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

August 21

Find in Firefox

The find function works really crappy in Firefox in general, but what's really a big deal for me is that it doesn't work at all to search text in Wikipedia articles when you are in in edit mode. Anyone know a work around/hack/add-on?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:03, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems to work for me. What version are you using? I'm using 2.0 - Akamad (talk) 03:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Aha, I'm running a past version; nothing more needs to be said, I'll upgrade.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Upgraded and find function now working in edit mode. Sort of a slap myself on the forehead moment. Thanks.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:08, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

That was one of the best features in Firefox version 2! You can change the language too, if the defaulot spelling is annoying. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah it was highlighting everything, turning it off was one of the first things I did. Actually a useful feature. It would be nice if I could toggle it on and off without going to options. Can it be added to the toolbar (there's no option to do so from the toolbar menu in view)?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:13, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

There is a "highlight all" button on the find bar that you get from pressing ctrl-F (not slash) --Random832 (contribs) 17:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Embedding SVG in HTML

I want to embed some SVG in HTML. The standards-compliant way is to use the 'object' tag. This requires the use of the attributes 'width' and 'height', however. Why is it necessary to specify these attributes? For some SVG files it's easy to find, since they are specified in the file itself. However, it seems that the renderer could work these out itself a lot of the time. This isn't required for images, so why for arbitrary objects? Also, if I'm not mistaken it might be possible for the rendered SVG to change dimensions depending on the renderer - doesn't this make the 'object' tag pretty useless, if this requirement is kept? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.210.249.81 (talk) 12:50, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Where are you reading that the "width" and "height" attributes are required? According to the HTML 4.01 Specification, the "width" and "height" attributes are "#IMPLIED", which basically means "optional". —Bkell (talk) 13:15, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I Have A Problem Signing My Comments

My problem is that when I hold the Shift button and click on the four tildes, I get a blank screen that tells me that it is already done. What is up with that? Ericthebrainiac (talk) 17:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're clicking (on the four tildes below the edit box), there's no reason to be holding shift. You would need to hold shift while typing the tildes, just as you need to hold shift to type an ampersand (&) or asterisk (*). -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:43, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Holding shift and clicking on a link will open it in a new window. Just click the link. Don't hold down shift or any other button. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Formula for finding RAM type

Hi, I was trying to find out the kind of RAM needed for a computer with a FSB of 800 MHz. I did the formula, finding that this should be capable of 1600 MT/s and a bandwidth of 12.8 GB of data per second, giving it a name of PC12800 or DDR1600. I noticed there is no form of memory like this. Did I do something wrong, or does it have to do with different forms of SDRAM? (Like DDR, DDR2, DDR3) TheSeaIsBlue (talk) 20:13, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Firefox - offline mode

Recently, whenever I have opened Firefox, I have got the following message:

Offline Mode

---

Firefox is currently in offline mode and can't browse the Web.

---

The browser is operating in its offline mode and cannot connect to the requested item.

• Is the computer connected to an active network?
• Place the browser in online mode and try again.

I'm not sure why this is, as Safari, which I am using now, works fine.

Does anyone know what the problem is and how to resolve it?

Thanks, Anonymous101 (talk) 20:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Is 'work offline' ticked in the File menu? Algebraist 20:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is. I'm not sure how it got ticked but many thanks for your help. �Anonymous101 (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Computer Issue... (sigh)

I was using my friends computer today (Windows Vista, unfortunately), when it suddenly crashed.

I had opened a run dialog box, then, after deciding not to use it, closed it. There was an error message to the effect of "explorer.exe has terminated unexpectedly", (I don't recall the specifics, but it seemed pretty standard sounding).

When I rebooted, Windows said that it couldn't start the OS, and it recommended that I use the Windows Startup repair utility. After running it, I got a Blue Screen (ugh). Running it a second time, it told me that it couldn't fix the problem.

The computer starts in safe mode, but not normally. Any ideas?

(I haven't installed any hardware lately, but my computer crashed during a large download of Maple Story (my friends download, not mine:P))

Ideas?

PerfectProposal 23:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Potential bad hardware. Did you run the Startup utlitiy off the CD or the hard drive? --mboverload@ 01:05, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Run msconfig, see what's starting at startup, disable it. Uninstall video drivers, and really any driver you think you can boot without (Windows should revert to generic ones for each of them); or just install new revisions for those drivers. The main difference with safemode is that it loads only the barebones drivers and services, and none of the normal startup items. Also, the text in the bluescreen might be useful for diagnosing it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:15, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The utility ran off the hard drive automatically at boot. Do you think that the issue could potentially "heal itself"? My friend says that it happens rather often, and by the next day, it's fine. Is this possible?PerfectProposal 13:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

If it will fix itself the next day, I wonder if the CPU, a memory chip, or a drive cable is loose somewhere. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

August 22

Palm Centro

I've been thinking about buying a Palm Centro to replace my current phone. I was wondering if I install a Palm OS application, will it access the internet through the phone if I go with an unlimited internet plan? I'd like to install a telnet/ssh app to remotely log into my ubuntu machine. I've tried googling but no luck. Thanks!

96.236.7.246 (talk) 00:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the Palm OS apps that run on Centro will make use of your phone's data connection to connect to the Internet if the application uses it. Search for Palm OS SSH and you should find some apps that do this. ——Mitaphane _{Contribs | Talk} 04:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Windows Xp Relevancy

I have SQL2005 &2008 now running on SP3 but having SP2 also having NET frameworks 2.0,3.0,and 3.5.Which i will use and which to remove but still will perform at its peak? Ty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leocancy (talk • contribs) 01:19, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Google

Why does Google have duplicates of hits with things like brackets and punctation marks missing? 124.181.254.143 (talk) 01:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you give an example? Algebraist 01:37, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Google ignores punctuation, see [1]. Not sure if that's relevant without an example. iames (talk) 22:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

IRC

What do I have to do before I can use IRC? 124.181.254.143 (talk) 01:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Get an IRC client. Algebraist 01:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

OpenOffice.org

Where can I find an easy-to-understand answer to this question?

"As a complete techno-dunce, will I be letting myself in for problems I don't understand/anticipate by taking advantage of the Java offer to free-download OpenOffice.org?????"

I've already noticed that when I've twice previously hit the button to commence downloading, it was doing so verrrrry slooowly which gave me plenty of time to re-visit my misgivings and change my mind and cancel.

I also don't know how to find out how much of my monthly usage it will take to download, (currently 400mb, dropping to 256 from 25/8 - see, I really don't use my computer much!).

I'm a firm believer in the adage "there's no such thing as a free lunch", so already feel negatively about it; on the other hand, I don't have WP on my computer and feel it would come in handy - one day - probably. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikurious (talk • contribs) 03:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

When it comes to Open source (please read it) you DO get a free lunch. If you do not have Microsoft Office and do not plan to pay for it I recommend Open Office. --mboverload@ 04:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Open Office is quite a well-known and well-respected software; it will not affect other programs and I too would recommend it. As for bandwidth, the Windows installation file is 127 MB, a significant portion of 400 MB.

As for having a free lunch, the open source Apache HTTP Server is used by almost half of all servers (see http://news.netcraft.com/). There's even an entire operating system offered for free. --Bowlhover (talk) 10:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention Wikipedia, which is of course one gigantic free lunch. 83.252.191.103 (talk) 11:17, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're worried about the size of the download, there are a number of distributors listed here who will send you a CD-ROM copy for a small fee to cover costs and postage. the wub "?!" 12:20, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The closest thing to having to pay for your lunch with open source is that often the interfaces are poorly developed, the installations can require arcane understandings, and the bugs can be rampant. I have often spent about as much money on open source software with my time (calculated by my hourly wage) as I would have in just buying something that worked right the first time. That being said, a small select group of said projects have good reputations for getting around all that bad stuff, and OpenOffice.org is one of them. Not every part of it works that well—last time I checked, its spreadsheet graphing and chart capabilities produced abominations, and Base seems to operate half-heartedly at best, but if you only plan to use it as a Microsoft Word replacement, it's no worse than Microsoft Word. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:43, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Downloading OpenOffice will require about 200MB of your monthly bandwidth if that is an issue to you. Otherwise the software really is provided completely for free with no strings attached.

What you've got a hold of here is Open Source software. Open Source software is generally community-built software, but the "community" in question often includes corporations, that for one reason or another would rather contribute to the community instead of attempt to sell to it.

In this case, the software is primarily developed by Sun Microsystems (creators of Java). Their motivation for this altruism is almost certainly to provide a viable alternative to MS Office. Microsoft Office does not work on Unix computers and this is a serious problem for companies who sell unix computers like Sun Microsystems does. This is their way of making the world understand that you don't need Microsoft to do word processing.

I use OpenOffice on my machine at home, and often bring stuff back and forth to work where I use Microsoft Office. I'm perfectly happy with both products and I'm glad I didn't have to pay big bucks for a word processor.

However, I do have to mention the big downside to using open source software : No telephone tech support. (There is some online support here.) APL (talk) 17:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

OpenSource software really is given away free and without any catches. It's a true free lunch. It's actually even better than a free lunch - it's free lunch with the recipe for the lunch given away free too! More even than that - you can give copies of your free lunch (and it's recipe) away to your friends and nobody will mind in the slightest! If you were a computer programmer you could look inside the software and change any bits you didn't like. There are lots of other OpenSource programs you might find useful. Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, Thunderbird instead of Outlook, GIMP instead of Photoshop, etc. You could even replace the entire Windows operating system with Linux if you wanted to. I'm writing this on a laptop that originally had WindowsXP on it - now it runs Linux and I'm writing this in Firefox. It's been 10 years since I last bought a piece of PC software - and every program I run is legal...no piracy in this house! SteveBaker (talk) 04:23, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're worried about bandwidth, you could ask someone to download it and put in on a cd for you. Open source software (ie free software) is quite common: the computers which run Wikipedia use mostly or only open source software; and one in five people use Firefox, the open source alternative to Internet Explorer. --h2g2bob (talk) 13:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

OpenOffice is great when you have to submit documents in MS Word format, and don't want to pay hundreds for a copy of MS Office. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Upload speed limiter

Does limiting your upload speed affect the download speed while downloading torrents? I use Azureus Vuze and my bandwith sucks so the download speed is usually crap but the upload speed is always high. I limit the upload speed to 20 kbps and I'm not sure if I'mm limiting my download speed as well. Any advice? --59.96.205.173 (talk) 08:13, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think your download speed also depends on the supply and demand of the segment of the data you are looking for. I don't understand what you mean when you say "the download speed is usually crap but the upload speed is always high" because that seems unlikely unless you have too few seeders with a decent connection. Is it just on a few torrents or is it with every torrent? If it is just a few torrents, the best thing to do would be to wait for the seeders to come back. Kushal (talk) 10:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are actually correct! Maxing out your upload speed will (sometimes severely) limit your download speed. Bittorrent (like pretty much everything else on the internet) uses the TCP protocol to transfer information. The TCP protocol is designed to be able to deal with things like dropped packets or packets that come in the wrong order. One of the ways it does this is that it sends so-called acknowledgement packets back to someone who sends you stuff. These packets basically just say "Hey, just so you know, I recieved packets X through Y". If a sender doesn't get these packets, it assumes that you haven't recieved the data yet and waits until it does get an acknowledgement packet (I think it even resends packets after a period of time, but I'm not sure).

When you completely max out your upload speed, it becomes much, much more likely that the acknowledgement packets are lost because of all the other traffic clogging up the tubes. As such, the people that send you information think that you are recieving data much slower than you actually are, and they will wait with sending you more. If you limit your upload speed (there's no optimal amount, but limit it to about 80% of your max speed works fine) you can sometimes see dramatic improvements in speed. I mean, dramatic, I tested this once, and one of my torrents jumped from ~200 kb/s to around 1 mb/s in seconds.

This is no magic solution for aneamic bittorrent speeds though. If you're on a torrent with few seeds and a small swarm, you're not gonna get good speeds. But if you are on one with lots and lots of seeders and still can't get near your capacity, this may very well be the reason. 83.252.191.103 (talk) 11:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Another thing: don't limit your upload speed too much, because bittorrent works on reciprocity: send people stuff and they will send stuff to you. With 20 kb/s upload, you probably wont get much action (unless you're on a private tracker, which is a whole 'nother thing). As I said, 80% of your maximum upload speed is a good rule of thumb. 83.252.191.103 (talk) 11:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

For many cable-modems 80% of their upload works out to 24 kb/s. Not a big improvement. APL (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

On my current (cable) connection, 80% is about 100 kb/s, but point taken :) 83.252.191.103 (talk) 18:19, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

GB

1 GB = 1024 MB. Is it right?--202.168.229.243 (talk) 11:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

It depends who is talking - see Gigabyte for (un)clarification. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Generally though, yes, 1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes (and 1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes and 1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes). Really the only people that don't follow this convention is advertisers. But if you check how big a file is on your computer, or how much space you have left or anything like that, it's always 1024 megabytes. However, when people talk about how fast a connection is, they generally use megabits or gigabits, where 1 gigabit = 1000 megabits. This makes everything very confusing, this mixing of bits and bytes and 1000 and 1024. See also binary prefix. 83.252.191.103 (talk) 12:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The only people who do follow that convention are software engineers. Well, and RAM manufacturers. But with RAM it makes some sense, since RAM is actually sold in power-of-2 sizes. For reporting the size of disks and files it makes as much sense as displaying numbers in hexadecimal. People think in decimal, not binary. I've been programming computers for 25 years and I can read this without a crib sheet and even I think in decimal. The hard drive manufacturers are the ones with the right idea. -- BenRG (talk) 14:32, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's the way I see it: every measure of file-size on a computer is invariably in binary sizes. Click a file and see the filesize, it'll be in binary. Check how much space you have left on your HDD, it'll be in binary. If you download a file from the internet, it'll be in binary. Every single time! And it makes perfect sense, since that's the way computers think. Example: a 32-bit processor can address precisely memory that can be described using 32 bits. In other words, 2³² bytes, or exactly 4 gigabytes. Since every serious use on a computer itself uses binary prefixes, it's extremely dishonest for a computer company to sell a hard-drive advertising 160 gigabytes, when it's really 149 gigabytes. Suppose you had to make a backup of a bunch of files, and you had 155 GB of them and you figured that a 160 GB drive would be more than enough? Or a 155 GB music collection that you want to put on an iPod? It's deceptive (although not strictly false) advertising, and it's really very unethical 83.252.191.103 (talk) 16:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the trick here is that they can claim that the power-of-two units are "only for nerds". That's a debate technique that wins just about any argument ever. APL (talk) 17:20, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

In part because it's true. I mean, I do think the nerds set themselves up for teh fail by using SI prefix in non-standard ways. Look up the term "giga"—in all other contexts it means 10⁹, not 2³⁰.--140.247.240.157 (talk) 20:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

We're all aware of the meanings of the "giga" prefix. We don't need to be told to look them up. Most measurements (such as length or weight) do not suggest a way of counting. Disk capacity is an intrinsically power of two measurement. It is silly to measure it in any other way. Measuring binary data in powers-of-ten units is like defining a "dozen eggs" to be twelve and a half eggs. APL (talk) 21:57, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

All I'm saying is that it's irregular use of terminology. The whole point of SI prefixes is they are standards and don't change. You start changing them, because you know better than the metric system, and it's your own dang fault when all sorts of confusing things arise. As for what units one expresses things in, I don't see the problem. You convert or you round. It's not that hard. Y'all are supposed to be smart with numbers, anyway, I heard. ;-) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

In what way is disk capacity intrinsically a power-of-two measurement? Hard drives are sold in sizes like 120 gigabytes and 750 gigabytes. I don't agree that computers think in binary units—it strikes me as meaningless anthropomorphization—but even if I granted that, it wouldn't justify the use of binary units in user interfaces. Computers are better than people at converting between units, and decimal units are better for people, so the computer should do the conversion. That's what computers are for. People do just fine without binary units in cases where there's no tradition of such units. For example, the range of a Java int is −2³¹ to 2³¹−1. Sometimes people say the maximum value is about two billion, or about 2.147 billion. There are no binary prefixes available, and it's fine. We could just as well say that 32-bit processors have a 2³² byte address space, which is about 4.295 billion bytes, i.e. about 4.295 gigabytes. It's easy. -- BenRG (talk) 23:04, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

All you're really saying there is that people don't care about exact numbers, they just need a handy word to refer to them. That works either way. That's no argument for changing the value an established unit of measure. (Besides, the examples you just gave are often stated in 2^[power] notation, just like you just did.)APL (talk) 03:31, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I always just say 1 GiB = 1024 MiB. That way there's no ambiguity. --71.141.151.155 (talk) 03:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• Why GiB? Why not 1 GB = 1024 MB? The abbreviation of Gigabyte is GB and Gigabit is Gb. So, if I say 1 GB = 1024 MB (Which we frequently use) and 1 Gb = 1000 Mb, will they be wrong? GiB says, it is closely related to Gigabyte.--202.168.229.243 (talk) 17:44, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

