Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

   

How can I get my question answered?

• Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
• Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
• Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
• Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
• Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
• Note:
  • We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
  • We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
  • We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
  • We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

• The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

April 23

Swollen caps?

Here at work if there is a computer that is malfunctioning, we can call it in and techs will be sent out during the day to fix it. Emails are sent to the person who reported it on the initial creation of the work ticket as well as when the ticket is amended or closed. I just got one of those emails and I really don't understand what it means. I can't reply because it's an automated address. Besides, it's not that vitally important that I understand what they meant. What was added to the ticket was confusing though, so that's where you guys come in... I reported a system that wouldn't boot up and the response on the work ticket was "Machine has swollen caps and will be replaced tomorrow." So what are "swollen caps"?! Dismas|^(talk) 01:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Swollen capacitors, apparently. Never heard of it myself but Googling the term makes it seem like it's a not uncommon problem. Learn something new every day. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 02:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I've never seen it myself but capacitors that are defective or used outside their rated voltages can overheat, bulge or leak, or even pop like firecrackers in extreme cases.

This has been relatively common since 2000 when a surprisingly high number of defective capacitors entered the market. Read all about it at Capacitor Plague. It's an exciting tale of intrigue, engineering, and industrial espionage gone awry.[1] APL (talk) 03:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 05:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It isn't "swollen caps" (which were correctly described above at Capacitor Plague) but it's also interesting to note that some types of tantalum capacitors are famous for, ahem, "smoke events", sometimes producing explosive events. As a result, many electronics vendors have tried to minimize the number of tantalum caps that they use or being very careful to select non-explosive types; "organic tantalums" are generally considered "OK" as are internally-fused types.

Atlant (talk) 21:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Which Google page does it show up on?

I'd love to be able to easily input a search string ("widgets and wonders") and a website (http://joeswidgets.com) and know what page of the Google search results it comes up on, if any (e.g., page 5 of that particular search) without me having to wade through the results myself. Surely there is a site that'll let you do that? I can't find one though it seems obvious. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 04:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Enter (excluding the [] brackets) [search string site:www.site.com] or similar. EG [widgets and wonders site:joeswidgets.com] -- SGBailey (talk) 14:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not what the Captain was asking for. He's not actually trying to find the string on a certain website—presumably, he already knows that. He wants to know how deep in the "global" search results his site falls (cf. SEO), and the "site:" method doesn't tell you that. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

computer programs

is there any type of computer program that could be used to activate different devices at certain times such as cameras or lights?Davidsherwood1956 (talk) 05:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

How did you wire them up in the first place? --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

i didn't. i would like to install a system from the ground up. since i am no longer able to get around much it would make my life a lot easier to have something i can adjust from the house. i know that i can put things like lights on a timer but then i have to get outside to change it. the problem with technology is that after a certain age you understand less and less of it. i realize my question may be stupid and judging from others on this site i guess it is,but at this point in my life it's as good as it gets.Davidsherwood1956 (talk) 20:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like maybe the X10 system might help. The article is not great, but basically, it is a system that allows you to plug in controller modules to various outlets and appliances, and then control them from a central location. --LarryMac | Talk 20:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

And at a higher level of cost and sophistication, LonBus can easily do it.

Atlant (talk) 20:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered using Lego? You might need to get a local nerd to give you a hand, but you can do neat stuff with their techno kits. --Lisa4edit (talk) 08:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Dilbert.com

Has the new Dilbert web-site been made by Dilbert himself or by his workmates? 217.168.3.246 (talk) 08:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, Let's hope that's an April fool's joke that's gone on too long. (I especially like the fields that just say "sdfsdfsdf".) Personally, even though I'm not a Texan, I read the comics here : [2]. Nice and simple. APL (talk) 12:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The one good thing to come out of it is that there's now an official feed. In colour and everything! — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 16:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way to view the Sunday strips. Like this one http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-04-20/?Page=3 is completely unviewable and now we can't view the Sunday strips anymore. William Ortiz (talk) 01:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Check out the 'Fast' version of the site. It has nothing but the comic as an image and a calendar for finding past comics. The only place it's mentioned is in a tiny link at the bottom of the main site (marked 'Linux/Unix', bizarrely) and on Scott Adams's blog. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 13:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Safari browser

Can any one please suggest the reliable website from where i can load Mozilla firefox or sfari browser?Can it be downloaded in the presence of internet explorer?Cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.2.174.41 (talk) 09:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you trying to install Firefox or Apple Safari? If so just go to their website (Firefox or Safari) and download the installer. Internet Explorer should not interfere with either of them. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Can I pimp Opera here? Since you are trying new web browsers you may as well try all 3 of the "alternatives". TheGreatZorko (talk) 12:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep, Opera Internet Suite is a good package. However, I would still recommend Mozilla Firefox to anyone who can install it themselves (they will be able to install addons too). Kushal 10:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

CNF for QBF₁

Can a formula in QBF₁ be transformed into conjugation normal form without while remaining in QBF₁ and without exponentiall growth? Taemyr (talk) 10:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ant vs Make

Is Ant any good? What can it do that Make can't? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.223.156.1 (talk) 11:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Since Ant uses Java implementations of many tasks where make calls shell commands, it is more portable to non-UNIX platforms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.210.249.81 (talk) 08:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, Ant has a variety of plug-ins that semi-automate a variety of compliation tasks, especially Java-ish ones. See for example many of the Java-specific addon tasks here. While the functionality of these tasks could be replicated by custom Makefile commands and/or shell scripts, having a library of pre-made tasks means you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Warmfuzzygrrl | Talk 18:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Hex to dec in PostgreSQL

Is it possible to convert a hex number to decimal using PostgreSQL's functions only, that is without a custom function or without data manipulation via eg.. a Perl script? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.131.116.233 (talk) 11:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this applies to PostgreSQL, but in Oracle Database, there is a built-in function called "TO_NUMBER" which is used like:

select TO_NUMBER('FEE0','XXXX') from dual;

The number of 'X's must be the same or greater than the number of digits in the hexidecimal number. PostgreSQL probably has a similar function, but I'm not sure. 137.148.165.235 (talk) 16:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Good attempt, and PostgreSQL has a to_number function, but it looks like it doesn't support the "X" conversion. It does, however, support Roman numerals, which I'm sure comes in handy far more often. It looks like the to_hex function might be what you want—I'm not completely sure from your question what exactly you need. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

XML "shorthand" language

Hi, a couple of mounth ago i have encounterd a "languge" that alows you to describe a xml instatce in short. for example the xml:

   <animal>
     <dog name="billy"/>    
</animal>

will become something like this:

<animal
   <dog name="billy"

does anybody know what i mean, thx very much:)

That's... an appallingly bad idea. How do you know when a clause ends? If you add another element after that, how do we know if it is a subset of animal or dog? We're not taking whitespace seriously, are we? It strikes me as a really silly thing to sacrifice clarity in order to save a tiny amount of space... --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Check out Simple Outline XML, YAML, JSON. --Sean 17:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

MyLibraryDV video playback

I cannot play the MyLibraryDV DRM-protected movies downloaded via my library. The audio part is OK but the video fails to play. I think my Windows Media Player does not have the proper video codec for the movies.

Here's what GSpot says:

• File name: ATK521E.wmv
• File Type: ASF (.WMA/.WMV)
• Mime Type: video/x-ms-asf
• File Length Correct
• Sys Bitrate: 755 kb/s
• Created: 2007 Jul 11 11:49:43
• User data / meta data
  • Aud:WM/WMADRCPeakReference:11480
  • Aud:WM/WMADRCAverageReference:2205
• Audio ← PLAYABLE
  • 0x0161 (WMA v2)
  • 0x01:44100Hz 48 kb/s tot (2 chnls)
  • Status Undetermined
• Video ← NOT PLAYABLE
  • WMV3
  • WMP v9 (VC-1 Simple/Main)
  • Codec Status Undetermined

My Windows Media Player says it's the latest update. Whay can I do? -- Toytoy (talk) 13:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

New Username at login page

I've asked this question before, but I can't find the answer. Sorry.

My friend has just received a computer from the wife of a friend of his who passed away recently. Unfortunately, it is password protected with usernames for the family. He has lost contact with the wife and can't ask her to help, so he wants to know how to make a new username so he can login, as he can't get past the login page. Clicking 'cancel' doesn't work (like it used to). If anyone knows the answer to this, could I get a step-by-step guide on how to do it, as I have to go back to my friend's place to do it. He obviously doesn't have internet access, so I had to come back to my place to ask this question.

Either that, or is there any way to find out one of the actual passwords before getting onto the login page?

Much appreciated! --ChokinBako (talk) 14:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I have been told to try this - [3] which is a bootable disk (you burn it to a CD and boot from it) and it will allow you to remove the passwords from the account using a part of the program called Picklock or Lockpick possibly TheGreatZorko (talk) 14:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. But I forgot to say the CD-ROM drive is knackered. It looks like someone attacked it with a knife. I've looked around for a compatible one, but it's a 'slinky' one, smaller than the usual ones, and very expensive.ChokinBako (talk) 14:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

You could buy a USB CD rom drive, which are relativly inexpensive. The PC will be rather useless without a CD rom drive anyway. Other than that I am sure there are programs that will remove the XP user passwords that will run off a USB memory stick. I will have a look for one. TheGreatZorko (talk) 14:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

If it's Windows XP, there may be a workaround. Booting into Safe Mode will probably bring up the account login screen, and there should be an extra account listed called "Administrator". If that account was never given a password, which it wouldn't be unless the owner was computer savvy, you can go in with that account. And because it's the admin account, you can use it to change the password of the other account. Useight (talk) 15:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Try ntpasswd. It removes user passwords on Windows 2000/XP, and can be run from a floppy. --grawity 19:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Strange BSOD on Win XP SP2

Hi all,

I use an Win XP Home SP2 notebook with some WIDCOMM Bluetooth adapter. All drivers and system is up-to-date. Now, when I activate or deactivate the BT device over HW or SW switch, occasionnally the system BSODs with "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA", file "btaudio.sys". What's wrecked in my system and how can I fix this wreckage?

