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March 22

Printing only the first 1000 characters/bytes in PHP

Hello! I'm trying to build a website, wherein a MySQL query would return me a really large text field. I need to print only the first few lines of this text. Is there some function in PHP that will select only the first 1000 characters or bytes from the text and display them? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!--Seraphiel (talk) 06:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You want substr(). Try

substr($the_string, 0, 1000); //that's characters 0 to 999, the first 1000 characters

:D\=< (talk) 06:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Splendid! Exactly what I needed. Thank you!--Seraphiel (talk) 06:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

about hacking

i am using internet since last month,from last two days a messsage splash on my screen that your computer has been hacked and aal your vital information are sent though emails to other,it ask me to download that particular spyware tuo remove that virus hat can i do?

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT! It's just an advertisement to trick you into downloading a spyware program. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 09:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

If the OP is very distracted by the splash messages, maybe (s)he should get Adblock? What do you think, Grawity? Kushal 12:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

And Firefox. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 14:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

No website is ever going to tell you, without you asking it to, whether you have a virus. (There are some online virus scanners, but that's the exception. They cannot run without you explicitly authorizing them to.) Pop-up ads of all sorts should be ignored, especially if they are of the "you have a virus/you are a winner/click here for a free gizmo" variety. Most up-to-date browsers have pop-up ads disabled by default for this reason. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:45, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe Captain meant "enabled" when he said "disabled". Kushal 19:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I meant "disabled", as in, "most modern browsers block pop-ups by default." At least, I don't remember having to explicitly block them, but that might be my bad memory. Anyway, point being, on most up-to-date browsers you can block them very easily. :-) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

If the messages appearing are in the form of a grey box with an "OK" button, you can switch them off entirely by following the instructions on this page--Kateshortforbob 17:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC).

If the internet can get directly to your computer on the windows messenger port, then you have much bigger problems.. buy a router :D\=< (talk) 21:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

After fixing this problem about 18 times for family/friends using elderly machines still on dial-up, it's kind of a Pavlovian response for me! --Kateshortforbob 00:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The messenger service is disabled by default on XP SP2. If he's still operating pre-SP2 XP, *and* he doesn't have a router/firewall so messages can get through, he does have pretty serious problems. I'd kind of doubt that's it nowadays though, because of SP2. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Hold on, I understand that we need to ask the OP if he has SP2. However, the way I see it, the message could just be a banner ad on myspace or something. Kushal 22:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds like a more likely explanation. It's also possible that he is infected with spyware; a common tactic for spyware is to redirect users to or a pop up a windows saying something along the lines of: "Your computer is infected; pay us $49.99 for SuperAntiSpywarePlusPlus and we'll get rid of it, guaranteed!". I have actually spoken to someone who bought into one of these scams. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I do accept that having SP2 will help a lot. Kushal 13:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Problems with connecting digital camera USB cable

I have problems connecting a USB cable to my Canon PowerShot S3 IS digital camera. I have the standard-sized USB plug end of the cable plugged in to my computer's USB port and the mini-sized USB plug end hanging free, ready to be plugged into the camera. When I plug the cable into the camera, the camera notices it by powering up. However, the computer does not recognise the camera. I have to twist the mini-sized plug toward the back of the camera to make the computer recognise it. If I let go of the plug, so that it moves back to its natural position, the computer stops recognising the camera. This is very annoying, as it usually means I have to keep twisting the plug with one hand when I transfer pictures from the camera. What is causing this, and how can I fix it? JIP | Talk 15:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Loose connector on camera (fixable via Canon Service) or faulty USB cable (fixable by purchasing a new one). I think. --Ouro (blah blah) 17:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I had the same problem with my cellphone charger. Moisture and dust are not good for cable connectors. I think I took my cellphone too many times into the bathroom. I cleaned the metal connectors with a toothpick (!) and hey presto it seems to work fine now. Sandman30s (talk) 12:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I have an S3 IS too, though I've never had an issue like this. They are just standard 'mini-USB' cables, and nothing too proprietary, so they're easy to replace if need be, or if you've got any from other devices laying around. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

working physics problems using an artboard?

I want to collaborate with someone on some physics review problems, but scanning and emailing diagrams back and forth would be unweildy and time consuming. I know about oekaki and pictochat boards which let two people simulatanteously update the same picture in realtime which would be ideal; however I do not know where to go to find one of these oekaki or pictochat boards. The ideal board would have basic graphical functions like a straight line tool, the picture can be printed, and have an invite only section or something so that I can let in only the people who want to work on the physics problems. Does anyone have any idea where I can find an artboard like I described? Thanks in advance. 64.134.81.84 (talk) 16:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Great idea, but I've never seen one. You might want to ask at the Miscellaneous desk for greater exposure. :D\=< (talk) 21:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You can Sketchcast[1] or another thing I can't think of that lets you simultaneously have two people draw online for free. Mac Davis (talk) 00:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh lord, he's got another CSS question

OK. Last one for awhile. I promise. I've tried to figure this one out but it's not coming to me.

I've been setting up this little menu:

	<div id="menus">
		<ul>
		<li id="opt.0" class="unselected"><a href="about.html" target="content" onclick="javascript:select(0);">About</a></li>
		<li id="opt.1" class="unselected"><a href="research.html" target="content" onclick="javascript:select(1);">Research</a></li>
		<li id="opt.2" class="unselected"><a href="teaching.html" target="content" onclick="javascript:select(2);">Teaching</a></li>
		<li id="opt.3" class="unselected"><a href="contact.html" target="content" onclick="javascript:select(3);">Contact</a></li>
		</ul>
	</div>

Never mind that it uses frames at the moment (this is temporary, maybe. We'll see how it works out. I don't like 'em, but it might make life a lot easier in this case). The Javascript is just a simple little function — entirely aesthetic, just for kicks and giggles — that changes the class of the selected li from "unselected" to "selected" when you click on it.

The problem is, I can't seem to change the color of the link inside the list. I can change its background color no problem. But not the link color itself. WHY NOT?

Here's the CSS:

#menus a:hover, #menus li:hover, .selected {
	color: black;
	background-color: gold;
}

But the link color never changes to black. It stays its original color, white. I've tried using .selected a, .selected a:link, selected a.visited, .selected a:active, EVERYTHING I can think of, but it stubbornly stays white. I can change all sorts of other things (I can give .selected a a different background color, for example), but I can't change the text/link color. Note that it turns black when it is being hovered over, but it won't STAY black when it is "selected". The second that mouse isn't hovering over it anymore, it becomes white again. Even though the background color stays set as gold like it is supposed to.

I'm doing something wrong... but what is it? --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't need to use :link :visited or :active since the color would apply regardless of these conditions. I'd use the DOM inspector and the tools in the Web Developer addon to see what your javascript is actually doing and what styles are being applied :D\=< (talk) 20:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I got it to work fine.. you can always work off my code if you can't figure out what's wrong with yours.

a {
	color: blue;
}
a.unselected { 
	color: black;
}

a.selected {
        color: white;
}

function selectLink(theid) {
	document.getElementById(theid).className = "selected";
}

<div id="menus">
                <ul>
                <li><a id="opt0" class="unselected" href="#" onclick="selectLink('opt0')">About</a></li>
                <li><a id="opt1" class="unselected" href="#" onclick="selectLink('opt1')">Research</a></li>
                <li><a id="opt2" class="unselected" href="#" onclick="selectLink('opt2')">Teaching</a></li>
                <li><a id="opt3" class="unselected" href="#" onclick="selectLink('opt3')">Contact</a></li>
                </ul>
</div>

Some problems that I had getting mine to work that you might want to watch out for... in your select() function are you concatenating "opt" to the argument you passed in? Notice that you're calling selectLink with just a number, and nothing has that ID. Remember to use single quotes like I did if you want to just pass in the full ID in string form. I moved the id and class over to the link tag but you shouldn't have to, it should be fine in the li tag. Also you probably want something in the selectLink function to deselect the other items when one is selected. Also if users are going to be able to navigate between About Research Teaching and Contact through in-text links in the other frame, it would probably be better to have the subpages report to the other frame (perhaps through the parent frameset; javascript and frames and security make a messy situation) that they've been opened instead of switching the styles on the actual click of the nav, since they might not have clicked the nav to get the that page. :D\=< (talk) 21:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

(after e.c.)Adding

#menus .selected a
{
	color: black;
}

worked when I tried your code. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 21:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

God, that's sooo simple and yet it works. Sigh. Thank you both! --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

As a small side note, I sometimes find setting the color of a elements to color: inherit is handy for this sort of thing. Also, if you're not already using it, Firebug is really good at sorting out CSS problems. Just my 2 cents. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Well that would make it always black.. and you know you're setting both all links and everything with the class "selected" to be black.. I think you're trying to do a.selected :D\=< (talk) 03:16, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Uh... no I'm not. It's a contextual selector so I'm targeting the last child of a hierarchy, not those elements individually, and the class is on li, not a. I'm talking about the original code, not yours, by the way. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 12:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

March 23

QWERTY, Dvorak, Chorded...

What kind of keyboards do world record typists use ( I think I read dvorak ) and how do chorded keyboards compare in speed? What speed can the top 5% fastest typists hope to achieve in each of the three?

Secondly, is there an international dvorak keyboard, for e.g. french accents or a german version thank you!!!!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.61.150 (talk • contribs)

Further information: Keyboard (computing)

This study, which I presume only tested QWERTY typing, rates the top 5% as capable of 70wpm. I found this using Google Scholar; perhaps further down they includes a study directly comparing QWERTY with another keyboard.

"Barbara Blackburn, the world's fastest typist" (as linked from the Dvorak article) is a Dvorak user; that link (to what appears to be a Dvorak advocacy site) sources the 1985 Guinness Book of World Records, so later keyboard schemes (like the Colemak) weren't in the running when that record was set.

The Dvorak article also mentions non-english configurations, including French and German. It also says these keyboards leave the Roman characters in the same position as the English, which may be not optimized for other languages. (A note from a Norwegian user complains that version has issues.) No standard "international" version is mentioned.

Colemak's pool of users is very small, perhaps only a couple thousand, but speeds are said to be similar to Dvorak or QWERTY. A thread on Colemak forum laments the lack of studies.

According to the article Words per minute, Stephen Hawking peaked at 15wpm. I have tested at 65wpm; however, it took me several seconds to type QWERTY each time above, and again just now. Weird.

The variety of schemes for chorded keyboards, and their uncommonness, makes it hard to find comparative speed studies. Steno typists routinely exceed 200wpm, albeit in an abbreviated, not generally intelligible style that omits much detail. Chorded keyboards (especially if one-handed) are usually much slower because requiring multiple fingers for each character makes it difficult to type short strings of characters in quick combination, a common muscle memory optimization learned in regular (non-chordal) typing; however, many chording schemes support programmable macros for frequently-typed words, which speeds things up a bit. (Macros are also possible on non-chording keyboards.) Few comparative studies seem to exist for chording keyboards; "wearable" computer guru Thad Starner publishes some anecdotal-looking figures here. I have not heard of chording keyboards designed to be faster than QWERTY or Dvorak typing. / edg ☺ ☭ 01:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

thank you!!! Very useful answers :) I wonder how much of stenographers' speed isn't JUST the abbreviations. For example, have any of them who are typists too just tried typing on QWERTY using their abbreviated style?

I made a few changes to the above before I realized it had been replied to. My guess on steno methods in touch typing: theoretically there should be an improvement, but I wouldn't count on steno skills being routinely leveraged to enhance touch typing speed. Typing fluently relies heavily on muscle memory, and I doubt steno methods translate automatically to touch; the mind knows the abbreviations, but the tendons are ignorant.

It was fun reading up on this stuff. Now I want to learn Colemak. / edg ☺ ☭ 05:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I tried until it gave me a headache o_o :D\=< (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe Dvorak keyboard was developed just to overcome the hammer jamming problem on mechanical typewriters. Since mechanical typewriters are not used any more, Dworak keyboard is no better than QWERTY keyboard. And Dworak keyboard was improvement only with some languages. With some other languages, it might have been worse. -- PauliKL (talk) 01:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

No, the opposite is true. QWERTY was developed because of typwriters jamming. Dvorak then came about because of the inefficiency of the QWERTY keyboard. --Voyaging ^(talk) 01:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I used to be a semi-nerd on this stuff back when "word processor" meant IBM Selectric and 1) all the serious contenders for typing speed used Dvorak because 2) Dvorak is designed so as much as possible can be typed without ever moving your fingers from the home keys. (added two seconds later: would this mean that Dvorak would not be optimal for other languages then, with different letter frequencies?) Gzuckier (talk) 19:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Search Providers

Hello. What is the difference between the Wikipedia (English) and Wikipedia (en) search providers in Internet Explorer 7? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 00:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

They are probably just made by different people. Mac Davis (talk) 00:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Any free audio output pitch shifter?