You'd be wrong in the sense that no one would know what the heck you were talking about. Don't use a decimal Giga for one unit and a binary Giga for another unit, it's crazy enough without being inconsistent. You're correct that Gb is also confused. Best to say "decimal Gb" or "Gib" so people know what you're using. APL (talk) 18:12, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks APL. Actually, I had an argument with someone. S/He said, 1 GiB = 1024 MiB and 1Gb = 1000Mb. S/He thinks this is correct. On the other hand, S/He assumes 1 GB = 1024 MB is incorrect. So, Is S/He was right in this sense? I found it confusing. I just wanted to get specific answer regarding on this issue.--202.168.229.243 (talk) 18:48, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

In theory, yes. In practice, no. Although the person you're talking about is correct, Gibibyte, mibibyte and other "bi" units are rarely used and the 1000x meaning is usually conveyed only by hard disk manufacturing companies. It is mostly assumed that 1 GB = 1024 MB (also 1 Gbit = 1024 Mbit), although it technically isn't correct. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 18:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that last part isn't necessarily true. When people talk about connection speed ("dude, I have a 10 Mbit connection!") Mbit virtually always means 1 Mbit = 1000 kbit (note: all this is technically incorrect, it should be 1 Mbit/s = 1000 kbit/s, but people don't bother). This is advertising cropping up its ugly head again, since a megabit in the decimal sense is more than a megabit in the binary sense. As I said, way back a few posts ago, all this confusion between bits and bytes and 1024 and 1000 makes everything very confusing. 90.235.4.253 (talk) 01:31, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Essentially, in some contexts the metric-friendly 1000 units are used, in others the more traditional 1024 units are used. You sort of just have to know. (Networks speeds are usually the 1000 units, but ram or rom is measured in the 1024.) Both are "correct" in the sense that there are standards documents defining them. This is obviously less than ideal. APL (talk) 02:49, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Help with Unicode symbols

What does this symbol look like on your screen? ⅎ To me it looks like this: . Many other symbols look similar, and this only happens on this computer. I am running Windows XP and using Firefox 3. How can I fix it? Mike R (talk) 13:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks like an upside down F to me, apparently it is one of the Claudian letters. Unfortunately I can't help you on fixing it, these Unicode things have always confused me. I'd also be interested in tips, I have the same problem on Firefox 3 under Ubuntu. the wub "?!" 14:00, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You're seeing The Unicode BMP Fallback font or something similar. It's intended to help identify code points your system doesn't support. This code point is U+214E; the little glyphs in the box are 2,1,4,E. To get the correct character you need to install a font that supports the language in question. If the language in question is supposed to be English then you have a different problem. Try fiddling with the character encoding (in the View menu). It might have gotten set to UTF-16 somehow. -- BenRG (talk) 14:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks for the link to the fallback font thingy. I have no idea how or why that is what I'm seeing. Yes the language is English and I have all the standard fonts that come with Windows.

Here is what the table at Claudian letters looks like to me:

Weird, huh? Here is what the same table looks like in IE7. Note, I have encoding set to Unicode UTF-8 in both browsers.

Thanks for any help you can offer, Mike R (talk) 16:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I see the same thing in Firefox and almost the same thing in IE, except that it does show the turned capital F. The fallback code point display is a new feature of Firefox 3 and IE7 has nothing similar. I don't think it's actually using a font because it works even for code points outside the BMP (like 􏿿). The reason I suspected UTF-16 is that 21 and 4E are common ASCII characters (! and N respectively). The sequence "N!" aligned at an even offset in the document would come out as U+214E if the encoding was set to UTF-16LE. Aside from that I have no idea what might be wrong. Are there particular web pages causing this problem? -- BenRG (talk) 17:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

embedding Wikipidia?

Is there a wikipidia widget that enables one to embed a wikipidia page on another website and recieve editing updates in real time? Or even to edit the wikipidia page from another website? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.215.186.204 (talk) 14:21, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

No, Veripedia takes content from Wikipedia, verifies, and posts it (not in real time). --Mayfare (talk) 14:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you can... you can use a PHP script to watch the RSS feed from a particular page and use that to keep the page up to date. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You could presumably do this with a Frame that reloaded periodicaly. (Except when "action=edit" appeared in the url.) APL (talk) 17:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You can use the API - it's quicker and better than using the RSS, which includes the diffs of the last few versions. I'd suggest getting the revision id of the latest version, and then only download if that changed since the last time you downloaded it. There's database dumps too, which you can use to get the current revisions of all pages. --h2g2bob (talk) 12:46, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but if you're running a MediaWiki wiki with $wgEnableScaryTranscluding set to TRUE then you can transclude content from the Wikipedia into your wiki. ——Mitaphane _{Contribs | Talk} 05:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Program Similar to Messenger Plus! Live

Hello. Is there a program similar to Messenger Plus! Live where I can bold my name and everyone on my contacts list regardless whether they have the software installed can see it? My contacts who do not have Messenger Plus! Live see my name as scripting. Cheers. --Mayfare (talk) 14:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

No, because Windows Live Messenger doesn't support that thing. (And I hope it never will.) --grawity 17:33, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu installation problem

I have had the bug described [| here]. There is still no general solution. People try to reformat/repartition its HDD or burn a new CD. I would like to obtain more - even if they are only speculative - possible suggestions/solutions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 16:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You can try using the Ubuntu alternate CD instead of the LiveCD. Akamad (talk) 09:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Page with self made certificate

We have a page in an intranet with a self-made certificate (not recognized by any authority). People accessing the page with Firefox don´t have any problem accepting exceptionally this certificate.

However, IExplorer users are not able to do it and therefore cannot access this page. What should they do to view this page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 16:10, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Give this a shot — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 16:43, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Java

Hello, I'm a bit confused about what stuff means in Java. How about I tell you what I kinda think and then you tell me how I'm doing? Here goes:

int a = 1;

means create me a variable called a which is of type int (for integer) and assign it the value 1.

SomeThing someThing = new SomeThing();

means create me an object of class SomeThing and also create me a variable called someThing which is of type pointer-to-a-SomeThing and points to the object just created.

SomeThing someOtherThing = someThing;

means create me a variable called someOtherThing which is of type pointer-to-a-SomeThing and points to the very same object that someThing points to. Compiler will check that this is okay.

someThing.GetSomeMember;

means dereference the pointer someThing and then get me the value of the underlying object's GetSomeMember.

Am I right? If I am, it's confusing, no? If I'm not, I'm now even more confused.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.164.115 (talk) 17:17, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You're right. Yes, it is somewhat confusing. Java variables can hold references to objects or values of special types like int, but not values of object type or references to special types. This is different from C and C++, where a variable can hold either a value or a reference of any type, and the pointer syntax (* and ->) is used to distinguish the reference case. The C++ equivalent of the above would be

     int a = 1;
     SomeThing* someThing = new SomeThing();
     SomeThing* someOtherThing = someThing;
     someThing->GetSomeMember;

Java doesn't need the pointer syntax because there's only one possibility for each type. It doesn't need new either for the same reason, but for some reason they left it in. -- BenRG (talk) 18:21, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You have to use a new because in theory Java allows you to have a method with the same name as a class, although that is bad naming style. --71.141.151.155 (talk) 03:14, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Programmatically look up driver details

Using the windows api (enumservicestatus, queryserviceconfig, queryserviceconfig2), I have obtained a moderate amount of information about the drivers that are running. For example, I know that "nvlddmkm" is currently running, is started manually, uses "nvlddmkm.sys", and is part of the "Video" load order group. I can go a step further and look up the file properties of nvlddmkm.sys programmatically. On the other hand, Opening it in Vista's Device Manager (or in an older OS's device manager), I can also find out what driver files it uses and can look up a huge number of properties like, "Device class," and "Driver Node Strong Name." How can I look at this information using a C++ or VB program? I want my program to work properly on XP, too. THus, Function Discovery is not the answer. Thanks.--72.85.235.162 (talk) 18:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

What version of Explorer do I have? What is my speed?

I just got my own computer but I haven't figured out where things are.

I often see references to different versions of Explorer on the Help desk and I was wondering where I click when I am on the computer to see what I have.

Also, I asked the man who installed my Internet whether I had the slowest version because I don't want to pay any more than I have to. But it sure seems fast. I asked when I paid my phone bill yesterday (no bill yet for the Internet) and was told their records show I have 128K. I was told that is not Broadband, and yet the sheet I go in the mail said I am paying for Broadband if I pay this price, and the paperwork I was given my the man who installed the Internet says it's Broadband. I looked around at stuff I could click on and look on my computer and the only speed I found was 100MB. That must refer to something different. Where do I find the actual speed?Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Explorer is different from Internet Explorer. IE however, is not THE internet, it is a browser which lets you see the information on the internet. The latest version of Internet Explorer is Version 7 which you can download from the Microsoft Website. You have many choices for an internet browser, you can choose to download Mozilla Firefox from the Mozilla website or Opera among other brands of software. Most if not all browsers are free to download. Your ISP provides the service of connecting you to the internet. You can easily check your download and upload speed at a special website which will test those speeds and give you a report. One such site would be Speedtest.net. Coolotter88 (talk) 19:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I have Internet Explorer, but where do I click on the computer to find out what I do have? I didn't find anything on the box the computer came in.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

In Internet Explorer, click "Help" (or hit Alt-H), then click "About Internet Explorer". -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:02, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The 100MB bit means that your computer is wired to be able to take connections up to 100MB/s, I believe. That's just a maximum or something along those lines—it's not necessarily what you're getting. As far as I know the only way to find out exactly what speeds the ISP is giving to you is by doing a "speed test" (google "speed test internet" and you'll find a bunch of them). Even those can be somewhat unreliable (they measure how fast data is sent between you and the speed test site, which can depend on where in the world you and the site are and not be the same speed as other sites). --140.247.240.157 (talk) 20:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You should call your Internet Service Provider again and express your concerns. Who is your ISP anyway? Some services (such as Roadrunner) only provide high-speed connections. If you get Internet from your cable provider, you've probably got high speed. Plus, as far as I know, the only ways to get an Internet connection is dial-up, DSL, and cable. If you want slow and relatively cheap, you have to go with dial-up.--El aprendelenguas (talk) 21:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The 100Mb number is merely the capacity of the pipe between your computer and your router/modem. The pipe between your router/modem and the interwebz is a lot smaller. And as you can see from the pipe analogy, the huge pipe capacity between your computer and your router/modem has almost no effect on the total amount of water (data) you can push through the pipe. You can check your actual internet speed using sites like [2]. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Reading/editing PC game files

If I owned a game (DinoPark Tycoon) for the PC, and the "saved games" files were in some crazy file type (xxx.000, xxx.001...), how could I read/edit these game files? When I open it in Notepad, its just a bunch of squares with the occasional foreign letter. Is there a software thing that can help me? 75.66.48.112 (talk) 23:09, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

First, you need a hex editor. Second, you need a basic understanding of what bytes are and how numbers are stored in them. Take a look at Hexadecimal and Endianness#Examples of storing the value 0x0A0B0C0D in memory. Then, if you want to change something that has an obvious representation as a number (like an amount of money), you can try searching for the byte sequence corresponding to that number and changing it. This simple trick works in many cases, but not always. Saved games are sometimes checksummed to prevent changes; unless you know where the checksum is and how to recompute it, the modified save file won't work. Save files may even be encrypted. In those cases you generally have to disassemble the game executable to reverse engineer the file format, which requires more sophisticated tools and a lot of arcane computer knowledge. Your best bet is to search the web for a ready-made save game editor from someone who knows how to do this stuff. -- BenRG (talk) 01:36, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It might be encrypted or compressed - but it may just be some kind of ad'hoc binary format. If that's true then you may be able to figure some stuff out. If you save a game - copy the save file someplace - then continue playing the game from that exact point just long enough to make one teeny-tiny change - like maybe you score just one point or earn a dollar - then, immediately save the game again. Using a hex editor you can make a text dump of each of the files. Now you can compare the two files. If the two files are TOTALLY different - then the odds are good that it's encrypted or compressed and you really have very little chance of figuring it out. If a number in the middle of the file and another at the end of the file are different - but the rest is the same - then it's probably checksummed. It's possible to figure out how the checksum works - but it would be tough to do if you don't have programming skills. If you get lucky, just one number in the file changed. Now you know something - you know that scoring a point changes that number - so that's probably where the score is saved. Try changing that number in your hex editor and reload the save file - if you're lucky, it'll load and the only thing that'll be different is your score. If that works you can try other things in the game - one at a time - and gradually figure out how a bunch of things are stored. It's likely to be pretty painstaking detective work though...you've got to really want to do it for some major reason. SteveBaker (talk) 04:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

August 23

Scanned Pages

How can I turn a scanned jpg page that opens up in Adobe into a word document or a way to copy the scanned page and paste it somewhere else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.143.158.118 (talk) 02:13, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

You need OCR software. Astronaut (talk) 03:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

iPhone

Should I get the 8- or the 16-gigabyte iPhone? Does one have any distinguishing advantage over the other aside from the obvious one—more memory? Thanks, anon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.162.102 (talk) 03:28, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

A (very) quick scan of this page - (http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html) shows that the 'white' colour version is only available on the 16gb version. I suspect that the 16gb will weigh slightly more too - (as per point 1 in the small-print). ny156uk (talk) 09:17, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I would go with the white one, simply because pretty much no one has it, and friends will be like, "Whoa, were'd u get that?" 75.66.48.112 (talk) 18:20, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

That is, after all, the main selling point of IP(hones/ods): What my friends will think. :) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an archive-fu master will swing by, as something along the lines of this has been answered for an iPod, but as a vague rule of thumb (my thumb, if we'd like to dispute this), 1 megabyte per minute of music, and about 4 per video (that is, at the resolution the iPod Nano allows), so 8000 minutes of music, or 2000 minutes of video. Given a 4 minute average song length (which is a little over the standard these days, but round numbers are cool), that's about 2000 songs, or 500 music videos - for the 8gig one. 98.169.163.20 (talk) 04:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

My general philosophy (which you can subscribe to or not, as you wish) is to always buy the best available configuration that I can afford. You will never look back and say "You know, I could have lived with the smaller configuration", you'll just keep adding songs (and the like) until the iPod/iPhone/computer hard drive is full. You may miss the $100 that the bigger iPhone cost you, but if you've already got the $199 for the base model, you can probably find the $100 for the top model. This will also make you feel slightly better when the product is next "revved" and is now available in 16 GByte version and a 32 GByte version; you'll at least still have a product with as much storage as the new low-end configuration so you won't feel as much "upgrade envy". And finally, yes, the white phone is much cooler than the black phone ;-).

Atlant (talk) 14:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

.ram-files from the BBC websites

Is there any possibility to save the audio and video files that the BBC provides in .ram format locally on a harddisk so that I can use them offline, and how can they be converted to mp3/wma or mpg/wmv. I want to use them in the classroom, which should be OK with copyright (fair use)? -- 84.160.18.195 (talk) 08:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

We can tell you about saving them and playing them offline, but not about copyright because that would be legal advice (which we have a policy against giving). If you would like to know if you can play them in the classroom, you need to hire a lawyer.

As for downloading them, the simplest thing to do is just to use the iPlayer. It's a program for PC's (no Mac/Linux version available) which you can download programs to. Just remember that it does have digital rights management, so the programs expire after a certain time - I think it's usually about a month. Not all British Broadcasting Corporation stuff is available on the iPlayer, however.89.241.141.9 (talk) 13:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh yes, and either you or your proxy server has to be in the United Kingdom.84.13.90.183 (talk) 13:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a note about copyright: at times, fair use claims for education have been very wide, and at times they have been very narrow. It's never totally clear. But in my experience most academics don't fret over copyright for the purposes of lectures, and I've never heard of any who ran into problems with that. Teaching generally gets one very wide leverage with fair use, esp. if it's one-time events with only registered students, etc. (e.g. not just posted to an academic webpage). But again, this is not meant to be legal advice, just a recollection of how I've seen this handled before. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:43, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've found the easiest way to deal with RAM audio is to set up something where you play the audio and record it at the same time. Then you can have the audio in any format which is conducive to you. I think you can do with the Audacity, but it might depend on your soundcard—you make the input your output, if that makes sense. You can do things like this with video, I am told, using video-capture programs, but I've never used that, and am not sure what software one would use. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:43, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your advice so far. (Sorry, I forgot that the English-speaking WP won't give any legal advice, but that wasn't my main question anyway.) I'll see what I can do. -- 84.160.18.195 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Many BBC radio shows are available as podcasts on iTunes, if that's any good for you. --Joe^Talk_Work 16:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

About Coumpter

Who is the inventor of first computerAshish.20.jain (talk) 09:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at History of computing hardware. -- BenRG (talk) 11:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

There really wasn't a single inventor. The part that does calculations and the part that decides what calculations should be done were pretty much invented by different people at different times. Some of these parts were invented, forgotten and then re-invented.

