pages, it's not very convenient for anything else. If you indeed want to learn a single, general purpose language, I'd go with Perl. It's easy to get started with, very convenient for simple one-off tasks while still scaling up reasonably well to larger applications, usable for most purposes (except heavy number-crunching) and quite popular and well-established with a large user base and a huge library of pre-existing code. Perl tends to be flexible and excels at odd jobs and as a "glue language" between other programs; it has variously been described as a "swiss army chainsaw" or "the duct tape of computing". Also, if you learn Perl you inevitably also end up learning regular expressions, which, as Kjoonlee notes, are useful by themselves. The main disadvantage of Perl, of course, is that it often tends to look like line noise. (Mind you, I have no wish to start a Perl/Python/Ruby holy war; all are good languages and fairly well suited to the requirements given. In fact, once you feel you know enough Perl to get by, I'd suggest finding a Python tutorial and browsing through it, just to see that things can be done differently.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Machine code, skip the middleman. I started with C++, and that's what I work in now (well C mostly). You really need to have an application in mind in order to decide because every language has its quirks that make it better for one thing or another. Mad031683 (talk) 21:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Putting clips together?

Is there a program that helps me put my camera's movie clips together if I have windows? Also it would help if it would be free. thnx!! (Superawesomgoat (talk) 02:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC))

Windows Movie Maker does this. --jh51681 (talk) 03:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You could try virtualdub. Its free and has many more features than Movie Maker. Website Think outside the box 10:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Though it is not free, I am very partial to Quicktime Pro. (It's not expensive, though.) It lets you do that sort of simple thing very easily, export it to any format you want, and is very reliable, very fast, very easy to use. If I recall, VirtualDub only works with AVI files, which can be a bit limiting. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 14:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

SONGS PROGRAM on C++

Design and implement a class to represent a song. Keep your design fairly simple for now -- you will be modifying this in future assignments. A song will be represented by a name (String), artist (String), and duration time (integer). Note that for now the time will be represented by the number of seconds needed to play the song. Your class should include at least one constructor as well as accessors for name, artist and time (no modifiers). You should also include operator== and operator!=. Two songs are "equal" (==) if both their names are equal and their performing artists are equal. In addition, include the comparison operator operator<. Song1 is < song2 if either the name of song1 < name of song2, or, if the names are the same, then if the artist of song1 < artist of song2. Similarly, include the operators: operator<=, operator>, operator>=.

In addition, include the operator<< as a friend to this class. When you display a song, print the name and artist in a reasonable format, and print the duration time in the format min:sec. For example, if a song is 97 seconds long, the time should be displayed as 01:37 (one minute and 37 seconds).

Write a separate test program that will do unit testing for your Song class. Plan how to thoroughly test this class (cf Chapter 2, section 2.3). Also, generate test runs that shows the results of your testing.

Challenge: Although this is not required, you could use a test framework, such as CppUnit, for your unit testing. Another possibility is to have your constructor throw an exception if the duration time of the song is not valid (e.g. a negative integer). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.71.215.140 (talk) 06:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Do your own homework. Dlong (talk) 06:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

He/She could have taken some effort to make this not so blatently obvious. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 17:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The minimum effort in copying your assignment verbatim is to take out all the bits that flat-out admit it's an assignment. Not that we couldn't guess it anyway, but admitting it is a blatant insult. JIP | Talk 20:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I particularly like the references to the text. If you're having trouble this early in the semester it may be time to drop the class... and change majors because that should take about 10 minutes. Mad031683 (talk) 21:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. The references to the text could be of more help if we could actually get to read the text. JIP | Talk 22:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

About data storage

Hi,

I'm using Blog.i have 1 doubt where the messages are saved in the blog. If it contains any database. and where is it?

reply soon... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.68.67.162 (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

What blog? www.blog.com? Regardless, blog entries are saved in a database that is usually on the same server as the blog service. Sometimes the database is on a separate but nearby server. -- kainaw™ 13:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

set up "On Demand" DSL Connection

How do I Configure a software to use my DSL Connection

To use "On Demand" DSL connection , I will have to be set up in Windows(xp professional) for Dial Up Networking (DUN). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thepainter2 (talk • contribs) 13:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Bridging Networks....

Hi...I have a laptop with a wireless network card. I use this to connect to other laptops in ad-hoc mode. I also have a wired LAN which I use frequently. Is there any way to bridge both the networks?? I know that wireless and wired LAN can be somehow bridged in XP but I don't know how to do that. Also is there a special way for the same in Vista?? I want to bridge the network so that I would be able to play multiplayer games with users of both the LANs simultaneously. Please help... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piyushbehera25 (talk • contribs) 16:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The control panel thing was good but I was not able to connect to both the networks simultaneously.Please suggest another way...

I don't really understand what you're trying to do and how to help without more information about this game. Bridging is unlikely the answer you're looking for (Network Bridge for more details). Most games use a Client/Server system, whereby all the clients connect to a central server that hosts the game. So as long as you're the one hosting the game, and you can communicate with users in both networks, then there shouldn't be a problem, as the server app. should be able to communicate with all users (clients). The simplest solution to your woes is to put every user on the same subnet. By connecting to two networks, Window's routing table should be updated automatically to allow you to access both networks simultaneously (try testing with ping). It does not however allow users from one network to communicate with each other without a network bridge or router. Tetsuox (talk) 10:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Wireless Networking

I have an ADSL wired router which connects up my desktop. Recently I purchased a laptop which I connected to the router with a cable. It would be very handy to have a wireless network now so I can move the laptop around. Simple, no? Get a wireless router I would think. But I am very confused as to why there are so many different ones! What are the differences? What is the difference between a router and an access point? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.147.138.67 (talk) 14:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Package management on the Mac - CLARIFICATION

Is there a good, web-based package manager for the Mac? I know about Fink and MacPorts only from their Wikipedia articles. How do these, and other such software (if it exists), compare to apt/Synaptic in Debian? Is there a list of available packages somewhere, and to they work as reliably as they do in Debian? Is using such a tool a one-way ticket to Dependency Hell? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify my own question, in case I wasn't making myself clear. I am talking about a package management system for the management of an open-source subset of the total collection of software on the machine. I assume that the OS itself will not be managed by the package management system, nor will commercial programs. I am asking because I currently use a dual boot PC with XP and Linux. I want to upgrade, and consider switching from the Windows environment. However, Linux-only is not an option, due to its limited hardware support. I was hoping that by using a Mac with a package manager for the open-source subset of the software, I would get the best of both worlds. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Fortran