I'm looking for a free audio output pitch shifter for Windows or Mac OS X which can shift the pitch of the output audio just like the one used by Realtek. Funny Voice doesn't work so well because if I select Stereo Mix, the speaker output becomes the input and a feedback occurs. The other software that turned up are shareware. Do you know any free program that can do the above? --KLLvr283 (talk) 06:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

digital kicks

When producing tracks with a lot of digital sythesizers, and trying for a strong bass kick, I often notice a quiet high-pitched whine that accompanies the low-frequency waves, and I've begun noticing the whine present in proper commercial tracks as well (here is an old track from the orb and you can hear the high-pitched whine really clearly). It seems to be most noticeable on warmer, deeper, more pure sounding kicks, as opposed to rough or fat ones. What is this whine? Do all synthesizers produce this wine? Can it be avoided?? And why is it so prominent even in commercial music... do people not really not notice it? Thanks.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  08:48, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't really notice it (on the computer speakers..)

First of all you say it accompinanies the base - you mean the beat (thud,thud) all the way through or some particular low frequency bit eg 1.58s in etc

Secondly yes - I'm familiar with this song and seem to remember that when player on a better system it contained a lot of whine - almost like interference noise like when you de tune very slightly a FM radio in addition to all the birdy clicks and whistles.

Q. Is it possible that the noise (whine) is simply electronic noise , and unintentional, - note it would only be audible on low frequency notes because it would be drowned out when synthesising high frequency notes?87.102.16.238 (talk) 10:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

You might not be able to tell with little computer speakers that don't pick up quiet frequencies, but I can hear it alright on my laptop. I know what I'm looking for though, and that might be a factor. It accompanies the "thudding" yes, the kick. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with the deepness of the note, rather the amount of punch of the note, hence it doesn't come up anywhere else. It very well could be some kind of "electronic noise", and that's what I assume it is. It's nothing to do with the song really; as long as you can hear the kick clearly (this gave me an idea: NIN - closer has a really clear kick, and I can hear the whiney thing even clearer on that track). I'm starting to wonder if it's some kind of feedback from the speaker coils; I don't have any large speakers to test it on, but I get the same effect when listening on my laptop, with my cheap earbuds, and with my sony monitor headphones that I use for recording. It would make sense because the thud of the kick might cause some excess vibration in the speakers, but what doesn't make sense is that it doesn't seem to matter what volume level you use, and I can actually hear the whine more on my cheap buds, although it's just as obvious with my high quality headphones. One last note is that I can still hear the sound when creating kicks with high quality instruments like Sylenth, so I don't think it has anything to do with audio encoding. Hmm...  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  11:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

ok I don't think I can hear it on that - second thud is more buzzy eg (thud, bzthud, repeat) - Maybe I'm too old to hear it (is it very high pitched). I recognise the sort of thing you're talking about - but can't hear it right now.)87.102.16.238 (talk) 11:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you can find a similar sound here http://www.synthmania.com/Famous%20Sounds.htm 87.102.16.238 (talk) 11:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Well the closest would obviously be the 808 drum kick, but the sample on that site doesn't produce the whine for some reason; I don't think it's quite as sharp enough. Funny thing is, on Youtube again there's a video of a guy with his TR-808 and it's really noticeable on the kicks (link) but now it's starting to sound like it's the compression on Youtube that is causing it, but that wouldn't explain why I can get it on my computer from the instruments directly. It's pretty high, and I thought to myself if it would become invisible with age but I don't think it's quite that high (it's kind of hard to tell), and I'm 25 anyways so there shouldn't be that much of a difference. No big deal I guess, just when I'm trying to get really low sine-wave style bass lines (think of old jungle/dnb) it can take up nearly as much audible space as the bass itself and it bugs me. I'll have to try it out on some full-size speakers to see if it doesn't just disappear.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

My hearing may have gone, all I can hear is a 'breathy' sound following the 'hits'. Wait for someone a bit younger and less deaf to answer..87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

i cant check on this yet until I get home, but is it possible it's just your PC? Something to do with the D to A hardware? Gzuckier (talk) 19:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You know what... I knew I had a crappy sound card but for some reason I never thought that it might be the cause of the weird sounds. I've just installed new drivers (Realtek, btw), and the whining is gone! It was so easy... thanks a lot! Sorry for making everyone strain their ears and stuff : (!!!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  06:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Glad it's gone. It's possible you disabled/reset a DSP when you reinstalled the drivers. I would've suggested another place to check is any sound enhancement features you may have activated — things like software-based equalizers, "3D sound"/"SRS" buttons, or even Windows' own poorly-documented "speaker setup" (Sounds/Multimedia control panel -> Audio -> Sound Playback -> Advanced, which I leave set on 'headphones'). The software EQ for my external soundcard does not do proper filtering and introduces harmonic distortion that sounds like the higher-pitch whines you describe, most noticeably on percussive bass sounds. —mjb (talk) 17:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

C programming

I'm doing a problem in C http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&id=56 Do I have a problem with this line:

seperate_and_add_digits( Digit[][100],100,100);

I'm getting a syntax error:']'

seperate_and_add_digits is a function with prototype:

seperate_and_add_digits(long double digits[][100],int rows,int columns);

What do you think you're doing with that syntax? You can never have an empty pair of brackets in regular statement like that. In the prototype, they're declaring a pointer. (C function parameters are never actually arrays. The digits parameter is a pointer to an array of 100 long doubles.) Making up syntax that doesn't exist is a sign that you've probably got major conceptual problems that can't be solved by looking at a couple of lines in isolation. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 09:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to initiate a function that takes a two dimensional array, rows and columns as parameters88.203.106.28 (talk) 10:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

You can't initialize a variable while calling a function - put the two on separate lines:

long double Digit[][100];
seperate_and_add_digits(Digit, 100, 100);

It's generally a good idea to use a #define to declare the size of an array - this makes it much, much easier if you want to change the size of the array. I generally avoid data[] too, preferring to explicitly say the size of the array (eg data[100]):

#DEFINE SIZE_WHATEVER 100
void foo( long double data[SIZE_WHATEVER][SIZE_WHATEVER] ) { /* ... */ }
void main() {
   long double data[SIZE_WHATEVER][SIZE_WHATEVER];
   foo( data );
}

--h2g2bob (talk) 13:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

WHOIS

I know I can use WHOIS to find out the registrant of a domain name, but is there a way of then finding out all other domain names registered by that individual? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like Reverse telephone directory. I don't know if it is possible. I hope someone comes to answer this question. Kushal 01:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

news site

Hi. Can someone recommend a great site for the latest computer tech news. I don't want somewhere that mostly covers the latest intel/amd cpus and ati/nvidia graphics cards - more something that covers all 'computer tech' - processors (of all types), manufacturing processes and research, maybe other science related stuff. No 'linux'/'windows'/'apple' biased sites please. Not slashdot.. something sensible.

Any ideas?87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:38, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

slashdot :D:D or Ars Technica :D\=< (talk) 13:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Most news sites have a tech section: Guardian Times BBC. --h2g2bob (talk) 13:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I Don't rely on BBC/Guardian/Times etc - find they get stuff just wrong too often.

Arstechnica is ok, I suppose, anything like that - but better, more complicated, and more exciting?87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Ars is the professional journalism face of tech news. If you're willing to sacrifice professionalism and accuracy for something that moves faster, just read slashdot.. :D\=< (talk) 16:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The discussion is part of the appeal of Slashdot too; 100 comments for a story is on the lower end, though it's just about unheard of for other news sites. How much of the appeal it is depends on how much you enjoy trolling, wild guesses and speculation from people who don't read the article, and half the comments being about how Slashdot and its users/editors/moderation system are broken. :D -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

We should have a moderation system here. If only those slashdotters could stay vaguely on topic, and too many shills there as well...

What about process and microarchitectural improvements, lithography, and more general electronic news (eg high frequency amplifiers etc) as well ... etc ... I find 'ars' to be quite PC centric - something a bit more 'physickey' any one know a good one.87.102.16.238 (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Wired (magazine) had an article called Mother Earth Motherboard, which was very good. Kushal 03:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm in the wrong country for that - though I'll read it if it's online? (link?)87.102.16.238 (talk) 11:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC) Scrub that - found it - please no more jetsetting cyber tourists please.87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes! it is available online. I read it online. The full 56 pages of information and excitement is in this printable html copy here.

Another venue would be New York Times at [2] Cheers,

Kushal 12:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Storing large numbers in VB 2005

Resolved

Hello! I'm doing problem 16 from Project Euler, and I wanted to know if it was possible to store the precise value of $2^{1000}$ in any of Visual Basic 2005 data types. I wrote a program for that question that divides $2^{1000}$ (stored as double) by $10^{302}$ (because there seem to be 302 digits in that number) truncates the integer value, and then subtracts the result*$10^{302}$ from $2^{1000}$. I made it a loop so that the power of 10 decreases each time the loop is run. Anyway, I keep getting the wrong result for the sum of the digits of $2^{1000}$ (to be exact, 1353). I read on the internet that double does not store the precise value, and I realized that was the reason I keep getting the wrong answer. Any suggestions on this?  ARTYOM  12:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

2^1000 is going to need 1000bits to store it to integer accuracy, a double is probably only 64 bits...

Two options here - write your own arithmatic programs (use strings or something to store the data)

Or - get a language that supports any length integer (or very long integers) - python can do this, most likely many others, Someone else can advise you better on this subject.87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Visual Basic doesn't seem to have what you want see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/47zceaw7(VS.80).aspx maybe you can make a user defined data type or use string as a binary representation.87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Ask if you want advise on how to use a string to store a binary number.87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that would be helpful. Please explain if you have time!  ARTYOM  15:48, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I once wrote VB4 functions to do calculations on arbitrarily long numbers represented as strings. They were written a bit naively but they get the job done. They should work on VB8 as well, and I can copy the code if you want.

Alternatively, if all you want is this particular problem, you can implement it rather easily. It's simple to add two integers represented as strings. So you can start with 1 and add the number to itself 1000 times. Then you just go over the string and add the digits. The result should be 1366. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I tried to store the number as a string, but VB converts it to string in scientific notation. So far I couldn't make the string display the number itself rather than the *helpless* 1.07150860718626E+301. The answer you gave is correct, though, I would appreciate it if you could explain how you figured it :)  ARTYOM  15:48, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Well if you're just going to use a string, then you can just do the math out long, the same way you would on paper. That way you'd have many intermediate results and it won't give you scientific notation. It's probably the slowest possible solution, and it might take a few seconds to calculate 2^1000, but it will work and it's easy to program.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  16:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[ec] I used Mathematica. We didn't mean that you let VB calculate the power in floating point and then convert it to a string, but rather that you do the entire calculation from the ground up using strings. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

HINT first you would need to write a function that adds two strings eg function_addstring(a$,b$) result=c$ (or whatever the equivalent VB syntax) is

So if a$="123" and b$="901" you will be adding 1+3, 2+0, and 9+1

Don't forget to included any carries eg 9+1=0 carry 1

It might help if you use fixed length strings (for simplicity) eg 2^1000 ~ 1000^100 ~ 10^300 so more than 300 digits should do. Therefor use "0000" + about 300 zeros +"002" for two.

Once you've got an 'add function' you can construct a multiply function from the add functions.

eg "1234" x "78" = 0 + "1234" (eight times) + "12340" (seven times)

Remember that multiply times 10 means shift the string one step left and add a zero "0" at the right hand side.