62.216.214.96 (talk) 16:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

XP SP2 has its own Bluetooth stack, and so Widcomm drivers might not work correctly on Windows XP SP2. (Though I had no such problems when I used Widcomm drivers.) What device do you have? --grawity 19:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems like the BCM 2045...actually it's Broadcom, but the program manufacturer is Widcomm...apparently Broadcom has bought Widcomm.88.217.81.175 (talk) 13:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Try this page. --grawity 19:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

After applying that update actually stuff broke down, I'm sorry I forgot to mention this...any way to downgrade the drivers? 62.216.215.30 (talk) 20:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't know what type of PC to go for

What are the pro's and con's of Mac pc's and what are the pro's and cons of windows pc's because i dont know whih operating system to choose? --Hadseys Chat_Contribs 17:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

See religious war for more info. The short, most objective answer is probably that it's down to personal preference. Also, you can get bargain basement PCs, whereas the smallest new Mac you can get will have a higher price than a similar PC. Friday (talk) 17:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

related to the above, an article in slate.com (i think? maybe salon.com) a few months back, pointing out that used macs can be resold for at least some fraction of their value, whereas used PCs are basically bulk matter, which tends to mitigate the initial cost differential. other than that, the advice is as it always was: decide what you want to do, then decide what software you want to do it with, then decide what machine will run that software. Gzuckier (talk) 18:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I doubt many people consider resale value when purchasing a computer. All (and absolutely all) you need to consider is what you need. What programs will you run? Don't know? You better find out. You don't buy a computer and then wonder what you can use it for. You buy it because you know what what you are going to use it for. Once you know what programs you will be running, see how much the cost on both Windows and Mac. Are they even available on Mac? Tip: Don't emulate. You can emulate Windows in Mac to run Windows programs - but just say no. If you need Windows, buy Windows. If a Mac meets your needs, you can buy a Mac. Finally, once you know what you need a computer to do and what computers can do it, you will have a price range. How much are you willing to spend. I suggest going for the middle-price. There will be dirt cheap options. There will be absurdly expensive options. There will be middle-ground options. Does this plan work? Yes. I purchase computers every week. I refuse to screw around with making them work. So, when a person comes into my office and says that they need the Mac Air. I ask what they specifically need to do. Then, I purchase a computer that meets his or her needs (and it won't be a Mac Air). So, to repeat, you need to know what you need first. Then, come back here and ask "What is a good computer for doing .....?" -- kainaw™ 23:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Excellent advice, Kainaw! Kushal 10:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, many people don't listen to such reason. For example, most mobile phones are capable of a whole lot more than making phone calls, yet almost no one wants a phone without it being small and light with a colour screen, 2MP camera, MP3 player, web browser, etc. The same applies to computers; when I think about it, my new laptop is far more capable than what I use it for. I bought it because it did all I wanted, plus many things I might like to try in the future, plus it is lightweight, and is a good looking, desirable gadget to have. Astronaut (talk) 15:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, though, these days there's very little you can do on a Mac that you can't do on a PC, and vice versa. The Mac has traditionally been the computer of choice for creative types who like to do Photoshop, edit music, that kind of thing. But all those applications run fine on a PC as well. Same goes for number-crunching applications which have traditionally run best on a PC - a Mac can handle those very well. Email, web surfing, word processing - you can do those equally well on either platform. So, unless you mostly want to play games on it (for which the PC is way dominant), or run some super-abstruse application, the thing about identifying your needs is a bit of a red herring. You should look, instead, at ease of use, the user interface, security, that kind of thing. And if those become your criteria - as they should - there's only one computer to go for, and it starts with an M. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

My choice would be a PC. Secondly, go for Windows XP because as a general rule of thumb you shouldnt move to a new OS without 2 service packs being released first, in this case, for Vista. XP has had 2 service packs already and is stable. Mac's aren't that easy to network anyway. Personal choice: PC. Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 19:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

EDIT: you put "Mac pc's and what are the pro's and cons of windows pc's" Mac arent PC's. Generally, PC = Windows. Macs = well Macs. Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 20:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

PC is generaly used to refer to the hardware that Windows will run on. So a PC could be running Linux or BSD as well.

There are even a few folk who ignore refuse to acknowledge the common usage of our language and use the archaic acronym expansion of PC ("personal computer") and try to claim that any computer a person owns is a PC, including Macs. Those people are crazy. APL (talk) 20:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the term "PC" for "Windows" is used by Mac people in a feeble attempt to claim that the Mac is not a PC. Over time, they have been able to brainwash most people into believing that a Mac is not a PC. It is a wondrous machine that will not only look pretty on your desk but also cleanse your soul as you bask the sweet glow of its screen. Those who are "crazy" enough to not get brainwashed still see the Mac as a PC running Mac OS. -- kainaw™ 03:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, all six of you who haven't been 'brainwashed' by the advent of convenient and useful terminology used to distinguish between Mac hardware and IBM Compatible hardware, are a vanishing minority who just wind up confusing people. (Like those of us who still pronounce "Gif" in the original and correct way, so that it sounds like a brand of peanut butter.)APL (talk) 12:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I still recall an era when there were two kinds of computers (10 kinds of computers?). There were "IBM-Compatible" ("PC") and there was "Everything else." In the present world of internet-applications and effective software distribution, there are far fewer programs which are not available in some form, for all platforms. (Video games are a notable exception).

I would recommend the PC because you will probably get higher performance for the same price; you will have more choices for hardware and software upgrades, and you will not be misled into thinking of your computer as an "appliance" - because whether we use our machine for word processing, internet browsing, graphics, video, ... computers are for computation. Nimur (talk) 14:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are two important aspects to take into consideration. PC's are by far the most dominant of the two, so if you need to do something which you have no idea how to, you are far more likely to have a friend who's a PC guru to help you. Looking for help for a MAC related issue will take that little bit more time and effort. PC/Windows software is also massively more dominant than MAC, so if you're looking for utilities and/or apps that do obscure or specialised things you're far more likely to find something that does the job on a PC. This is not to mention drivers for any sort of peripheral you might need. Everyone will write a Windows driver for their hardware but not many will bother writing MAC drivers. Then of course there's the highly illegal issue of pirate software and games which are easily found for PC (on the 'net or from a friend of a friend....) which you'd struggle to get for MAC. Zunaid©® 14:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

See my post above. It's not true to say that PCs are "massively more dominant" in software. As I wrote above, most mainstream applications are available for, and run equally well, on both platforms. And looking at the OP's question, I have a hunch he/she is not going to be looking for obscure or specialised apps/utilities/peripherals. As for tech support, there are Mac forums all over the place where you are likely to get a helpful reply very quickly indeed (that's my experience, anyway, for what it's worth). --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• use mac if you like the way it 'works' use PC if you want to connect with more people. use MAc if you are not technically minded. 86.143.165.201 (talk) 13:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to Get a Mac, get a mac! It is just another computer with user friendly hardware and running a well-polished operating system environment. It is NOT a way to attain nirvana. It is NOT perfect (although it is 'better' and more intuitive for some people). If you are looking for a desktop (and not a notebook), want to install Linux, or want to play those Bungie games, you might be better off building your own system. You will learn a lot about computers just by installing and using Linux. Just remember that Linux is not Windows. I don't think I can recommend MacBook Air to anyone as their primary (or only) computer yet ... (unless they have meticulous cost-effective wireless broadband Internet access where they are). Kushal 02:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

What is the max size (in km) that the battlefield 2 engine support???

What is the max size (in km) that the battlefield 2 engine support?? 189.97.86.35 (talk) 18:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

For those like me who have thus far been ignorant of what a "bf2 engine" might be, apparently it is a game engine for "Battlefield 2". --Sean 20:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Photoshop

Is there a group of Photoshop (or any similar photo altering program) enthusiasts on the net (or wiki??) that can alter a picture for me pro bono? --Endless Dan 21:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Endless Dan, just to pick a few there is Photoshop Forums, Devppl Forums and Team Photoshop Forums. For a full list try simple search strings such as 'Photoshop Forums' in Google, Yahoo! or similar. Adam (Manors) 22:09, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --Endless Dan 12:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

For use here, we have a bunch of helpful folks at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Cookies and user click trails

Hello, a question for you. Do websites share server log and IP address data with their advertising and tracking partners? For example, if say ebay.com as a customer hires 2o7.net to serve ads and analyze its customers' interactions with ebay, do both companies share access to those server logs? During an average day I deny cookies from 2o7, advertising, atdmt, att, bridgetrack, collarity, contextweb, doubleclick, google, hitbox, insightexpress, mcclatchyinteractive, questionmarket, realmedia, revsci, specificclick, tacoda, ugamsolutions, zwire and usually lots more (and I also use NoScript in Firefox which stops some requests). I asked an admin and looked at RFCs 2616 and 2965--and apologize if this is a FAQ--but I don't know enough about how commercial websites are run to answer this myself. Thanks for any thoughts. -Susanlesch (talk) 21:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

No, that's not how it usually works. Advertising firms do track you across many different websites, but they don't look at the server logs directly; they most often use what is called a third-party cookie. It works like this: say you are on site SomeServer, which advertises using the firm FastAd (two fictional companies, obviously) to serve ads. So when you go to SomeServer, you see a big banner at the top of the page. That image doesn't come from SomeServers server, it comes from FastAds (that is, the ad-firms) server. Since that image is fetched from a different server, it either reads or installs a new cookie in your browser. Now, assuming FastAd has ads on all SomeServers pages, wherever you go on SomeServer, you are going to get an ad from FastAd, and that cookie will be read by them, every time.