Does anyone here know Fortran? —Keenan Pepper 17:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Those found in Category:User for, and probably many more. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 17:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Those found in Category:User for, and probably many more. (above - decided not to edit your answer - missing colon.87.102.90.249 (talk) 17:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I edited it because it was causing this page to be added to the category. -- BenRG (talk) 19:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

be brave and ask a fortran related question...87.102.90.249 (talk) 17:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I did. No one answered. You'd have found it if you had searched this page for either Fortran or my name. —Keenan Pepper 05:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Or if you'd linked to it like this Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing#Fortran program copied from manual doesn't work correctly

Forgetting to read "How to ask a question" ... "Be Patient" ... "A complete answer to your question may be developed over a period of up to four days." .. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.114.230 (talk) 19:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to read recursion specifically the part around

Use of recursion in an algorithm has both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is usually simplicity. The main disadvantage is often that the algorithm may require large amounts of memory if the depth of the recursion is very large. It has been claimed that recursive algorithms are easier to understand because the code is shorter and is closer to a mathematical definition, as seen in these factorial examples. It is often possible to replace a recursive call with a simple loop, as the following example of factorial shows:"

in Recursion#Recursion_in_computer_science (refering to a different function) (emphasis mine)- your example is a case of a pointless recursive algorhthym - a loop would be better.87.102.114.230 (talk) 20:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC) That section also explains briefly when recursion is a good idea - in general it's a good idea when the proceedure can't be done easily in a simple loop - not the case here.87.102.114.230 (talk) 20:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay... tell that to the ISO or ANSI committee who wrote the manual, because I had nothing to do with it. —Keenan Pepper 06:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Why are you so stupid? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.116.134 (talk) 15:27, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Computer speed.

Hi guys i recently got a new Medion computer for christmas, and it runs Windows Vista Basic. However its not as fast as i would like it to be. It has a 3.46GHz Intel Celeron D processor (is this any good?) but only 512mb of RAM. I know that's not the best amount, but what would be the best way to make the computer run a bit faster? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.109.51.197 (talk) 17:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC) 91.109.51.197 (talk) 17:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC) sorry.

If you have too little RAM for your needs, the best way to make it faster is to add more RAM. And it's generally cheap, too. Friday (talk) 17:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

(edir conflict)512MB is the absolute minimum for Vista Home Basic. You would most likely get significant speed improvements by putting in at least another 512MB of memory. I'd recommend putting in as much memory as your system supports and your can afford. --LarryMac | Talk 17:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

thanks, so more RAM would be the best option? Can you recommend a specific product, and also, what makes the price of it differ so much? i've just been on Amazon and found 1GB for £11,98, and then anothe 1GB of RAM, by the same company, for £40. Plus, can you just plug it into a PCI slot on your motherboard or does it require more specialised installation?91.109.51.197 (talk) 17:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

RAM does not go into a PCI slot, there will be specific slots on the motherboard that are for memory. One of the reasons you would see a large range of prices is because there are many types of computer memory, and they are not interchangeable. While it is not generally considered a difficult task to add memory, perhaps you would be more comfortable in taking your system somewhere to have this done, so that you are sure to get the correct type and have it taken care of quickly. --LarryMac | Talk 18:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Ahem. If you bought a Medion, you basically wasted every cent spent on it. --Ouro (blah blah) 19:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It was a gift, remember. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, right. Sorry. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Installing RAM is as easy as putting a card into a PCI slot, it's just that the slots aren't PCI but a different type. If it's a desktop computer it probably takes DDR2 DIMMs, which have names like PC2-xxxx. If it's a laptop computer it probably takes DDR2 SO-DIMMs, which also have names like PC2-xxxx, so you need to look for the presence or absence of the "SO". The -xxxx part doesn't matter; larger is "better", but not in any way you're likely to notice. The "2" in "PC2" does matter, though. -- BenRG (talk) 19:49, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Can the OP downgrade to Windows XP (hopefully Pro) from Vista Basic for no additional cost? You can live with Windows XP on 512 MB RAM unless you do heavy computing stuff. Kushal^t 04:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

You can also live without sandwiches, melted cheese, and computers, but is it worth it? :) Second on the downgrade, if you can, get xp. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Even if you cannot get a free downgrade, you may not need to shell out a lot of money. If you are enrolled in an academic institution, you can get Microsoft Windows XP at a discount as Froth told me. Kushal^t 15:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Also remember that if all the slots are taken up, you might need to remove the existing RAM to install new ones. It is advisable to downgrade to Windows XP if you can do so with little or no monetary expense. Kushal^t 15:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

If you plan to upgrade the RAM yourself, remember that you will need a method of preventing electrostatic damage as a motherboard is a sensitive device. A ground mat and an antistatic wrist strap should do the trick. Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 15:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Or you could just find another way to ground yourself (touch something large and metal), and avoid doing it on carpet or anything like that. I see the wrist strap and ground mat as a good investment if you do that sort of thing all the time, but if it's a one-time installation, it's a bit overkill. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 15:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh I don't know...an anti-static wristband will only cost a few quid and my boyfriend used a rubber doormat when he built his computer :). Another alternative is to keep touching the anti-static packaging that the RAM comes in. Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 16:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

No offense meant to the original questioner, but such things seemed outside his/her ken, which is why I recommended getting the memory installed by somebody. --LarryMac | Talk 15:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

After a bit of digging, I found [11]. Basically, if your Vista came with the computer (OEM software), then Microsoft will not allow you to downgrade Vista to XP unless it is Vista business or vista ultimate. Kushal^t 09:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Switching from vista to XP appears to be very unsupported by microsoft. on the other hand, one of the options it offers from the desktop or control panel or somewhere equally obvious (just farting around with it last night) is 'ten ways to speed up Vista' which includes instructions on how to disable all the fancy graphics. pretty amazing when the operating system comes with instructions to disable part of it to speed it up. Gzuckier (talk) 19:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

ASP.NET problem

I have a problem with ASP.NET validators. I need a client-side validator that reads two dates, each from a separate user-editable text field, and compares which is the older and which is the newer. Specifically, I have to let the user enter the validity period of an order, and the validator needs to check that the order's validity doesn't end before it starts. This has to be done entirely on the client side. How can this be done? JIP | Talk 19:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

CompareValidator can compare dates. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 20:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Cool! I knew it could, but I had always figured it could only compare a date against a constant, not against another user-entered date. Thanks! JIP | Talk 20:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Aero-style look and feel for Linux?