So automatic mechanical calculators were around since ancient times with machines like the Antikythera mechanism and people like Hero of Alexandria had invented programmability to some degree - and all of that was over 2,000 years ago. But nobody bach then seems to have thought of connecting up a mechanical calculator to a programmable sequencer - so no computers were ever made (as far as we know). However, much later, in Europe in the 1600's, people started working on mechanical calculators, and Jacquard invented a programmable weaving loom that used punched cards as "memory". But still, nobody put the two together. In the 1800's George Bool invented boolean logic - a very important mathematical step towards computers - but he didn't think of automating them. The first thing we could really point to and say "That's a computer" was invented by Charles Babbage. He was really master of that stuff - a true genius - but an impossible person to work with. He conceived and started to build a gigantic (but pretty decent) mechanical calculator called "The Difference Engine" - but never really finished it. There is a fully working replica of it at the Science Museum in London - so we know it would have work had he only got the 'grunt work' done. But for the first time in history - he realised that taking a mechanism like the Jacquard loom and connecting it up to something like his difference engine would result in a programmable calculator...a true computer. He called this "The Analytical Engine" - and never completed work on it either. There were even a few programs written for it which modern programmers can look at and understand. (Ada Lovelace is sometimes credited as being the first programmer - but the modern view is that she simply wrote down what Babbage had done).

Yeah! So Charles Babbage is often credited with inventing the first computer - and that's 100% true. The trouble is that:

1. He never built his machine (although from what modern researchers have found, it would have probably have worked if he had).
2. His invention was almost totally forgotten. The subsequent "inventors" of computers were completely unaware of Babbage's work.

So while he invented "a computer" - he did not invent "the computer"...the machine that lead to the development of all modern computers.

Subsequently there was important contributions from Herman Hollerith who invented punched card tabulation machines. So now we have to look to the second world war - when the British were frantically trying to automate the cracking of German codes and other people were intent on calculating things like artillery trajectories. Alan Turing designed and built machines at Blechley Park in the UK that did logic operations and were programmable by re-wiring the hardware - and his theories really do underpin much of modern computing. John von Neumann was also doing research in these directions in the USA that lead to useful machines. But even those are not a "clean" claim to fame. If we look at this table:

{{Early computer characteristics}}

To be a proper computer, the machine needs to be "Turing complete" (as in "Alan Turing") - it's claimed that the Zuse Z3 was turing complete - but that's really not true in practical terms. For some very simple calculations that require Turing completeness, you'd need more film stock than it's mechanism could reasonably contain - and it wasn't even realised that the machine could theoretically be used in a turing complete way until 1998 - so we should dismiss that one. The first to be Turing complete was therefore the ENIAC. It was programmable - but you had to use patch-cords to "set up" the program - it didn't follow the "Von Neumann architecture" that almost all modern computers use in which the program was stored in the memory of the computer. So you could certainly argue that it owed more to the Jaquard loom's "hardwired" programs than to "software" in the modern sense. For that, we need to talk about the British EDSAC machine.

In my opinion, the EDSAC was the first entirely modern computer - it was the first to contain the ideas of Turing AND Von Neumann - it could run programs out of it's main memory. It was the first machine to run SOFTWARE - and software is what makes modern computers useful and interesting.

So - who gets the credit? The unknown inventor of the Antikythera mechanism? Hero of Alexandria? Babbage? Turing? Von Neumann? Well, I'd have to hand the prize jointly to Turing and Von Neumann - they were the two people who caused the modern computer to come into existence. The didn't know about the work of any of the earlier people - and none of the ideas of those earlier people are used in modern computers. But Babbage...urgh!

It's truly not a simple matter.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

A slightly different designation- the inventor of the personal computer, according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, is Apple Computer's Steve Wozniak. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Then 1968 Kitchen Computer - 8 years before Apple!

Well...I might want to argue about that. I owned an Altair 8800 almost a year before Apple started business. You could try to claim that the Altair wasn't a "personal" computer - but it's a very fuzzy definition. For *ME*, my Altair was a personal computer. However, the Honeywell "Kitchen Computer" from 1968 was an honest-to-goodness programmable computer (intended for the Kitchen?!?). It was offered for sale for $10,000 in the Nieman-Marcus catalog seven years before Apple started making the Apple I and while Woz was still in high-school. I can see where the National Inventors hall of fame are coming from - Woz's work was amazing - and he took the computer from a machine you had to program yourself to one where you could buy software and do stuff without needing programming skills - it was a clever design and he deserves a place in the pantheon (and he's also a HELL of a nice guy - probably the only one of those early computer geeks who kept his inner-geekness without turning going crazy or turning evil). But I don't think it's fair to take away from Ed Roberts, and Forrest Mims who TRULY came up with the first computer that came in a nice case that a hobbyist could actually buy and play with. SteveBaker (talk) 18:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

linux for old machine

I am thinking of switching to Linux from WinXP on my seven year old Intel machine with 256 SDRAM. Which distro can run on this machine? 59.91.253.30 (talk) 16:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

7 years... that would be... 2001? Well, Damn Small Linux can be run on pretty much anything. FreeSpire has a BIOS cutoff date of 2000, so u can barely run that. Others, I don't know. 75.66.48.112 (talk) 16:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not a lot of RAM. xubuntu maybe? --18:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

yeah, Xubuntu should be a good option. SF007 (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've successfully run Xubuntu on a crappier computer than that, so I also support that suggestion. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 04:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If it'll run WinXP - it'll run Linux. I used to run Linux on a '386 PC with 16Mb RAM and a 256Mb hard drive - so if you pick a sufficiently old distro, it literally will run on any PC that's less than maybe ~15 years old. SteveBaker (talk) 17:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

data onlile sources

what do you mean by data online sources in regard to marketing and management? this comes under the topic called data collection and no information is found in any of the study material. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tintucrazy (talk • contribs) 17:02, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

If this is for homework, honestly, just consult your course materials and the answer will be there. Because "data online sources" by itself doesn't have any obvious discrete meaning separate from the very literal definition of it (e.g. sources of data which are online). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:04, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Linux probs... or just operator error

I'm running DamnSmallLinux from a "Live" CD. All the FAQs ive gone too hav been no help at all, so: How do I install things? I downloaded the firefox 3 installer for linux, then opened it, and it took me to something like "Beaver", but it didn't do anything. 2. Why do I have 4 different desktops? I mean, that's really cool, but really unusual, too. If I had some application or something to control them, that'd be amazing. 75.66.48.112 (talk) 17:51, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

If you've never run Linux before, and are used to a Windows or Mac machine, well, prepare to invest some time in it. Something as simple as installation on Windows becomes a big freakin' deal on Linxus if you haven't done it a million times. It sounds to me like somehow you've opened up a shell script in some sort of text editor, but I don't really know. The few times I have tried to install any sort of Unix/Linux utilities (on my MacBook, in Terminal, etc.) I have usually spent about 3 hours tearing my hair out for these sorts of reasons. The people who make this software generally assume that everybody downloading the Linux version of it understands Linux backwards and forwards and often give totally incomplete instructions. (I had one in which to try and get a little command line utility, I had to download the source files, then had to figure out where to get the compiler, but then it was missing another necessary set of files, so I had to try and download those and get those installed, and so on and so on, until I finally just gave up, frustrated and completely turned off from anything of this nature!) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:39, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

So, I should take a college course on the subject? Is there an easier way? Like, a software that actually runs? 75.66.48.112 (talk) 21:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Heck if I know, man. In my opinion the money saved isn't worth it in terms of time lost! As has been said, Linux is only free if your time is worthless... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't install stuff when running a Live CD because the software is on the CD-ROM (which you can't edit) and not on the hard drive (which you can). Linux distributions generally come with a piece of software called a package manager which you can use to easily install lots of free software.

DSL isn't designed to let you install software, so only has a text-based package manager called apt. You can install the graphical installer synaptic with the command apt-get install synaptic, and run that to install more software. But as I said, you can't edit the CD-ROM, so all your newly installed programs should disappear when you restart your computer!

98.217.8.46 is having a hard time because he or she is installing everything from source code. It's far easier when using a package manager, but computers running Mac OSX don't have one.

DSL is designed to be a small, leightweight Linux - I'd suggest changing to Ubuntu which is designed to be easy. Key bits of software - including GNOME (or KDE), OpenOffice.org and synaptic - come ready-installed. --h2g2bob (talk) 21:59, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware that Linux is particular difficult to deal with on OS X for this reason, but I'd also point out that everybody I know who decides to switch to Linux spends endless hours recompiling things and trying to figure out why their package manager has only downloaded half of the dependencies and etc. It's no walk in the park unless you've already invested a lot of time into learning its particular arcane ways, and frankly the manual resources and online assistance assumes a level of understanding of Unix-specific concepts that I just don't think the average user has. Someone could probably make a killing writing books on switching to Linux targeted at people who are comfortable with Windows and OS X, explaining how to do the sorts of things they are used to doing in the new system and explaining why it is done differently. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

With the exception of the infamously bad wireless support (which is due to the manufacturers not supplying Linux drivers, not Linux itself), I have never had any problems setting up Ubuntu or installing software. Also, I have yet to encounter a situation where I have had to compile any code but my own. Finally, if you go to your local bookstore's computer section, you will certainly find a number of books on migrating from Windows or another OS to Linux - in fact, I own one of these myself. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 04:01, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Switching to Linux means I don't have to reinstall Windows every 3 months (and consequently all the apps, utils, games, etc), doesn't need to bother too much about firewalls and stuff, and the system automatically maintains my system and all my applications up to date. Try a proper desktop distribution, like Ubuntu (I'm not saying DSL isn't good, just that this is not what it's designed for), and dig around for a few days. I have grown to love the package system, where I can easily install (almost) any applications automatically. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

So, switch to Ubuntu. Why Ubuntu? Aren't there like a billion different versions of regular linux? 75.66.48.112 (talk) 20:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. But Ubuntu is the most popular one, has the best community and tech support, and is the easiest for beginners. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 22:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Other issues aside, Kubuntu might be slightly smoother and just as easy. -- Hoary (talk) 11:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Ahem. If you don't like having to reinstall an OS because it's out of date, then (K)ubuntu is not a good distro. Consider an alternative distro that's more conducive to incremental upgrades. And while I'm no fan of Windows, I've no idea why anyone would have to reinstall it every couple of years, let alone every three months. If you want Windows, just install Windows 2000 with appropriate security precautions (including, but certainly not limited to, the avoidance of Outlook Express and Internet Explorer), use your brain, ignore "virus" hysteria and the nagging from Microsoft, and definitely avoid any "essential" utilities in impressive shrinkwrapped boxes from Symantec or similar. -- Hoary (talk) 11:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

retrieving phone numbers on the computer

Whenever I look up a phone number on my computer, It will appear and then quickly fade away. This includes emails and general articles or even White Pages. I am using a Dell laptop with Windows Vista. Does anyone else have this problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.184.124.178 (talk) 18:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your question. Where are you looking up the phone numbers? Can you give more details? « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 03:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a really bizarre prob. I'd guess you have some "nanny" software on your comp trying to protect you from calling strangers who may wish to do you harm. It likely reads everything on the computer screen, detects anything that looks like a phone number, then blanks it out. If so, that's a stupid, brute force approach to safety. StuRat (talk) 21:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you happen to have Skype installed? I'm asking because it transforms numbers that look like phone numbers into clickable links, so you can just click on them and make a telephone call over the internet. I've found that sometimes it takes a few seconds for the numbers to transform after a web page has been loaded, so they change as I look at them. I'm pretty sure it can also do the same to HTML-based e-mail messages if you use Outlook or another compatible program for e-mail. If you do have Skype installed, I'd bet that's the cause, except in your case it's not working right. There should be a Skype icon somewhere in your browser's tool bar that lets you turn this feature off, or you could simply uninstall Skype and see if that does the trick. (If you don't have Skype installed, that's a really weird problem.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 04:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, this was the problem...I removed Skype and now its okay. Thanks again

Huh. That was pretty much a shot in the dark. Glad it worked out for you, though! -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Internet Connection

Resolved

Ok, so my Dell Inspiron 600m came in today. It's supposed to have wireless, bluetooth, and stuff. Well, I can't figure out how to connect to the internet using it and in network connections it only shows bluetooth even though our router and modem is working. When I try to use the wizard to connect, it says I need to get the neccesary hardware and try again then. So we used the wizard for adding another computer to the network on a computer that was already connected. I don't know what to do since it's supposed to already have capabilities. Does anyone know how I can physically check for the precence of a wireless card? Thanks in advance, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:28, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It's possible that there's a physical switch, or (more annoyingly) a particular key combination, to activate wireless. Algebraist 20:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

According to Google, it's fn+F2. Algebraist 20:34, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Hrmm, that's just turning on my bluetooth (with which I'm not having a problem), but it's still not letting me connect to the internet. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:40, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, well it's not the card or anything that's wrong. I just hooked the ethernet cable directly from the modem into the laptop and I still couldn't connect to the internet. Any ideas? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 21:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

What system are you running? Can you log into your router or modem? Algebraist 00:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm running Windows XP Pro SP1. No, ipconfig doesn't give me anything. Apparently it's not recognizing my ethernet hardware. By the way, I reinstalled Windows and now my GRUB bootloader menu won't show up and let me log in to Kubuntu. Also, now my bluetooth connection isn't showing up (since I reinstalled Windows). Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 03:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Please upgrade to XP SP3. It has much, much better wireless support. --mboverload@ 08:10, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I had XP SP3, but when I formatted and reinstalled it gave me SP1 on the OEM's disks; and I don't know how to upgrade without internet access.Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 16:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I've worked on Dells before that had a switch (almost hidden) with which you could turn wireless on/off. I suggest looking for that switch; you may find it. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I found out that I needed some drivers that weren't on the CD. Got em from dell.com and now it works! Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

August 24

VNC into chroot?

I was just wondering if it is possible to connect to a chrooted environment with VNC... forgive me if this is nonsense, I don't know much about this stuff... it's just that I'm having lots and lots of problems trying to use graphical applications inside a chrooted environment... (yeah, I know how to use the terminal, but it is not enough...) SF007 (talk) 03:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

X11 by TCP can be used in this situation. Setting DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0 in the environment probably should be enough to use it. By default, X uses a Unix domain socket which requires a file which is probably not included in the chroot. MTM (talk) 08:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

autorun

when an autorun doesn't function and it gives the message 'the application failed to initialize properly (0-c0000006) click on OK to terminate the application', how can it be resolved? Some file is missing? How can I know which file? Thanks. --Omidinist (talk) 07:58, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Brute forcing regular expressions

Is there _any_ way to input a regular expression and find all possible strings that it would match? Processing time, memory, and storage are of no concern. I don't care how wacky or out of the way the solution is. If I have to install a virtual machine running Plan 9 on a 64-bit edition of Windows 7 I'm for it. This is only for simple regular expressions, like (T|t)itles? --mboverload@ 08:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

In most cases, there is no upper bound on the length of a string that can be matched, so there is an infinite collection of matching strings. How do you suppose they can all be listed? --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 08:36, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have clarified this is only for simple regular expressions, like (T|t)itles? --mboverload@ 08:49, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

But /.*/ is also simple and there are simply infinite number of matches. You have to refine your definition of "simple" a bit before this can go anywhere. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:07, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It is possible with regular expressions like /x|y/, /x?/ or /x{1,3}/ and their combinations. Just all possibilities have to be enumerated and collected in a set. I haven't heard about any program which does it, but it looks simple. MTM (talk) 09:29, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's a subset of the list matching the regular expression "(T|t)itles":

Titles
titles
abcTitlesxyz
!"#$Titles%&'()

See where this is going? Without anchors ("^" at the beginning and "$" at the end) you haven't limited the length of the string that can be matched. A regular expression that matches only a finite set of strings would have anchors at the beginning and end, and no "*" or "{N,}" quantifiers. It's pretty easy for the finite lists to be very large too. "^[a-z]{5}$", matching any string made of 5 lower-case letters, has 26^5=11,881,376 possible matches.

I though only about the matched part, so /a/ would result only in "a". From the original post: "Processing time, memory, and storage are of no concern.". MTM (talk) 09:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're thinking that this regexp-to-list converter would be a good tool for learning regular expressions, I hope you've changed your mind by now. (There are tools for that already; search for "regular expression editor" or "regular expression debugger".) --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 09:33, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know as much about regular expressions as you, but I hope you look at the spirit of my question. (T|t)itles? , in my mind but not the computer's, has 4 possible matches, Title, Titles, title, titles. I'm not trying to generate a list of every valid Visa number =). I don't know how to format it correctly so it wouldn't match things outside of the word, but that is something I will learn. Thanks for your expertise. --mboverload@ 09:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The deeper point in my reply was that regular expressions in real usage are quite often not anchored at both ends. We grep for patterns in a file, but we want to see the whole line that contained the match, not just the matched substring. And the "*" repetition operator is used a lot. The proposed listing tool will apply only to a small minority of useful regular expressions. As an educational device it would suck. For generating lists of strings with alternatives like /[Tt]itles?/ -> {"Titles", titles", "Title", "title"} and /[a-z]{5}/ -> {"aaaaa", "aaaab", ..., "zzzzz"} you don't really need a regular expression. I'm left wondering if there's another motivation. Because if it's a good idea, this tool wouldn't be hard to build. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 09:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, if time is LITERALLY of no concern then (in a Linux/Cygwin setup) you could write a 1 line C program ('while(1)putchar(rand()%127);') that would generate random strings and pipe the result into 'grep'. That exactly fulfills the demands of your question...so consider it answered!