Then starting with 2 just multply by 2 ninehundred and ninety nine times. and sum the digits87.102.16.238 (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Did that make sense?87.102.16.238 (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

(To go the whole hog you'd represent binary numbers using an array of booleans eg using true =1 false =0 so that eg an array of ten booleans would mean "0000000010" (binary) - of course you'd need an array of size 1000+ DONT go down this route here it's not neccessary and complicates the decimal sum at the end)87.102.16.238 (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow! I made it finally! I'll paste the code of the string here; it's unoptimized, though :)

Dim i, j, m As Short, two1000, endstr As String, p As Byte, sum As Integer
two1000 = "000...01" '302 characters
For i = 1 To 1000
    For j = 1 To 302
        m = CInt(two1000.Substring(302 - j, 1))
        endstr = two1000.Substring(303 - j, j - 1)
        If m < 5 Then
            two1000 = two1000.Substring(0, 302 - j) + CStr(m * 2 + p).Substring(0, 1) + endstr
            p = 0
        Else
            two1000 = two1000.Substring(0, 302 - j) + CStr(m * 2 + p).Substring(1, 1) + endstr
            p = 1
        End If
    Next j
Next i

Then summing the digits of the string is easy. Thank you all very much who helped me implement this!  ARTYOM  16:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

One more thing, for anybody else who's interested in something like this: There may be libraries of code already written, to do arithmetic on large numbers. I know there are ones available for C and Perl and built in to Java. I don't know for a fact that there's one out there for VB, but there probably is. The downsides are that it'll be slower than using "machine precision" numbers, and it might be somewhat awkward to write (for instance, using the "GMP" library in C I would do "mpz_add(a,b,c)" instead of "a=b+c"). But it'll do the job. -- Why Not A Duck 00:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

How to program something like Netlimiter

How does one program a network traffic limiter like Netlimiter in Visual C++ (you can limit the bandwidth for each program as well as your whole computer)? I have no idea about how I would do that. --Taraborn (talk) 13:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

See Visual C++. This article might be able to help you. Nothing444 19:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

You'd replace the networking device driver with something that chainloads the original and throttles traffic while it's at it. :D\=< (talk) 04:44, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Connecting two computers with network cables

I have two computers, one with an internet connection. I wish to share that connection with the second computer through a network cable. The computer with the internet is windows NT 2000 and the other XP. How can I do this? I have tried to simply connect them via a network cable but both give the error "a network cable is unplugged". I can confirm that both computers network cards work with other devices such as routers etc. Thank you for any help you can provide. Sincerely, John.

I believe you'll have to bridge the connection. However you go about doing that, I don't know. Useight (talk) 15:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, to directly connect the 2 computers you'll need a crossover cable rather than the standard one you'd use to patch into a switch or router. As the name suggests, this is simply a matter of swapping some of the wires over en route, so adapters are readily available to stick on the end of "normal" Ethernet cables.

Secondly, you'll need to set the computers up to talk to each other, and specifically to share the Internet connection hosted by the Windows 2000 box. I've never used it, but I think what you need is Windows Internet Connection Sharing - the external links at the bottom of that article look promising...

Good luck! - IMSoP (talk) 15:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Just FYI: Many modern Ethernet interfaces can be interconnected without needing a specific "crossover" cable. That is, they figure out that they're talking to another end interface and not a bridge and negotiate the required "crossover" action automatically.

Atlant (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, you learn something every day! :) - IMSoP (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

With a router you can plug one into one port using ethernet and the other into another (also using ethernet). George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 22:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

i can confirm this; last time i had to upgrade, i just unplugged the ethernet cable from the cable modem and plugged it into the new computer, then shared folders on the old computer and pulled them over from the new computer. And that was a pretty old couple of Dells. Gzuckier (talk) 19:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

What is DHE for torrent clients?

In my torrent client (bitcomet) i saw in the peers list some of the client types Bitcomet 0.93*DHEv2*,utorrent*DHE*. what exactly is this DHE? Does it help in increasing download speed? if so where can i get it?what exactly is the difference between bitcomet 0.93 & bitcomet 0.93*DHEv2*?

A quick look at the diambiguation page for DHE, and then at BitTorrent suggests this may refer to support for (or switching on the option of?) BitTorrent protocol encryption - DHE being an acronym for Diffie-Hellman key exchange, the first stage of many network encryption protocols.

But I could be completely wrong, of course. - IMSoP (talk) 15:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe it stands for Data Header Encryption.. utorrent doesn't support DHEv2 but Bitcomet does. It's just one of many many client-specific protocol tack-ons like DHT (and Azureus's separate DHT network), PEX, UDP trackers, and secure announces :D\=< (talk) 16:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

.rar

hi,

as simply as you can tell me; if i downloaded a '.rar' torrent (music) how do i change it to normal .mp3 format, (using windows XP)......thanks--81.76.2.87 (talk) 20:46, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

A RAR file is a type of compressed archive, like a ZIP file (that is, files are stored within it and compressed to save space). You have to extract the files from it first. There are many programs to do this; I'm partial to 7-Zip on Windows. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

And if you didn't know that chances are that you didn't actually download the rar, you just downloaded the .torrent.. you need a bittorrent client and peers to actually download the archive :D\=< (talk) 20:59, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Creators and/or owners of an HDTV logo

Resolved

I have seen many places and things, including a TV Guide insert (years ago), the Samsung SIR-T151, and tek.advancedmn.com, show this logo or variants thereof. (It shows a white H on a blue circle, next to DTV with a checkmark-styled "V" in black.)

I was thinking it was made or owned by ATSC or some US company/ies; fontblog.de says it's from "RCA" (which would imply Thomson, or maybe even Audiovox). Can anyone confirm that (or otherwise) for sure? --an odd name 23:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

A quick search of the USPTO reveals a number of "HDTV" trademarks, none of which seem to be the one you're asking about. —mjb (talk) 17:29, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The same fontblog.de page links to this RCA page; an archive of the page contains two TIFF versions of the logo. The RCA website has a Press Room; as of today, some of its pages, including this, link to thomsonmedialibrary.com, and searching for hdtv +logo yields the logo (and others), describing it as the "CEA logo for HDTV". Searching at CEA's site yields their "DTV Product Marks" page, which effectively directs usage inquiries to "CEA's product mark administrator". So I'm now pretty sure it's a CEA mark. --an odd name 00:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

March 24

What programming languages to learn?

I am interested in learning some computer programming, but I'm not sure where to start. I can currently only write XHTML (not a programming language, I know). I'm thinking maybe I should start with easier, more web based markup languages such as JavaScript and CSS and move on to maybe BASIC or C? Well, any help would be appreciated, because I'm lost; I really have no idea what I'm doing! :P --Voyaging ^(talk) 01:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Start with something easy like php and powerful not like javascript. Actually Ruby is probably a great place to start.. it's a terrifyingly powerful and flexible scripting language with a rather large following. Try the interactive tutorials.. the application is slick so check it out even if you don't care to try Ruby :D\=< (talk) 02:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

There are enough programming languages out there to spend a lifetime learning. First ask yourself the question: what do I actually want to do? That said, I think something like Python is nice, on a readability level.--Fangz (talk) 02:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If you learn python you'll never return to the land of the sane :D\=< (talk) 04:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as what I want to do, I simply want to attain knowledge. I just want to have the knowledge of knowing different programming languages. I'm not sure of specifics because of my limited knowledge of the subject, but I'd like to be able to code a variety of programs, so nothing that is limited to a certain type of program would be ideal. In addition, something that could maybe build a foundation for learning other languages, or maybe lead up to learning them would be optimal. Thanks for the help so far! --Voyaging ^(talk) 05:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

IMO, you won't learn anything worth while unless you actually try to do it. So you need to set yourself a project (eg be the first person to produce a KenKen solver). Probably the easiest to learn, but of least use commercially, is non-visual Basic. Did you know that Excel includes a Basic as a macro language? I wrote my (yet another) sudoku solver in Excel VB. -- SGBailey (talk) 09:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Aren't you talking about VBA?

I think Java is a good language to learn. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 11:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

VB and Java are both terrible languages to learn for a beginner. You think you're learning a low level language and then miss out entirely on pointers, which makes for absolute fail. Learn an easy, powerful, and slow scripting language first then go for hardcore C so you learn the full spectrum, then you can learn the wussie languages like VB and Java :) :D\=< (talk) 18:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Why would anyone learning VB or Java think he's learning a low level language? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 23:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I mean like a "real" language. Java programmers are always like "I am a programmer" and everyone rolls their eyes at them. Nobody's even polite to the VB programmers. :D\=< (talk) 01:36, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that if you learn any of the C-like languages (C, C++, C#, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, etc.), you can then very rapidly pick up any of the others. Me, I think Perl is a nice language for a beginner; C (or any of the other compiled languages) has a high "minimum required activation energy" for a rank beginner.

I'm also of the opinion that Visual Basic will destroy your mind, polluting it with many ridiculous ideas that will block you from leaning about how programming really works. (NB: I don't have any problems with people learning non-Visual BASIC, though. But BASIC is a language that's quite different from any of the C-like languages that dominate the business nowadays; it owes its basic forms to much older languages and now less-used like Fortran.)

Atlant (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

We learnt Cobol and Pascal as starter languages, then moved onto C and C++. If you are learning purely for interest I would say you want to learn one that is logically structured rather than powerful. You want one that is easy to read rather than flexible. I recall having to spend about 30 minutes talking to an old non-IT based manager explaining how coding is like hand-writing - everyone does it slightly differently. There are 100s of ways to achieve the same goals in most languages, so your best bet is not to try get into understanding the syntax/language in depth but to get a basic understanding of programming as a structure. Things vary from language to language but a good basis in one of the early-years languages (I believe) would bode well for you ever having to learn a more advanced/current language. I still do a bit of programming in FOCUS, which is actually a remarkably easy language to understand (at least at the depth of detail I use it). ny156uk (talk) 14:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you're mad to suggest Perl Atlant :) It's extremely difficult to read example code until you're familiar with it and was written by a notorious obfuscater! I'd agree with Ruby for someone who has a professed interest in web technologies. Voyaging, you probably want to get up and running pretty quickly right? What kind of thing do you want to do? A game, a web-app, or do you want to start on the road to becoming a full-time programmer? BananaFiend (talk) 10:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can write shite in any language and you're correct: much of everything that's distributed on the web as "sample code" is shite. But when I write Perl, I try to write it with the same diligence I use when writing C so I'm careful to use appropriate, self-documenting names, lots of comments, and the like. I write it as though I'll have to maintain it for years (which actually is the case ;-) ). So I think you'd find that you can pick up my Perl code, read it, and learn from it. One proof point of this is that my wife, who's a web developer but not a programmer, has been able to pick up, use, and modify Perl that I've written for her web sites.

And because Perl isn't typed and usually has a pretty good idea of what you actually mean to do, I find it's easy for beginners to use. Show them how to write and run "Hello, World!" and they're pretty much off and running.

Atlant (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't really have specifics on what in particular I want to be able to code, but I think a game would be a fun starting point. It doesn't really matter, I just want to get started coding. --Voyaging ^(talk) 16:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

well, if you're interested in anything with serious graphics, you're going to be dealing with C or one of its derivatives, like C++ or C#. maybe look at some book on graphic programming for windows and start trying to much through that as soon as you can while doing introduction to C# or whatever at the same time, to get through the bottleneck. (just my opinion, my object-oriented language of choice is Excel)Gzuckier (talk) 17:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

If you are planning on doing things with the web in the future (and really, who ain't?), PHP is a great place to start—it's relatively powerful and you can get very satisfying results quickly, in part because you use HTML to build up your interfaces (you aren't stuck with just a console, like most of the other languages given, or building up an interface in a clunky IDE, as with VB and VB.NET). And in my opinion, when we're in the realm of self-teaching, quick, satisfying results are important, lest one find it too much trouble! (I tried to teach myself C++ years ago. After hours of playing with it I could make a console program that could do some basic math. I was not impressed with the result. Never went back.) But as has been said, it doesn't matter so much which one you start with—what matters more is that you have a driving project. Trying to learn a programming language without setting out a goal is like trying to learn a spoken language by using just a dictionary. If you have a goal in mind and are having fun with it the learning will be quite easy and enjoyable. PHP has the added benefit of being widely used on the web so there are LOTS of sites of sample code, examples, other people's implementations, etc., to benefit from. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Python or Ruby. The interactive interpreters are great for beginners experimenting. The way most of us learnt programming went something like Statements --> Routines --> Classes and I still think this is the best way. Python and Ruby will let you write a program that does something without defining a class, but will continue to support you as you write something more structured. Good luck.

I learnt C as my first (programming) language and never felt it was hard or something.. Going Visual might be harder, but that's why world is full of guides and documentation. Though I must admit I'm just a * person-with-no-life, so I haven't bothered to find out what kind of heaven there is behind those Pythons and Perls. If you are planning to learn "just to learn", not to get something done right now, then I would recommend C/C++. --82.141.93.96 (talk) 15:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much for all the help! After reading all your responses, I think I'm going to start with C, then move on to some other languages. From what I've read, many of the current popular languages are based off of C (Perl, PHP, C++) so I think that'd be a good starting place. Now my next question. What resources would you recommend to me for learning the language? Thanks again! --Voyaging ^(talk) 15:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

They're loosely based on C (if in Perl's case you consider the Kuiper belt to be merely "loose" around the Sun's waist) but C's a tough nut to crack.. if you have windows I strongly advise you to download Visual C++ 2008 (NOT c#) and use that IDE, it's much more beginner friendly than console compilers like ming or gcc. Or just learn php and ruby and use notepad and your web browser. Seriously you're going to be very disappointed with your progress in C, scripting languages are far more powerful and you can do some actually useful things even while learning :D\=< (talk) 19:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

K&R is a good one. Would definitely recommend something printed anyway. Google is indispensible but it really helps to be following a printed course as well.