One of the very few things I like about Windows Vista is the new Aero eye candy. Is there a similar flashy look and feel for Linux desktops (Gnome or KDE perhaps)? I think I have the necessary CPU and GPU power. All I want is the visual graphical goodness. The OS itself and the desktop environment can remain the same, thank you very much. Is there such a thing? JIP | Talk 19:19, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Would Compiz do what you want? --LarryMac | Talk 20:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, so how the bloody hell do I change my window manager on a Fedora 8 system running Gnome? After I installed Compiz, I tried "compiz --replace". This left me with Gnome running without any window manager. I rebooted, and this left gdm unable to start up. After Fedora 8 has loaded, the entire display turns off, not receiving any input. Now, if I boot into single-user mode and manually run gdm, I am able to manually launch any window manager I want, but the changes never stay. If I even log out (not reboot), the display turns off again. And I don't even need to tell you that if I boot Fedora 8 as normal (not single-user mode), gdm doesn't work. How can I even get my Metacity back? Assume I know how a basic Unix-like system works, but I know nothing whatsoever about X Windows, Gnome, or window managers. What files do I need to check and change to get the system to run gdm and Metacity again? As a last resort, I can always reinstall Fedora 8, destroying the root partition but keeping my home partition intact, but I'd rather avoid that. JIP | Talk 22:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

For matters like this, I'd suggest you take it to a Fedora forum (indeed, you'd have done well to take your original query there since you'd probably find instructions on how to deal with Compiz as well). Sorry if I've made false assumptions. ----Seans Potato Business 23:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

JIP, there just happens to be a version of Fedora that looks a lot like Vista, and I think it has the Aero look and feel from Vista as its default look, if I'm not mistaken. It's called Vixta (only one letter difference), and their homepage is at http://vixta.sourceforge.net. However, there is one major difference here in that it uses KDE instead of GNOME for its desktop, but I think this sounds like what you may very well be looking for -- and it's based on Fedora, no less! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredbird67 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

PS -- I just found such a theme for GNOME, so it sounds like you should be able to install this from within GNOME. Try looking at http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Complete+Vista+Aero+theme+(automated)?content=72318 and tell me if that isn't what you've been looking for. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredbird67 (talk • contribs) 00:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

That looks all well and good as such, but it looks too much like Windows Vista. I want flashy colours and shiny buttons and translucency - I don't want an exact copy of the Vista UI. A theme with an original idea would have been better. JIP | Talk 17:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at KDE 4. Good review with images here. --

Kesh (talk) 22:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

No don't try KDE! I'll be at work in a few minutes, I'll upload a slick screenshot of my murrine + compiz, and JIP will be wowed :O :D\=< (talk) 12:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not "aero", it's better! http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/2079/screenshot2ws7.png :D\=< (talk) 13:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

wireless internet not connecting

Hey I'm just wondering if anyone can help me out with connecting to a wireless router.

I'm in France and in our apartment we have a Neuf box. I can connect to the internet with the LAN cable but not wirelessly. The other 2 people in the flat can connect wirelessly with no problems. we have a network key, which i know, but it still wont connect with that. We phoned the Neuf company today and they couldnt suggest anything except that there may be a problem with the anti-virus software I use. I use the free edition of AVG and i uninstalled it and tried to connect, still without succes. At home in Ireland I can connect without problems and I connected successfully in a hotel in France last week. I can also connect sometimes to another unsecured wireless network in our apartment block, but that one is usually out of reach. Therefore I conclude that the problem is with my laptop, am I right? If anyone can help it would be gratefully appreciated!

Thanks Emma —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.204.86.139 (talk) 19:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

opening ports so that i can open programmes and download patches properly

I'm downloading a patch for the multiplayer online computer game, WORLD OF WARCRAFT, and ALWAYS it takes AAAAAAAGES doing so. Literally!

The downloader says the computer is behind a firewall, but i always try turning of my firewall and it doesnt change so i KNOW it is not behind a firewall. I am not at all any good at the technical bits about computers, but i know enough to know that it might just be the PORT (also called gateway???) to that programe that has not been opened. This time in particular, it has gone deeeeeaaad-slow, i have downloaded 30% at this point, and well, 2 hours at least must have passed by now.

So i just have to try do something, once and for all so that i can finally download properly. this has always been a problem you see...

The blizzard downloader is already open, but i thought I shud try open the port to the downloading programme itself, i dont know if thats right to do, but i thought i shud try. but now the problem is that i cannot find the portnumber to the downloading programme, in fact i dont know where to find ANY portnumbers at all to ANY programmes... i dont know where..

Maybe you could help me find this and tell me how to do it. i think i maybe know how to do it if i only knew the portnumber but i am not sure...

and if i am wrong, and if there are other, better and more correct ways to fix this problem, i would be most grateful to learn by someone who knows.

I fear it will take another 5 hours if i dont get any help... and just so it is said, i have a fast and strong computer so that is not an issue. and if it is of importance, i have windos VISTA, not XP. maybe good to know if you will tell me where to find things, as the menus are a little bit different maybe.

Thanks :)

85.164.184.170 (talk) 20:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Messing with ports can be dangerous... they're closed for a reason a lot of the time. Another possible reason for your slow download is Blizzard's servers... if you have 1,000 people downloading all at once that's gonna strain their servers and thus make it slow. You just have to be patient I guess. What speeds are you getting atm? And how big is the file? Also, don't leave your firewall down too long! Scarian^{Call me Pat} 22:24, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you doing this over a wireless router? The odds are that the router is blocking the ports, not your personal firewall. Configuring a router to open select ports is not entirely easy (and varies depending on the type of router it is), and requires knowing exactly what ports to open. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 00:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I've never used the Blizzard downloader, but I gather it's some kind of peer-to-peer thing. If so, enabling outside connections to the appropriate port(s) is quite likely to improve your download speed. It's also quite safe, provided you don't open any of the small number of dangerous ports. The dangerous ports all have numbers below 1024, and any sane peer-to-peer program will only use port numbers above 1024. You do need to know the right port number, and Blizzard should make that very clear (since a lot of people are going to have this problem). Once you know that, if you have a DSL/cable router, "port forwarding" is what you need to set up. -- BenRG (talk) 01:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Here ya go mate- If you are behind a router go to portforwarding.com and find your model to get instructions to open ports 6112, 3274, and 6881-6999. If not, well, Blizzard downloader is just plain slow. The official story is here 71.59.214.87 (talk) 05:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

noname

Whenever my teachers at school email home a word document to my gmail account, its file name becomes "noname." It looks to be done by "Apple-mail" as thats what the top line of the document shows when opened in word or open office. Is there any way I can fix this on my end, or open it? Thanks --Omnipotence407 (talk) 20:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Multimedia keyboards