But for a practical answer (which is what everyone else is attempting to provide), because so many regexps can match a literally infinite number of strings you have to sharply limit the regexp syntax to (for example) prohibit '*' or anything that matches a variable number of characters. So this tool you imagine wouldn't be able to operate on "normal" regexp's - only within this rather carefully restricted subset. But even so, in almost all "real" examples of regexp's the combinatorial explosion will kill you. So it becomes just really unlikely that anyone will try to write such a tool in a 'normal' manner. I think you're doomed!

SteveBaker (talk) 16:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Enough philosophy, here's an implementation. This is a Haskell program that takes a regular expression on the command line and prints out all strings matching that regular expression, without duplication, sorted by length and lexicographically within each length. It supports only "theorists' regular expressions" and not Unixy extensions like [a-z] or a{3,5} or even . (though it does support ? and +). If the regular expression matches infinitely many strings then the program will run forever but every matching string will be printed at a finite time. I tested it with GHC but it should work with Hugs or any other implementation that supports the Parsec library. If you save the program as regex.hs you can compile it with the command line ghc -package parsec -O -o regex regex.hs. It's quite fast (not that it couldn't be faster) and I find the output from expressions like (aa|bbb)* rather soothing. I hereby release this code into the public domain. Let me know here or on my talk page if you notice any bugs.

regex.hs

-- Haskell program to print all (anchored) strings matching a regular expression.

import System (getArgs, getProgName, exitFailure)
import Text.ParserCombinators.Parsec

main = do
  args <- getArgs
  case args of
    [s] -> case parse regex "" s of
             Right strings -> mapM_ (mapM_ putStrLn) strings
             Left  err     -> print err >> exitFailure
    _ -> do progName <- getProgName
            putStrLn $
              "usage: "++progName++" <regex>\n\
              \  Prints all strings matching <regex>.\n\
              \  Grammar: S ::= SS | S|S | S? | S* | S+ | (S) | literal"


-- Parser. Returns all strings matching the expression as a list
-- [strings of length 0, strings of length 1, ...], with each sublist
-- in lexicographical order.

regex :: Parser [[String]]
regex = do { x <- regexSum ; eof ; return x }

regexSum =
  fmap (foldb mergeLengths []) (regexProd `sepBy` char '|')

regexProd =
  fmap (foldr1 cat) (many1 (regexAtom >>= regexUnary)) <|> return [[""]]

regexUnary atom =
  (char '?' >> return ([""] : drop 1 atom))
   <|> (char '*' >> return (zeroOrMore atom))
   <|> (char '+' >> return (oneOrMore atom))
   <|> return atom

regexAtom =
  regexLiteral <|> between (char '(') (char ')') regexSum

regexLiteral =
  (noneOf "|?*+()" >>= \c -> return [[],[[c]]]) <?> "literal"


-- Helper functions

-- balanced binary fold for merging

foldb :: (a -> a -> a) -> a -> [a] -> a
foldb plus zero [] = zero
foldb plus zero [x] = x
foldb plus zero xs = foldb plus zero (halve xs)
  where halve (a:b:cs) = plus a b : halve cs
        halve cs = cs

mergeLengths :: [[String]] -> [[String]] -> [[String]]
mergeLengths [] ys = ys
mergeLengths xs [] = xs
mergeLengths (x:xs) (y:ys) = mergeOneLength x y : mergeLengths xs ys

mergeOneLength :: [String] -> [String] -> [String]
mergeOneLength [] ys = ys
mergeOneLength xs [] = xs
mergeOneLength (x:xs) (y:ys) =
  case x `compare` y of
    EQ -> x : mergeOneLength xs ys
    LT -> x : mergeOneLength xs (y:ys)
    GT -> y : mergeOneLength (x:xs) ys


-- A*, A+

zeroOrMore, oneOrMore :: [[String]] -> [[String]]

zeroOrMore xs = [""] : oneOrMore' (drop 1 xs)

oneOrMore [] = []
oneOrMore (x : xs) = x : oneOrMore' xs

oneOrMore' [] = []
oneOrMore' xs = helper once
  where
    (empties,once) = break (not.null) xs
    stepsize = 1 + length empties
    helper ntimes =
      take stepsize ntimes ++ mergeLengths (drop stepsize ntimes)
                                           (helper (cat once ntimes))


-- AB

cat :: [[String]] -> [[String]] -> [[String]]
cat xs ys = map (foldb mergeOneLength []) (outerCat xs ys)
  where outerCat = zigzagOuterProduct (\ps qs -> [p++q | p <- ps, q <- qs])


-- Returns diagonals of the outer product of the argument lists. A bit tricky
-- because it has to work for any mixture of finite and infinite lists.

zigzagOuterProduct :: (a -> b -> c) -> [a] -> [b] -> [[c]]
zigzagOuterProduct f xs ys =
  helper xs ys [] [] where
    helper (x:xs) (y:ys) ps     qs     = helper' xs ys (ps++[x]) (qs++[y])
    helper (x:xs) []     (p:ps) qs     = helper' xs [] (ps++[x])  qs
    helper []     (y:ys) ps     (q:qs) = helper' [] ys  ps       (qs++[y])
    helper []     []     (p:ps) (q:qs) = helper' [] []  ps        qs
    helper _      _      _      _      = []
    helper' xs ys [] [] = []
    helper' xs ys ps qs = zipWith f ps (reverse qs) : helper xs ys ps qs

-- BenRG (talk) 18:31, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Clearing Photo metadata on OS X?

Hello,

Is there anyway on OS X 10.5 to clear or remove all the metadata from a photograph?

Thanks for any help,

--Grey1618 (talk) 09:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Misleading tags on YouTube

Hi; there's a user uploading episodes of a television program to YouTube, and putting the names of other programmes in the tags. This means that whenever searching for any of the listed programmes, one has to wade through pages of the irrelevant episodes he produces before getting to what one wants. I made two polite comments about this; the first received a polite but negative reply, the second just resulted in the whole conversation being wiped and my commenting privileges being suspended. I've emailed this user, but don't expect this to prevail.

The question is - what next? Is there a "report to staff" option where I can make clear what it is I have a problem with? A "report user" facility? A way to exclude his videos from my search results (failing ways to help the whole community by clearing them, that is!)... any tips? Thanks. ╟─Treasury§Tag►contribs─╢ 15:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Alluc --h2g2bob (talk) 16:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There's a way to report videos. Aside from the improper tags, they're almost certainly copyright violations. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Installing Stuff

I have a few questions about installing programs on Ubuntu. Thus far I have been installing through the repositories.(With the various methods possible,"sudo apt-get install" along with "Add/Remove" in the Main Menu). But what about stuff that's not in the repositories and needs to be downloaded? For that stuff I encounter files that might end in "tar.gz" or something and when the message pops up it says Bzip archive. It says Archive Manager is the default thing for this sort of thing. So I select it, extract and all that. And then....nothing. Is the program installed? How do I run it? Are there other ways of getting programs? Did I do something wrong? And what's installing through source? Sorry for all the questions. Thanks in advance.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 15:25, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There's usually a file called "README" or "INSTALL" to look at, but the normal procedure is to open a shell, cd into the directory, and run:

./configure -- you don't always need to run this, sometimes it is missing

make -- this compiles it all and creates the program for you to run. The program is normally placed into the "bin" directory.

It is normally best to run it from the bin directory, but some projects can be installed into /usr/bin etc with: sudo make install

That's the basics - it might fail if you're missing some libraries. If so, try and work out what they are and install them with synaptic. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers, but what does "cd into the directory" mean? How do you open a shell?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 18:14, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

A "shell" is a program that presents a command line interface to the computer's file system, programs and processes. It's mostly just a way of making system calls, running programs etc, but it will also feature commands that work together to form a quasi-programming language allowing you to write little scripts which use logic, control flow, interaction between programs etc etc. Anyway, to open a shell, choose Main Menu >> Accessories >> Terminal. "cd to a directory" means use the "cd" command to change the working directory of the shell to a certain directory. Here's an example from my shell

me@mycomputer:~$ ls
Desktop  film  incoming  music  oddments  print  sort  tools  zoo
me@mycomputer:~$ cd oddments/
me@mycomputer:~/oddments$ ls
bills  flat  megadrive  sainsburys
me@mycomputer:~/oddments$ 

The "ls" command lists directory contents. Note that "~" is an alias for your home directory (/home/me). You can type "help" at the prompt to get help about built in commands, or use man to get help about specific programs. Also, building from source means getting a compiler and associated tools on your very own computer to create an executable program from the source code supplied. It's kinda fun, and reassuring to do once in a while to prove you can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.164.115 (talk) 18:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

cd means to change directory and shell is the terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal). So if I had to cd to my Music directory I'd to cd /home/abhishek/Music or rather simply cd Music from my home directory. I think you should read some of this. I always had trouble installing software from source, as I'm a n00b myself and I usually install from the repos, but this guide somewhat gave me the understanding of the process. -Abhishek (talk) 18:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Eh...my dad helped me here. But now there's error messages...so heh, I give up. For this one program anyways.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 18:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Ubuntu even comes with gcc by default - you have to install the build-essentials package first. In other words, trying to build stuff from source on Ubuntu without knowing what you are doing is an exercise in futility. That's why package managers exist in the first place. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 21:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

This is true: install the build-essential package for gcc, make etc. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

What are you trying to install anyway? How to install ANYTHING on Ubuntu is a good tutorial for beginners like you. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:42, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, yet another reason why Linux is still far, far from being considered a Windows replacement for the average user. When will the Linux community wake up and realise that people just want things to work? Click on install.exe (or auto-run from CD), choose your installation and click ok. Things are still far easier on Windows, and it really shouldn't have to be this way. </rant> btw I'm motivated to post a question below about the different Linux distros. Please have a look. Zunaid©® 16:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

installing ubuntu from live cd

I had the following [problem] installing ubuntu. I managed to start the live "CD" from my HDD, but I am not able of installing it as a non-live version. How can I turn this live-CD on my HDD into a normal ubuntu installation.

NB: I don´t have a CD-ROM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 16:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The only way I have heard of doing this (and the way I did it) is to burn the .ISO (the 'live CD') onto a CD-ROM and install from there. If you have no CD-ROM, then you obviously can't do it this way. I am not aware of any other way to do it.--ChokinBako (talk) 18:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There are several ways - see the "installation without a CD" section of https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:58, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The person on Ubuntu bug 245794 says they can install 7.04 (feisty): can you install that and upgrade over the network. Otherwise, see if you can boot from a USB stick. Fully installing over a network is possible, but stupidly difficult. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:32, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Just install unetbootin and put the liveCD onto your flash drive and boot from that, or use Wubi (Ubuntu) --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

File Transfer Protocol

Besides uploading files to your own website, what can FTP be used for? One of my friends recently said she had a friend with an 'FTP site' and they were transferring files to each other using that. She could not give me any more information than that, and couldn't even tell me how she was doing it. Can anyone tell me anything about other uses of FTP and why it's useful?--ChokinBako (talk) 18:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not really an expert or anything, but basically, you can have an FTP site as well. It's essentially like, oh, the folders on your computer, where you can see and copy and move the files or folders on your hard drive. Only it's for files on a server. Archives of files (like the Interactive Fiction Archive, for example) often have an "FTP mode", because some people prefer to view files that way instead of in a big list. --Alinnisawest(talk) 18:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

FTP is faster than HTTP, because there's less overhead. As for a site, I don't know about Apache, but I've set up FTP sites using the IIS feature built into Windows XP and Server 2003. To see what you can do with FTP, open up a command line (Start --> Run... --> cmd) and type FTP, then help. Not many commands there, huh? You can access FTP sites using this command or in your "Network Places." You can also do it inside your browser by changing the http to ftp, assuming you're pointing the browser to an FTP site.--129.82.41.231 (talk) 19:01, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

On Unix-like systems proftpd or vsftpd can be used. Since FTP is less secure (does not support encryption of e.g. passwords used for authentication) I use sftp instead. MTM (talk) 19:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

HTTP is a newcomer among Internet protocols. FTP is one of the oldest Internet protocols still in use. Many of the online file archives that are now offered through HTTP began as FTP archives (and are still offered that way). Accessing archives through FTP has some big advantages over HTTP, like the fact that FTP clients let you transfer whole groups of files using wildcards or drag-and-drop. However, FTP is a pretty bad design; it survives only by virtue of its entrenchment. It certainly isn't faster than HTTP (unless your HTTP implementation is broken) and in many cases it will be slower. Also, it doesn't work well through firewalls or through tunnels (like SSH tunnels). Despite its similar name, SFTP is a totally different protocol. It's a much better design which combines the advantages of FTP and HTTP for file transfer. Unfortunately the software support for it isn't nearly as good as for HTTP or FTP, at either the client or the server end. -- BenRG (talk) 20:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually from what I've read, FTP is "certainly" much faster than HTTP.--129.82.41.232 (talk) 21:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Those huge paperback training tomes that litter the "Computers" section of bookstores are, to put it politely, not written by experts. Only the third book you linked offers any reason for its claim, and surely you can see that the reason ("because FTP does not support the display of graphics or streaming media, it can transfer files much faster than HTTP") doesn't make any sense. (The same book goes right on to claim that FTP can't be used to serve web pages, which must be news to these people.) Both HTTP and FTP just send the raw bytes of the file over a TCP connection. HTTP supports sending more than one file over a single TCP connection, FTP doesn't. If FTP is faster it's because HTTP is being routed through a slow proxy, or the ISP is throttling HTTP connections, or something else that has nothing to do with the protocols as such. -- BenRG (talk) 00:14, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

So, I basically need to find a decent (free!) server, and use FileZilla to upload (essentially archive or backup) my files?

Linux is free and easily works as an SFTP server (as well as HTTP and FTP). Again, Linux is free and works great as a desktop OS with many SFTP clients (KDE embeds it right into the file browser) as well as HTTP and FTP. -- kainaw™ 22:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Since you have Windows XP, you can easily install an FTP server from your XP CD. Insert that disk into your CD drive, go to "Add or Remove Programs" --> "Add/Remove Windows Components" --> "Internet Information Services (IIS)" --> "Details" --> "File Transfer Protocol Service (FTP)," then click OK. Now you have a server that you can access directly from the Control Panel.--129.82.41.232 (talk) 23:09, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't even say. I have Mac OSX......--ChokinBako (talk) 07:31, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

On OS X, you can select Apple -> System Preferences -> Sharing -> File Sharing, then Options and "Share files and folders using FTP". Accessing your home computer over the internet however requires that your ISP allows such access, which isn't always the case. You may also have to modify the firewall settings of your cable modem or ADSL modem or other network device. All this is of course assuming that you want to make your home computer an FTP server and leave it on for long periods - it can be easier to use a remote professionally maintained FTP server. 84.239.160.166 (talk) 15:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Is your friend referring to topsites by any chance? F (talk) 12:59, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

GRUB

I formatted and reinstalled Windows XP on one partition of my HDD and now my GRUB bootloader menu won't show up to let me boot Linux. What do I need to do to get the menu back? (By the way, I chose only to format the partition that Windows was on by using the OEM's CD). Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It rather depends what that OEM CD has done. Some are proper windows installers, in which case the installer has zapped the disk's master boot record. If that's the case, boot with a liveCD and restore grub (see the grub documentation). If, as is common with many OEM restore disks, it's not a windows installer but a Norton Ghost-like disk image extractor, then it has zapped your linux partition and you'll need to start again. You can tell which has happened by examining the partition table for the disk (either using Windows' disk manager plugin or Linux's gparted). It's incumbent on me at this point to repeat my oft-ignored plea to those trying Linux for the first time - "Repartitioning and bootloaders are hard for those with limited, windows-only, experience. Cheap removable IDE disks (one for linux, one for windows) is the path of least pain for the unwary". Later linux dists make this plea less necessary than a few years ago, but people still regularly blast their partitions (generally it's the windows partition) into digital oblivion. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:29, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean zap the partition? I still have my linux partition showing up, so it didn't repartition or anything like that. I don't know if it formatted the linux partition though. By the way, the CD is a Dell recovery disk. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:36, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

OEM restore CDs, including those by Dell, frequently wipe the entire disk and restore a factory image. They do this quickly (in say 15 minutes) without running you through the hour or so of the windows installer. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:38, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Hrmm, do they do this even when they ask you to choose the partition? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

No, they wipe the entire disk, MBR and partition table and partitions and all. It probably says something like "this will wipe the info on your computer - proceed [y/n]". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:55, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Most restore disks say that anyway because they are designed for typical users who will never repartition their disks or install another OS. If you can still see the Linux partition then it just wiped the MBR. Reinstalling GRUB is the way to go. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 21:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't listen to the nay-sayers above: it's probably just changed the MBR to point to Windows XP, not GRUB. You can reinstall grub from a live cd. Some help here and here. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

You might also want to try the super grub disk live cd. The user interface is ugly, but it'll boot just about anything. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:20, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

How do I copy a web site to my computer ?