I gather you already understand some of this, because you very prudently have already blocked a bunch of cookies from companies :) The point is, 207.net has no need to look at the logs directly, they can track you fine around ebay just by using cookies. They can see every page you clicked on.

The really scary part is of course that SomeSite isn't FastAds (back to the fictional example :) only client; FastAd probably have thousands, if not tens of thousands, of partners. So anywhere you go online, if that site uses FastAd, then that company will know exactly where you've been. They can gather an enormous amount of data that way, without ever having to look at a server log. On the internet, Big Brother isn't government agencies, it's advertising companies. I guess that's better than the government, but frankly, I don't really trust either of them. --Oskar 07:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess I should add another thing to my answer. Cookies are possibly not the only information ebay shares with their ad-partners, they could very easily share a bunch more: your sex, your age, your location, your purchases, etc., anything that might help the agency target ads to you more efficiently. I don't know, I don't work at ebay. But they don't share their entire server logs. --Oskar 07:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Those "third-party cookies" associated with inline images are the exact issue covered by RFC 2965 section 3.3.6. Those cookies are supposed to be ignored. It's a "MUST" in the RFC. A client which accepts those cookies is defective, according to this document which is the highest authority on the use of HTTP cookies.

Now the bonus question: what do you call a business based on routinely gaining access to information stored on other people's computers, which is only available to you because of defects in their software? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 07:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Oskar and tcsetattr, for trying to answer this. If their cookies are denied, I assumed that the partners, let's pick on 2o7.net again, must record an IP address, otherwise they'd have nothing on which to track the visitor. Thus the question about sharing logs with their customers, e.g. ebay--if both parties have access to the IP address, there's little point in denying cookies. That's quite a reading of the RFC, tcsetattr (when I read that I thought that since the user agent knows the origin of the cookie request it is a "verifiable" transaction, forgetting the obvious design assumption of browsers, that most users have only the address bar to go on). Cookie monsters have been studied at places like CDT for ten years haven't they? I'm surprised the RFC isn't in the popular press, for example, this was a recent New York Times/comScore result. -—SusanLesch (talk) 17:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course the user agent (a.k.a. "client" or "browser") knows where the cookies are coming from - how would they get there otherwise? What they mean is did the user (a.k.a. "human") intend to start a session with that third party, or even have a chance to see that it was going to happen? Not if the images are retrieved automatically as part of the rendering of a web page, he didn't.

I have little doubt that what the authors were thinking when they wrote the definition of an unverifiable transaction was "DoubleClick bastards! This should kill them off." --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

And that definition is dated 2000, eight years ago. —SusanLesch (talk) 21:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

One more question, cross-site scripting says "many web applications tie session cookies to the IP address of the user who originally logged in" (statement is unsourced). From what I read the RFCs talk about the host or server IP address but not the user's IP address. So, my assumption is wrong, the cookie-setting partner, let's say 2o7.net, actually does have my IP address? Also I guess, if customer A acquires partner B (like Google and DoubleClick or Microsoft and Yahoo!) they can merge their logs? —SusanLesch (talk) 08:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

April 24

Disabling Windows XP automatic folder type detection

Windows XP just loves to scan my folders and guess what kind of folder it is (image, audio, etc). I tried disabling everything that could be related to this, but it still does it. I like the classic explorer layout much more, and with everything sorted by either type or mod. date (and occasionally, size) on list mode, and without the system trying to figure what I'm doing.

The problem is, XP gets it wrong, and it keeps thinking my download folder is strictly a music folder, and it just sorts everything by name and removes the options I want from the "sort by" menu and replaces them with the music-related crap (artist, track, album). So every time, when I want to see things by modified date instead of type, I have to change from list to details, add a modified date column, switch back to list and finally sort it accordingly. It's really annoying as it happens every single time.

Is there any way to completely stop this behavior? I'm talking about locking the folder display mode entirely. I searched the web but I got vague answers that were unrelated to what I'm trying to accomplish.

If everything fails, I'm just gonna get a third party program to do the job. Asking this over here is my last attempt at a fix. Thanks in advance! — Kieff | Talk 03:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes deleting "desktop.ini" and "folder.htt", helps in some degree. Effect have been only temporary and this does not works for some folders. There also were also unregistering shmedia.dll (by executing regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll), but it often does not helps either. Brutally erasing shmedia.dll also does not helps. Using third party program probably will be easiest method (only issue there would be that, the win+e keyboard shortcut works only for windows explorer and not for any third party programs). -Yyy (talk) 08:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

hash fails

Do copyright holders or governments deliberately flood torrents with hash fails to prevent downloads? My "friend" has was downloading a DVD but it became impossible to finish because of hash fails, all coming from many different seeders and peers with a variation on the IP address "available.above.net", all using Azureus/2.4.0.2. Last week a different torrent of the same DVD was posted to isohunt.com and "my friend" began downloading it. The speed was good at 500/kps until today when nearly 30 different seeders and peers all from "available.above.net" showed up in the peers list on utorrent. Since then the download has not advanced from 43% because of hash fails. How can I solve the problem? xxx User:Hyper Girl 11:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I should say that there is not a problem with downloading other torrents, only the Avril Lavigne My World DVD. Original link [4] and last weeks link [5]. xxx User:Hyper Girl 11:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

This is more likely a problem with your router. Some routers will occasionaly mangle BitTorrent's long and complicated packets. The most common type of this supposedly occurs when the router tries to be too clever and automatically translates all IP addresses that appear in a packet. However, with a giant torrent files, there is a very good chance that one of the chunks will, by shear chance, contain a section of data that 'looks like' the IP address the router is looking for and it will 'helpfully' translate it for you. Breaking that chunk. Typically this will leave you stuck at 99% completion as your torrent client hopelessly re-downloads the same chunk over and over again.

Information on this problem and how to fix is here : [6]

Keep in mind that there is a real danger of copyright holders logging into a torrent and getting a list of all the IP addresses involved. They can then complain to your ISP and get your Internet shut off. (At least, they can in USA.) Always remember that the Internet is a public place. APL (talk) 12:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

(after EC) You could solve the problem by actually buying the CD instead of stealing it. --LarryMac | Talk 12:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't say whether its government action or not, but from what you've described it definitely seems deliberate. You could try PeerGuardian, which can block any IP address you suspect of sending bad data. Hope that helps. Think outside the box 13:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking, won't your client block ips that cause hash fails? I know utorrent does, but I guess if there are loads of them it could take a while. Think outside the box 13:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that Azureus will blacklist clients that send chunks failing the hash. Makes the error I mentioned above all the more aggravating because it can cause legit clients to be blacklisted APL (talk) 13:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

sanity check : Make sure you have enough disk space. I just remembered that some versions of Azureus give strange errors if your disk is full. APL (talk) 13:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone! I don't think its a problem with my router because its only packets from "available.above.net" which cause errors, and those addresses were not there yesterday. Plus, the same problem struck the previous Avril Lavigne torrent, but doesn't affect any other torrents I download. I think its either Avril herself or someone who doesn't like her who is doing it. I will check out peer guardian and report back. xxx User:Hyper Girl 14:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

OMG thank you sooo much! I can report that peer guardian worked like a dream! The download is much slower now, only 50/kps, but no more hash fails :) Should be done by tomorrow. A huge thank you to everyone to answered. xxx User:Hyper Girl 16:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure Avril appreciates your support. although maybe lack of sales will make her stop . . . --LarryMac | Talk 19:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

...and maybe a big warning at the top of this page will make people stop soapboxing... but probably not. -- Coneslayer (talk) 20:04, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I would support you in the "No soapboxing" if I was not one of the accused myself. Wait, am I doing it right now? AHH! :D Kushal 22:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks like you're right. There are a bunch of forum posts complaining about "poisoners" hitting Avril torrents. [7] [8] APL (talk) 20:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Memory Stick Pro on the Clie?