Is there a standard for the keycodes generated by the extra keys on a multimedia keyboard, or is it just chance that my Microsoft Natural and generic Compaq keyboards generate the same codes for the volume buttons? --Carnildo (talk) 21:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

At least in Windows there's a standard: winuser.h defines VK_BROWSER_BACK, VK_BROWSER_FORWARD, VK_BROWSER_REFRESH, VK_BROWSER_STOP, VK_BROWSER_SEARCH, VK_BROWSER_FAVORITES, VK_BROWSER_HOME, VK_VOLUME_MUTE, VK_VOLUME_DOWN, VK_VOLUME_UP, VK_MEDIA_NEXT_TRACK, VK_MEDIA_PREV_TRACK, VK_MEDIA_STOP, VK_MEDIA_PLAY_PAUSE, VK_LAUNCH_MAIL, VK_LAUNCH_MEDIA_SELECT, VK_LAUNCH_APP1, and VK_LAUNCH_APP2, and dinput.h defines DIK_MUTE, DIK_CALCULATOR, DIK_PLAYPAUSE, DIK_MEDIASTOP, DIK_VOLUMEDOWN, DIK_VOLUMEUP, DIK_WEBHOME, DIK_WEBSEARCH, DIK_WEBFAVORITES, DIK_WEBREFRESH, DIK_WEBSTOP, DIK_WEBFORWARD, DIK_WEBBACK, DIK_MYCOMPUTER, DIK_MAIL, and DIK_MEDIASELECT. -- BenRG (talk) 00:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Those are virtual keycodes: what Windows translates the actual keypresses into. I want to know about the codes being transmitted from they keyboard to the computer. --Carnildo (talk) 21:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Scancode is the concept you're referring to. Taking the first external link from that article (http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/scancodes.html) you'll find quite a long list of PC keyboards and their scancode peculiarities. The ones you mentioned are in section 6 of that document. If you look at the rest of the keyboards, you'll see that e030 for volume up and e02e for volume down are common, but there are some exceptions. This is probably neither a coincidence nor a formal standard, but just a case of manufacturers following the path of least resistance by imitating Microsoft. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 22:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Bebo problems

hi,

i use Bebo social networking thingy but i have a problem....frequently when i try to get on it...via google search/favourties it either says: I Explorer cant display this web page bla bla bla or goes onto this : 'get free spyware/maleware/addware protection and refuses to go ont Bebo....(this is the only website that it happens on!)...if i try to get off this strange anti virus website a box appears asking me if i want to bookmark the page and when i decline puts me back to the strange page...so then i have to exit the internet

help me stop this mayhem!!!!!!!!!!

( i have the latest IE browser (7 i think))

thanks, --The world tour (talk) 21:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you have some type of spyware or adware infestation. Download and run the free utilities Spybot and AdAware. Run a full sweep using your antivirus software as well. Consider using Firefox instead of IE, as FF is less vulnerable to such infections in the first place. --LarryMac | Talk 21:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

939 processor

Has AMD stopped developing faster 939 processors? If not, will there be a quad-core 939 processor? ----Seans Potato Business 23:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe the fastest socket 939 is the FX-60 (that's the one I have, so if there's a faster one, let me know). I think they've just moved on to socket AM2. Useight (talk) 04:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Firefox file associations

Is there anyway to change every single file type to open with the default program I have set on my computer? Quicktime plugin likes override my settings every time I update, and I'm tired of manually changing each one. 67.188.81.158 (talk) 23:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking... if you're computer-savvy enough you could copy the portion of the Windows Registry with the correct file associations, and then after each update merge that copied portion back with the Registry, thus overriding any changes. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

February 5

Does the Wikimedia Foundation only use free sotfware like the Free Software Foundation?

Does Wikimedia only user free software? Does it run Windows. Does it run GNU/Linux? Jet (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki says the Wikipedia software is open-source. It's written in PHP, so my guess = Apache+PHP+MySQL. Because the website is huuuge, I think it's on Linux or BSD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grawity (talk • contribs) 10:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

"The popularity of the Wikimedia projects necessitates the use of many servers, all but two run the GNU/Linux operating system."[12] You can get a list of the exact OSes at the link. Many flavors of GNU/Linux. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 16:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The list at meta:Wikimedia servers shows mostly various types of Linux, although some Solaris and FreeBSD servers are also listed. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

standard TRS microphones unpowered, need solution

I just made a satisfying purchase lately, or so I thought until I tried to use it. I purchased an Olympus ME15 lavalier microphone, its omnidirectional, comes with a tie-clip, and a 1m cord. The reason why this microphone is so compact is that it relies on a power source through the plug. The TRS connector plug looks that of any old mono TRS microphone plug. Even though the device was built for Olympus' voice recorder products, I thought I could use it as a computer microphone. Why its not working is because the socket in my PC is not providing any power. Is that standard? Was any computer mics that I encountered powered by an internal battery? I hope not, because that would give them a limited lifespan.

My problem is that there are no lapel (lavalier) microphones for PCs or any other audio equipment in stock anywhere (they seem to be loosing favor), And that I'm going to have to make do with this thing. I'm thinking about building a battery "box" that will go between the mic socket and the microphne itself, is that a viable solution? What part of the plug (TRS mono) does the power supply go? How exactly do these microphones get powered? -ANONYMOUS 02:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

You'll want to see our phantom power article. Unfortunately, only the last few sentences are completely germane to your question. So please also see electret microphone and its external links.

Atlant (talk) 14:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

irc passwords

i can't remember the password i used when registering an account on irc/freenode. i've searched online for the last 20 minutes trying to figure out how to recover it, but i'm coming up empty handed. i set an email when i registered, and i thought there would be some easy way to have it sent to me. how can i recover my password? StickShaker (talk) 02:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd join #support or #help on your IRC network and ask there. Chances are an IRCop will be able to help TheGreatZorko (talk) 12:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Extrapolate a photo's missing piece

Can any existing program automatically paint the missing piece of this wall and continue the falloff of light intensity?