I can, of course, copy individual HTML pages, one at a time. However, when I do this, the links don't point to the pages I copied, but back to the original website. How can I fix all those links to point to the copied pages ? StuRat (talk) 21:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello. On my browser you can do this by viewing the source and then saving it. This will leave all links in the document as they really are - normally defined relatively, so if you've copied all the pages and the same directory structure then you'll be okay. This will mean you have to get every document on the site for it to work properly - including style sheets etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.13.226.238 (talk) 21:31, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Wget does what you want, but it won't be easy to use unless you use some kind of Unix. —Keenan Pepper 21:33, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I have always used a program called Teleport Pro which has an option to download a "browsable copy" of a website to your computer. The program itself is shareware and a free trial version can be downloaded here. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 21:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There are tools for doing this (wget can certainly copy pages recursively (see article on wget), but I'm not sure whether it rewrites all the links to point to local copies), but there is a (slight) caveat: websites and their administrators HATE this sort-of behaviour. Depending on how much you download, this can put an enormous strain on a server. If you want a good list of these sorts of programs, you can look at what programs wikipedia bans in its robots.txt: [3] (look at the note on wget, for instance). If you do this, please act responsibly, and not completely crash the server you're downloading from. 90.235.4.253 (talk) 21:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're only downloading one copy of things it's usually not that bad. Wget only really runs into trouble if you're flooding the server with requests (rather than just one at a time) or if you instruct it to download massive amounts of giant file sizes (e.g. videos and etc.). But just mirroring sites is usually not any more server strain than browsing usually is. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:00, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The -k or --convert-links option to wget should alter the links to allow local viewing. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Using a Windows machine? Try HTTrack. It's easy to use, and robust. There are also Firefox extensions that can do this; I've used one called ScrapBook to good effect, except that it doesn't maintain releative paths (e.g. all the HTML gets dumped into one big directory with all the images, etc., which is fine if you are just saving the page to view it later—it'll all work just fine in Firefox—but not so good if you're doing web development with it and need it to be a perfect mirroring of the file structure, not just the appearance). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:00, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers so far. And yes, it is a Windows machine. StuRat (talk) 19:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

search for websites

Can you tell me the websites that are about crucifixions?24.165.11.18 (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

You can search the Internet for this information using a search engine like Google or Yahoo!. Go to google.com, type "crucifixions" into the box, and click "google search". You'll then get a list of the websites related to crucifixions. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

vanishing phone numbers

As I wrote on August 23, whenever I get a page or email listing a phone number, it simply vanishes from the screen. Like, if someone sends me an email with their telephone number, it will briefly show up and then fade away. Also if I look up a phone number on White Pages.com the same thing happens. I also will be on a site looking up (say for instance the nearest Walgreens) Walgreens.com will show the store address and phone number and before I can write it down it fades away. This is very puzzling to me. I don't recall this happening in the past....just the past couple of months. I haven't been doing anything different with my computer lately. Does anyone else have this problem64.184.124.178 (talk) 23:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It's only phone numbers that disappear? Does it just leave a white space where it was? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 23:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's a screensaver coming on (or backlighting on a backlit screen going off). Moving the mouse will bring it back if this is the case. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Please don't repost the same question each day. You will continue to get answers where you originally posted: [4]. StuRat (talk) 00:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

August 25

Were can I get Automatix?

I have been searching for Automatix but I can't find the .deb file! Since the Official website is offline, it is even harder to get... yeah, I know Automatix does not work on Ubuntu 8.04 and that there is a new alternative (Ultamatix), but what I was looking for was really Automatix (lets say it's for "hack value")... could someone provide me a link or something? Does anyone still keeps the old .deb? Thanks SF007 (talk) 03:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi SF007. I think you meean Automatix (software), as "Automatix" redirects to a robot company.78.144.151.118 (talk) 10:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, yes, exactly, I already fixed the link, Thanks! SF007 (talk) 17:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Pirate Bay has it [5]. Yes, they have lots of illegal torrents, I don't think this is one of them.My name is anetta (talk) 19:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately is has no seeds... :( SF007 (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Booting from the right partition using Grub

I have following partitions on my HDD:

/devsda1 extended with /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 on it /dev/sda2 /dev/sda3 /dev/sda4

In sda6 and sda4 I have some Linux flavor installed. However, always when I try to boot from sda6, it boots from sda4.

Here is my menu.lst file:

 title Ubuntu1 (on /dev/hda4)
 root (hd0,3)
 kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=1048576 rw acpi=off
 initrd /casper/initrd.gz

 title Ubuntu2 (on /dev/hda6)
 root (hd0,5)
 kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=1048576 rw acpi=off
 initrd /casper/initrd.gz

What is wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 11:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible that your menu.lst is out of sync with what's actually written on your boot sector? --Sean 14:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I recommended the super grub disk live cd in a previous thread, and I'll do it again. It might help you diagnose the problem. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Where is the 'crop' function on Inkscape???

does anyone know...i just cant find it:( thanks--84.64.116.193 (talk) 12:49, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You want to go to "Document Properties" and change the page size. —Bkell (talk) 13:50, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You can't crop in the way you can in photoshop. You can just change the page size which means that elements outside of the page area won't be rendered or printed. But you can't crop a vector graphic in the same way that you can in photoshop with a raster graphic. It doesn't work that way. (Either in Inkscape or any other program, e.g. Illustrator) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Isn't what you want the "Intersection" of a group of objects with another object? Just place a rectangle or any other shape on top of what you want to crop and perform a Path -> Intersection. --Juliano (T) 15:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

But how well this will work can depend on the complexity of the objects you are applying it to. I've had trouble getting things like that to work with very complicated (e.g. lots of nested groups) objects. --140.247.40.116 (talk) 20:55, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's one possibility: Group the objects you want to crop, draw a rectangle over the objects, then select Object -> Clip -> Set. However, with this method the full objects are still stored. You can undo the clip by choosing Object -> Clip -> Release. --70.129.130.202 (talk) 01:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Scanning and printing

Is it possible to print a document which is being scanned in at the same time like a photocopier using a scanner and printer? Clover345 (talk) 16:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you can do that, at least not with most scanner/printer combinations. You can, however, make scanning and printing a little faster by scanning the next page while the current page is being printed. (You can start scanning the next page as soon as the previous page has finished scanning. You don't have to wait until it's come out of the printer.) --71.162.241.230 (talk) 16:53, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

This will depend on your hardware. My father's combined scanner-printer has a 'photocopy' button that works without any input from a computer. Algebraist 17:05, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Does that scanner-printer start printing a page while the page is still being scanned? --71.162.241.230 (talk) 17:12, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. Algebraist 17:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

My HP MPC does that, an old 1210 IIRC. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Taking a snapshot of a computer's software/hardware configurations

When you have a new computer, how do you take a snapshot of its initial software/hardware configurations so that in the future you can, if you want to, find out what changes later-installed software has made to the system? What are some good tools for this purpose? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.241.230 (talk) 16:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

On Windows (at least XP), Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore, and create a restore point. You'll need to keep track of the month/day/year of when you do it, since you restore by date. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a general note: So much stuff gets changed/edited/deleted in just the normal use of your computer such a comparison with comparison points more than a week apart would be hard to decipher. It IS possible, however. Let me see if I can dig some stuff up for your when I get home. --mboverload@ 03:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Help with python code.

Hi. I'm trying to do this problem using python, but I'm stuck at determining whether a number is a Lychrel number, since the function I'm defining to do it doesn't seem to be returning the right values. Here's the code:

#This function tests if n is a palindromic number, returning 1 if it is and 0 if it isn't.

1. Tested separately and works.

def testpal(n):

   s = str(n)
   l = len(s)
   c = 0 #truth counter - is added to if the nth digit from the start is equal to the nth digit from the end. 
   if l <=1:
       return "Error"
   elif l % 2 == 0: #even number of digits case
       for i in range(0,l/2):
           if s[i] == s[l-(1+i)]:
               c = c+1
       if c == l/2: #compares c to what it should be if n is a palindrome
           return 1
       else:
           return 0
   else: #odd number of digits case
       for i in range(0,(l-1)/2):
           if s[i] == s[l-(1+i)]:
               c = c+1
       if c == (l-1)/2: #compares c to what it should be if n is a palindrome
           return 1
       else:
           return 0

1. Takes an integer input and reverses it, outputting as an integer.
2. tested separately and works.

def switch(n):

   f = ""
   s = str(n)
   l = len(s)
   for i in range(0,l):
       f = f + s[(l-1)-i]
   return int(f)

1. test to see if switch works
2. print switch("house")

1. main function to test if n is a lychrel number. c allows recursive calls while being able to cut off at 50
2. should return true when n is a lychrel number, and false when it isn't, but seems to return false regardless

def testlych(n,c):

   if c <= 5: #would be 50 for real testing, but this makes stepping through in the debugger quicker for known numbers.
       m = n + switch(n)
       if testpal(m):
           return 0
       else:
           testlych(m,c+1) #each call increases c by 1, so will be cut off by if statement above when needed
   else:
       return 1
       

1. an alias to make typing the test quicker. not tested yet, so not using.
2. test(n) = testlych(n,1)

print testlych(196,1) #should be None - is.

print testlych(47,1) #should be 1, is 0

I think there might be something wrong with my understanding of the differences between 1/0/True/False/None, but I've written stuff before that uses the same approach, and seems to work. Thanks for any help you can give. 91.143.188.103 (talk) 17:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not the best idea to return 1 when you mean True, even if a given language doesn't distinguish between the two, but strictly that shouldn't break things. But really I don't understand why testlych is recursive (wouldn't a loop do?). The following works, at least for the examples given on that article:

def reverse(s):
    result=''
    length = len(s)
    for x in range(0,length):
        result+=s[length-1-x]
    return result

def isPalindromicNumber(i):
    s = str(i)
    return s==reverse(s)

def testLychrel(i, maxIterations):
    iterations=0

    while iterations < maxIterations:
        if isPalindromicNumber(i):
            print 'resolves to palindrome %d after %d iterations' % (i,iterations)
            return
        
        i = i + int(reverse(str(i)))
        iterations += 1

    print 'failed'

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The original code was almost correct (although the rewrite is a lot cleaner). A call to testlych can go 3 different ways: it reaches the limit of 5 levels deep and returns 1, or it finds a palindrome and returns 0, or it recurses and returns... what?

testlych(m,c+1)

The value returned from the recursive call is not used. And what happens after the recursive call? The inner "else" branch is finished, and the outer "else" branch is not entered because the outer "if" was true. The next thing that happens is therefore falling of the end of the function, which is where your "None" came from. What it should do is return the value that the recursive call returned, like this:

return testlych(m,c+1)

Also, the "should be" comments by the test cases are wrong but that won't be too hard to fix. And yeah, the whole thing would have been more clear without recursion, but this looks like a beginner-level programming exercise. Let's not just tell the beginner "your approach sucks, start over" when they were just 1 keyword away from an working program, however convoluted it may be.

(Sidebar: doesn't python have a built-in string reverse function? It's weird seeing 2 people in a row reinvent that wheel. perl's got one...) --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 07:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say anything that remotely resembles "your approach sucks", I said "I don't understand why"; my code is essentially the OP's code tidied up a bit. Python does have a string reverse feature, where s[::-1] is the reverse of string s (cf Python extended slice notation), but I used essentially the author's approach so he'd know what was going on. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 09:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I rewrote it using a loop and that worked, but now I get why what I had wasn't working. 91.143.188.103 (talk) 16:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Why the heck are you guys messing around with strings? In C++:

 bool isPalindromic ( int n )
 {
   int rev_n = 0 ;
   while ( n > 0 )
   {
     rev_n = rev_n * 10 + n % 10 ;
     n /= 10 ;
   }
   return n == rev_n ;
 }

Way faster - using much less memory and no external libraries.

SteveBaker (talk) 00:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

By the time you get to that return, won't n be 0, so will always return false? That's what happened when I tried translating it into python. Copying over the value of n to use in the calculations, and using the original n for the comparison, I get

def isPalindromic(n):
 	rev_n = 0
 	new_n = n
 	while new_n > 0:
 		rev_n = rev_n * 10 + new_n % 10
 		new_n = new_n/10
 	return n == rev_n

which works. (as an aside, this is the first time I've come across when python's floor division is actually helpful, rather than an encumbrance). 91.143.188.103 (talk) 14:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

windows vista OEM dvd

A shopping website says windows Vista home basic OEM DVD (for sale). What does the OEM here mean? Is it the normal windows vista? Can I buy and will I be able to install it ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.108.49 (talk) 17:23, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

OEM means original equipment manufacturer. It ls the normal Windows Vista. It has one limitation, however: once you install it on your computer and activate it, it will be locked to that computer, and you will not be not permitted to install it on a future computer that you buy, even if you uninstall it on the first computer. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Plus, support provided by Microsoft for the product is more limited. I think you get one free support incident, which expires after 1 year, or something like that. After that, it's $$$. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Finding appropriate RAM

I have a really old computer that was given to me long ago, running Windows 98 Second Edition. All the labels on it have been taken off, so I'm not completely sure what brand of computer it is. It also has one 64MB stick of RAM, and I'd like to add more. Unfortunately, any labels on the RAM were taken off as well, so I don't know what type of RAM to choose... How would I be able to tell? Based on the information briefly provided during boot, I believe it might be an ASUS computer, but I'm not entirely sure. As for the RAM... how would I be able to tell the type and buy more of the appropriate ones? Thanks, Valens Impérial Császár 93 18:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

A piece of diagnostics software like SiSoft Sandra may be able to identify the components in your computer. Of course, finding upgrade parts for a machine that old may be a bit of a challenge in itself, though luckily there's a lot of second hand hardware out there. Alternatively, you can simply remove the RAM and try and identify its type by sight; going by the age of your computer, there's a good chance it's PC100, but of course it doesn't have to be. Another way to go about it would be to look up serial numbers stamped on the parts and simply feeding them into Google; getting a positive identification that way is pretty likely. Good luck, you may well have your work cut out for you, though. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Before you rush out and buy a memory stick - you might want to check places like eBay and Craigslist for used computers. For something that old, it might actually be cheaper to buy an ancient used computer than to buy that memory stick. As components like that become obsolete, their new prices go up - not down! SteveBaker (talk) 18:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

wireless control

What is a good free replacement for the wireless control in windows? Something I can download. Thank you. 79.75.211.94 (talk) 18:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Google Earth

If it was possible to download the entire terrain map of google earth, how much data would it consist of? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.38.227 (talk) 18:44, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I can't find anything about the terrain (elevation) data, but in late 2006 the raw imagery took up 70.5 terabytes. It's likely somewhere in the order of hundreds of terabytes now. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 19:18, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Does Google even offer it for download at once? Kushal (talk) 20:42, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The elevation data probably doesn't take up more than a few tens of gigabytes. Heightfields don't take up much space, and irregular meshes take up even less. --Carnildo (talk) 23:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

What i meant was how much data would the entire satellite map be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.40.38 (talk) 17:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, their maximum resolution is tremendously variable - in places, they have aircraft-based photography down to as little as 10 cm per pixel - in others it's ancient "Landsat 7" satellite data that is at 15 meters per pixel. They don't hold photos of oceans at significant resolution so we can neglect that and concentrate only on the land area. The earth has about 150 million square kilometers of land area. So, we can come up with a range of values.

• The most it could be would be if the whole thing was held at maximum quality (10cm per pixel) with 3 bytes (red+green+blue) per pixel and no 'lossy' data compression: then you'd need 3 x 10,000 x 10,000 bytes per square kilometer (300 Mbytes) for a total of 150Mx300M bytes. That's 45,000 terabytes. However, those images would certainly be highly compressed - you can easily get 50:1 image compression if you aren't too fussy about quality - but you're still down to 1,000 terabytes. That's not an unreasonable amount for a large company like Google - you could store it on a computer cluster costing maybe a couple of million dollars...but it's WAY too much to have at home!

• At the other end of the scale, much of the wild/undeveloped places of the world has only 15 meter resolution satellite data. Then you only need 3 x 66 x 66 = 13,300 bytes per square kilometer, 150M x 13K = 1,950 Gigabytes without compression - 40 Gigabytes with aggressive compression. That's certainly do-able. Most computers have drives of at least 100Gbytes these days...it would fit handily on a single dual-layer Blu-Ray disk. So it's a fair chunk - but definitely do-able.

I believe that Google's elevation data came originally from the NASA Space Shuttle mission that used radar techniques to measure the elevation of the entire earth to about 5m precision. You can actually legally download and use that from the NASA website. Height data takes a couple of bytes per "pixel" - but it's much more compressible than photographic data because there terrain typically slopes fairly gently and there are large flat areas in any typical chunk of terrain. Storing it as a pre-triangulated "mesh" is an effective means of compressing the data - and it makes it easier to draw. I did actually store this stuff on my PC once - but I don't recall how big it all was.