I recently purchased a Sony Clie PEG-S360, and I have heard that it can only use standard Memory Sticks. Is there an OS update that will allow ot to use the Memory Stick Pro? --Zemyla^t 15:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Well having owned a Clie before I used to use Memory sticks which would go into the top of the device. Firstly, have you tried popping in a Memory Stick Pro? Secondly, if it doesnt work, the problem is more to do with hardware than software so I dont think there will be any OS update. Let me know if im wrong Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 19:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

My screen broke today. It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore. Thank you for your help. --168.53.172.38 (talk) 15:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

cd problems

i had a few months ago copied 3 rar files from a cd. but due to a virus infection the computer had to be formatted. now if i enter the cd,2 of the files are ok but one of them doesn't show the rar icon and when clicked upon,the computer says not responding. this is NOT the cd's problem since it's ok on others' compuers. please help. --scoobydoo (talk) 16:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

When the computer was formatted it got rid of the RAR file format, all you need to do is download it and install it again. The reason it works on other PC's is because that RAR (so to speak) hasn't gone only the one on the formatted PC has. Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 19:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

This is wrong. If the computer can recognise one .RAR file (or two, in this case) it will recognise them all. So if the computer did '[get] rid of the RAR file format' it has clearly 'got it back', for every .RAR file it encounters. No idea what the problem might be, though. Sorry. Joe^Talk_Work 12:02, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, sorry misread the question. Thought that 2 of the files (which were a different type and not RAR) worked but the rest that were RAR didn't. Not sure what the problem could be then, sorry :( Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 10:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Network Drives

I need a network drive which I can also put on to my MacBook Pro, without the USB port. What's the best way of doing this? For example, can I connect with the ethernet port on the mac, or can you get plugs which convert an ethernet or USB port into an ethernet one? (I can't use the USB ports because both of them are used anyway, there is only a firewire and ethernet port available. I've never really used either. I'm on Leopard, so it's for Time Machine when connected directly.)--Jayne smith (talk) 16:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps what you really want is a USB hub, which you can buy very inexpensively. It will turn one USB port into several. Make sure it's USB 2.0. USB 1.1 is much slower. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

A hub like this [9] and then I can get an external drive with a USB port in it, like this [10].--Jayne smith (talk) 18:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

But specifically, can you put a network drive into a normal computer ethernet port and expect it go like any other USB or firewire drive?Jayne smith (talk) 18:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Simply, no. What you wanna do with the Network Drive, is plug the ethernet (CAT 5e) cable from the network drive into the router (on a LAN RJ45 Jack) then map a network drive from your Mac. Anyway Networking related questions (TCP/IP, LAN, WLAN etc....) ask me on my talk page. Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 19:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I think he wants an NSLU2, maybe with a WLAN usb stick attached.88.217.64.113 (talk) 20:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

@Dep Garcia: thanks, I think I understand :-) Though, the whole point is to have a drive versatile enough, so it works either as a network or local drive. If I get you right, this is how you set it up as a network drive?

@88.217: you seem to understand. Looks like it would work, though more complicated than I expected.--Jayne smith (talk) 09:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

And going at $50 on ebay [11] And being Linux, probably ample of online user support and modification etc.Jayne smith (talk) 09:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that would be how you set it up as a network drive. If you use two or more Macs/PC's in your house then a network drive would be a good option, personally. Because you can share files and when you get bored of using one PC just move onto another and use that one with your files being on the drive and it serves as an backup drive aswell. I understand that both USB ports are unavailable to use, but have you tried plugging the network drive straight into the ethernet jack? This is ad hoc Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 10:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I haven't tried that, because I don't have a network drive yet. You also said above ("Simply, no") that network drives don't work locally in ethernet ports, so I looked for a network drive with a Firewire option. There's plenty USB network ones, and USB Firewire. But nothing seems to have all three. It's likely for my own use just on my own laptop, but I guess anyone else on the network could use it. But I see simple USB hubs and NSLU2.Jayne smith (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahhh, sorry about all the confusion. Just thought you had one. If you don't fancy the network option. You could buy a USB hub which allows you to connect 4 USB devices to one USB port on your PC leaving one port free. example So you got the two devices that are plugged into your computers USB port already, plug them into the hub along with the drive. Let me know if any questions etc... Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 10:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Question answered, thankyou. Any external hard drive (at least that I know of) gets its data interface off the computer, and a power source off a normal wall socket. What happens when you try and do both through the same computer port? You put a hub on the port, use one "subport" for data, the other for power, using something like this [12]. The result is that you end up with two wall sockets looking at each other, one (from the computer) to supply power, and the other (going to the external drive) which needs the power. But it can't get the power because they are both male. Is there any way to supply power like that? I would search, but I haven't got a clue how to describe a double ended three pin wall power adapter, both ends being female.Jayne smith (talk) 11:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, gonna have to think about that one. In the meantime take a look at a hard drive that is just bus-powered, (powered only by USB, for example, or even this). Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 11:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm over complicating it, aren't I? I think I'll stick with the good old wall in the meantime. Thankyou for being able to understand my rant explaining this!Jayne smith (talk) 13:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

No no its fine. Okay, let me know how it goes :) Take care Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 20:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

A script that searches out and responds to certain elements in a website?

Hi all. I'm only medium in the field of programming, but I was wondering if anyone could give me some resources, or some terminology to search for in, say, google, about a script that would:

• Go to a website

• Search out (in its source code, preferably), certain sections of text, ie words or phrases.

• Depending on what they were, would then act accordingly.

Just for an example, say a webpage contained the word "fuck", then the script could create a frame that says "This website uses profanity." Or if a website is an e-book, with a certain page number, it could search through the text until it finds, say, "Page: 34" and then, in a frame, print out the links for page 33 and page 35 accordingly. Just examples, so you can figure out what I'm trying to ask here.

Again, any ready-made scripts (the simpler to understand and experiment with, the better) would be best, but also any resources towards learning how to do so, or terminology for such scripts so that I can search out and learn at leisure (my current searches are failing horribly) would be great!

Much help appreciated ! -=- Xhin -=- (talk) 20:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like something that could be done in Firefox with Greasemonkey. --LarryMac | Talk 21:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

April 25

Extending Classes in Java

Hi. I just have a quick question. If I am extending a class in java -- after I call super on it -- what happens with the instance variables of the extended class? Can I use simply their names [when calling from the lower class] (such as example) or should I use the format of (super.example)? Furthermore, how should I use its methods? Should I use (randomMethod()) or (super.randomMethod())? Thank you Sharpshot240 (talk) 04:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

This is largely a style question, I would go with only using super where necessary (e.g. calling an original version of a method that is reimplemented). I can't think of any reason that I would want to hide a superclass variable then access it. One thing to watch is overriding a method called in a superclass's constructor, because at the time it is called the sub class variables will not have been initialized, see [13]. -- Q Chris (talk) 07:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Tracing IP address

I am trying to trace the sender of an email. I know how to get the sender's IP address through email headers, but when I run a WHOIS search on the IP address (which begins 10.*), all it tells me is that the address is owned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. I was expecting more from WHOIS, like a domain name or something. Can the email header tell me any more? --Bluegrouper (talk) 08:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The email headers usually feature lots of different IP addresses. Have you tried all of them? Also, so there are many "Whois" servers. I usually try ARIN, then the links to other the continental Whois services at the foot of that page, and finally Sam Spade. Remember though, if you are trying to track down someone who is sending you spam, they are unlikely to respond to your attempts to get them to stop and are more likely to add you to their "suckers list" instead. Astronaut (talk) 10:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You understand that E-mail can contain forged headers, right? See E-mail and E-mail authentication for more information.

Atlant (talk) 11:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't bother trying to track down a 10.*.*.* IP address, that's an IP in the RFC1918 address space, used on private networks (such as the user's home LAN or the sender's ISP's internal network). You want to look at the IP address of the system logged by your own ISP, because that's really the only reliable Received: header (given that you trust your own ISP). Anything else can and will be added by the sender, and is possibly forged. -- JSBillings 11:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

We have an article on private networks like 10.*.*.*. It is probably a step in the routing of your email that involved one server sending to another mail server internally on an internal network. Perhaps you should look at the next IP in the trail. --Spoon! (talk) 12:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I know email can contain forged headers, and no it's not spam I'm trying to trace. This tutorial suggests (point 5, three-quarters of the way down) that the sender's actual IP address will always be the in the bottommost Received: header. It also says (point 3, a little higher) that the topmost Received: header (which I'm assuming is the one JSBillings describes as "the IP address of the system logged by your own ISP" contains the IP address of the sender's email server, not the IP address of the sender himself. Given what you say above about the RFC1918 address space, is there any way I can identify the sender? --Bluegrouper (talk) 12:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

That page you gave is somewhat correct, but in your case, the sender's IP isn't actually helpful, because it's on a private network. You need to look at the Received: header where the ISP accepts the connection from the sender, which might be the second-to-last Received: header. Unfortunately, as with services like Google Mail, who uses a private network internally, it won't be too helpful. -- JSBillings 13:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, the topmost Received: header isn't always going to be the point where your ISP accepted the connection from the sender's ISP. Most ISPs nowadays bounce the message around through primary MX systems, some antivirus/antispam systems and finally to mail-store systems. The tutorial you list must be somewhat dated to have such a simplistic view of mail systems. -- JSBillings 13:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

While whois is helpful for finding out which company owns an IP address, it is worthless for finding out the location of people using large ISPs. I prefer to use traceroute. It will break through the "it is somewhere on this continent" range and show you which routers/switches were used to get to the IP address. Those routers/switches tend to have names which identify their general location. -- kainaw™ 16:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Moniter the remote system

Hai

I need Help from You pepole.Please clear it.Mointering the Remote system through lan connection is Possible? and if it is Possible how is it? please explain me.

Because I am Adminstrator in my company.In My company many of them Open the Server And Doing Somthing so i want to watch the system at any other system is connected in lan.

Main thing The person Don't to Know if i watching my system from Remote place. So please help me as fast as.

Advance Thank You

R.Rajesh Kumar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.51.157 (talk) 12:39, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I won't start talking about rights to privacy, but if (an example) the administrator at my workplace did this kind of monitoring, I certainly wouldn't work there.

Anyway, for Windows, you could try radmin, or VNC. Or you can use a trojan horse such as SubSeven - they work well for monitoring.