Do any programs exist that will detect lighting gradients and extrapolate them to fill a missing corner in a photo (such as that which occurs when the photo is rotated and cropped) in a more realistic way than could be done with rubber stamping, at least if the cut-off object is something smooth and flat like a wall? NeonMerlin 02:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'd probably just draw a gradient in by hand (with Photoshop or the line) on a layer below and try to get it to match up fairly well. Then you can run some filters on it to roughen it up a little bit. As for a program that will do it automatically, and correctly, I suspect not. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 16:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

If you find some, let me know. It's one of the features I really wish Resynthesizer had. I suppose it might be possible to achieve something like it with a combination of Resynthesizer, manual gradient fitting and the grain extract/merge layer modes: first fit a gradient as closely as possible to the existing lighting, then extract the difference (which would hopefully be mostly high-frequency texture) and use Resynthesizer to fill in the missing area. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Batch red eye removal

What Linux apps can remove red eye from photos as a batch operation? NeonMerlin 05:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

GIMP has batch processing and a basic red-eye removal tool. The trick is that red-eye removal will remove a specific shade of red, turning it black. Since you won't manually be pointing out where the red is on the photo (in batch mode, you have to do the whole photo), any red of that particular shade will be turned black. That can cause problems. -- kainaw™ 13:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

How do you set up a task force on a different MediaWiki?

I'm trying to set up a task force at my own Wiki. Can some one click on this link and help me? --75.181.81.73 (talk) 11:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I can see that 75.181.81.73 has been active on Wikipedia for only a few days, and certainly do not want to bite the newbies. To me however, the question as stated violates the guideline Wikipedia:Spam, please correct me if I'm wrong. Perhaps it would be better for the original questioner to reword the question: "How does one attract attention to a personal wiki project? The project in question deals with modern visual culture, the plots and their charactes." --NorwegianBlue ^talk 11:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Try failing over at digg, someone might be interested :D\=< (talk) 12:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been active longer than that, I was just not logged in. It's not spam. Did you not check out the link? I'm asking how do I set up a task force on my Wiki. I followed the steps on Wikipedia, but I'm missing something. --MahaPanta (talk) 18:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

My apologies. I did follow the link, as my paraphrasing of the introductory sentence of the main page should indicate. The link led to a page with the title "MVC:WikiProject San-X/Omusubiya-san task force", an image, and the text "{{subst:MVC:WikiProject San-X/Coordinators/Toolbox/Task force boilerplate|Omusubiya-san task force|OnigiriTF}}". I take it, then, that your question is why the template is not expanded. I have only limited experience in setting up my own wiki, but I suspect that the reason is that some required template is not defined. For example, when you type "Template:Task_force" in the search box of Wikipedia, you are taken to a template called "Task force". When you type "Template:Task_force" in the search box of your wiki, you are offered to create a new page. Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable in the inner workings of Wikipedia and MediaWiki software will come along and give you a better answer. Best of luck with your project. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Since we got that misunderstanding out of the way, you were able to at least point me in the right direction. I'm going to try coping that template over since I'm using the same MediaWiki code that Wikipedia uses. --MahaPanta (talk) 20:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know? --75.181.81.73 (talk) 07:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem you are having is to do with namespaces on the wiki. You're naming stuff "MVC:...", while the project namespace is "MVC Wiki:...". There are two solutions I can think of: change the name of the project namespace to "MVC", or rename the files to start with "MVC Wiki".

• If you have access to the server the wiki is hosted on, you can rename the "MVC Wiki:" namespace to "MVC:" by editing LocalSettings.php, adding the following on its own line to the bottom of the file:

$wgMetaNamespace = "MVC";

Note the semicolon (;) at the end of the line. You could also enable subpages at the same time:

$wgNamespacesWithSubpages[NS_PROJECT] = true;

See $wgMetaNamespace and $wgNamespacesWithSubpages

• Otherwise, rename (move) the project from MVC:WikiProject_San-X/... to MVC Wiki:WikiProject_San-X/...

Then create the page MVC_Wiki:WikiProject_San-X/Coordinators/Toolbox/Task_force_boilerplate (or MVC:WikiProject_San-X/Coordinators/Toolbox/Task_force_boilerplate if you renamed the namespace). You can then {{subst:...}} this into any pages.

As an aside, there is a third, subtle trick you can use. When using templates, MediaWiki will look in the "Template:" namespace (eg using the {{X1}} template takes you to Template:X1). But you can force templates to look in the main (article) namespace by prefixing it with a colon (eg {{:Main Page}}). As the MVC: pages are currently in the main namespace (as they're not in the "MVC Wiki:" namespace), you can also access them by using {{:MVC:Whatever}}. For subst, this would be {{subst::MVC:Whatever}} (note the two colons). --h2g2bob (talk) 17:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I added

$wgMetaNamespace = "MVC";

$wgNamespacesWithSubpages[NS_PROJECT] = true;

to the local settings, but it's sill not working. --75.181.81.73 (talk) 22:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Graphics card heat

Using nTune I decided to check out the temperature of my video card today. It's a XFX GeForce 6800GS. It was idling at 72 degrees Celsius, which is pretty hot for just idling. I turned on Half-Life 2 for a few minutes and I got it to top out at 116 degrees Celsius (that's 239 degrees Fahrenheit!). The game was locking up every few seconds. Should I be looking into a new card, a new fan, or water cooling? Useight (talk) 07:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you to check the specifications of your graphics card manual or in internet. Since that is the place where you get the results for benchmarks upon performance, quality, etc. In each card's reviews, they will mention the temperature of the card's idle state and at maximum usage. so check out that and you will know the thershold at which your card should fall in. Then think about replacing. Coz your fan could be a problem after-all —Preceding unsigned comment added byBalan rajan (talk • contribs) 09:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[13] under the "Is the newborn hot?" section states that their XFX 6800GS card idles at around 40-45 deg. C, and peaks at 65 deg. C under full load. Some of the heat could also be attributed to case temperature, which is partly dependent upon ambient temperature and case cooling. My opinion is that your card is running at abnormally high temperatures. It's most likely that your Graphics card fan is malfunctioning and/or poor contact between GFX card heatsink and GPU. I'd suggest you take a look at your GPU Fan first, and check that it's actually working before trying anything drastic. Also, is your GPU overclocked? That is also another possible cause for high temps. Tetsuox (talk) 09:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