So for the color data - the answer is somewhere between "impossible" and "just about do-able" - depending on what percentage of the earth's surface is stored at high resolution. Sadly, I have no clue what that percentage is...but I think it's safe to say that it's going to be too much to store on a "normal" home computer. For the height data, it's definitely in the "do-able" range.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Youtube videos in iPod

Can iPods support videos from Youtube? --88.104.205.21 (talk) 19:20, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please download the flv file with some kind of flv download helper (available as addons on the ever more popular Mozilla Firefox), and then use iSquint to convert it into an mp4 file. iSquint can add the product to iTunes for you and then you know how to copy it to your iPod. (Help is available on helping move files from iTunes to the iPod as well, just let us know you need help.)

I would ask the lonelygirl15 production team or the Chris Crocker (Internet celebrity) production team for permission before sharing those files over iTunes. Not out of fear of litigation, but just out of common courtesy.

Hope that helps,

Kushal (talk) 20:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Lexmark 2400 series printer on a mac

I have a Lexmark 2480 series printer (looks like this). Its serial number is 05141445687 2007/04. The CD says "Installation software and user's guides for use with Windows and Macintosh" but I AU CNET says the printer does not work with Mac. Please help. Kushal (talk) 20:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Which version of the Mac OS? And have you tried just, you know, adding the printer in OS X? Leopard includes several Lexmark printer drivers... -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I am on Tiger 10.4.11 :( Any hope? Kushal (talk) 02:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it the same as a Z2400? According to [6], that seems to be bundled with Tiger. Again, try just adding the printer through OSX's printer utility, or http://127.0.0.1:631. If it's not bundled, the drivers should be downloadable at [7] (or some page linked off it), if they're available at all. If they're not, and they're not on the CD, then you're screwed. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:48, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd trust the manual more than a website. One thing- it's not an old enough printer to have drivers for OS 9 is it? JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's the X2480 (Again, there are some naming confusion here. Is it X or Z or some other letter? On the Lexmark website, the only product that matches 2480 is X2480.), OpenPrinting lists no open-source drivers for X2480, which likely means that OS X doesn't come with drivers for it. Existing threads on the OpenPrinting forum seeking drivers for similar X2450, X2470 turned up absolutely nothing. --71.141.120.68 (talk) 03:55, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This is what the printer looks exactly like. I am not sure what model the printer is. The CD that comes with the printer says it is a 2480 series. Could someone help me, please? School is starting and having a printer, scanner, copier would be awesome. I don't need to do a lot of printing in my room but having a printer/scanner in my room would be very convenient. Kushal (talk) 16:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting the feeling I'm typing to a brickwall here.

1. Try the CD
2. Try simply installing the printer to see if the driver is bundled with OS X

If those fail, you're screwed. Simple as that. On the Lexmark site, I see that exact printer listed as "X2480", and they do not have OS X drivers available for download. They have Mac knowledge base articles linked from it, which might mean that the driver is included in OS X, but it might mean absolutely nothing. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I know chances are slim but is there a slim possibility that I be able to use the printer for scanning, at least? Kushal (talk) 03:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No response? I am pretty sure an industrious programmer working at home would have figured out how if Lexmark just freed the software at their end. Big bummer. Boo, Lexmark! Kushal (talk) 19:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

CSS question

Is there a way to encapsulate some text in a SPAN in a way to keep it from breaking?

That is, I know non-breaking spaces can be used to keep spaces from breaking. But I want to keep the contents of an arbitrary SPAN from breaking.

In this particular case, I have something like this:

<img src="someimage.png">.¹

I know an inline IMG is not exactly best practice but for this particular application it's sort of the best thing I've found to work (using pure-CSS solutions fails more than it works in this particular case when it comes to cross-browser compatibility).

What properties should I give to the SPAN to keep the browser from breaking the line at the period and entity? One obvious way is to encapsulate the entire thing in a TABLE element but that's about the worst idea I can think of from a standards point of view. --140.247.40.116 (talk) 20:49, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Setting white-space to nowrap should do the trick — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 20:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant, thank you! --140.247.40.116 (talk) 21:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Online storage facilites

Hello Wikipedia,

I would really like your thoughts on online storage companies. Essentially, rather than spend my money on a big clunky laptop with lots of storage space, i'd love to take advantage of having a good internet connection and buy a light, portable laptop and store all my work (Adobe illustrations etc) online. (i do have a normal external hard drive but really hate using it -its just too 'fiddly' plugging it in and out.. i'm quite badly organised.)

My two main concerns are: 1) Is there a reliable 'brand' that won't lose my data or make it difficult to get at.

2) do they generally offer some guarantee of privacy? i don't mind a computer looking at my stuff (and then targeting adverts accordingly -e.g. gmail) but i do mind a human doing it.

Is my web 2.0 dream a possibility? if any knows any good companies then that would be great.

Thanks,

82.22.4.63 (talk) 21:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC) p.s. i'm in the UK if that makes any difference at all

1) Go for bigger brands. With the size of their infrastructure, they are more likely to be reliable.

I suggest you avoid Web2. It is not yet widespread, and I have found that the tried and tested stuff just works, simply.

Have you considered the size of Adobe Illustrator files? They might be large.

What platform have you got? If it's Mac OSX, avoid MobileMe for the meantime. They have had lots of problems.

Are you going to use a backup utility, like Apple Inc.'s Time Machine (software)? Possibly rsync?My name is anetta (talk) 22:02, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Amazon S3?My name is anetta (talk) 22:12, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

How fast is a "good internet connection"? For comparison, a USB hard drive is equivalent to about a 480 megabit per second connection, while an internal hard drive is about 1500 megabits per second. --Carnildo (talk) 23:56, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I don't like the idea of relying exclusively on someone else to protect data that I value. Two things that make backing up to the external drive easier: (1) Reorganizing my data so that for the most part I select only a few top-level folders (e.g., one for work stuff, one for photos), and (2) having backup software that makes it easy to regularly do full backups ("copy everything in these folders") and, on a daily basis, do incremental ones ("copy everything that's new or changed"). The typical daily backup takes less than 4 minutes; the full backup, around 30.

This doesn't relate directly to your question, but for convenience I use a small docking station for my laptop. All the peripherals (printer, external hard drive, wireless connection for the mouse) are plugged into the docking station; reconnecting my laptop means only two cables (power cord and USB to docking station). I keep a spare power cord, spare mouse, and 2-gigabyte USB drive in my laptop bag. No crawling under the desk; much less fiddly. — OtherDave (talk) 09:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

For a simple backup of a single file I was working on, I used to "Save as" every time I opened it, and rename it as a sensible name and then followed by a number, which increased by one each time I saved it. Suppose I began with John, I would "Save as" "John2", then "John3" and so on, which was a defence against a file becoming corrupt. Of course, space wasn't at a premium, and you need to remember the number you saved as.My name is anetta (talk) 09:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

X11

I downloaded X11 from the Apple website, but every time I try to install it I get an error message saying that 'a newer version is already installed'. I have looked for this newer version on my iBook, but the Mac can't find it (it only finds the one I downloaded). I am sure I didn't install it from my Tiger DVD (which I have left at home - I am away for a few days), so the only version I should have should be the one I just downloaded. Can anyone explain what is happening here and is there any possible fix for this? Regards.--ChokinBako (talk) 22:44, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

If you do have X11, it'll be in Applications > Utilities > X11.app. Check to make sure you don't have it in there. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I recall that you couldn't download X11.app for Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger) or later from the Apple website (the download is only for 10.3?). X11.app is included as an optional install on the original install DVD. If you don't have the DVD, you can also try to download it from this unofficial site (I am not endorsing this site). --Spoon! (talk) 18:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

August 26

Array of strings

Hello folks, I am trying to put words into an array of strings as pointer arrays inside a loop. However, when I tried to display one of the string, turns out that every word in the array is the last word in the file. I did malloc but it didn't help. I'm lost in confusion now. Thanks. 60.240.161.162 (talk) 00:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

void loadData()
{
	char line[200];
	char *word;
	char *stoppedWords[500];
	FILE *bookPointer;
	FILE *stoppedPointer;
	int test = 0;

	bookPointer = fopen(BOOK_FILE, "r");
	stoppedPointer = fopen(STOPPED_FILE, "r");
	
	fgets(line, 100, stoppedPointer);
	
	while(test < 477)
	{
		word = strtok(line, "\n");
		fgets(line, 100, stoppedPointer);
		
		stoppedWords[test] = malloc(sizeof(word));
		
		if(stoppedWords[test] == NULL)
		{
		   printf("There is a fatal error. Exiting.\n");
		   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
		}
		else
		   stoppedWords[test] = word;
		
		test++;
	}
	printf("\n\n");
	printf("%s\n\n", stoppedWords[0]);
	
	fclose(bookPointer);
	fclose(stoppedPointer);
}

Most importantly, it looks like you're using strtok wrongly. See [8]. You should be using NULL instead of line as the first parameter after you first access that line, and keep doing so until you pull up the next line. strtok will remember which string you're dealing with; once it's cleared out the string, it'll return NULL, which is your end-of-line condition. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Most importantly (the way I see it), this code is written by someone who thinks C has strings. Strings are an illusion in C. You can't copy a string with the = operator, and you can't get the length of a string with the sizeof operator. You need strcpy(stoppedWords[test], word); instead of stoppedWords[test] = word; and malloc(strlen(word)+1) instead of malloc(sizeof(word)). The +1 is to make room for the terminating \0.

The strtok sure is bizarre though. I can't figure out what it's trying to do. All it's really doing is zeroing out the \n in a string which is about to be overwritten by an fgets anyway. Then there's the fact that 2 files are opened, but only one of them is used. Very confusing. And I'm not sure what the input file format is. One word per line? Multiple words separated by whitespace? That might explain why strtok showed up. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 08:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

And note, of course, that malloc(sizeof(word)) in this case will allocate whatever the size of the pointer is (4 bytes nowadays)? So you're scribbling somewhere on the heap, which may or may not mess you up. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Notice how the other bug prevented the first bug from causing memory corruption: the wrong amount of memory was allocated, and then it was leaked. Never used. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Mac Mail

I just tried to configure my Mac Mail to receive Gmail, but I seem to have made a mistake in the settings. Is it possible to modify the settings or even delete the account so I can start again?--ChokinBako (talk) 00:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean the program in OS X called "Mail" (otherwise known as Mail.app)? If so, then just go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably that, yes. You can also use "Prefs" to disable it temporarily, Gmail help has instructions on how to set it up, you could go over it again or try a different protocol. If you use POP, try IMAP, or vice versa. My name is anetta (talk) 09:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

AMS Runtime

Ok, I tried to extract a file on my computer, and it gives me an error that says AMS Runtime Error: Extract Error 9. What does that mean? What can I do about it to make the file work? And I'm positive that the file itself is fine and not corrupt or anything. Please help!

--Screwball23 talk 00:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Weird spam message

I recently got an e-mail message consisting only of the words:

limpkin turbidity superlunary? dragon, cervantes ponder. sealant superlunary visionary visionary superlunary deaf, tradesman schlesinger compositor lecher calculable rightward.

caine hove dragon

appellate galway schottky? hove, insoluble collimate. blowback schlesinger denture examination attributive schlesinger, limpkin compositor photolysis backbone lecher ponder.

dragon assume selectmen

examination activation galway? paprika, pagoda limpkin.

scripture activation.

It's obviously some sort of spam, but I have no idea how it sells anything? Anyone have any guesses? Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 01:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, this sort of use of random words to evade spamfilters is called Bayesian poisoning. I can't help you with the point of the message. Algebraist 01:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they're trying to send spamfilter-evading messages to random addresses to tell which ones are active (by way of the fact that your e-mail is returned if you send it to a nonexistent address) and then spam the ones that work. Does that seem likely? Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 01:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more effective to just send those addresses spam in the first place, if that were the ultimate goal anyways? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a Markov chain, incidentally. (As an aside, I suppose these sorts of things are our modern era's numbers stations, in a way.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think it's Markov specifically? Algebraist 02:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't really look like that, it's pretty dang random. I'd bet on bayesian poisoning over anything else. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

What's the spammer's purpose? Presumably this is not intended for display, and what you're supposed to see is instead some graphic. Either you've set up your browser to ignore or reject the graphic, or the spammer is too clueless even to succeed in attaching or linking to it. -- Hoary (talk) 09:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you have a secret admirer wooing you with absurdist poetry? --Sean 12:33, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

For sure it's a spammer. The idea is that the software that detects what is spam and what is email that you actually want to read uses statistical measurements of word usage in the mail and it "learns" the patterns that you, personally, like to read and the patterns you reject. (This is the "bayesian" thing). By sending lots of gibberish - or long sections of non-advertising (like long quotations from books and such) they hope to drown out the statistical analysis of spam and non-spam and thereby make bayesian spam detection work less well. If you spam filter has learned that any email containing the words "guaranteed", "v*agra" and "buy" is 85% likely to be spam - then now it also has to knows that some spam contains "limpkin turbidity superlunary" and that mail that DOESN'T contain those words is therefore LESS likely to be spam. This generally reduces the filter certainty when it sees: "buy guaranteed v*gra!". So sending you occasional chunks of gibberish makes it easier for subsequent spam to make it past your detectors. SteveBaker (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't work against a good spam filter, though: it'll just learn "limpkin", "turbidity", and "superlunary" as additional spam words, without reducing the spam probability of "guaranteed", "v*agra" and "buy". --Carnildo (talk) 21:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The idea could be to make it falsely detect mail containing those words as spam, thus making more likely to look at your spam e-mail occasionally (and presumably buy v*gra). Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 23:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

For that, wouldn't you want more words likely to appear in genuine emails? Algebraist 23:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Constant freezing when accessing wikipedia using Windows 2000 IE 6

We constantly encounter issues with page freezing when accessing Wikipedia (English) using Windows 2000 workstations and IE6. Please let me know if this has been escalated before? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.193.1.6 (talk) 01:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This board is more for general computer-related questions than Wikipedia tech support. A better board would be Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

WAIT. I have the same problem with IE6. --mboverload@ 02:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I've moved the question over to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Constant_freezing_when_accessing_wikipedia_using_Windows_2000_IE_6, hopefully get some more eyes on it. Probably best to move discussion over there just to centralize it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Apache/Windows

Running Apache on Windows, how can I set up a scheduled check that the service is running, and if it isn't, start it? The service has a tendency to crash, thanks probably to modperl and a perl script I'm running (this is a personal server). I'm envisioning a scheduled batch file that checks the output of "httpd -k start", but I've never done batch-file "scripting" (was always under the impression that it is pretty limited in capability). Thanks. Whiskeydog (talk) 02:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Batch file scripting will make you cry; stay well away. Since you've already got Perl installed, the following program should do it:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
for (;;) {
    system("httpd -k start");  # assuming this is harmless if it's already started
    sleep 60;
}

The "-k start" thing is Windows-only, so I don't really know what it does, but that's the idea. --Sean 11:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll try that. Yes, the command is harmless if already running. And to imagine I never thought of using Perl. "This is your brain. This is your brain on Windows."  :) The Apache service itself can be configured at the Windows OS level to take certain actions upon service "failure", but I don't think it's seeing what happens when my installation crashes as a "failure". Whiskeydog (talk) 22:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

backing up the system

Hi - I've received a microsoft XP service pack, and it's asking me to back up the system - forgive my naivete, but I know how to back up files, but not the system. Can anyone tell me how, please?

Ta,

Adambrowne666 (talk) 03:03, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

What size of stuff do you want to backup, and do you have a DVD Drive to burn to, or external HD to put them on? Or you could use an online backup.My name is anetta (talk) 09:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

thanks, but I don't know the answers to those questions: I don't even know what they mean by 'system' - what system am I to back up? Adambrowne666 (talk) 09:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well it's just another way of saying there is a very very small chance this service pack with completely screw up your computer and you may need to format it and start from scratch. In my case, and the vast majority of others, the service pack goes in fine, but just in case, so you can't say you weren't warned, you should have back ups of everything. So system means windows, your files, plus any other applications you use, pretty much everything you'd need to get it back to how it is if your computer was completely wiped. Vespine (talk) 11:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, KISS - keep it simple stupid. Are you using Windows XP?78.144.131.106 (talk) 11:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well i hope so, otherwise the microsoft xp service pack isn't going to do them much good ;) Vespine (talk) 11:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, we do need to keep it simple; like all autodidacts, I have big holes in my knowledge - it is XP, as you say, Vespine. Adambrowne666 (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Vespine seems to have nailed it in his first reply - the SP3 update is "simply" telling you to back up everything on your computer, most importantly all files that could not or would not be recreated by re-installing the operating system and applications. This would include any documents, photos, MP3s, etc that you yourself have created or downloaded. I rashly allowed the installation to proceed last night without doing any backup, and I even left the room while it was doing its thing. I did, however, exit all other applications that I'd been running. Once it was finished and called for a reboot, I crossed my fingers and clicked OK; everything seems to be working fine since then.