And please sign your posts with four tildes: ~~~~

--grawity 13:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I think UltraVNC deserves a look. To answer Grawity, I would say I wouldn't either. I hope that my employers would trust me because if my employer did not trust me, they would probably fire me. (Dang, I am "soapboxing" again!) Kushal 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an alternative to the "invading employees privacy" route, would be to get a senior manager to lay down the law regarding server updates. You should at least have the backing of your managers if you took your concerns to them. I would also suggest you only grant server access to those who need it. Astronaut (talk) 10:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a way to have absolutely zero leakage. Stuff happens, even at top secret places like Cupertino, California. You may be able to avoid detection of instances of oversight but it is difficult to maintain complete secrecy of what you are doing. Therefore, what you asked

“ Main thing The person Don't to Know if i watching my system from Remote place. ”

does not seem to be possible. Please remember that there are other ways employees can find out that a monitoring system exists. Therefore, I would suggest you tell them about it upfront. Depending on where you live, it might be an legal battle (which, if I were you, I would want to avoid). IANAL, but please make sure you talk to your corporate lawyer AND get a second opinion from someone unrelated to your company.

Do you just want to monitor the servers in your company and not the individual workstations? If so, you should use user access control. If you are using Unix or Unix-like operating system in your servers, you can do a lot of fine tuning on which user gets what amount of access. Logging their activities should also be possible without a lot of effort. Just let the Wikipedians know that you need help with these operations. I am sure quite a few Wikipedians around here are conversant with Unix-like servers.

If this response was off-topic or unhelpful, please let me know. Kushal 21:09, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you tell us more. What operating system is your server? Who is doing something with the server - your employees or hackers? And what do you want to monitor - the programs being run on the server; the network traffic; memory/hard disk usage? Also, why is it important that nobody knows you're monitoring them? --h2g2bob (talk) 21:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

running wengophone

trying to run wengophone on ubuntu 7.10

I unzip the tar and try to run the binary (no other makes or compiles necessary it's all standalone from what i understand) and get this:

skb@skb:~/Desktop/WengoPhone-2.1.2-minsizerel$ ./wengophone.sh exec: 20: ./qtwengophone: not found skb@skb:~/Desktop/WengoPhone-2.1.2-minsizerel$ ./qtwengophone bash: ./qtwengophone: No such file or directory

but qtwengophone is clearly evident on an ls

I've had this problem before when running the binary for X-lite softphone too. any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.147.37.158 (talk) 20:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Photoshop

Hello all,

How can I make gradients in colours with Photoshop CS?

Thanks,

BG7 23:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

With the Gradient Tool. Googling "photoshop gradient tool" turns up many helpful sites, like this one and this one. --75.36.41.18 (talk) 05:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

If you're just starting to learn image manipulation, I suggest learning GIMP to free you from commercial product dependency. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Or... if you already have Photoshop CS, you might as well learn the industry standard. (Or you could meet it half-way and try GIMPshop, but then again, you could just use what you have.) --75.36.41.18 (talk) 07:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

If by "have" you mean "pirated", no one would pay thousands of dollars for something they don't even know how to use. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it not possible the question asker is using a school PC, and simply expanding their horizons? Additionally, isn't there a student discount? An aspiring art student might spend the substantially more trivial cost for a student license... neither here nor there, 75.36 has addressed the question. Ironmandius (talk) 16:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Or a work PC. I've never purchased Photoshop myself but I've never pirated it. --140.247.11.7 (talk) 17:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

reset Thanks for the help. I have photoshop in two ways. 7.0 at school, and CS at home (oh and soon CS3 on my mac!). I do know how to use photoshop, I just want to know how to do proper gradients as in the past I have just used either paintbrush to paint layers, or a rubber with transparency.

Thanks,

BG7 16:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

April 26

FirstClass: Accepting External Incoming Email

Hello. How can I accept incoming email outside of the FirstClass community (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc.)? I can already send email outside of the FirstClass community. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 00:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Definitions

Hey! I have to give the representation on Monday, Dear all ! What i need is just the definitions ,(in various styles) of monitor,scanner, keyboard,and printer,from ancient to remote.Yes it's quite simple but yet some rejuvenated definitions are required.Any help will be helpful. Thanks--121.52.144.114 (talk) 09:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, our articles have definitions of Visual display unit, image scanner, keyboard and computer printer (there are various types listed at History of printing) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 09:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Free Movie Making Program

hi...........looking for 'the best' movie making program thats free and can get of internet.......any sugestions........thanks (oh and preferably needs to be able to edit .MOV and the format that you get google video/youtube videos in when you download them) thanks..--81.79.83.155 (talk) 11:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Which operating system are you using? Windows XP has Movie Maker built in. The latest versions of Mac OS X have iMovie HD as a part of iLife. Various distributions of Linux probably have even better video editing software packages included with the operating system. On the other hand, I hear that Adobe Premiere is pretty good, probably one of the best movie making programs. It costs a ton of money, though. For starters, Comparison of video editing software and List of video editing software have a lot of information in them. As a side, I want to tell you that Google is quite flexible in the formats of videos it accepts. You do not need to upload videos in .FLV (Flash Video) format to be able to upload videos to YouTube or Google Video. Kushal 20:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Glitches in Google News

Navigating Google's help section is really rather confusing to me. Can anyone tell me where I can report news items that show up in the wrong sections of Google News? A while back I saw a headline for a storm system going through Kansas in the entertainment section. This time it's an even more off putting blunder. Dismas|^(talk) 13:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears as though you can report a number of issues here. Click the "View details and report" and you just need the article title. --Kateshortforbob 15:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Dismas|^(talk) 03:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Video Encoding for Ipods

Hi Everyone,

This is kind of a specific question but I think has broad applications. I've been trying to transfer lectures that are videotaped for us at school onto my ipod using IMTOO Movie to Ipod converter. However, everytime i try it, the video is wayyy out of sync with the audio (i.e. the video will run for 45 minutes, for an hour long lecture (the audio runs the full hour)).

The stuff I've read online amounts more or less to "Adjust the Frame Rate of the Video" but I'm not sure where to start? Is there anyway of looking at the video file and finding out the frame rate to use??? This is a typical lecture recording file.

And how does it work, is the higher the framerate the FASTER the video will play (i.e. if i set a framerate of 8 million, will the video part be over in like 2 seconds)?

Thanks! --Cacofonie (talk) 14:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Frame rate is handy. "is the measurement of the frequency (rate) at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames." I believe the common frame rates are 24 (ish), 30, and 60. A video is just a series of pictures taken often enough that when shown together, the brain blurs them into the illusion of motion. Frames, in this case, are those pictures, and the rate is the number of pictures (generally per second) that you're using to generate that illusion. Long story short, this can be just a simple math problem. If the run time is 45 minutes, SHOULD be 60 minutes, and you currently have a frame rate of 60... solve for X. Ironmandius (talk) 16:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

windows desktop items

Is it true that having a cluttered desktop (win XP) can slow down computer performance? i remember hearing something about the 'active desktop' function in the explanation that was given me. If so, is it jsut files and folders saved tot he desktop, or shortcuts as well? Please forward a copy of your reply to my talk page. --Shaggorama (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Active Desktop basically means your desktop shows a web page. It never really caught on and chances are you don't have it enabled. I don't think that the number of icons on your desktop will have any noticeable effect on performance. -- BenRG (talk) 19:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

As a side, I would recommend exceeding a minimum of 128 MB of RAM and 600 MHz Pentium 3 processor. If you have a recent computer, please disregard my comment. Kushal 20:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

book for AutoCad(student edition)

Anyone know a good book for AutoCad 2008 that is "good" for a High School student that covers some of the basics step by step because I need some help with using AutoCad, if someone can please help me. You can contact me at my talk page. Rio de oro (talk) 22:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Goggle books has a couple with limited preview hhttp://books.google.com/books?q=AutoCAD+2008&btnG=Search+Books So you can have a look whether any of those are helpful. Different people like different kinds of books. The type I find most useful drive my significant other "up the well known" and vice versa. Amazon.com also sometimes has preview options. (Just two I use, not that I'd like to advertise for anyone.)--Lisa4edit (talk) 08:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

April 27

difference between wireless broadband and wifi

Hi, I work for a telecommunications company, retail only (so I don't know much) and we use "wi-fi" generally to mean cable or adsl broadband with a modem that has a wired connection to the wall, and a wireless connection to your computer. Now it seems that wi-fi is a general term for a lot of wireless technologies. So I have a few questions on this and other matters:

1. Does the definition of wi-fi include our use of the term, or are we just using our own "in-house" jargon?

2. What is the difference between wi-fi and wireless broadband (which in Australia always means using a mobile phone network, and a usb, express card, pc card or mobile phone as the modem)?

3. Is it possible/ easy for someone to steal your bandwidth if you use these wireless broadband services? Where can I read more on this?

Thanks in advance. Please note that I've been looking for this stuff on wikipedia and google, but can't find anything to summarise the situation. This is partially because I still suffer under the tedium of dialup, so please take pity. 203.221.126.181 (talk) 04:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, firstly Wi-Fi stands for "Wireless Fidelity" a term coined by The Wi-Fi Alliance. Wi-Fi is basically a wireless network. A wireless router with internet cable plugged in sends out a signal to computer with built-in wireless cards, Laptop cards, USB sticks etc, or mobile phones with Wi-Fi enabled.