You also need a project. How about: Write a program to decipher text that has been encoded by a Caesar cipher. The program should use frequency analysis to decode the text (ie without any clues from the user).

but, note that C is a very "special" kind of language, not for everybody or everything.. if i had had to get through C first, i'd never have gotten past it. like learning assembler in the old days. Depends what you want to program. Heck, you might find programming in SQL to be your path to greatness. Gzuckier (talk) 19:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You want to see the weirdish wikibooks:C Programming/Using a Compiler to get quickly started. That Crimson Editor isn't necessary, I have survived for a long time with just MS Notepad. Otherways Wikibooks isn't (probably) the optimal thing to read. As a general tip I would say you should just dig around and try many guides/tutorials to find the one that suits you best. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 19:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd recommend focusing on learning programming rather than on learning a particular language. Once you know how to program, learning a new language won't be that hard. But just learning a language doesn't automatically mean learning how to program. Learning the language means jumping through the hoops the language puts in your way. Learning to program means being able to see the relationship between the program code and what it does (a relationship that works both ways -- "why is this code doing what it's doing" and "what code would do what I want"). As for choice of language to start with -- I'd say, find a teacher, or text, or whatever, that you're comfortable learning from, and use whatever language they use. (Even if it's a "useless" language -- because (a) it's about learning to program, not just about learning that one language; and (b) you might be surprised what turns out to be "useful;" one obscure language, that I considered even leaving out of my resume, is used extensively where I work now) If you were learning from me, I'd choose C, because that's what I'm most comfortable with. Also, it's a good idea to learn more than one language. Not only because you'd then have one more tool available to you, but because you learn different things from each one. (Many years ago, I "sort of" knew C. Then I tried to learn x86 assembly language. I mostly failed... but at the end I understood "C" a lot better.) -- Why Not A Duck 23:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

This is one of those questions that cannot be answered credibly or reliably over a largely anonymous forum like this. Why Not A Duck states the point quite clearly, so there's not much to add except this.

Most programming languages exist because someone thought they could "fix" an annoying aspect of another language they were already using. From this, you can learn a few things:

• 1) there is no such thing as a "perfect" programming language to learn;
• 2) a good sign of "knowing" a programming language is when you understand its limitations relative to other languages, and relative to what it was supposed to "fix";
• 3) many people either do not realize or disagree with points 1 & 2 above;
• 4) because of 3), many people stop learning new languages, and become "entrenched";
• 5) because of 4), this question cannot be answered credibly over an anonymous forum like this;
• 6) because of 5) you can ignore this post and this thread. NoClutter (talk) 13:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't waste your time with intermediate steps, if your target language is say C++, begin with C++. That's the best advice I can give from my personal experience. --Taraborn (talk) 16:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

If you don't have a project in mind, Python (a non-visual, "high-level" language) is considered pretty versatile, easy for beginners, and teaches good habits. There are a couple beginners' programming books (I wish I could remember titles) available that use Python. Many programmers have started in C and C++, but these are sufficiently "low-level" to get a new user into trouble, especially if that user is self-taught.

I agree with the above-repeated dictum to avoid "visual" languages; these bind you to one company's way of doing things, and Gawd help you if that company is Microsoft. I learned in QBasic (circa 1990), in which it was easy to pick up simple modular structure concepts (loops and such), which was a decent foundation for when I needed to use application scripting languages in WordPerfect 5.1 and FoxPro 2.5, and Unix shell scripting. Grain of salt notice: I never became a "real" programmer (don't wanna), and I've not seen Ruby (recommended elsewhere in this thread) but have heard good things about it. / edg ☺ ☭ 17:37, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

A word of warning about both PHP and JavaScript: there is a lot of bad example code out there. These two languages, perhaps because they are easy to pick up and get results with quickly, tend to attract more than their fair share of bad voodoo programmers. That's not to say there aren't good programmers as well, or that the languages have anything wrong with them, but as a complete beginner you may not be able to differentiate between good and bad examples and will easily pick up a lot of bad habits. 81.187.153.189 (talk) 01:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

This is very good advice. Most of my PHP is just terrible; it's such an inefficent language that there's really no point in trying to optimize (except your db connections/queries) and except for the largest applications it's unlikely that you'll ever work with someone else on the same code. Combine that with how easy it is to read through to tell what it does and how short scripts usually are, and you have a recipe for commentless, sloppy disaster! :D\=< (talk) 01:34, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

What about game programming ?

Thanks so much to everyone for the help! Hmm, how about this. Say my end goal was to be able to code a game (and not just an Atari game, one that at least has a bit of depth). I know that's not an easy goal by any means, but say that was my ultimate goal. What would be the best way to start? Thanks again for all the help! --Voyaging ^(talk) 01:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You might want to look at alice [3]. It's gaining some attention and publicity according to O'Reilly publishing which tracks that kind of thing in order to know what books to sell. NoClutter (talk) 03:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Sound Problems

I'm on an HP Compaq tc4400 laptop computer (well, tablet pc). All of a sudden when I try to play a video from the internet or a song from iTunes, I hear the video/song for 4 seconds and then silence from then on. Can someone tell me what's causing this problem, and what I can do to fix it? Thanks in advance. ~EdGl 02:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Just to make things clear, is it the Windows XP tablet edition Windows XP Tablet PC Edition? Kushal 11:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC) Kushal 12:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to mention it's using windows vista, I believe enterprise edition. ~EdGl 13:08, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yay, it seems to be working now! Weird, as I didn't do anyting, not even restart. Well, sorry for taking up RD space.. carry on.. ~EdGl 13:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. I wonder what went wrong in the first place. Glad it is working. Kushal 19:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Periodic patterns in bittorrent download rates

I'm not sure if it happens in general as well, but I notice that often, the download speed curve of a bittorrent transfer shows a strong periodic pattern. The download rate goes down, and then comes back up, and then goes down again, with a period of about 30 seconds.

Is there any explanation for this behaviour? Or is it just me?--Fangz (talk) 02:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

What client do you use? I use Azureus, and I see that a lot. I'd would guess it's a swarm behavior—one client disconnects from me (down), a new one connects optimistically uploading (up), then decides I don't deserve that rate (down again)—but I notice my upload rate often changes in the same way, matching my download rate for the entire cycle. Can't imagine one most likely cause. Might be just the way the client calculates rates. / edg ☺ ☭ 03:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

This happens when the following two conditions are met:

1. the torrent has only one seeder
2. the seeder uses superseeding

See Super-seeding for a basic explanation. Morana (talk) 08:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I can definitely confirm that this is happening when there is more than one seed.--84.71.41.235 (talk) 14:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You're probably not making enough connections.. I typically connect to 50 or so peers per torrent, and don't get most of my pieces from any one peer in particular so except for fascinating swarm-wide fluctuations due to weird seeder behavior or something which is always possible I guess, I have mostly stable down speeds. Make more connections and make sure something upstream isn't load balancing you :D\=< (talk) 18:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

javascript help

I don't know Javascript but would like to do something very simple.

I want to present a block of text with some words in red, and when you click a red word you can change it with a dialog that pops up. At the end you submit the whole thing via post.

Is this possible? could I get some help writing it? Thank you.79.122.35.198 (talk) 14:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's a very simple implementation of such a thing:

<html>
<head>
<script language="javascript">
function get_word(id) {
	var existing = document.getElementById("word"+id).innerHTML;
	var newword = prompt('Replace "'+existing+'" with:');
	if(newword.length>0) {
		document.getElementById("word"+id).innerHTML = newword;
		var nextword = document.getElementById("word"+(id+1));
		if(nextword != null) get_word(id+1);
	}
}

function submit_text() {
	document.submit_form.submit_data.value = ReplaceTags(document.getElementById("text_to_submit").innerHTML);
	document.submit_form.submit();
}

var regExp = /<\/?[^>]+>/gi;
function ReplaceTags(xStr){
	xStr = xStr.replace(regExp,"");
	return xStr;
}
     
</script>
<style> 
<!--
.word { 
	color: red;
}
a.button {
	border: 1px solid gray;
	padding: 5px;
	text-decoration: none;
	color: black;
	background-color: silver;
}
a.button:hover {
	background-color: gray;
	color: white;
}

--/>
</style>
</head>
<body>
<form method="POST" name="submit_form">
<input type="hidden" name="submit_data" value="">
<p id="text_to_submit">
This is my <a href="#" onclick="get_word(0); return false;" id="word0" class="word">sample text</a>.
You can <a href="#" onclick="get_word(1); return false;" id="word1" class="word">replace words</a>
by clicking on them.
It is <a href="#" onclick="get_word(2); return false;" id="word2" class="word">wonderful</a>.
</p>
<a href="#" onclick="submit_text();" class="button">SUBMIT</a>
</form>
</body>
</html>

The javascript handles the changing of the words and the submission of the final data. The CSS stylesheet handles the red links (and making the last A HREF look like a box. You don't need to do it that way, but I find them easier to deal with than actual submit buttons, which are hard to style). The HTML sets up the whole form. It should be pretty straightforward how it works but feel free to ask if you want it spelled out more clearly.

This doesn't filter out the A HREF tags when you submit it. You can do that in Javascript though personally I'd do it on the server-side, and how you are going to want to do that depends on what you are specifically using the result data for. But otherwise it should work in a way like you want it to. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want your form to actually do something when you post it, you'll need to do something on the server side also. So far this is all on the client. Friday (talk) 14:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

That's right. My little example above presupposes you'll have a destination script read to make sense of that data. That will need to be written in another language (like PHP, for example). (As you can see, even a simple web interface requires a lot of different languages and technologies dancing in sync -- in your little example we've got a markup language, a scripting language, and a stylesheet, and we'll still need a server-side script to top it off!) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you SOOOOOOOO much!!!!! It's wonderful, and much more than I could have done :)

One thing though... It works in Opera, which is what I use, but NEITHER firefox NOR internet explorer? How come?

Additionally, how could I change the javascript so that I don't land on a new page (in this case "false") every time I change a word, having to click back? I'd like the current page to be rewritten each time a change is made, and finally, the submit should submit the raw data, without special regard to where markup had been (though I could filter that out server side like you mentioned)... Thank you again!!! 79.122.35.198 (talk) 14:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I had done it slightly wrong (worked fine in Safari, didn't test it in anything else!). Now it should work fine no matter what (at least, it does in Firefox). The false bit was an artifact of that. I've updated the code above. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 15:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Update: I added a little function (borrowed from here) that strips out the HTML tags before submitting the text. Enjoy. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 15:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thanks man!!! Works like a charm now -- in all browsers :)... 1 quick question though... is there a way to save time by having the next one automatically selected (with the default text being whatever it is currently set to) until the first time I press escape (or cancel) instead of ok (or changing the text)? Thank you!!!  :)

Not sure I understand how that one would work with the current implementation. Maybe you could spell out a little more how it might work? --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, if I understand your code correctly (and it's hit and miss, because as I mentioned I don't know javascript :) ) then each word in your markup has a number, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 so if you've just clicked on 2, then you will proceed to 3 and 4 and 5 unless you stop the process by cancelling the dialog box at some point. If you just press enter you go on to the next one. In order for this to work maybe instead of "undefined" being the default texts it could be the actual text to replace? so it looks like " if(newword.length>0) document.getElementById("word"+id).innerHTML = newword;" could be changecd to have another effect: calling the same function on "word"+id+1 ... though I could get it wrong. Looking at your code, I also don't understand why there is a hidden input field that is blank. What's the purpose of that?

p.s. Thank you again!!! :)

Oh, OK, yes, that's easy enough. I've updated it above -- it will now by default go to the next word (unless there is no next word) and prompt you to replace that as well, unless you hit cancel.