Yes, I am sorry I didn't read your question the first time :-) 78.144.131.106 (talk) 19:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

That's great - thanks, all - yes, I was worried 'system' meant all the software in the pc or something - anyway, backed up, loaded the pack, and all's well - thanks again. Adambrowne666 (talk) 12:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Nobody expects the flashing question mark!

My MacBook freezes and when I turn it back on I get the flashing question mark. I've tried zapping the PRAM and reinstalling OS X with the disk, but on the "Select a Destination" screen it can't find my hard drive. What do I do? (Oh, and if this helps, the computer makes the infamous clicking sound until I insert the install disk.) --Lazar Taxon (talk) 04:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

You could see if it's a problem with your internal drive, by plugging in an external drive. See if it recognises that one, and if it does, reinstall. If the superdrive is a problem, can you use a USB optical drive as well?My name is anetta (talk) 09:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a hard drive problem. Have you tried taking it to an Apple store? They'll be able to tell you whether it's something that can be quickly fixed on your end or whether you'll need to send it in. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm gonna be taking it to an Apple Store. I've heard it has something to do with faulty Seagate hard drives? I've read that this has happened to some people more than once - is this a problem that's been fixed? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 02:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Debian network error?

After installing Debian, my computer can't connect to the Internet. "Ping" gives "connect: network is unreachable". This is strange because the system was installed by downloading packages from the Internet while installing. I can, however, access the Internet from the rescue shell that came with the installation CD. Any ideas? I've tried restarting the computer, unplugging the router, and even reinstalling the entire OS. Same result. --99.237.101.48 (talk) 08:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I wonder why ping is trying to connect to something. It's ICMP; there are no connections.

(Time passes...)

Oh great, ping in Debian has been replaced by something stupid that uses UDP. How could they mess up something so fundamental? Well that's not your main problem. Tell us how far you can get in this general network diagnostic sequence:

1. Driver check: Does the kernel recognize the network interface? Run "ifconfig -a". On the left there are interface names like "eth0" and "lo" and each one has a paragraph of information to the right. In this step all we care about is whether eth0 is in the list or not. If it's there, go to step 2. Also make a note of any extra "eth" entries (eth1, eth2, etc.) If it's not, tell us what you do have in the left hand column.
2. Link layer: Does your ethernet card report a link? Run "mii-tool". It should report "link ok" and the link speed. If not, try running "ethtool eth0" instead. That should say "Link detected: yes" at the bottom. If you've got an eth1, eth2, etc., run "ethtool eth1" and "ethtool eth2" also. Once you've found the active link, go to step 3. If you don't have a link anywhere, this is a problem with the cable or with the switch/router/modem on the other end of the cable... or a wireless negotiation problem if that's the type of connection you've got.
3. IP layer: Run "ifconfig eth0" (and/or "ifconfig eth1", "ifconfig eth2", etc.) Is there an "inet addr" listed? (It'll probably be on the second line.) Is the keyword "UP" present? (It'll probably be on the third or fourth line.) If yes to both, go to step 4. Otherwise stop here and show us the contents of your /etc/network/interfaces.
4. Routing table: Run "netstat -rn". Is there a line with "0.0.0.0" in the Destination column? If yes, go to step 5. Otherwise stop here and show us the contents of your /etc/network/interfaces.
5. Gateway test: In the netstat -rn list, find the line with "0.0.0.0" in the Destination column and then move over to the Gateway column. The address there is your default gateway; it should be the address of your home router if you have one, otherwise it'll be the address of the ISP router that serves your area. Whatever address you found there, ping it. If the ping succeeds, go to step 6. If it says something about being unreachable, stop here. If it just sits there doing nothing, it could just be a stubborn router refusing to reply to pings so go ahead to step 6 anyway.
6. Getting Out To The World: Run "traceroute -n 4.2.2.1". It may be slow, so be patient. If successful, it will end with a line showing 4.2.2.1 and a list of times in milliseconds. You can move on to step 7. If unsuccessful, show us the last 2 lines. If you got several lines of stars at the end, just show one of the lines of stars, and the line before it.
7. DNS test: Run "dig www.wikipedia.org". This is the last step so if you get this far, tell us what it says.

--tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The system recognizes eth0, the only Ethernet port I have, but "mii-tool" yields "no MII interfaces found". I've never had any previous connection problems with this computer, so I'm puzzled as to what can possibly be preventing Internet access. --99.237.101.48 (talk) 03:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You know, I spent like an hour writing a network diagnostic run-through covering lots of different possible endings; and this is a stupid place to do it because in a few days it'll be archived where nobody else will ever see it so it was basically done just for you. And you didn't even spend 10 seconds to read where it says if mii-tool doesn't give the right answer, run "ethtool eth0". It's quite insulting really. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I tried "ethtool" but the command does not exist on Debian. Because of this, I assumed that you meant both "mii-tool

and "ethtool" can be used, whichever exists.  I apologize for misunderstanding the "if not" part, but rest assured that I read your entire post and appreciate/appreciated your help.  --99.237.101.48 (talk) 03:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Web-page as a single file

How can I save a web-page in one single file (not html + some folder with the images)? I know there is mhtml, however, the Linux browser that I use doesn't support it. Any other solution?Mr.K. (talk) 10:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

For archiving and "transmission" purposes, I'd save as HTML and separate images and then put the whole lot in a single zip file. (I know you mentioned MHTML yourself, but there are references on that page to convertors to other linux archive formats which may help). -- SGBailey (talk) 11:55, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

A web page is HTML - which does not contain pictures. Those are embedded from separate files. To have the pictures part of the page, you have to use a different format such as the open document format or PDF. There are many HTML to (whatever) converters. In Windows, you can use the PDFCreator thing to print the web page directly to a PDF file. -- kainaw™ 12:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem about using a zip file is that in this case I will not be able to open it with one click, right? I´ll try converting all to pdf files and save them as that, since I don´t have to update them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 13:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Firefox supports the jar: uri scheme, which allows it to access resources from a JAR file (which, for our purposes, is just a ZIP file with a .jar extension). Here's a simple example - first to make a JARred website (you'd just copy files, the echo thing is just to make my illustration easy for me) :

    echo "<h1>page1</h1><a href=p2.html>p2</href>" > index.html
    echo "<h1>page2</h1><a href=index.html>p1</a><img src=foo.jpg>"> p2.html
    zip fin.jar index.html p2.html foo.jpg
 

(foo.jpg is already in that directory; this zip creates the archive /home/fin/Desktop/jar/fin.jar)

then I point my firefox at the following (admittedly rather byzantine) URL: jar:file:///home/fin/Desktop/jar/fin.jar!/index.html and it works like a little self contained website. I'm not aware of any restriction on what (client-side, natch) stuff you can put in there. This scheme (in one form or another) has I think been in firefox since it was Netscape, and is used in some WHATWG standards (whether officially adopted or not I don't know). The only (mild) snafu is that you can't open it with one click, as .JAR is generally associated with the Java language runtime, not with Firefox. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

targeting and other technology for advertising agency

we are planning to start an online advertising agency, a niche one I must say. Is there any company out there which provides things like targeting technology, bid matching algorithms and technology, an base software engine which we can buy and use it as our matching engine, etc? Does double click, the company acquires by google provide targeting information and technology? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.31.2 (talk) 10:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Help

I have created a document and cannot get it onto a computer other than my own. I need that document for school. I've tried printing it, but my printer doesn't work. I've tried e-mailing it to myself, but the e-mail program freezes when I try to add an attachment. I've tried copy-pasting the source of my document into the source of my e-mail, but it takes a while to respond to the sending and when it does respond, I get a warning message saying "Unknown" and the e-mail does not send. I could copy it to a CD, but it instead copies to the folder called something like "To Be Written to the CD". So now what can I do? February 15, 2009 (talk) 12:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Webmail?78.144.131.106 (talk) 12:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Once it is in the 'to be written to CD' folder put a CD in your CD-writer drive and choose to 'burn' the contents to the CD. Alternatively borrow a USB stick and transfer it onto that. Alternative to that try opening the document on your PC and saving a copy (file > save as) and try saving it in a different format (if it's word try word 97 for example). Then try emailing it/doing what you've done so far again with that version. It could be that the file has corrupted. Also if the file has a certain name it could confuse the system. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 13:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Try using Gmail, it's pretty good about attachments. Or get a cheap USB stick—you can get a GB of space for only a $10 or so, and it sounds like you'll run into this problem in the future, too, so it'll be a good investment. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

And even if you don't own a USB memory stick, most MP3 players, many digital cameras and even some cellphones can be used just like a USB memory stick! SteveBaker (talk) 17:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(If you're really desperate - you could copy/paste it into your Wikipedia User: page then retrieve it online once you get to school. But that's against Wikipedia policy - so don't tell anyone I told you that!) SteveBaker (talk) 17:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Windows wont accept four related fonts

I am using Windows XP and have been sent four .ttf font files from a user of Kubuntu Linux. I am trying to install the fonts but Windows will only install one because it seems to think that they're all the same font. They are in-fact different variations of the same font (e.g. bold or oblique etc). Thus, I can uninstall and install any single one of these fonts but not have them all installed at the same time which is madness. There must be some attribute that needs to be renamed before Windows will accept that they are different fonts (it is not the filename). What can I do to install these into Windows? ----Seans Potato Business 14:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, supposedly it should understand them to be the same family, and then when you make the font bold, italic, etc. it should transparently reference the new font files. Supposedly. I've noticed some programs, like Microsoft Word, are very bad at font management and sometimes do this and sometimes put every style as its own font. But, again, the thing is that you are in fact installing four files into one family, which should show up as one font in your menus. Programs made especially for design, for example, like Adobe InDesign, will have a very elaborate font style menu that goes way beyond the simple Bold and Italic buttons in Word, to reflect all of the many variations that fonts can have (e.g. light, light oblique, heavy, condensed heavy, etc.). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

August 26th, 2008

Question about included software in windows 3.1

In windows 3.1 their was a game included in which you built machines to solve problems. Does anybody know what this game is called and where i can find it? Thank you, Canadakid2 (talk) 14:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you thinking of The Incredible Machine? It was not a standard part of Windows, but may have been pre-loaded onto some systems. --LarryMac | Talk 14:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

There are a bunch of sequels and variations on The Incredible Machine - I recommend "The Incredible Toon Machine" - similar gameplay - but much funnier animations as you try to help the cat, the dog and the mouse in their epic struggle. SteveBaker (talk) 17:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

If you have a modern machine you might want to check out Crazy Machines 2, which is a fairly decent TIM clone with 3d graphics and physics and such. 88.211.96.3 (talk) 09:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Timing out on Firefox

I'm running Firefox 3.0.1 on an Pentium 4, w/ 500 MB RAM, running XP MCE version SP2. Every so often, when I try to go to another site or save a Wikipedia edit, it times out on me. Then, when I retry, there's no problem. I run Ad-Aware and have Norton. Any ideas? Clarityfiend (talk) 16:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It is most likely a DNS issue. If your status bar has "looking up wikipedia.org" for two minutes and then times out, it is DNS. If it looks it up and then times out, your computer lost connection to wikipedia.org. That is network and most likely your ISP (or the modem or router or wire...). -- kainaw™ 16:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

You really think it's a DNS issue? According to this nice little page I found with some googling, the default cache time for the Windows XP dns resolver is 24 hours. Unless Clarityfiend is making some big-ass, several day-spanning edits, I find it unlikely that en.wikipedia.org would disappear from the cache between the time he presses "edit page" and "save page". Certainly, even if the article is incorrect, a dns record doesn't just vanish within minutes.

I think it's much more likely that you simply have a spotty connection that sometimes doesn't let the pages through. What's your bandwidth? Do you have any other programs running in the background that uses up your bandwidth (Bittorrent would be a prime example)? Probably you just have a lousy ISP 90.235.4.253 (talk) 20:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Ehmm, well, turns out I was not entirely correct there, ehhmmm :) I just checked, and en.wikipedia.org has a TTL of 180 seconds on my computer. My bad! Kainaw is probably correct (although it could still be the spotty connection thing, but the DNS things seems likely too). 90.235.4.253 (talk) 20:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It's happening right now. I have 3 tabs in Firefox, but no other program running. It says "Loading..." on the tab and "Waiting for xyz.com" at the bottom. Windows Manager shows 0% network utilization and not much on the CPU front either. I can go into another tab and bring up a different site, so it's not a network problem. This didn't use to happen until recently, i.e. within the last few months. So does this confirm it's DNS? And what can/should I do about it? Clarityfiend (talk) 02:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's DNS, then there's nothing you can do. It's not exactly a server issue, but it sort of is. It's out of your control, so the only thing I can think of to do is to copy and paste your edit into something else (like Notepad) and wait until the site's back up.

But I'm not convinced this is a DNS thing- usually with that, it'll say something along the lines of "Internet Explorer (or Firefox, or Safari, or whatever) cannot find the server at www.xyz.com, yadda yadda yadda." You sure it's not an internet connection issue? Sometimes I'll get problems with my connection, it'll look like it's connected and everything, but it's really not. Although if other pages will come up, then that's not the issue. --Alinnisawest(talk) 02:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The "waiting for" means that it got DNS lookup and it is waiting for a response. This is a network problem. The first thing I normally replace is the network cable. In offices, they are usually well out of the way, but in homes they are commonly strung across floors or desks and get beat up. Once you get a hairline crack in a wire, you get intermittent data loss. Assuming replacing the cable doesn't help, check your ISP's service. It may be cable with a low signal or dial-up with static on the line. Who knows. Networks have a lot of components. -- kainaw™ 02:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Computer delay times

I am giving a presentation and I need a simplified computer structure to demonstrate the extremity of the difference between accessing memory and disk data. I cannot find a list of average computer data access times. How long does it take an average computer to access memory? How long does it take to swap a page of memory? How long does it take for a drive to write data to DMA? How long does it average seek time take? Is there a list somewhere of average computer times? -- kainaw™ 17:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

List of device bandwidths should have some of that info. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - that has all the values I need to create a good demonstration and, just plugging in a few numbers, it matches up nicely with experiments already performed. -- kainaw™ 18:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Such a presentation would ideally benefit from an analogy, as conveying the orders-of-magnitude differences between in-cpu-cache and load-from-disk with numbers alone can be difficult. The best I've come up with (after failing with various ski-resort analogies) is something like: in-cpu-cache==book open in front of me, in-memory-cache==walk to next room; collect book from shelf; put on desk, and pull-page-from-disk==order container load of books from Amazon, wait until container delivered to street, get book from container and put on desk. But that's lousy; surely we can do better than that? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

You have the right idea, but I don't think it's THAT many of orders of magnitude faster. --mboverload@ 00:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Unicode (IPA) characters in IE6

I'm doing web development for a fellow who does historical linguistics. He requires me to occasionally have letters on the page well outside the standard character set, like the schwa (ə) or the funny T-comma (ț). I've set the Content-Type of my page to "charset=utf-8", and the page itself is saved as UTF-8. Now the schwa, for example, shows up fine in Safari 3 and Firefox 3 on OS X. But I tried it on IE6 on XP and, well, I got the dreaded empty box character.

What's the best approach here? He's got some complicated stuff. So far I had thought about either just doing it with the HTML entities and damned to people who use old browsers, but if there's a better way to go about it than that, I'd be appreciative. Obviously I could just render the really weird ones as graphics and have them dropped into the text either as IMG tags or with CSS but each of those have their ups and downs too.

Any suggestions? I've never done any web development before that involved such exotic characters. --140.247.133.59 (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I really think you should use images - at least as an alternative for people who don't get "the right thing" natively from their browser. The trouble is that images are not searchable like the proper characters - so I think I'd shoot for two versions of the page - one with the characters rendered using the extended character set - and the other as images. Show the version with the extended character set by default and have a nice prominent button saying "If you can't see all of the exotic characters on this page, please click here."...much as I hate IE6, some people are stuck with it through no fault of their own.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I blame Microsoft, not the people. Making a crummy browser, forcing it to market dominance, and then not updating it for a decade is, well, unpardonable. Sigh... thanks. It looks like the images are going to mandatory anyway because this particular field uses extremely non-standard characters to render various sounds, way beyond unicode in some cases (as far as I can tell). --140.247.133.59 (talk) 19:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

As a general principle: "If in doubt, blame Microsoft". You really don't need a reason!