The term "Wireless Fidelity" is just part of a marketing slogan, invented after the name Wi-Fi was coined. It's probably best for the OP to just ignore the term "Wireless Fidelity" and stick with Wi-Fi. -- JSBillings 17:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Lets imagine for a moment that you have a wired network, all computer have to have ethernet cables plugged into them etc... This is a LAN (Local Area Network) now imagine all those computers are wireless, this is a WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network). Broadband is a fast connection to the internet which is always on. Wireless broadband just means wireless internet. It is possible for someone to steal/use your bandwidth, files and printers on your network, unless you have security enabled on your router such as Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), MAC address filtering. Mobile phone internet uses that carriers cellular network. Dial-up refers to internet over the phone lines, usually restriced to 56k. Anymore questions welcome  :) Regards Dep. Garcia ( Talk + | Help Desk | Complaints ) 11:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You can use lots of technologies to implement wireless broadband: EVDO, GPRS, HSPA WiMAX, Wi-Fi, etc.F (talk) 11:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You might also find this site interesting http://www.grc.com/unpnp/unpnp.htm As far as "stealing you bandwidth" goes, they'd have to either be your neighbors or park in your driveway. The wireless signal gets weaker with distance and usually doesn't make it farther than 2 houses down the street. Unless you live in a busy city block and your neighbor's teen is fixing for a carreer in electronic delinquency or you handle sensitive company data I wouldn't worry too much.--Lisa4edit (talk) 11:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You'd be amazed. I can pick up 30+ wireless access points from my apartment, one of which I can definitely identify as being over a mile away. --Carnildo (talk) 20:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

What's in a force-feedback pack?

What is the hardware in game controllers that actually causes the 'rumble' called? Also, if you happen to know, how much do they cost (the bits inside that rumble, not the controllers themselves)?

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.84.35.115 (talk) 05:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Rumble pack--Goon Noot (talk) 06:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand that that is what it's called. But what piece of hardware inside the pack causes the rumble and what is it called?

It's just a motor with an unbalanced weight attached. The motor is fixed in place and spins the weight at high speed, which causes the whole thing to vibrate. You can see an image here. The same kind of thing is used to make mobile (cell) phones vibrate, though obviously with a smaller weight and motor. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 09:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You sometimes see the whole assembly sold in parts catalogs as a "vibration motor", but I have no idea if that's an industry standard term or not. Here's a small one right here. [14] APL (talk) 13:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

In the spirit of WHAAOE, see our vibrating alert article.

Atlant (talk) 13:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Install/Unistall

Excuse my ignorance if this is a basic question. Why can it take what seems like an eternity to install a program, but only takes less than a second to uninstall it? I'm guessing they're not installing completely, am I right? I thought I'd give 'world of warcraft' a go, I installed from the DVD, then it downloaded all kinds of updates and patches, all up it took about an hour. After 5 minutes of the game I decided it wasn't for me so I pressed uninstall. One second later (Literally just ONE second!) and it said 'uninstall complete'! Surely it couldn't have uninstalled that quick?Iiidonkeyiii (talk) 09:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not? To install WoW your computer had to read lots of data from a DVD, download it from the internet, and so on. That takes time. Uninstalling can be more complicated, but at a bare minimum, your computer has to rewrite your hard disk directory to say the WoW files aren't there any more. This doesn't take much time. Remember that deleting files doesn't actually remove the data from your computer (that would take longer). Algebraist 10:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

That's right, when you delete something it is really only "marked for deletion", which means other programs can then overwrite that location in the future. Also, it can take quite a long time to read the contents of a DVD, depending on the speed of your DVD drive. StuRat (talk) 15:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Moreover, you mentioned that it downloads stuff from the Internet. The installation time might be further delayed by your Internet connection type. Kushal 19:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Does it take longer to copy the Bible, or to pour whiteout all over it? Or, even better, to dab the upper right corner with whiteout to indicate the pages are to be written over? -- Ironmandius (talk) 23:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Google Error message

I keep getting a pop up box with my google page that says "http://7,gmodules.com says: There is no data!" That box will block the page until I click the X (I try to remember not to click "o.k." in case it's a parasite.) It comes up intermittently. I tried to google for it (sic!) but nothing came up except that it seems to be linked somehow to videos. There is no feed for videos to my page that I'm aware of. Anyone know how I could get rid of it or where I might find more info. (And yes, I've chased all my antivirus programs after it and they came up empty.) Lisa4edit (talk) 10:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

If you don't need to use the gModule, you might as well remove it from your iGoogle page. Once you are on the page, just close the misbehaving module by clicking [x] next to it. Alternatively, you can also use the classic page. Kushal 11:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

My problem is that I can't figure out which RSS causes the box to pop up. If I use the classic page I don't get access to all the toys. (e.g. no wikipedia search window). I guess one thing I could try is to start building my igoogle page over and see with which feed the pop-up gets introduced. I guess I had hoped for an easier way out. --Lisa4edit (talk) 12:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It should be possible to find out which modules are definitely NOT from the 7,gmodules.com and delete everything else. In a best case scenario, you might be able to find out precisely which module IS malfunctioning. good luck, Kushal 19:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Bar at the bottom of the browser

...that shows the url of links when you hover the mouse over a link. How do you call it?217.168.3.246 (talk) 10:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It's called the Status bar. --Kateshortforbob 11:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have enabled the status bar in my Opera browser, but I still don't have a bar at the bottom. What went wrong?

217.168.3.246 (talk) 11:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I just downloaded Opera, and oddly it doesn't have the status bar on by default. However, mine did appear when I used View >Toolbars >Status bar. A quick Google showed a couple of people missing bars on Linux, or the bars showing up at the top of the page instead in various versions of Opera. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about Opera will be able to help, or you could try the forum? --Kateshortforbob 11:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't normally use Opera but I've had it hanging around for a while. I just checked and I had to enable it but it worked fine for me...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 12:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly what I did. But nothing happened :(. I'll reinstall Opera and see what happens. Thanks for the help. 217.168.3.246 (talk) 12:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't have the problem on a Mac OS X 10.4 tiger. is it platform specific? Kushal 19:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Strings in Java

What are they? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.198.200.119 (talk) 12:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Java is a programming language and String is a class which represents character strings, like "The quick brown fox" or any other combination of characters. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

So a particular String is an object? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.198.200.119 (talk) 13:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

In Java, the type "String" has a capital "S" because it is more of an object than the standard data types (int, float, char...). Unless you want to get into the particulars of the Java compiler and runtime engine, you can just say that it is a data type that has a little object functionality. -- kainaw™ 14:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so is it unique in that sense (being in between an object and a data type)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.198.200.119 (talk) 15:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Strictly speaking it is an object, but the documentation does say this:

"In addition to the eight primitive data types listed above, the Java programming language also provides special support for character strings via the java.lang.String class. Enclosing your character string within double quotes will automatically create a new String object; for example, String s = "this is a string";. String objects are immutable, which means that once created, their values cannot be changed. The String class is not technically a primitive data type, but considering the special support given to it by the language, you'll probably tend to think of it as such."

Java does also have primitive wrapper classes which provide object methods for each primitive type. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 15:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK in Java, Strings are just like any other objects. It's just the Java source code that gives them special treatment by allowing a syntax where you can write a String's contents in double quotes. But once the code is compiled, Strings are just like any other objects. JIP | Talk 17:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, you can abbreviate "string1.concat(string2)" as simply "string1 + string2" (well, pretty close) and abbreviate "string1 = string1 + string2" as "string1 += string2". See syntactic sugar. --Sean 16:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Linux video editor?

Where can I find a video editor for Linux that can input and output WMV files and perform basic editing, such as making the video picture size smaller? JIP | Talk 17:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe Cinelerra will do all that. --Prestidigitator (talk) 19:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Build problem

I downloaded Cinelerra, uncompressed it and ran configure, but when I try to build it using make, I get the following error message:

make -f build/Makefile.cinelerra
sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/joona/cinelerra-2.1'
gcc -c -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -falign-loops=2 -falign-jumps=2 -falign-functions=2 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -I../../freetype-2.1.4/include -I../../ -DHAVE_OSS -DHAVE_FIREWIRE  soundtest.c -o x86_64/soundtest.o
Assembler messages:
Fatal error: can't create x86_64/soundtest.o: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [x86_64/soundtest.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/joona/cinelerra-2.1'
make: *** [all] Error 2

This happens with all packages on the Cinelerra download page. I tried another, unrelated Sourceforge.net package, and it built all well with make. Does anyone have any clue about what is going on? JIP | Talk 05:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, it looks like it expects there to be a 'x86_64' directory somewhere, but neglected to mkdir it. Try figuring out which directory it is in when it executes that gcc command and add the directory yourself. Hopefully that will help. I have Cinelerra installed automatically from a distro package myself (Fedora Core 5, 64bit); I've never tried to build it. --Prestidigitator (talk) 16:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I tried creating "x86_64" directories everywhere I could think of, but Cinelerra still won't build. I'll have to try creating an "x86_64" directory and copying the entire directory structure there. If that doesn't work, I'll have to create intermediate and final "x86_64" subdirectories in every directory. Sheesh, this is too damn difficult. All I want to be able to do is make a .WMV file smaller in screen size so that my Zen Vision W can play it under its native resolution. But for that, not only do I have to spend hours downloading Cinelerra, I have to spend days configuring my system so that it will actually build. One would be forgiven for thinking there were an easier way. JIP | Talk 19:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Any alternatives to RealPlayer besides RealAlternative/Media Player Classic?