The hidden input field is what passes on the results to the server -- the value gets filled in from the paragraph with the id "text_to_submit" with the function "submit_text" before it is submitted. To submit FORM data it has to be in an INPUT field; the easiest way to do that in this case is to use a hidden INPUT field. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, Perfect! Thanks so much :) I can do the rest server-side...but actually, one of my "words" is a date, and I could make a little calendar server side, but is there any way to have the dialog that comes up for that one have a calendar, in html, or is that too complicated? Thank you either way!! You've been very helpful :) :)

It would be much more complicated to have a little HTML dialog box pop up—my implementation just uses Javascript's built-in "prompt" command. It's not impossible to do the sort of thing you are asking (you'd hide the box on an invisible DIV or something like that; airlines use this sort of thing all the time in letting you select which days your flight will be) but it'd take a lot more coding than is used above. (You'd have to write a custom "prompt" command, basically.) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 13:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, well thank you then! :) It'll have to stay what it is, which is really very very good and I'd like to thak you again for all your help :)

Shoulda used jQuery. NoClutter (talk) 03:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

ENUM: order vs preference

In ENUM (.e164.arpa) DNS entries, which should be incremented - order or preference? For example, if I have one record:

IN NAPTR  100 10 "u" "E2U+email:mailto" "!^.*$!mailto:[removed]!" .

with order=100 / priority=10, and want to add record for my website (E2U+web:http), which one should I change? The website where I manage my .e164.arpa entry auto-suggests [order=100 priority=11] for new entry. Should I use that or [order=101 priority=10]? --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 14:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

ENUM providers

As far as I know, there are four main ENUM domains: e164.arpa, e164.org, e164.info and enum.org. Which one is best to use? (I have an .e164.arpa) --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 14:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Texting through AIM 6

Here's the deal: I would like to be able to text a person through the text function in AIM 6. Both I and this person have an AIM account; I currently live in Italy and he lives in England. I added his phone number where it says so {add phone number}, using +44 before his number and I tried to send the text.

Two messages from AIM appeared. The first one: </insert phone number here> is currently offline.Your buddy may be able to receive offline IMs the next time they sign on. Do you still want to send this IM?

When I pressed yes, the second one: </insert phone number here> is unable to receive offline IMs.

I tried when he was offline, and then when he was online too, with the same messages appearing. I asked him to check, and it says he can accept offline IMs from buddies on his list.

Help, please?

By the way, it seems that when this person from England tries to call my mobile, even if he adds the 0039 to my number, it still says I'm unavailable. But he managed to send me a text to that same number, adding +39.

Again, help, please?

My guess would be that the SMS service in AIM uses a gateway rented from a particular network in each country to deliver the messages, and that the combination of this gateway and the international delivery is not covered by their agreement (I don't know about Italy, but in the UK SMS is big business, so I'm sure there's money involved somewhere here...)

Not sure what the deal is with being able to text but not call, although you imply that he used different numbers (0039... vs +39...); as far as I know, the +39... form is the correct one for both calls and texts from a mobile, although I would expect the 0039... to work just as well. - IMSoP (talk) 19:33, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Can someone explain memory allocation in c?

Gurbinder Singh

The details depend on the implementation, but the general idea is that each process gets a certain amount of memory (it can ask for more if necessary), which it usually divides up into two pieces: a "stack" which it will use to remember things that are only needed for the current computation, and a "heap" which it will use to remember things that need a longer lifetime, or that need to change ownership, etc. The stack is generally nicer to use, since it's very fast to allocate and deallocate and the programmer doesn't have to remember to free things from it, but it can't be used in cases where the memory must outlive the current routine. Programs that can do more than one thing at a time will typically have more than one stack. Using stack memory is "automatic" in that just the right amount gets allocated when you call a function, and magically freed when that function returns. Using heap memory is done manually with malloc() and free(). As you might expect, it's a lot easier to get stack memory management right than it is to get heap memory management right. --Sean 19:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

There's quite a bit of information on the malloc page, and at wikibooks:C Programming/Memory management. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Sensor networks

what are sensor networks? <spam removed>

Don't advertise on wikipedia. And if you're really concerned, just wear a tinfoil hat :D\=< (talk) 20:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Try looking at sensor network. Your spam link removed. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

open office and Dragon NaturallySpeaking compatible ?

is it possible to use open office and the sofware Dragon Naturally Speaking (speach recogniton) and if yes, what have I to do.

Thanks to Google -- [4] -- I got link to OpenOffice.org forum and Ubuntu forums.

Could you tell us which operating system you use and what version of NaturallySpeaking you have? Kushal 17:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

picture help

How do I get a picture out of this seemingly random mess of letters:

<a href="http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/12/31/funny-pictures-here-in-england-we-speak-the-queens-english/"><img src="http://icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/files/2007/12/funny-pictures-british-cat.jpg" alt="funny pictures" /></a>
see more <a href="http://icanhascheezburger.com">crazy cat pics</a>

the place I want to put it uses [IMG] codes, but nothing I've tried with them and this has worked so far.

The actual image location is written between the quotes of <img src="[location]">, but here I guess you'll have to put

[img]http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/funny-pictures-british-cat.jpg[/img]

because the actual image file redirects there.  ARTYOM  20:44, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The image isn't redirecting anywhere for me what :D\=< (talk) 22:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to get the image URL the easiest thing to do is the right click on the image and click "open image in new window" or "open image in new tab." 216.120.217.233 (talk) 23:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Or Copy image location :D\=< (talk) 00:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

power in programming languages?

In the excellent discussion above about programming languages for beginners, editors make several references to the relative power of different programming languages. What does this mean? I have basic familiarity with several languages, but this power concept is alien to me. --Allen (talk) 23:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Scripting languages are powerful in the sense that you can do a lot with little code. The characteristic of higher-level languages is that you have to write less code to perform the same task. There are advantages to different languages for different tasks, but there are also clear comparisons. Ruby is higher level than C, and both are much higher level than assembly, which takes half a dozen lines just to perform arithmetic on something in memory. However, with assembly code you exercise a far finer level of control over your program. Asm can be some of the most optimized code you'll ever see. There are a few different aspects of "power".. some languages are extremely concise but ridiculously difficult to code in.. Ruby is object-oriented overkill and is terrrrrrifyingly powerful, especially with strings and arrays/dictionaries.. symbols are nice too :D\=< (talk) 00:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

There's also power in the sense of access to lower level facilities - directly messing about arbitrarily with your computer's memory for example, rather than delegating this to a virtual machine or an interpreter. In this sense C is more powerful than Python, say. --90.208.22.136 (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks for the responses. So it sounds like "powerful" can be synonymous with either "high-level" or "low-level", depending on the context. No wonder I was confused. --Allen (talk) 14:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Broad generalizations follow: a "low-level programming language" give the user programmer enough control to get a new user into trouble, especially if that user is self-taught. A high-level programming language is usually simpler. Power is an ambiguous term here since both have their advantages. / edg ☺ ☭ 17:37, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Another meaning of "power" might be "productivity". In that case, higher-level is usually going to be better. You want to muck around with memory? Well, for certain things that's useful, but if you're writing end-user applications and you're messing with memory, you've probably gone astray somewhere. I've never in my life seen a business requirement expressed in terms of computer memory. You're generally going to produce useful functionality faster in a language that lets you say things like "present the order_entry form" than in a language where you're saying things like "copy the value from register 42 to memory location 12345." Of course, if you're writing a compiler or a device driver, there's probably no avoiding the low-level details. Friday (talk) 17:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

At the same time, the early hackers wrote everything in assembly (or machine code directly o_o) and did some astounding things with the hardware of the day.. a lot of their algorithms are still in use today. Yeah it's not exactly time-efficient to program that way, but there's no way to optimize a program to its maximum without writing it in assembly. Of course, with multiple cores and instruction pipelining on modern microprocessors, it's ridiculously difficult, but I just can't bear to see asm bashed ;_; :D\=< (talk) 01:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Photoshop help urgently needed.

I'm trying to edit this .psd image with the horizontal type tool in RGB color mode (8 bits/channel) and I can't seem to make the text show up. Every time I type something, no matter the color or the character font I use, the text doesn't show up; only the name of the layer changes. In example: I type "hello", and the name of the layer changes to "hello", but the image remains seemingly unmodified. I have tried almost everything, it's driving me crazy. Here's a screenshot of what I'm trying to do. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty much a newbie in Photoshop. Could anyone of you guys help me on this one please? Any ideas or tips? —Coat of Arms (talk) 23:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide a screenshot with Layers info visible? --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Sure, here it is. The characteristics of the first layer are here, if you also would like to see them. —Coat of Arms (talk) 02:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

You don't have a text layer, only the white base layer and your picture over that. I think you have to be using the text tool and click and drag a box on the canvas before you can start typing, or else your typing will just rename the current layer (the picture) :D\=< (talk) 03:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I had that problem once. It drove me crazy. The solution, however, turned out to be simple: try to make the text canvas bigger (by dragging the little squares on its edges), because Photoshop doesn't show the text if the letters are too big to fit in the canvas. Hope that helps!  ARTYOM  10:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

March 25

How do I make the Wikimedia media player default to totem?

I run Ubuntu with Totem Firefox plugin and is perfectly capable playing ogg's by itself. But the every time I lose my WP cookie it defaults back to the Java player again, causing Firefox to freeze for around 20 seconds to load Java before I can select the "Ogg Plugin" option. Is there somewhere I can change the default so it always defaults to ogg plugin? --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

How about "Edit" => "Preferences" => "Content" => "File types" => "Manage" and then find OGG and set it up to use Totem? --Sean 14:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

This is much better in firefox 3, use beta 4. :D\=< (talk) 16:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No I can play ogg's fine in Firefox, it's just that Mediawiki keeps defaulting to Cortado (software) instead of sending me the ogg directly, making Firefox frozen for 20 seconds to load Java. I might go to Firefox 3 once more plugins support it, but in the mean time I'll stick with Firefox 2. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Mine does that too, very very annoying -_-' :D\=< (talk) 01:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

System Volume Information folder

I recently ran a virus checker (bitdefender total security 08) which detected 3 viruses in a folder labeled "System Volume Information". The anti virus stated that it could not quarantine or delete these viruses because they're password protected. This i thought strange, as i am the only user and administrator on my computer. However, i simply decided to find these files manually and delete them that way. So i ran a search of my C: drive (the same destination as the bitdefender scan) and the search returned no results. I checked the box "search hidden files" and all search options, but still no folder "System Volume Information". Temporary internet files and cookies have been deleted, so it does not exist in those folders, and i have no idea how to rid my computer of these 3 ad ware and spy ware viruses. Any ideas? Running windows xp, on an intel system, if that helps.

According to this page, the System Volume Information folder is part of the System Restore feature. That page also gives instructions on how to view the folder. If the virus checker is finding suspicious files there, they are likely within the restore points. They could also be false positives. If you are sure you won't need to use any of your restore points, you should be able clear them by using the Disk Cleanup utility (Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup), on the More Options tab is a button to clear all but the most recent System Restore point. --LarryMac | Talk 13:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Personalized cookies folder?

Is there any way to segregate out certain cookies in a separate folder such that when I go to "delete cookies" in internet explorer it would delete everything but the few sites I want to keep? Manually removing all cookies from the folder, but for the seven or so I want to keep, is not worth the effort. My cookies folder is in C:\Documents and Settings\name I gave my computer\Cookies Can I simply create a folder in Documents and settings, or inside the existing Cookies folder itself, call it "Cookies 2" and drag the cookies into that new file? Would that insulate it from deletion through the "delete cookies" application. Would they operate in a new location? And also, I imagine that sites update cookies periodically as things change. Would I be creating a problem by moving a cookie to a new location, for the website to find it in order to update? Groping in the dark here. Dispel my ignorance.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably your second-best bet is to write your own program or script to selectively delete those cookies you feel you don't want anymore, and leave everything else constant. Your first-best bet is to just search the internet for "cookie management" and "<insert-name-of-your-web-browser-here>" and see if there are any plugins or extensions that allow fine-grained cookie-management. Depending on which browser you use, you should have no trouble finding something for free that does close to what you want.