My 6600GT runs at 60 degrees idle with compiz, and goes up to nearly 100 while playing TF2, and it's still here after 3 years. Not overclocked, I think I need a bigger fan on there or something... But I think your case is too high, check that the heatsink is actually touching the chip (look at it sideways/top down, see if you can see any gaps between the chip and the heatsink) and your fan is on. Also try touching the heatsink to see if it's actually hot. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

My card came factory overclocked a little by XFX, but I didn't overclock it at all. I'm going to get a can of compressed air and try to clean out my PC a little and move up in expenses from there. Useight (talk) 15:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

One more thing to try is running your computer for a while with the side of the case open. If that makes the temperature go down, your case has inadequate (or inappropriately installed) ventilation. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

threads in computerscience

can we use assembly language or high level language in making a thread? also can we possibly write our own thread for kernel mode?Jasunand (talk) 07:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)jasunand

If the Operating System supports threads, then assembly language will allow you to program threads (with extreme difficulty). Not all high level languages have syntax for programming threads, but I doubt you'll be using one that doesn't support it. If you are writing a kernel mod, it is possible (and common) to use threads. -- kainaw™ 16:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

threads (2nd question)

are user threads supported by operating ystem?Jasunand (talk) 07:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

If you mean multi-threading in user mode, then yes (on Windows, at least). --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 10:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Check out our article Thread (computer science) to answer your general questions, and let us know if there's anything you don't understand. --Sean 17:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Jasunand, do you really mean "user thread", rather than just "thread for userspace program"? If so, take a look at our fiber (computer science) and green threads articles. User threads aren't implemented using support from the OS - they instead perform basic cooperative multitasking using solely userspace code (that is, they don't make syscalls and aren't managed individually by the system scheduler). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Is Google AdSense Completely LEGAL and safe?

As in, I want to avoid Click-frauds, and on the whole, have a good AdSense experience. Please help me out. Thank you so much! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.169.41.253 (talk) 08:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

See Google Adsense and clickfraud for more. Adsense is safe as long as you don't use it ;) --Ouro (blah blah) 08:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

how to check out timings for executing a function in VB

Hi everybody, I'm working in Visual Basic 6.0. In VB's inbuilt function, is there any way to calculate the time that each function for eg (INSTR, MID etc) may take so that my program can be executed as fast as could. Because of this, my program runs slower and I'm unaware of how much time that each function takes. Could you please suggest me any links that may explain about the timings in VB instructions?...Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.48.124 (talk) 08:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

There's no in-built way that I know of to break down execution time by function, other than putting start and stop timers before and after everything and doing it manually. There's no automatic way to optimize code; you've got to go through and figure out what's cause the slowdown. INSTR and MID by themselves shouldn't be slowing things down in a major way. If you are running lots of loops, try to make sure that you aren't doing anything in a loop that you don't need to do right there, and aren't calculating anything on the fly that you couldn't calculate ahead of time (e.g. if you had a program that needed the value 2*PI a lot, just calculate it once and store it in a variable, don't force the processor to re-calculate it every loop). If you posted the troublesome code here I'm sure we could take a look at it. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 15:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

You want a piece of software called a profiler. Googling for Template:Websearch indicates that various ones are available. --Sean 17:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion . I am concat the string in loop and save in a variable. The length of string is going to large so time takes to handle the string. So what can I do Please help me —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.48.124 (talk) 10:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

When I first saw this discussion, I suspected that string concatenation might be causing the slowdown. Two possible solutions:

• use a fast string class - Google "VB6 string class" for lots of samples
• allocate a large-enough array at the start of the loop, add each piece of the string to it, and use the join function to make it into the final string (this is effectively what the fast string class will be doing).

(It's no help to you here, but in VB.NET you could use a StringBuilder object.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

How do you convert an EPS into an SVG?

Hi! How do you convert an Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) into an Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)? --escondites 16:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Try using OpenOffice.org Draw, I believe it can do that, though I wouldn't expect the results to be very pretty (I find that Draw's SVGs often don't work well at all in other SVG editing programs, like Inkscape). --24.147.69.31 (talk) 16:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Inkscape can import EPS files, sometimes even successfully. I believe it uses pstoedit for the actual conversion. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I tried pstoedit yesterday and couldn't squeeze what I wanted out of it, but for a different conversion though. --Ouro (blah blah) 13:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I just tried Ghostscript combined with GSview, it worked perfectly! --escondites 14:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Good NNTP servers

Are there any good NNTP servers? ("good" includes being free of charge) --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 16:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Who would give you a good service for free? Who is going to pay for terabytes of storage, servers, high-speed networks and support? Anyway, giganews (tier 1) is excellent for a decent cost IMO. Sandman30s (talk) 10:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd recommend NewsHosting over Giganews, they are cheaper (from what I remember - neither site can be viewed on my current network) and have some other small things better than Giganews TheGreatZorko (talk) 12:47, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Super Bowl Introduction Video

Right before the Super Bowl was an introduction video. It featured such scenes as The School of Athens and Martin Luther King Jr. in relief, and a television in an art gallery. I can't find the video to watch or save to my computer again, I'd like to have it. Any help? Mac Davis (talk) 18:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Anything related to the Super Bowl is the property of the National Football League. And as they said during the game, "reproduction and distribution of any material (including the broadcast) is Illegal". I don't think you'll find help here, since most Wikipedia users are strict when it comes to what is free and what is not. — Kjammer  ⌂ 23:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

That's why I usually record the Superbowl while it's playing. Then I can get commercials, highlights, or whatever. This year, though, my TV tuner card for my computer was broken, so I didn't record it. Sorry. Try YouTube, Google Video, or something I do not endorse, a BitTorrent. Useight (talk) 01:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

MSN live messenger

hello,

iv asked this sort of question a few days ago but here we go again:

• i have windows XP normal edition thingy
• i had windows live messenger
• i deleated it using add/remove programs (i cant remember why)
• now i want to re-install it back onto my computer
• BUT when ive been onto the MS live website, clicked download and stuff....when it comes to installing it and the special windows live bok comes up it:

1. scanning/checking your computer for live products [there arent any!]
2. windows cant install this product
3. get help with this problem/try again later

This has been happening for about 2 weeks now and very annoying....