I run WinXP. I used to use Real Alternative with Media Player Classic to play .ram/.rm files. A few months ago, these completely bugged out on me and quit playing any files, including ones that had previously worked. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, and I've downloaded and installed more codecs than I ever wanted (including those for DirectShow, my sound card, my video card, etc.). I made the mistake of installing RealPlayer on another machine about ten years ago and don't ever want to repeat that mistake (I STILL get spam from them a decade later). So, is there anything else on the market that can play Real format media? I'd really prefer an all-in-one than something that requires a bunch more codecs, but I'm open to anything at this point. I don't even care about bloat anymore, just as long as it isn't Real's bloat. Thanks greatly in advance! Heather (talk) 17:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry about your problems with Real. Please give VLC media player a try. VLC is a free software that is cross-platform and works with many filetypes. Kushal 21:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow; that worked! All this time installing unnecessary codecs and the program I use as my default media player was able to handle Real files the whole time. Thanks so much! Heather (talk) 22:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I am very glad to be of any use. Good day! Kushal 12:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Graphics card

I just bought a compaq presario v3700 which proudly displays the Nvidia graphics logo on it but when I checked the system info the display adapter is named "NVIDIA MCP67M". Now I've never heard of an Nvidia graphics card with that name and on googling couldn't find anything concrete that establishes it as one. So 1) is the nvidia thing on my laptop a real graphics card? 2) Is it some integrated/non-upgradable shit and 3) is it any good (for gaming). Will appreciate some help. Thanks Nvidiauser (talk) 19:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like an integrated one. If so, it will probably not be any good for gaming. But Nvidia's web site doesn't have any results for this card.  Moo  Chat  19:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you've already done this, but, if you haven't, (and assuming that you're running XP) go to C:/WINDOWS/system32 and run the file called dxdiag.exe then tab over to Display. It should tell you how much video memory you've got. That will answer your question about whether your machine would be good for gaming. You might also learn more about the card. If you're running Vista, disregard this, as I believe dxdiag was removed. HTH. Heather (talk) 21:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

And, unfortunately, if he just bought the laptop, it's likely running Vista. Useight (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like I was wrong--according to our article at DxDiag, you can still access it in Vista after all. Weird, because I really thought I read that it had been removed. But apparently that's still where he can find out what's under the hood. Heather (talk) 01:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Conflicting character encodings

If a browser downloads an HTML page, the HTTP header specifies one character encoding and a META tag in the document specifies another, do standards indicate which one the browser should use? NeonMerlin 23:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I found a W3C page that discusses declaring the character encoding for HTML and XHTML files: Character sets & encodings - Basic scenarios for HTML and XHTML. It mentions that HTTP header information has the highest priority in case of conflict. --Bavi H (talk) 23:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

April 28

is this a virus?

hello

I found this link on an imageboard but Im scared it might be a virus (some ppl said it was). I dont have any good scanning tools so could someone who knows what there doing please check it for me. Ive just reinstalled and really dont need to end up with a trojan rite now. thanks -anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.61.80.239 (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It'll be unlikely you'll find any candidates who would be willing to run the file (since it's an .exe file). Probably best if you don't run it either. - Akamad (talk) 04:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I advise that you avoid sites called "EvilShare.Com" altogether. Supposedly what does this program in question do? What made you want to click on it in the first place? Also keep in mind that any info you recieved could be misleading or outright false (as are with most viruses and trojans). — Kjammer  ⌂ 08:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, if I run it with m ClamXAV and it reports negative, that does not mean that the file is COMPLETELY safe. I don't think the file would harm me directly but the results I give may be inaccurate The program might be a new one. I agree with Kjammer on this one. Please avoid it if possible. Kushal 12:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a password-protected self-extracting RAR archive. No way to tell what's in it. --Carnildo (talk) 20:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

lol. warez? -212.227.114.82 (talk) 23:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Database languages vs general programming languages

I am trying to understand the differences between Database- and General programming languages and could not find comparison and contrast papers with Google or Wikipedia. They are probably overlapping (progressively), but I am guessing at that. Does anyone have an explanation of the fundamental differences? Zaqry (talk) 01:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "database language"? Are you referring to the scripting capabilities of common databases, such as Oracle and Postgres? Are you referring to languages that nearly meld the database into the programming language, such as Mumps? Are you referring to something completely different, such as calling SQL a "database programming language"? It is difficult to provide an answer that you want without knowing what you are asking. -- kainaw™ 02:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

My question is naive:

I am aware that calculations on finite data sets are commonly done in spreadsheets and that large and growing data sets are often stored in databases and operated on with a "database language" or "database programming language". I have used a few "office" database programs over the years but only for very brief periods. Recently, I have used Matlab for some unrelated data analysis programming. A related question: Would a programmer ever use a general programming language to manage a "database" and not bother with a "database programming language"?

Does this clarify my question? Zaqry (talk) 03:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Usually you use specify types of query languages to get data from the database. For example, let's say I was making a PHP driven website that used a MySQL database. That means that the website itself will be written in PHP, a scripting language, and that language then will occasionally say to the database, "give me these records that I want." The way it says that is in SQL. It's not so much a programming language as a query language; you couldn't make an entire program out of SQL, it's just a very convenient way to query data stored in certain types of databases (and is quite powerful, in terms of being able to read and modify the database). If you look up PHP and MySQL hybrids in particular (as they are quite common) you'll see how it works—the SQL query language is just a string of text (SELECT * FROM myTable WHERE myField=myValue, etc.) that is passed to a database object, usually, and the database object returns results depending on the query you've passed to it. --69.110.41.71 (talk) 06:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I am realizing that languages are often combined. I worked in a robot experiment where the programmers combined "C" and TCL to run the robot. When analyzing data with Matlab, the data were in files and opened one-at-a-time or sequentially in loops. Maybe a scaled up operation would use a database and associated "language" to access those "files" in different ways, and feed the computational analysis in Matlab (or some other language). Zaqry (talk) 07:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

SQL is a query language, not a programming language. It is used to work with data inside databases. Of course, some databases do not use SQL. They use their own query language. MS Access uses JetSQL - which is not SQL. You can use SQL by itself to work the data. Most databases have a client program that allows you to type SQL statements and work directly with the database. However, most projects involve putting data in a database and creating some form of report on the data. A separate program (written in some programming language such as C, C++, Perl, PHP, Fortran...) is normally used to validate the data, normalize the data, place the data in the database, and then pull out numbers for a pretty report. The report itself is commonly in a markup language such as HTML or PDF. As you can see, while all of these are languages (query languages, programming languages, markup languages...) you cannot arbitrarily call a query language a programming language. It just confuses things - especially since many databases have built-in programming languages for running programs inside the databases when the data is altered. -- kainaw™ 12:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

"...many databases have built-in programming languages for running programs inside the databases when the data is altered" Are these called "database programming languages"? Zaqry (talk) 17:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

No. They are normally called "procedural languages" due to Oracle's usage of the name "PL/SQL" and Postgres then adopting "PL/pgSQL". The difference is that you can write programs in external programming languages and use them inside the database. Those are normally compiled as libraries or modules that you can call from your SQL statement. It is a confusion area where the differences are very tiny, requiring language to be very exact. Usage of "database programming language" is the most confusing because it is difficult to tell if it is SQL, PL, or some language that has a built-in database on the backend. -- kainaw™ 17:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Embedding SQL is quite common. That's where you use a general programming language which contains SQL statements that are then submitted to a DB. There can be some fancy interface running the program, maybe over a web site, that then uses the embedded SQL to go out and select records from the DB, and possibly also modify, store, create or delete them. For example, an online clothing retailer might have a pic with people wearing their retailer's clothes. If you pick on an item in the pic, the general programming language identifies the item's ID number then submits an SQL query to the database for the full info. This info is returned to the general purpose programming language which then displays it to the user. StuRat (talk) 21:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

First OOP language - Python ?

I am looking for a first object-oriented programming language for someone (not myself) who has not done any programming before, but is computer-literate, knows their way around a spreadsheet, and is a quick learner with a very logical mind. Criteria are:

• Low cost, low maintenance and ability to get real results quickly are important.
• Just a sandbox application, so long-term support, standardisation etc. not an issue.
• Should not encourage too many bad habits, just in case the learner goes on to do some serious programming - but should not be too pedantic either.
• Learner prefers to self-teach, so wide availability of learning materials, on-line documentation, source code examples and templates would be good.
• Learning environment will be MS Windows, but not planning to do anything very OS-specific or low-level.

Does Python tick these boxes ? (I have read Python and Comparison of programming languages) Gandalf61 (talk) 13:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Many universities use Java for this. You can get results quickly (popping up a window is relatively easy). Everything is object-oriented - even a Hello World program. The syntax is very close to C/C++. So, if the user wants to step over to the C/C++ world it is primarily a matter of just learning about memory management. The big drawback is that Java is bloated and slow. I believe it is licensing that requires you to package the entire JRE for any Java application as opposed to only including what you need. But, if you are just learning, it doesn't matter. Also, you can download and use Eclipse, a free IDE for Java that, if I'm not mistaken, is written in Java. -- kainaw™ 13:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Isn't Python good enough for learning programming oneself? I understand that a tiny fraction of the operating systems (OS X and some distros of Linux) do come with Python IDE preinstalled. (Please let me know if I am mistaken.) Kushal 20:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I use Python all the time, because I find Python very easy and fast to code in. I never really got to grips with Java, so I can't say much about that. I would say C is a very useful language to know - it teaches you how a computer thinks about the world, but it requires a lot of effort to code anything useful in it (but if you're inclined towards C, give Allegro a look). Most programming languages have a free version, so that's not really an issue.