Any ad-hoc fiddling/tweaking by-hand such as you describe here will probably just be more headache than it's worth to you, quite frankly. NoClutter (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Mark them read-only? :D\=< (talk) 13:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Although Internet Explorer 8 is shaping out to be really promising (and could well be the best Internet Explorer ever), I still recommend switching to Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is a really customizable web browser which can do a lot of cool stuff. Firefox 3 is coming out around the end of 2008 Quarter 1 or sometime during Q2. This page can tell you where in the development process your favorite feature is. However, I must agree with Froth NoClutter and what he has said is worth repeating:

Any ad-hoc fiddling/tweaking by-hand such as you describe here will probably just be more headache than it's worth to you

Thanks for reading. Kushal 00:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm? :D\=< (talk) 01:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

'Scuse me Kushal, but if you're going to quote someone, at least give a little more effort to quoting the right person ... thanks for reading :) NoClutter (talk) 03:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I apologize to both of you, NoClutter and Froth! Kushal 08:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

In Firefox, there is a roundabout way to throw out all cookies when you close the browser, except ones you've whitelisted. Enter the domains you want to whitelist under Privacy/Cookies/Exceptions ("Allow" them, of course). Then visit the sites to create those cookies. Then set Privacy/Cookies to allow cookies, but only until the browser is closed ("Keep until: I close Firefox"). Now, visit some other sites whose cookies you want to disappear after each session, then close Firefox. When you open it, you should find that the cookies you want to maintain are still there (see Privacy/Show Cookies), but the others are not. I hope there is a more direct way to do this in future versions. –Outriggr § 00:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

There already is a more direct way in the current version. Go search for "cookie management" or "cookies" in the plugins area. Plenty of free plugins to choose from. NoClutter (talk) 03:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Please try this program. It is freeware, it has worked wonderfully for me for a few years now, it is small, it is useful, and it has been recently updated. Mostly, though, I believe it will solve your problem rather elegantly. It is called CleanCache. It now supports IE, Firefox, Mozilla and Opera with full support including cookie management for IE, Firefox, and Mozilla. The interface is very intuitive and easy to use. You save specific cookies for specific browsers by simply dragging them to the saved column. Your saved cookies lists are permanent unless you change them. Henceforth, clicking "clean checked items" (with "clean cookies" checked for the appropriate browsers) will delete all cookies except for the ones indicated. Here's the link for the download: http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id=4122&file=10&evp=2c97c0d5534d6d4d8c4e03ff47e6c61b

I hope this helps.

Chrissekely (talk) 07:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the replies (got sidetracked for a few days). I downloaded cleancache and its works great—allows you to whitelist certain cookies just as Chrissekely describes above, among other features I'm exploring. Thanks for the link Chris.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

mediawiki hosting for a nonprofit org?

Any unbiased reviews/suggestions on which way to turn? The organization is not sure they want to use Wiki as a tool, but they definitely are wanting to give it a try, but do not wish to deploy their own webserver to host during this 'proof of concept' phase.

Any suggestions or real world experiences with this scenario? NoClutter (talk) 12:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Deploy your own web server and put it in your internal network, behind a firewall. Otherwise the world will be able to see your wiki. :D\=< (talk) 13:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want it to be publicly available, Wikia is one of the players in the market, you would want to look. Please also see Comparison of wiki farms for more options. I believe there is no substantial monetary investment needed to use Wikia, although there are some advertisements there.

You should also let everyone know not to post any confidential information during the test. Wish you all the best. Kushal 17:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Weird wireless problem

I've been using a Netgear wireless router for two years now and it has been working basically fine. This week though my signal will flicker—it'll go out completely (my Macbook says it is not connected to wireless) and then come back again (suddenly I'm connected), back and forth with great rapidity at times. My wife's experienced the same thing with her iBook.

I tried unplugging the router last night and then turning it back on, but it did the same thing again today. It's almost certainly the router's problem, as when the cable internet itself goes out (as has happened a few times) the router signal is never affected.

Any thoughts as to what might be causing this? There are only two people using the router (hardware restricted—e.g. I have to approve the MAC addresses for a machine to even connect to it) so it's not being overloaded or anything, and it has a pretty unique ID. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Have your neighbours set up anything that could be interfering? If so, or even if not it's worth a try, try changing the channel that the router uses. --90.208.22.136 (talk) 14:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I almost don't want to post this, because the reasoning behind it seems suspect, but I once was told that refreshing the firmware will fix problems like this -- as if the little bits themselves have become weak and need a jolt of energy. On the other hand, I had an old Linksys router that acted similarly when the power supply was beginning to fail. --LarryMac | Talk 14:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Remember, other things share the 2.4 GHz frequency allocation. In particular, microwave ovens, cordless telephones, and some wireless video cameras. Any of these can bring down a WiFi ("Apple Airport") network or make it less robust. But I'd bet on the neighors having just gotten their own WiFi network. Pull down the MacBook's Airport menubar thingy and see if you can see a new network.

Atlant (talk) 17:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Not a cheap solution, but WiSpy is a handy gadget that can show you all the nearby sources of interference and so help you select the quietest channel. And its got pretty graphs :D — Shinhan < talk > 19:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

mp3 to ogg

How can i change an mp3 file to an ogg file?the juggreserection ^IstKrieg! 14:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

By transcoding. (Decompressing and recompressing.) Don't do it. http://www.vorbis.com/faq/#transcode --Kjoonlee 15:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course, if you really want to do it (e.g. if you are trying to upload a sound sample to Wikipedia and you only have access to the original as an MP3), I am reasonably sure you can do it with VLC Media Player's "Streaming/Export Wizard". --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

..which specifically recommends against using it for transcoding because it's terrible. mencoder. :D\=< (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

There's a free program called Audacity that allows you to record sounds and export them as mp3, ogg, or wav. You could try that. Useight (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Audacity is fine for single files, but overkill for groups of files. I suggest:

• dBpoweramp Windows – I haven't used this in a few years, but in 2004 it converted everything into everything.
• mp32ogg Linux – found in most distributions

Sorry I don't know a good Mac solution. I've had good luck with transcoding; just don't expect audiophile quality. MP3 and Vorbis are lossy codecs that make different choices in what information to omit, and don't manage each other's artifacts, so transcoding degrades the file a 2nd time. Ogg advocates hate transcoding because it makes unusually poor sounding .ogg's, through no fault of the codec. / edg ☺ ☭ 18:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Why do you want to convert them? You can't "add quality" to an already compressed source. MP3 are ubiquitous anyway. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 17:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Like Microsoft software, MP3 is dominant, but not universal.

1. Freely-available Linux distributions (such as Ubuntu) typically include vorbis support, but omit MP3 because of licensing issues. I've never known anyone who hesitated to add (usually in a separate download and install) MP3 and other non-free media support almost immediately, but MP3's do not play "out of the box".
2. Vorbis is preferred over MP3 for audio files on Wikipedia. MP3 may actually be banned.

I would only transcode if I wanted to use hardware without MP3 support (some of my computers) or wanted to take advantage of Vorbis tags. / edg ☺ ☭ 18:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

im gonna try some of these, thank you. o and yes, it was to upload a file to wikipedia. again, thanks.the juggreserection ^IstKrieg! 14:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks for contributing. / edg ☺ ☭ 15:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

T-mobile's web'n'walk...

...can I put the sim in a cracked iphone and it'll work? what should the network pin code be?

As far as I know, there's no such thing as a network PIN code. If the phone asks for a PIN code, it is the SIM card's PIN code. You receive all the SIM card codes (PIN, PIN2, PUK, PUK2) along with it when you register at a service provider's office.

Alternatively, the phone may be asking for a Network code, which is, as far as I know, the code that the SIM card owner can set to prevent automatic connection to a network. Default value should be 0000.

If you don't know the PIN code, make sure you don't try to randomly guess it because the SIM card will be locked forever.  ARTYOM  20:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I really was confusing it with the network code, which however is 8 digits in my case and all 0's aren't accepted, but... The problem was that I don't actually have an iPhone! I was using this phone that has wap and I thought it could work over gprs but I guess they're really different technologies... (wap and gprs)... so, i'll just wait till I have an iphone. btw how much should I pay for an unlocked 8 gb one here in Hungary? I saw one for like 160000 huf which is $957.12- which is really too much I think. so how much should I pay?

Well, I can't, of course, advise you on the price, but the price for an 8GB model on the Apple store is $399.  ARTYOM  21:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is worth it. Try haggling a bit. Just my USD 0.02 Kushal 19:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

quantisize?

what does quantisize mean? (i ask here, not on the science desk, because it appears[5] to be something different than just a typo of quantize, and it appears to be used in a digitized sound/graphic context). Gzuckier (talk) 18:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a typo of quantize - see quantization (music) and quantization (image processing) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 19:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Long Delay During Name Resolution By Web Browser

PROBLEM: When I click (or type) a link in a browser, there is a long delay while the browser says it is resolving the hostname.

DETAILS: The delay is typically around 10 seconds, sometimes ranging up to 30 seconds.

SYSTEM: 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 6400, 2GB RAM, various hard drives totaling approx 2TB, Windows XP SP2, fully patched and updated. System runs well in every way except this one. Connected via a wireless/wired router to a Motorola cable modem.

DATAPOINTS:

This is not a browser-specific problem, since FF2, FF3, IE7, and IE8 all behave the same way.

This is not a network transfer problem, since once the transfers start (after "Site found" messages) the transfers are generally fast, taking far less time than the name resolution.

This is not a problem with my network, because all the other machine connected to the same switch have no problem

I found where someone was having an identical problem to this - however they were running a Linux distro. The general solution was to disable IPv6. I did this via the Windows command line, to no effect

QUESTIONS:

What's going on here?

Is there a solution other than 'Reimage/reinstall'?

Thanks. -- Sapph42 (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

When you type in an addresses, your browser has to first figure out where the other computer you are connecting to physically is—that is, what its IP address is. This is done by a DNS server, which stores information about which IP addresses connect to which websites. It sounds to me like this might be where your problem lies.

You might try seeing if you can switch what DNS server your connection automatically uses. Usually this is one of the options in your internet connection settings. You might also try contacting your ISP if you think this is the problem. One way to check would be to look up the IP address of a site manually and then try connecting through its normal .com address and the IP address. If it immediately connects using the IP address, it is probably some sort of DNS problem. (For example, a WHOIS database reveals that cnn.com is 64.236.16.20).

I doubt re-installing would help, unless by doing so you inadvertently put in a different DNS server (or were assigned a different one), if this is the problem. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 22:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Not for snippyness, but for clarity: I'm a network engineer by trade, so core descriptions (like what DNS does) are unnecessary. A problem with my DNS servers is actually the first thing I thought, and found several pages lambasting Comcast's DNS (of course I found several lambasting Verizon, Roadrunner, SBC, etc . . .), so I signed up for OpenDNS and configured my router appropriately. No change.

Additionally, the PCs on my network get their DNS information via DHCP, so if it was just that, the problem would presumably be affecting other PCs as well.

It IS some sort of DNS issue, however. Direct IP addressing eliminates the problem. However since it is not purely the DNS server, I conjecture that it must be something my machine is doing in conjunction with DNS. This is why I suspect a reimage would solve the problem. -- Sapph42 (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflicted*2): if you pop open the command prompt (win -> r -> "cmd" -> enter), and type in nslookup example.com, does it still take awhile to do the lookup? If you surf by IP address directly, ie. [6], does it go faster? If you type ipconfig into the command prompt, do the values it returns for the DNS servers match up with the other computers? Running any security software / software firewalls? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No software firewalls, no security software that touches the network stack. DNS settings match other PCs on the network. As noted above, IP address surfing is instantaneous. nslookup is fast. --Sapph42 (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you doing nslookup to hostnames that you won't have already cached? If that's going fast but lookups via the browser are not then the issue flummoxes me. The two commands I'd usually toss in to fix random tcpip stack issues in XP SP2 are netsh int ip reset logfile and netsh winsock reset, but I have no idea what good that would do in this situation. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Prepare to be flummoxed further. The browser experiences this slow down even on domains that should logically be cached. Example: I enter http://en.wikipedia.org in the address bar. After about 25 seconds, I arrive at the proper page. I click the link for the reference desk, and the delay is another 20 seconds or so. I click the link for the computing section, and this time the delay is nearly 30 seconds. The commands had no effect. -- Sapph42 (talk) 01:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Tried packet sniffing using things like Wireshark? --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:22, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's bizzare. Though honestly, in the time you'll spend figuring out what the devil is going on, you could probably have it reimaged or the OS reinstalled and working (hopefully) normally. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible that, for whatever reason, either your router or your PC is configured/provisioned with "bad" DNS server addresses? The scenario I have in mind is that the primary DNS address points to an overloaded, down, or non-existent DNS server, and every DNS lookup has to fall back on the secondary DNS server — after a timeout. Another possibility to consider is that your router or your PC has been subverted to route DNS queries to a rogue DNS server. --71.162.242.38 (talk) 14:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

No. As mentioned above, the PC gets DNS information from the router via DHCP. And, again, if it was a server-side problem, it would be affecting the other computers on my network. It is not. -- 69.255.155.141 (talk) 17:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

If it's not affecting other computers on the network, the problem is probably with your PC. Although there's no indication that it's the case, but if your PC is subverted, you cannot be sure that it's using the DNS server it is supposed to, even if the info returned by ipconfig looks normal. For thoroughness, if not anything else, I'd suggest putting a packet sniffer on the network to see what's going on when the PC tries to resolve a name. --71.162.242.38 (talk) 18:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Try configuring IPv4 on your computer to use OpenDNS. 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.200 (if you don't know how to do this comment back). If it's still not working try overwriting your TCP/IP stack- there are tools to do this for XP, don't know about vista. Or see if your %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS is massive :D\=< (talk) 15:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I already use OpenDNS. As mentioned above, I am perfectly aware how to change my networking settings. As mentioned above, I am not using Vista. My hosts file defines nothing other than localhost. As for resetting the TCP/IP stack, this is accomplished by the netsh int ip reset <logfile> command, as mentioned above. Negative results. -- 69.255.155.141 (talk) 17:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh ;_; :D\=< (talk) 01:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

March 26

How to decrypt the encrypted files under different OS?