1. how do i fix the problem?
2. (are there similar messageing programs that will allow me to communicate with friends using windows live meaaenger?)

thanks, --The world tour (talk) 18:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Pidgin (software) will do MSN IM. -- kainaw™ 19:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

DRM and Media Converter

I am about to (shame on me!) purchase this album, with these restrictions. I guess they come in MP3 format; if I were to convert them to WAVs and then back to MP3s using the above program, would the DRM protection be gone? Obviously I take full legal responsibility :D Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 19:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Neither MP3 nor WAV format supports DRM. To be DRMed, they must be WMA (Windows Media) or M4A (iTunes).

"Obviously I take full legal responsibility" Yeah, sure you will.

Also, the "Usage rights" contains the line:

"CD Burning 10 The number of times this item may be burned to a CD"

So you can burn the song(s) to CD and rip them into a clean MP3 (or AAC or OGG or FLAC or WHATEVR).

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 19:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

...but since the list says "Format: MP3", I have absolutely no idea how the restrictions will be enforced.

A tip: if the site requires some weird software to play your songs, don't install it until you r ead the license. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 19:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Right... I'll look into it. Would it really work to just burn and rip them, if they were DRMed? Would my original idea of converting to WAV/OGG or something and then back also work (being less CD-intensive :D)?Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 19:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

1. Once you burn a song into a CD (Audio CD, to be more exact), it's in pure plain CD-Audio format, and you can then rip the song back into any format you want. (And I don't think a CD-R would be that expensive.)

2. If you convert a song to a DRM-free format (WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC), it loses any DRM. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 19:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, last queries here... first, when I download the music, will I get a license with it too, a "tangible" file, or is the protection in-built into the tracks (ignoring the MP3 issue, of course)? And secondly: why do people bother protecting files when they can easily be stripped of the DRM? It sounds silly! Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 19:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

1. If the file format supports DRM (examples are Windows Media WMV and iTunes M4A), then the file will be encrypted by the program and the key will be saved in your computer, and if the player finds the key + knows the algorithm, then the file is decrypted and played|burned. (You might want to read article on DRM.)

If the format doesn't support DRM, then it's just a file.

2. No idea why they do so. Maybe to make it harder? But even Sony (IIRC) suggests you to burn the song to CD and rip it if you want to use alternative players (Winamp, foobar2000, others). --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 20:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help - it's downloading now!! Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 20:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Converting a file to WAV and then to MP3 does a lot more than "strip the DRM". You have a compressed version of the song to begin with, whether WMA or M4A. Whatever program you use to make a WAV file from that will necessarily have to "guess" at what the missing bits are. Then you will apply another round of compression to the WAV file, losing other bits. This is analogous to a document that has been photocopied several times; maybe you can still read the words, but it won't be the crisp clean text that was first produced. Depending on the type of music you are listening too and your own personal preferences, you might not hear or care about the results, but don't think you are getting an exact copy. --LarryMac | Talk 20:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

You're right - the difference was very noticeable! Would the CD-burning trick lose quality? Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 20:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately, that is essentially the same process - compress/uncompress/compress. --LarryMac | Talk 20:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there any lossless way to do it? And, having done these processes, is there any way I can check the DRM presence or not? --Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 20:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I'm being terribly naive in this day and age, but are you sure these aren't simply legal restrictions without technological enforcement? I see nothing on the two pages you linked that directly suggests that they're using DRM. You haven't mentioned yet the file type of the songs you downloaded. If it's MP3, and you're using an ordinary MP3 player (not a special one they made you download), then as far as I can see there can't be any DRM involved. -- BenRG (talk) 21:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

They're MP3 files and I'm using WMP - is it true that MP3s cannot be DRMed? Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 21:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

That is correct. See Comparison of audio codecs. I can't access the site you first referenced, but I think BenRG may be correct. --LarryMac | Talk 21:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Best part is, if it's unencrypted you can burn it to as many CDs as you want since there's no DMCA with its iron boot pressing down on your neck. IANAL but I seriously doubt they can just attach arbitrary conditions to mp3 files and expect them to be legally binding --:D\=< (talk) 23:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The reality is that no files can be DRMed. MP3s just take out the middle man. --Sean 00:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Ehhhhh what. Files can be DRMed (with varying degrees of effectiveness- microsoft's throwing hundreds of programmers at constantly changing the algorithm and pushing it with windows updates has made WMA digitally uncrackable iirc. And MP3 definitely don't plug the analog hole- why would you use analog if it's completely open anyway :D\=< (talk) 12:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

getting out of Picture mode -- Vista

I clicked on Pictures, and ever since Vista insists on displaying ALL my folders in Picture mode. How do I make it display ordinary folders, with file names, dates, sizes, etc., instead of all that stuff that only pertains to pictures? (Yes, there is Windows "help," but TMI.) Many thanks in advance. --Halcatalyst (talk) 01:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Ending your question with doxtl;dr won't get it answered anywhere.. anyway as I recall the fix is obscure and involves deleting some cache file and some registry keys and disabling the folder autodetection, forcing every folder to All Items (unless you make exceptions specifically for the folders you want). I always have a hard time finding the fix after reformatting and a cursory look didn't turn anything up, try googling --:D\=< (talk) 04:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Ye gods, I'm not going to descend into the bowels of the machine. Anybody got higher level ideas? --Halcatalyst (talk) 05:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

In Windows Explorer click "View" on the tool bar and choose the display style you want, Icons, Tiles, Details, etc. Now click "Organize" on the tool bar and select "Folder and Search Options," click the "View" tab, select "Apply to Folders." Click "Apply" and "OK." Alternatively, you can click "Reset Folders" on the "View" tab to restore default folder views. —Wayward ^Talk 09:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

No, that definitely doesn't work at all. For most people that option does absolutely nothing except flip the bit saying the box is checked :D\=< (talk) 14:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Firefox bug?

I noticed an interesting behavior in Firefox today. Clicking on a button (not a link) works fine the first time, however if you go back to the page, the page has to be reloaded. For example, a search on google: I enter some terms to search, click "google search." Once I'm on the results page, if I go back to the google front page, and enter new terms, the "google search" button does nothing (likewise the "I'm feeling lucky" button is useless). Reload the page and everything works again.