A huge advantage with python is its interactive shell: you can test a module or a line of code and see if it works. I don't use an IDE for, but I use a text editor with syntax highlighting. Python deals with OOP in a slightly different way than C and Java, but I think still covers all the OOP concepts. But it also has some very nice functional programming ideas in it, like list comprehension, which make tranforming lists of data easy.

Python's official documentation is pretty dire in my opinion - download a copy of Dive into Python or getting a book out your local library is a good idea. It's also less strictly typed than C and Java, which is a mixed blessing.

Almost all Linux distributions come with Python pre-installed. OS-X is Unix-like so it may well be on there. Incidentally, OLPC uses python very heavily. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not disagree that Python is good for simply learning to program, I do disagree that it is good for learning object-oriented programming with the end-goal of programming in the mainstream C++ language. You can write fully functioning code in Python and never know much about object-oriented programming. The syntax has little in common with C++. So, you may very well end up being a great Python programmer, but never reaching the end goal of being a great C++ object-oriented programmer, which is what I believe the questioner wants. Of course, I could be completely wrong. -- kainaw™ 00:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I needs help with Lunar Magic

Okay, i made my own custom ROM file, made an IPS patch with Snestool and used it on the original file, and it still doesnt work with zsnes. Any suggestions on what i might be doing wrong?the juggresurection ^IstKrieg! 14:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Warcraft:Orcs vs. Humans

I play Warcraft on Windows 98, but I can't seem to get any sound. I have to pick my sound card from a list, but my sound card isn't on there. IS there any way to get sound short of buying one of the sound cards on that list? --AtTheAbyss (talk) 14:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you read the offical techsupport on this [15]? Algebraist 15:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Voyager game

I was playing Star Trek Voyager Elite Force the other day. When your in the virtual voyager mode, if you shoot crew members after a short while the game ends and you end up in the brig, even with godmode on. How can I continue on my murderous rampage for longer? xxx User:Hyper Girl 15:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Xbox 360 Arcade Model

Hi - I am currently considering getting myself a 360-Arcade and would like to know a few more things about the Arcade...I have looked at the official site (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/compare101.htm?WT.svl=nav) and found out that most of the stuff that is 'missing' from this cheaper model is stuff I don't plan on using - headset/network cable (just an ethernet cable?)/av cable (HD - I don't have a hd tv)/HDMI digital cable/old xbox game compatibility. I'm just looking for one that will play all current-gen 360 titles, I don't plan on owning many games - probably just GTA 4, NHL and then just cycling through the 1-player games such as Bioshock/Vegas 2 etc. Oh and I never play online. I know wikipedia ain't the greatest place to ask this question but if there are any 'fatal' flaws i've not seen i'm sure you guys would say. Just wondering if for my 'needs' this model is any good. It's a lot cheaper for me if it is! ny156uk (talk) 16:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

iPod manager

I have a new pc with Vista and I had iTunes on the old machine. The problem is that I lost the iTunes CD so I need something for the new pc. Is there any freeware that you guys might recommend? I'm only interested in uploading songs to the iPod and creating playlists. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 17:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

If you still want to use iTunes you can just download it here, no CD necessary. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 17:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

InnoDB Index making things slower

I posted this post on the mysql forums, and in an attempt to gain better understanding, I'm asking here (since no one responded over there).

I've been working with large databases lately and I am working on optimizing them to the max. All of my production databases are in 3NF or 2NF. My main problem is with the number of rows, ie 5 million +, on 3-4 column tables.

In my ventures, I tested using an index on an innodb table versus not using on on a myisam table. For small tables, an index was preferred. However, I have noticed some pecularities that have left me flabbergasted. Below is a snippet of a test case I ran.

The following was run on a zone in solaris 10. Nothing else (other than basic services) are running on this box. The table named emailmonitor.mailstats was used to quickly get me date strings (it already had 1.3 million dates in it). the Value column is nothing special. Please note the table names when looking at the time stamps & other commands, as they are similar.

==BEGIN MYSQL==
mysql> create table ino_index(id int primary key auto_increment, date char(14), value int) engine=InnoDB;
mysql> create table ino_no_index(id int primary key auto_increment, date char(14), value int) engine=InnoDB;
mysql> insert into ino_index select null,date,23 from emailmonitor.mailstats;
mysql> insert into ino_no_index select null,date,23 from emailmonitor.mailstats;
mysql> select count(*) from ino_no_index;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
|   139877 |
+----------+
mysql> create index date_index on ino_index(date);
mysql> show index from ino_no_index;
+--------------+------------+----------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+
| Table        | Non_unique | Key_name | Seq_in_index | Column_name | Collation | Cardinality | Sub_part | Packed | Null | Index_type | Comment |
+--------------+------------+----------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+
| ino_no_index |          0 | PRIMARY  |            1 | id          | A         |      140183 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |
+--------------+------------+----------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

mysql> show index from ino_index;
+-----------+------------+------------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+
| Table     | Non_unique | Key_name   | Seq_in_index | Column_name | Collation | Cardinality | Sub_part | Packed | Null | Index_type | Comment |
+-----------+------------+------------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+
| ino_index |          0 | PRIMARY    |            1 | id          | A         |      140183 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |
| ino_index |          1 | date_index |            1 | date        | A         |       46727 |     NULL | NULL   | YES  | BTREE      |         |
+-----------+------------+------------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+

mysql> explain select AVG(value),date from ino_no_index group by date order by date;
+----+-------------+--------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+--------+---------------------------------+
| id | select_type | table        | type | possible_keys | key  | key_len | ref  | rows   | Extra                           |
+----+-------------+--------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+--------+---------------------------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | ino_no_index | ALL  | NULL          | NULL | NULL    | NULL | 140429 | Using temporary; Using filesort |
+----+-------------+--------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+--------+---------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> explain select AVG(value),date from ino_index group by date order by date;
+----+-------------+-----------+-------+---------------+------------+---------+------+--------+-------+
| id | select_type | table     | type  | possible_keys | key        | key_len | ref  | rows   | Extra |
+----+-------------+-----------+-------+---------------+------------+---------+------+--------+-------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | ino_index | index | NULL          | date_index | 15      | NULL | 140258 |       |
+----+-------------+-----------+-------+---------------+------------+---------+------+--------+-------+
mysql> select AVG(value),date from ino_index group by date order by date;
[...]
19652 rows in set (2.58 sec)
[[and then i repeated 4 times:]]
19652 rows in set (2.53 sec)
19652 rows in set (2.66 sec)
19652 rows in set (2.68 sec)
19652 rows in set (2.71 sec)

mysql> select AVG(value),date from ino_no_index group by date order by date;
19652 rows in set (2.05 sec)
[[and then i repeated 4 times:]]
19652 rows in set (2.05 sec)
19652 rows in set (1.92 sec)
19652 rows in set (1.92 sec)
19652 rows in set (1.92 sec)
==END MYSQL==

SO, as you can see, these are certainly not desirable results. It seems that using an index for the date column has slowed things down. These results scale to the much larger tables i'm working with. I also ran the select queries with SQL_NO_CACHE and the results were the same.

Can anyone provide some insight as to why this is happening?204.154.43.246 (talk) 19:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

An index is primarily helpful if you use a WHICH clause on that column or columns, especially if it will only return a small portion of the results. This is because, without that index, it will be necessary to look at every row to see if it matches the WHICH clause. It does intuitively seem that the GROUP BY and ORDER BY clauses would also benefit from an index on that column, but not as much, since it's still necessary to retrieve every row. It appears, however, in this case, that any benefit is less than the additional overhead involved in carrying the index. StuRat (talk) 21:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not much in the way of insight or objective data, but I have noticed myself that grouping functions (at least if they are operating on an entire table) are a lot slower for InnoDB tables than for MyISAM, while many other operations (single SELECTs, INSERTs, etc.) seem to be faster or about the same. I'm also curious to see any info people have about the reasons behind this. I understand some of the theoretical issues surrounding indexing from a data structures point of view, but I don't know much of the database design nitty-gritty nor am I sure where to start looking. --Prestidigitator (talk) 21:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Time Magazine search engine

Fifty years ago today, Walter O'Malley was on the cover of Time (http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19580428,00.html ). When I put Walter O'Malley in the search engine at http://www.time.com/time/ the cover story is missing from the results, which leads me to believe something is wrong with the logic and many articles are missing. I am able to find the cover story at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,868429,00.html by clicking on the "Read the Cover Story" link for the cover image. However, I am trying to research Walter O'Malley online for his wikipedia article and feel that if I could figure out the error in the logic (probably related to the apostrophe) I might be able to find many other articles.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

You can skip the defective and substandard search engines at individual sites (Wikipedia included) by going to Google and specifying the web site to search. I did the following www.google.com search and found the cover as my first hit:

"Walter O'Malley" site:www.time.com

StuRat (talk) 21:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

More Google tips here --h2g2bob (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

April 29

filed away

What kind of files do Verizon phones(namely the enV) accept? --Randoman412 (talk) 01:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Simple journal article formating? WYSIWYG LaTeX style creation?

Hi all,

I am trying to create a small online journal to which people submit articles. I'd like the articles to turn into pdfs with a fixed style-sheet. Just something simple but customizable, like a two-column scientific article with my journal's logo at the top. I figured LaTeX might be the best softare to do this, but there seems to be no easy way to create new styles -- all the tutorials have that buried deep within the "advanced" sections... I'm using LyX as a WYSIWYG editor.

Are there easy ways to create styles (is that the right word) without reading scores of tutorials and hand-coding? Is LaTeX even the way to go?

Any help very much appreciated, — Sam 01:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)