Hello friends!, My OS is windows XP PRO SP2.I have once encrypted some of my folders in a drive by right clicking and selecting properties and then selecting "advanced". There I encryted all my sub-folders under my root folder in Drive D. Later I re-formatted OS drive and installed WIndows XP PRO SP2 again(same disc).Now when I try to open the encrypted files(Appearing in green text)it shows error in opening. Later while I was around,I got to know that some certificates are needed for opening which was created at the time of my preious OS. Now with new installation,that certificate has changed...and hence its not opening. I wa able to view that certificate number...But no help it does give.Please friends!, let me know if there is any means of data recovery!....If try to decrypt by right clicking and so,nothing happens and the file still remains encrypted...Please help..Thanks in advance

From this it seems like you only need the password of the user account to decrypt it, have you tried setting the same password for your user as before? Otherwise Google Search turns up a lot of paywares that can allegedly recover them, maybe some more googling will give you a freeware alternative? --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

If I understand your situation correctly, your files are probably unrecoverable. The file encryption key is derived from (among other things) a random key stored with the user account. When you reinstalled Windows you overwrote the old account information, including the key. There's a chance (fairly small, I think) that the old key was not physically overwritten and might be recovered from the unused areas of your OS drive. An ordinary undelete utility won't work for this, including those that claim to be able to recover encrypted files (they're talking about the case where the encrypted file was deleted, not the user account). Since this must be a fairly common user error, I wouldn't be surprised if there is software that will help with this, but I don't know of any, and, again, I think success is unlikely. -- BenRG (talk) 15:46, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

From what I see, the chances of recovery depends on your not turning the computer on. The more you use the computer, the larger the chances of your losing the files. I hope you are reading this from a computer other than the computer in question. Kushal 19:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC) However, chances are that there are flaws in the encryption method which could allow you access to the data. Stay tuned for more information. Kushal 19:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm? Even if it can't decrypt the files, that space is still marked in use by the filesystem. He can write to that drive all he wants as long as he doesn't actually delete them. Also, he's talking about his D drive, usually not the %windir%, so turning the computer on would really have nothing to do with it. :D\=< (talk) 22:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I am talking about C: where his certificates were. Kushal 23:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, right right. I'd be surprised if they're stored as files though; they're probably buried in the registry. And who said certs? It's probably just encrypted with his password.. I have no idea how NTFS encryption works, but it's not real full volume encryption :D\=< (talk) 01:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

122.164.61.117 (talk) 08:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Thanks "Antilived,Kushal and Ben",I too guess that the encryption is based on my previous account password.By which windows may've generated some certificate!....The certificate has it's own unique ID which I read was different than my Previous....And I guess if the Data recovery needs to be done by undelete or unformat software,then I won't get any,coz I've been using my system for more than 4 days since this happened!....If there is any way like,reseting the certificate,or maybe editing,or cleaning the registry,then do let me knw...Thanks

stepper motor controller through parallel port?

The ciruit & programme to control the motion of stepper motor through parallel port?

It varies ;-). But if this is for your homework, you'll probably learn more if you do it yourself. If it's not for your homework, you'll probably want to give us a bit more of an idea of what you're trying to accomplish.

Atlant (talk) 17:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

does upgrading from win98 to 2000 require a HD to be formatted?

My elderly neighbour has a Toshiba Tecra 8000 running windows 98. All is stable - she's been running it for years.

However, she's upgrading from dial up to broadband next week and I suspect that an upgrade to windows 2000 will be required.

I've read that during the upgrade, I'll be asked if I want to change to NTFS (from FAT32?) and that I should select 'yes'. Will this format the hard drive (ie - losing all her emails/stored files?)

thanks 83.104.131.135 (talk) 16:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

It usually depends on the system. I've never worked with any of that stuff but it may be hard to find a concrete answer. Your best bet would be to save the hard drive to a memory stick/cd-rom just in case. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 17:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why you need Windows 2000. Moreover, you don't need to upgrade just because you are getting cable Internet. You do not need NTFS. However, converting or not converting to NTFS does not change anything. You MUST back up everything important before the upgrade. NTFS provides support for larger files (larger than 4 GiB) and handles larger partitions. If you do not need the additional features that NTFS provides, you can stay with FAT32. I am bracing myself to be scorned for championing old file systems. Bring it on! Kushal 19:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Generally speaking, most broadband ISPs don't necessarily require Windows 2k+, though they'll refuse to troubleshoot anything software-related over the phone; their setup software may not work so if that's required you'd have to provision it over the phone (and to be a pain, some install techs refuse to install on unsupported systems, and agents may say that the service won't work at all on other OSs, though neither should be happening). As well, Cable and DSL modems don't always have USB drivers for older OSs, so you'd need an ethernet adapter. Nothing wrong with going to 2k though; 98 is awful. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:29, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Why on earth would you need to install software to connect to your router? Insane! :D\=< (talk) 02:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

If you are upgrading to Windows XP, the answer is "no".^[7] According to WinBook^[8], the answer is "no" for Windows 2000, either. However, I would suggest that you do not convert to NTFS unless you need to. (You can always to it later if you need to.) Special thanks to Google for making the search possible.

Hope that helps, Kushal 20:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

IMO your best bet is to backup your documents, export contacts / save your email to a personal folder, format your hard drive and install windows XP from scratch. Upgrading 98 will bring along years of junk and potential spyware etc. Also, why bother with win 2000? Sandman30s (talk) 08:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

thanks for the input everyone. I have a memory stick for backup. The emails are stored in a .pst file, aren't they? I'm almost certainly going to upgrade because of issues with drivers/support etc. As the broadband company are supplying a wireless router, I'm going to use a pcmcia wireless card and 2000 will have drivers for it. I will go to 2000, and not XP, because I have a 2000 disc and don't have an XP disc. 83.104.131.135 (talk) 10:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes the .pst file is your personal folder. Be careful though, this will only hold email that has been moved to it, or been setup to move to it via filters. Your normal inbox and sent items are stored in .ost files. Good luck! Sandman30s (talk) 11:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

USB flash drive - memory manufacturer

How can I ascertain the manufacturer and model number of the chip(s) in a USB flash drive (without opening it up)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seans Potato Business (talk • contribs) 18:59, 26 March 2008

No good answers there, since a manufacturer will make internal changes to the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) and chips without making any changes to the model number on the case. A couple bad answers are 1) become good friends with someone in the manufacturing division of the company that produced it; their internal documents may say what particular chips are in that model/serial number. 2) have someone else do it. advertising alert Part of making them work again long enough to suck files off them is what I do for a living, and that generally includes opening them up. -SandyJax (talk) 19:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the USB Vendor ID and Device ID will provide useful information. See lsusb. And lsusb -v should give a real flood of extra information. (Help desk regulars who use operating systmes with no lsusb command are invited to list their system's lsusb equivalent here, or even better, add it to the lsusb article! Which I see now is actually a redirect to a stubby lspci article. Ouch) --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that lsusb can only be used in Linux, Mac OS or other Unix-based systems; i.e. not Windows. Xenon⁵⁴ 22:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

recording issues

It seems that trying to use the record feature of any program (including Windows Sound Recorder) causes my computer to crash and reboot. A Google search yield no results that were remotely helpful. Can anyone help me solve this problem? I couln't find any new drivers for my integrated SigmaTel sound 'card' and un/reinstalling it didn't work.

Could it be a hardware problem? I had SigmaTel ac97 integrated chip in one of my computers. I cannot remember of a single instance that I suspected the chip to cause a crash. Could you try a different program, say Audacity? Please try recording something with Audacity and let us know the results. I could be wrong and it could be a hardware problem with the sound. Kushal 23:42, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I've tried everything, including using Audacity and most other audio editors.

Install non-microsoft audio drivers? :D\=< (talk) 01:19, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You can find the required drivers at Intel Hail Intel! website. Please download and install the appropriate for your machine. Kushal 16:52, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Help on reconfiguring keyboard

Hi, I just got my DELL hard drive erased, and Windows XP reinstalled. The problem is that I have a keyboard with spanish layout which came with the computer (its a Dell Enhanced Quietkey PS2 with DellTouch; it has ñ next to the l, ampersand as secondary on the Q, and an upside down exclamation sign and question mark key next to the upright signs key), but I doesnt type what the actual keys say (so for example, theres an apostrophe key but it types -, and I couldnt find the real apostrophe key so I cant type it in).

I remember that the last time this happened I found a .exe on the Internet that fixed this, but Ive been looking for hours and couldnt find it again. I looked on the Drivers CD that came with the computer, but the drivers there didnt help me fix the keyboard. I also tried changing region configurations but it makes no difference.

Please help ASAP, its excruciating trying to type by guessing again and again where the symbols really are on the keyboard. (I tried to log in but I couldnt, sorry.) 190.159.200.176 (talk) 23:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, you should not need some program off the Internet. Microsoft^TM Windows^TM allows you to set keyboard layout options from Control Panel (Windows). Please tell us exactly what you are trying to achieve. We will try our best to help you.

Sincerely, Kushal 23:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I just got it fixed. The problem is that Windows in Spanish comes with a configuration for over 20 Spanish options, so there's standard as well as one for every single country in Latin America, so configuring it takes some patience. 190.159.200.176 (talk) 23:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

MP3 conversion

Does anyone know of any good free software that will convert from a high-quality mp3 to a lower quality one? At the moment, my mp3 player only has a 256MB storage and I prefer lower quality music; but most downloadable music is much higher quality (e.g., 250 Kb/s). 216.169.164.70 (talk) 23:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Audacity can do it with the LAME encoder. Hope that helps. Kushal 23:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

March 27

Source for Operating System Free New Computers

Is there a reliable source where an individual can buy a new computer with no operating system whatsoever? I want to load it with an operating system of my own choice. I do not want to pay for an operating system I will not use.

Thanks 12.183.100.8 (talk) 01:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a barebone kit at Tigerdirect.com or Newegg.com. Or build it yourself from scratch. Useight (talk) 01:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe wal mart sells a linux machine on walmart.com.. since it's free you can expect little markup for the OS :D\=< (talk) 01:38, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_constraint=3944&search_query=everex&Find.x=0&Find.y=0&Find=Find&ic=24_0 these use gOS, a deviant of ubuntu with google apps interaction :D\=< (talk) 01:42, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Windows Media Player 11

Is it possible to rip music straight from the hard drive or do I have to copy the music first of all to a CD before ripping it to MP3? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack Casement (talk • contribs) 10:45, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

OK here goes. If you have DRM'd WMA tracks, no it's not possible. Should have thought of that before you bought it; no sympathy here!! Fortunately WMP lets you burn it to CD and you have a wide open digital hole, but that results in reencoding and nasty quality degradation. Buy from amazon music next time, they have DRM-less mp3s so you actually get what you buy. :D\=< (talk) 10:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh don't use itunes plus either since even though they're drm-less they still use crapfest AAC encoding.. our article worships it but don't believe a word; it's a total mess :D\=< (talk) 11:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

However, it was this "evil empire" Apple whose market dominance finally led the record companies to allow Amazon.com to sell DRM free music. Kushal 23:16, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Bah. AAC is a good codec, don't listen to him! ;) -- Kesh (talk) 21:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

AAC is a good codec. However, you always lose out something when saving it as a different lossy file format like MP3, OGG, or WMA. Not everything supports AAC, yet. Kushal 23:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

No it's not possible? Yeah sure. Use recording software that records the audio stream from your player to the speakers. The Apple Store has iTunes Plus by they way, and you can also use Limewire or BitTorrent. Mac Davis (talk) 23:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh come on if you're going to be that sloppy you might as well burn it to disks since you're going to lose sound data anyway :D\=< (talk) 04:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

l3 cache x86

New x86 processors eg AMD phenom have an L3 cache.