This is of course, not limited to google. The Wikipedia search does the same (in fact, every button I have tried thus far). Any ideas what might be the issue? Thanks, --TeaDrinker (talk) 04:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't reproduce this. What platform and version of Firefox are you on? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 15:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

No, this actually occurs, but I have always assumed I can change some option to stop it. The problem is that when you go back to a page and press the same button (or any button for that matter), it simply does not respond. To solve the problem, just refresh/ reload the page ,and every thing is fine. This problem occurs mainly with WP when viewed under Firefox, and an OS of XP and possibly Vista but I am not sure. I have never experienced this problem before with IE, so I am guessing there is something wrong with Firefox parameters. Cheers! Λua∫Wise ^{(Operibus anteire)} 15:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem seems to occur only on Windows XP (haven't tried Vista). My home computer (OSX) does not have the same trouble. I know that refreshing works, although it is a bit of a pain. --TeaDrinker (talk) 16:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't doubt that it occurs, but I really can't reproduce it. XP SP2, Firefox 2.0.0.11 (en-GB), with and without extensions. Does this happen if you start Firefox in safe mode to disable all extensions? It's in the start menu in the same group as Firefox - it'll be labelled 'Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode)' — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 17:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Rather unsual because I have XP SP2, Firefox 2.0.0.11 as well. You do not need to do anything to reproduce it, simply open Firefox and go to a certain page ,e.g. trying editing this converstion, press save and then go back and try and see if "save" actually works the second time, although I'd prefer you do that in the sandbox cause if you have no problems, this will involve sending postdata which will create duplicate entries. The problem is quite annoying but not at all serious, but I repeat: Very Annoying!. Cheers! Λua∫Wise ^{(Operibus anteire)} 19:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

MacOS fonts to .ttf

Looking for a free utility for MacOS to translate some of my bazillions of fonts to .ttf format so Povray can use them. (Years ago I did a few with Fontographer, but that was when I had a computer that could run Fontographer.) —Tamfang (talk) 10:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I've never used it, but apparently fondu does this. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 17:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Running a game in a Virtual Machine?

I have never used a virtual machine before, but I wish to play an old game called Interstate 76 and while it SORT OF runs under XP I lack sound, and was wondering if (seeing as the game has very low system requirements) I would be able to emulate a 3d accelerated machine under VMWare or whatever the Microsoft thing is. My machine is an AMD X2 4400+, with 2GB DDR400 memory, and an ATI x1950 Pro 512MB. What would be the best way of doing this? I have an old Windows 98 SE disk, and a bunch of free drive space but no idea which bit of software to use or if it is possible to emulate (is that how the machines work) a Direct3d card. Will I need drivers for my hardware but for Windows 98? TheGreatZorko (talk) 12:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure it depends on the virtualizer you use, but in many cases, no, you don't need 98 drivers to run on your host hardware, as the guest OS is not actually accessing your hardware directly. The virtualizer will access your host hardware through normal calls to it and provide its own virtual drivers for the guest operation system. So when it thinks it is sending a sound to your speakers, it is actually sending the sound to your host OS's sound system (which can send it to the speaker or ignore it or whatever you want it to do). Either Parallels Workstation or VMware Workstation should be able to do what you want. I've used Parallels mostly myself (though emulating XP on OS X) and easily get 3D, DirectX games of that vintage to run (Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, even a stuttering Half-Life 2!). --24.147.69.31 (talk) 16:56, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

How to RUN a program in Windows

I killed some Windows file associations. Mostly those useless right-click functions such as "Open with Stupid App" or "Send to Boring App". However, I killed open by Explorer or its equivalent by mistake. Now whenever I click an .exe file, it does not execute the program. I am with my already opened programs.

How do I solve this problem without reinstall the Windows? -- Toytoy (talk) 13:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hold down shift when you right-click and you'll get the elusive "Open with..." option that lets you choose any program. It also has a checkbox for remembering what you chose. -- kainaw™ 13:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I cannot see it. I can open and execute .msi (setup program). Maybe I can get a Windows check program and install it and then let it run after installation. -- Toytoy (talk) 13:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I can create a new file extension, such as .fvhjgvjghv . I then double click it and I can select a program to open it. Now I can run just about every program.

Can you recommend a Windows utility that can repair bad file association? -- Toytoy (talk) 13:39, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Do an in-place upgrade if you're using XP :D\=< (talk) 14:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I might be wrong but I seem to recall some sort of file association repair being part of Tweak UI? You might give that a try. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 16:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I tried:

1. Open a folder and select Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types
2. All buttons are disabled (colored gray)

I ran Norton Windows Doctor, it fails to find this type of error. Incorrect .exe file association can't be a problem, can it? -- Toytoy (talk) 19:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Finally, I restored the system. Now it's OK and I am the happiest man on Planet Earth. Long Live Bill Gates! Thank you for your wonderful computer system. -- Toytoy (talk) 20:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

DirectX 10

Hello, Does anyone know of a safe (preferably tested) method of running DirectX 10 under XP. Yes, I know it is only for Vista, but there seems to be sort of a hacked version that would change its restrictive parameters to allow XP OS's to run DirectX 10 (rather it is the opposite, DirectX to run on XP). Well, I am particularly interested in Direct3D which seems to have improved greatly from its DirectX 9c. Ideas anyone? :) Λua∫Wise ^{(Operibus anteire)} 16:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I've yet to hear of a way to use DirectX 10 in XP, but I would love to find out, too. Useight (talk) 16:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Ways exist, but it's easier to just find a version of the game that's been hacked to work with DX9 :D\=< (talk) 17:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

windoz media player won't start and stop ripping, right?

Just checking to see if there is something I missed; I have a bunch of live recordings made on audio CDs, where there are like ten songs on each track, I'd like to transfer them to one song per track, (preferably something lossless like WMA). But I can't just let media player start ripping a track, then hit stop, can I? Need to rip the whole track and then need some kind of editing software just to break it into songs? <sarcasm>Gee, this is way more nifty than those old fashioned tape recorders with their start and stop buttons.</sarcasm> thanks. Gzuckier (talk) 19:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Sharing contacts in Outlook

I work for a helpdesk and I have several associates needing to share the same contact address book. One Associate updates and the two others need to access it. I know how to import/export but it seems to do that with ALL of their contacts and not just the one distribution list they need.

What i was thinking is having them save all the contacts in a shared folder on our network. It looks like it saves via a .rtf extension. However, I can not get this to work correctly. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks, Kyle