A. What purpose does this cache serve in the x86 architecture.

B. Does windows/OSX/others use this cache

(Hint the L3 cache link lacks information on L3 cache.)87.102.16.238 (talk) 19:36, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The CPU cache always serves the same purpose: mitigate the speed difference between CPU and main memory. It is traditionally organized hierarchically. On these new processors the general idea is to have one L1 data cache and one L1 instruction cache per core, one L2 cache per core, and one L3 cache per die. The number of levels is an implementation detail of the processor and ultimately not very important.

OS kernels do not use the CPU cache directly. It is a internal processor mechanism used to speed up memory access. Software doesn't have to do anything to take advantage of it. This new cache precisely doesn't change the machine architecture in any way. Morana (talk) 00:14, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

What is the difference between L3 and L2 cache?87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

L3 is even bigger and slower than L2. It just provides an extra layer of protection against (shudder) having to wait for something out of main memory. :D\=< (talk) 16:00, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no difference. The reason a new level was introduced was because the various cores compete for bandwidth on the same memory bus. Since multitasking doesn't lock threads to a specific core the same thread may execute on two different cores at different times. If there was no L3 cache, they would both have to fetch the same code and data thus wasting bandwidth. Of course some threads won't migrate between cores so core-specific L2 caches are still needed. Morana (talk) 16:34, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand the last part - how does the 'computer' know if a individual data item is going to be shared / or not. 87.102.16.238 (talk) 20:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC) Or indeed the reverse - how (what algorhythm (sic) is used ) to decide what data is thread specific? (I can't think how)

It raises the question why not just have a large shared L2 cache then?87.102.16.238 (talk) 20:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know more precise details of these caches operation - eg

are data items in l3 flagged as having been used by each of the cores?

can/do l2 caches check each other for data replication?

Can data migrate upwards from l3 to l2? if so is there a cycle latency before the data is 'bumped up' to prevent shared data being wrongly 'up-bumped' before it has been accessed by more than one core

Are any assumptions made about identical program code running on different cores being executed synchronously? - (ie or are there any advantages to doing that - making that assumption I mean)87.102.16.238 (talk) 21:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

On a related note.. It's fairly important that the software isn't aware of this stuff. Imagine how problematic computers would be if you needed to update your OS every time there was a new processor. Computing as we know it wouldn't particularly be able to exist. One way to look at this issue is by thinking in terms of separation of concerns. (This term is specifically aimed at software, but you see the basic concept everywhere.) The existence of these different layers who don't need to know internal details of other layers is probably the single most important concept in all of IT. Friday (talk) 16:05, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Cell (microprocessor) should not be popular then - oh - maybe you're right!87.102.16.238 (talk) 20:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Far be it for me to disagree with Dijkstra(god bless you) Reade and live, but surely computer programmers responsible for 'core' code could be expected to take advantage of (and even write programs to manage) a relatively small yet much faster area/page of memory.87.102.16.238 (talk) 21:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

old definition

I've read elsewere a definition of L3 cache to be that it is an external part to the microprocessor - can this definitiob be considered obsolete now or wrong even?87.102.16.238 (talk) 20:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

l2 with l3

Is it right to say that having a relatively small l2 cache(s) augumented by a larger (shared) l3 cache is primarily an energy saving feature? (that was a guess by the way)87.102.16.238 (talk) 21:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Wiki-markup text/code editors?

Does anyone know of any text editors or code editors that recognize wiki-markup? It'd make it easier to do offline writing for articles. (I'm using a Mac, but I'd be glad to hear of any *nix or Windows ones, or just plug-ins for existing editors). -- Kesh (talk) 21:16, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Text editor support. --Sean 15:34, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

March 28

Swing docking windows

Does anyone know of a high-quality free library for Java Swing that provides similar functionality to Visual Studio's docking windows (and its clone, the .NET-based DockPanel suite) or Eclipse's SWT views and editors? I see a lot of them from a quick Google search, but does anyone have specific experience with one of them? « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 00:15, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

what is www2?

I tried the www page, but I couldn't find anything. sometimes you see addresses with WWW2.xxxx.xx instead of WWW. why is that? /Marxmax (talk) 01:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The www part of a URL is simply a sub-domain name. So if you own the test.com domain, you can create a sub-domain such as www.test.com or www2.test.com or whatever.test.com . I believe the main reason some sites have www2 is to balance their server load. - Akamad (talk) 02:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!Marxmax (talk) 02:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

See Hostname. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 16:07, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

3D City Modelling

I've got a 2d image showing the silhouettes of buildings in a city (much like this one of Moscow). What program would easiest allow me to select shapes from such an image and extrude them in order to create a simple "block model" somewhat like this or this? I don't need anything as complicated as the columns at this point; simple blocks that are more or less the right shape are fine. 96.231.47.19 (talk) 04:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Try Google SketchUp. Kushal 04:50, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Google Earth already has some 3D models. I'm not sure about Moscow, but it has many buildings in Manhattan south of 60th street. Apparently, anybody can create the 3D models (using SketchUp?) and have them appear on Google Earth, though I've not tried this myself. Astronaut (talk) 22:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Easy Cleaner is not removing all bad registry entries that it flags

I am running a 32 bit OEM version of Windows Vista Home Premium on a new Dell desktop. One of the system utilities I use semi-regularly is Easy Cleaner by Toni-Arts: http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm.

It has always successfully deleted all the bad registry entries it found and has never flagged any entries that should not be removed. Now, however it will not remove all bad registry entries. I've run it twice just now. The first time it left 68 entries. The second time it left 64. Here is a compressed folder containing a jpg screenshot from the second trial and 4 versions of a print-to-file from the first trial (try the web page version first-probably easiest to read and open): http://www.box.net/shared/n1f4vcdycs

What do I need to do to restore Easy Cleaners full functionality?

Thank you for any help.

Chrissekely (talk) 04:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Opening a File on my Hard Drive in Macromedia Flash 8 via a button.

Basically Im just looking to make a button whereby I can open a file on my HDD, however I want to do it so that when I'm in flash and you view it as an SWF you can open the file by clicking onthis button, I know how to open up a web page using this action script: on(release) { getURL("http://www.flash-here.com", "_blank"); }

But I need to really open up a file, any help would be much obliged.

PS I have tried googling this, but perhaps Im using the wrong search terms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.0.96.7 (talk) 07:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Regards Nmak3000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.0.96.7 (talk) 07:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Update!!!!!

Ok I have the code to open it,

on(release) { loadMovie ("ff.swf", 1);; }

However it opens inside the same flash window that Im using, I need it to open a new window so that basically if you were to click this button, it opens another flash swf file in a new window. Basically thats all I need to do, any help on that again would be great.

Cheers Nmak3000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nmak3000 (talk • contribs) 08:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to open a local file, try File://. Examples:

C:\WINDOWS -> file://C:/WINDOWS/
/etc -> file://etc/

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 16:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

is pendrive is consumable?

is pendrive is consumable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ravimupi (talk • contribs) 12:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It depends on usage. How do you plan on using the pendrive? For example, we purchase pendrives to give away to clients. They are advertising consumables for our company. Some people buy them for data backups (because they don't understand that they are poor backup devices). For them, they are somewhere between office equipment and office supplies. Equipment is not a consumable, but supplies are. -- kainaw™ 14:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm saying yes. People lose them, break them, always want new ones. --90.203.189.60 (talk) 17:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Think you mean 'people steal them, take them home, hide them, hoard them' ??87.102.16.238 (talk) 21:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't eat it, if that's what you're asking. Not good for you. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 20:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you mean like office consumable see Consumables, floppy discs used to be considered consumables so I guess a tentative yes..87.102.16.238 (talk) 21:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

NTFS drive with Linux

I've just brought a Maxtor external hard drive. I can read the drive but not write to it, which is a shame because a drive I cant write to is next to useless. I'm sure it's because it is NTFS and all I need to do is reformat it as FAT32 but I don't know how to actually do it in Linux. I'm using Ubuntu Dapper Drake. Can anyone help? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 14:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

First, you need to know which dev it is (ie: /dev/sda1 or /dev/usb1). You can see it by looking at the mounts once it is mounted. There are many ways to do this. df will not only show you what is mounted. It also shows how much disk space is free. Once you know the dev (assume it is /dev/usb1), run fdisk /dev/usb1 to remove the partition and replace it with a blank one. Then, run mkfs -t vfat /dev/usb1 to format the drive using vfat (which is fat32). -- kainaw™ 14:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Install the gparted package. It is accessible from the menu system/administration/partition editor. It is a point and click interface that will allow you to format your drive. Morana (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both. I went with gparted and it worked. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

qtparted if you're in KDE and you don't want to have to install gnome libraries :D\=< (talk) 16:15, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Let me just point out here, though it's likely too late, that NTFS-3G allows reading/writing of NTFS formatted partitions. See [9] -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Too late for me, but handy for anyone else or for me in the future. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 22:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Communication channels

how do we define a memoryless channel and a channel with memory in information theory? 117.198.99.171 (talk) 15:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

just do it, no one has ever been prosecuted for that...or even copying their CDs for friends...what your doing is less illegal than xeroxing a copyrighted book at the library. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NewAtThis (talk • contribs) 21:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Free/trial screen reader that reads longdesc tags

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a free screen reader, or one that I can use for a trial, which will read out the Long Description (<longdesc>) tags in an image? If should preferably work on a Mac, although I can do Windows, and should preferably work with Firefox.

Thanks a lot!

Sam 15:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Legal mp3 issues

I have a lot of music which I ripped from a CD in mp3 format, however, I am informed that there are legal issues with using the LAME encoder [10]. I am distraught because, as I have stated in a post above here, I wanted to do some mp3 conversion with BladeEnc on my private machine for my mp3s because I don't like the bitrate. Is this legal in the United States for non-commercial purposes? It is impossible to rip any CDs using an ogg format, and it's not like my mp3 player will recognize it anyway. 64.178.97.27 (talk) 19:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

As you are clearly not concerned about the legal implications of ripping CDs in the first place, why are you so concerned about the legality of using BladeEnc? I think you should either ignore the legal problems or delete your illegal mp3s and legally buy the music online at a bit-rate that satisfies you. Astronaut (talk) 20:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not necessarily illegal to rip MP3s from CDs for personal use. (The RIAA thinks it might be, but they have a vested interest. It might be fair use in the same way that making cassette tapes from CDs is.) Anyway, honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. Nobody's going to start cracking down on people for using the LAME encoder; they're going to crack down on the people who make or distribute the LAME encoder, if anything. If you want to rip with peace of mind, though, I'm pretty sure you can get Windows Media Player to rip things as MP3 and adjust the bitrate at which it does so. Or you can use any other software that properly licenses the patent, though it'll probably cost you (since patent licenses cost them). --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 21:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't use Blade, which is outdated. I'd recommend LAME over Blade any day. --Kjoonlee 22:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

IINAL but yes it is definitively legal. :D\=< (talk) 22:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Astronaut - I am 95% sure it is legal in the US to make a backup copy of software and music, despite what the RIAA might say. If you can show me otherwise, please do. However, I have heard this from various sources: [11] [12].

Administrator Rights in Windows XP

I just inherited a laptop from my company. They are very security conscious and I only have "user" rights on the laptop. I can't even change the time! Anyway, is there any way to change my access to "administrator" rights so I can actually use the computer? It has Windows XP Professional. Any suggestions? Tex (talk) 19:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

If you could do that easily, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of having "user" rights? If you're having a problem with it, I'd bring it to your company and state your case to them... Someletters<Talk> 20:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It is very easy to do. Google for "windows administrator password change knoppix". What you will find is a lot of instructions for using Knoppix to boot into linux, then mount the Windows drive, then change the administrator password, then reboot into Windows. All operating systems which keep the passwords on the disk are prone to this sort of hack. -- kainaw™ 20:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This free tool also lets you easily reset the administrator password for XP. I've used it many times when working with machines that were once locked up but nobody who had done the locking was still around. (As for whether you should do it, it's your judgment call, not mine.) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 20:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

If you have physical access to the machine then security is meaningless. You don't have to load windows and you can do whatever you want offline. Boot into a DBAN livecd, wipe the drive, and reinstall XP. :D\=< (talk) 22:19, 28 March 2008 (UTC)