I would be tempted to stick some PHP or maybe JavaScript in there to deal with it. You could invent your own markup for these super-special characters and automatically insert the images as required as the pages are served. That would at least make it a "one time effort". SteveBaker (talk) 21:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I really can't see any reason for this not to work in Internet Explorer. Whatever its problems with standards compliance, a lack of UTF-8 support isn't one of them. Both the characters you just mentioned are in Arial. I just tried visiting International Phonetic Alphabet with Firefox 3 and IE7, and the only characters that rendered correctly in Firefox and not in IE were the affricate tie bars. -- BenRG (talk) 23:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Our OP was talking IE 6 - not 7. Dunno if that makes a difference. SteveBaker (talk) 03:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's any help I see this T Comma - ț as a little box and I'm on internet explorer 6 as well so it's a problem with IE6 and not your particular PC I think. God knows why they haven't upgraded to 7 here. Does it not work with Windows 2000 or something? 88.211.96.3 (talk) 09:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

My mistake, "Latin Small Letter T With Comma Below" (U+021B, ț) is not in Arial (or Times New Roman). What is in Arial is "Latin Small Letter T With Cedilla" (U+0163, ţ), which looks like a t-with-comma. This comment tells the sordid story. I can believe that IE7 and Firefox 3 make this substitution and IE6 doesn't. You may as well use characters in Arial where you can, so switch to ţ. But "Latin Small Letter Schwa" (U+0259, ə) is most definitely in Arial and Times New Roman, and I still can't see a reason in the world why it wouldn't render in IE6. Are you sure you haven't made a mistake somewhere? I'm grasping at straws here, but your Content-Type is "text/html; charset=utf-8", not "charset=utf-8", right? Have you tried using numeric character references to see whether the problem is with the UTF-8 or the Unicode rendering? Could you post the malfunctioning HTML file somewhere so we can take a look? -- BenRG (talk) 09:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Firefox "xmouses" to top

Hi! I'm using the TweakUI tool to get xmouse behavior on my XP system and it works fine except for firefox 3.0.1 which always pops to the top when it get focus (hover, not click). This is a new behavior. Is there a way to turn this off? Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 22:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Remotely enable exception in Windows Firewall

Is it possible to enable the Remote Desktop exception in Windows Firewall remotely? I'm working with Vista, but it might be the same on older versions. I would like to be able to do this in the registry. There is a nice trick to remotely enable RD by using regedit's Connect Network Registry feature, but I'm pretty sure that RD is not a default exception in Windows Firewall. Thank you Louis Waweru  Talk  23:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(I think) [9] --mboverload@ 01:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"subnotebook"? Lame!

Hi. Is subnotebook really the most widely used and accepted term? Cause quite frankly, it sucks. (Or hopefully the article is not aptly named?) -- Kreachure (talk) 23:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It's better than notepad, haha. But I can only think of compact notebook/laptop and sub-compact notebook/laptop, subnotebook's occurance in google has them beat by a longshot. Louis Waweru  Talk  00:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If Net neutrality prevails and the Internet access becomes better, cheaper in cost, and more accessible, we might start using Netbook. Kushal (talk) 19:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

August 27

Updating drivers

Im completely clueless-what do i need to know in order to update my video card drivers? My computer is messed up and its stuck on 640x480 with 4-bit color. theres no way to change it, even in the adapter settings, so i want to try updating the drivers. please, give me a demonstration. the juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 00:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you tell us the make and model of your computer? Be as descriptive as possible. --mboverload@ 00:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Um, ill try. See, im moar of a software guy, not a damn clue what im doing on the inside of the comp. The brand is NexLink, there are some numbers on the side that i assume are model numbers, i can give them to you but you need to tell me which ones.the juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 01:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, either crack that sucker open and find out video card / chip you have, or get the appropriate number from the side of the computer if it's there. If you can't manage that, try the Belarc Advisor, see if it can tell what video card you have. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 01:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I will try both of those. PLEASE- stick around...i will be backthe juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 01:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay! i did the advisor thing and under display drivers it says...*gulp* none detected. OH MY GOD WHAT DO I DO NOW?!the juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 02:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Nothing about the hardware? Bah. Then, do the other ones. Look at the computer, read the manual, and/or crack it open and check the card itself (if it is a separate card). It can't not be written somewhere. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 02:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Kay, its open, here comes the really noobish question: where do i find the video card?the juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 02:51, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's a separate card, in the AGP, PCI-E or PCI port. If it's onboard (on the motherboard), you might see a chip on the motherboard, or you might see nothing. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 03:10, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

there is a chip attached to the motherboard, running up and down(raised from the surface). [10] does this look like the right one? the juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 03:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

aw crap. [11] heres a better pic. the juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 03:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That's a RAM module. A video card would be like 10 or 20 times that size. It would be held into its slot by a single screw. Here's the easy way: where does your monitor connect? If that connector is on a removable card, that's your video card. If not, your video chipset is on the motherboard. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 03:51, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

aw crap...again. Well, it hooks in on this big, pink thing. i assume its a chipset...but its not labeled or anything. do you think i can find the model number somewhere? theres a bunch of nmbers on the bottom of the computer. like s/n number, MB, Cpu, ram, HD, FD, OS, and whql. i dont know if any of this helps. also, everything inside is intel, if that helps.the juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 04:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

How hard is it to run a simple dxdiag (yes that's all you do, start/run -> type in dxdiag) to see what your graphics card? There is no need to open the computer or download some random 3rd party software (unless you don't even have drivers installed). --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No drivers, this won't tell him anything. How hard is it to read the manual? 24.76.161.28 (talk) 08:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Very hard, considering the fact that i dont have one. it was bought used.the juggresurection ^ಠ_ಠ 17:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

AHA! i tried the DirectX Diagnostic thing and it says there is no device. The driver is vga.dll, which i assume is the default. anything else you need to know just say so. the juggresurection ^{(>-.-(Vಠ_ಠ)} 19:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The Internet is a good source for manuals and product information. Try searching for the computer's model number. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 23:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Just start Googling any numbers you see on the outside of the case. Do NOT download any "driver finder" programs that say they can do this for you. Also, run Windows Update on your computer. Microsoft has some of the most common drivers and will install them for you. --mboverload@ 00:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The persistence of spam...

Let's say a real spammer (of the penis extension ilk) has my address in mailing list database, and is regularly sending me his crap. Will I probably receive spam from this particular spammer as long as he is in business? Or does the spammer have some incentive to eventually stop sending to addresses he gathered years ago, many of which are probably inactive? ike9898 (talk) 02:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No incentive whatsoever, especially since the bulk of the spamming is probably done by bots. The best you can do is have a better spam filter. — OtherDave (talk) 02:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Spammers also sell email addresses to other spammers.. -Abhishek (talk) 06:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

So, would you say that any given address will tend to receive more and more spam over time, as it ends up on more and more spammers lists? ike9898 (talk) 08:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably yes. If you ever reply to a spam e-mail (either to buy their product, complain, or request to be "unsubscribed"), the amount of spam you will receive will probably increase dramatically as you have just proven that your address is "live". As per OtherDave, your best defence is a good spam filter and delete-on-sight for spam messages. — QuantumEleven 10:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That also applies to viewing any image in any spam email. Algebraist 10:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It's obvious from my own incoming spam (when I glance at it) that spammers will harvest part of an address and jam it onto any domain they can. So if your address is rumplestiltskin@rapunzel.com, you'll start seeing mail that seems to come from rumplestiltskin@snowwhite.com, @microsoft.com, @vatican.va... — OtherDave (talk) 15:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It is so cheap per unit to send a unit of spam (probably tens of thousandths of a penny) that taking the time to go through a list of emails and do any actual quality control is not worth it. --mboverload@ 00:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Mac trouble

Having a little trouble with a Macbook Pro. My friend's 15 inch macbook will just spontanesouly freeze programs and start the spinning pinwheel of death thing. When ever we try and force quit the application the force quite menu freezes and shows the pinwheel of death too so the only option is to press and hold the power button to do a hard restart. It doesn't seem to occur when and particular program is running and has happened maybe three or four times in the past day or so. If it means anything, the macbook is also connected to a Time Capsule backup thing and there was some trouble getting that set up to work with the Macbook but everything appeared to be fine with it when the freezing things started. Any way someone could help would be great. RedStateV (talk) 06:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

IT

Whats the main language of computer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.49.35.12 (talk) 07:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Uh, what do you mean? What is the most common programming language? Or what language the IT industry generally speaks? Or what? -- Captain Disdain (talk) 07:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Ehh... C++? FORTRAN? Do you mean like what the operating system of a computer is programmed in? --Alinnisawest(talk) 09:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe that most computers speak Binary. Rilak (talk) 12:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That's just a system - there are different ways to interpret binary code.

Answer: Your current question is too vague to be answered. Please be more descriptive on what exactly you are looking for. Like how a computer works, what programming languages are, how components inside computers communicate with eachother, etc. --mboverload@ 00:43, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

How to modify behavior of embedded assets in flex/actionscript?

I've been going crazy trying to figure this out. I've written a class that defines some behavior that I want an image of a ball to exhibit:

package nicstuff {
	import mx.core.BitmapAsset;
	public class Ball extends BitmapAsset {
		private var velocity = [0,0,0];
		private var HALFBALLSIZE = 25;
		
		public function setstats(initvelocity, newlocation) {
			velocity = initvelocity;
			this.x = newlocation[0];
			this.y = newlocation[1];
			}
		
		public function update() {
			this.x = this.x + (velocity[0] * velocity[2]);
			this.y = this.y + (velocity[1] * velocity[2]);
			if ( (this.x > 550) || (this.x < 0)) {
				velocity[0] = -velocity[0];
				}
			if ((this.y > 400) || (this.y < 0)) {
				velocity[1] = -velocity[1];
				}
			}
		}
	}

But for the life of me, I can't figure out how the correct way to apply this class to an embedded asset. This DOESN'T work:

package nicstuff {
import mx.core.UIComponent;
import mx.controls.Image;
import mx.controls.Alert;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.utils.*;
import flash.display.*;
import flash.media.*;
import nicstuff.Ball;

public class Gamestage extends UIComponent {
	[Embed(source="blueball.png")]
	[Bindable]
	private var BlueBallSprite:Class;
	
	public function main():void {
		var channel;
		//var BlueBall = new BlueBallSprite(); //when uncommented along with next two lines
                //BlueBall.x = 150;
                //BlueBall.y = 150; //shows an unmoving blue ball
		var BlueBall:Ball = new BlueBallSprite() as Ball;
		BlueBall.setstats([2,2,2], [150,150]);
		addChild(BlueBall);
		}
	}
}

I know that I don't have any calls to update() at this point. Could someone please clue me in to what the right way to do this is? - RedWordSmith (talk) 07:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

A guess from glancing at the Flex reference manual: Declare a constructor in your Ball class that calls the BitmapAsset constructor using super(), then pass the Class object as the bitmap data: var BlueBall:Ball = new Ball(new BlueBallSprite()); —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.196.44.226 (talk) 18:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Regex needed for Degree Min Sec

Two questions: Thought it would be easier asking here than in a forum.

1> I'm trying to write a script to store values entered in the degree-minutes-second format to individual variables in Perl.

For example: $longitude values can be in the following ways: (note the spacings and symbols)

1. 22° 15' 23.33" or
2. 122 15 23.33 or
3. 52°15'20"

I need a Regex code to store values for $degree $minute and $second. Can this be done? If not how can I do this?

2> Is there a better way of ignoring casing? This is the code:

...
@files = grep (((/\.jpg$/) || (/\.JPG$/) || (/\.jpeg$/) || (/\.JPEG$/)),readdir(DIR)); 
closedir(DIR);
...

Thanks, =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

This regex (untested) will match the examples you gave, and place the degrees, minutes and seconds in $1, $2, and $3 respectively:

   /^(-?\d+)°?\s*(\d+)'?\s*(\d+(?:\.\d+)?)"?$/

but it will also accept things like -12° 34 56.7, which you may or may not want.

Your grep expression can be reduced to

   @files = grep (/\.jpe?g$/i, readdir(DIR));

provided you don't mind it also accepting mixed-case extensions like jPeG. -- BenRG (talk) 11:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! But I think I am doing something wrong with the regex:

#! /usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
my $latitude;
$latitude = "22 15 23.33";
$latitude = /^(-?\d+)°?\s*(\d+)'?\s*(\d+(?:\.\d+)?)"?$/;
print $1;
print $2;
print $3;

I get the error: " "Use of uninitialized value in print at..." Any idea what is wrong here? =Nichalp «Talk»= 11:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the regex line should be:

$latitude =~ /^(-?\d+)°?\s*(\d+)'?\s*(\d+(?:\.\d+)?)"?$/;

(Note the tilde after the equals sign.) I can't test it here, but I hope that helps. Here's an important test case for your code:

-00 30 00.00

Lots of code "forgets" the minus sign when the degree part is zero. Get this right, and you're doing better than a lot of production code. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm still getting those errors "Use of..." :(. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it at the print $1; line, or one of the later ones? -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

All three. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Always check your matches. If the regex doesn't match, $1 $2 $3 will be undefined.

$latitude =~ /^(-?\d+)°?\s*(\d+)'?\s*(\d+(?:\.\d+)?)"?$/
 or die "No match";

You should get a nice clean "No match" report. The reason for the failure to match is probably that you have a UTF-8 degree sign in there (bytes 0xc2 0xb0), but perl is not in utf8 mode so it's interpreting it as 2 separate characters (in Latin-1, 0xc2 is "A with circumflex" and 0xb0 alone is the degree sign). The following question mark only makes the 0xb0 optional, so the 0xc2 is mandatory and fails to match. Two ways to fix your problem:

1. Put a "use utf8" at the top of the program
2. In the regex, represent the degree sign as \xb0 or \N{DEGREE SIGN}

--tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu Live CD

I had an Ubuntu Live CD (actually a Live Pen Drive) that was working fine. Then I decided to repartition my HDD. After that the Live CD is not working anymore. It tries to boot and freezes with the word Ubuntu and a thing moving to the left and right below it.

What parameter can be used in this case?

I tried to boot with "Live acpi=off" and it was working. It is a laptop. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.37 (talk) 10:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Uninstalling my MSN

Hello Can someone please help me and kindly explain how can I uninstall my Windows Messenger "MSN", because I cannot find it in the control panel to uninstall it.

T.Cauchi80.254.93.170 (talk) 11:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If every program was in Control Panel, Control Panel would be massive. Go to Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs, and look on the list there.--ChokinBako (talk) 13:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If you are talking about the Windows Messenger that came with XP, it's a Windows Component. You can get to add/remove components by clicking Start → Run and pasting this:
%windir%\system32\sysocmgr.exe /i:%windir%\inf\sysoc.inf
Or going to Control Panel → Add/Remove Programs → Add/Remove Windows Components (should be on the left) → scroll down to Windows Messenger and uncheck it. Louis Waweru  Talk  19:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

computer,calculator and cellphone

what is the differences among these gadgets? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.76.212.81 (talk) 11:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

See computer, calculator and cellphone and come back if there is still some confusion. Also, do not confuse the fact that a device can do more than one thing. A car that can act as a boat does not magically transform all cars into boats and all boats into cars. So, a cellphone with a calculator does not magically transform all cellphones into calculators and all calculators into cellphones. -- kainaw™ 12:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

In terms of computer science, I'd say that the major difference is that your cell-phone and your computer are Turing-complete and a calculator (probably) isn't (unless it's one of those fancy graphing calculators). Also, what they are used for. 90.235.4.253 (talk) 13:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Archives

Wikipedia archives are so hard to use. how do I see something that was answered on 13 August? I go to Archives (or My Contributions) and click on the link and it brings me back here.--ChokinBako (talk) 13:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/August 2008 are the archives for this desk for Aug '08. Just click on "archives" above. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I see what you mean. The archive for that day is empty. Here's the diff from just before Scsbot archived that page. I think your question got an answer there. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I copied that day into the archives here. You should find your question easily now. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 15:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

wireless control

What is a good free replacement for the wireless control in windows? Something I can download. Thank you. 79.75.211.94 (talk) 14:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

What file formats can a DVD player play?

I want to know what I should convert my videos to before burning them to disk. Anthrcer (click to talk to me) 15:10, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It depends on your player, but if you want to be 100% sure it will play, convert your videos using something like ConvertXtoDVD. Also, good burning software is usually able to convert common formats such as AVI to DVD-video. Your manual will tell you what other formats are supported, and there is normally a list of supported formats on the front panel of the player itself. Most will play VCD, and some will play divx. Sandman30s (talk) 22:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

SP3 installation

I have tried about 10 times installing service pack 3 by downloading from the Microsoft website. When it gets about half way through, I get a message box saying 'Access denied' and then it says SP3 failed to install and it proceeds to undo the installation. Any clues as to what could be wrong gratefully received.--79.76.142.253 (talk) 15:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of asking the obvious, have you exited other applications? Do you have any hint that the download is being blocked by your firewall / anti-spy / anti-virus software? — OtherDave (talk) 15:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be a not uncommon problem. --LarryMac | Talk 15:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Go to Start Menu>Control Panel>Security Center>Check for updates. That's a more efficent way. 81.154.105.0 (talk) 18:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

US sites similar to ebuyer.com

I am a big fan of ebuyer.com - they sell computer parts, laptops, TVs etc. at fairly reasonable prices to UK homes. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a similar site (or sites!!) which delivered similar sorts of items in the US (primarily North Eastern states). Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.187.24 (talk) 15:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but Newegg.com sells computer parts (for if you're building a computer, etc.) at reasonable prices. At least that's what friends of mine have told me. --Alinnisawest(talk) 00:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

C++

Why are most programmes written in C++ or C# ? What are the limitations of writing programmes in php? Clover345 (talk) 15:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Most programs are written to be run as an independent executable. As such, a user with little knowledge of computers can click "install" and the program will be installed and be easily run. Some languages, such as Java, require the user to install a runtime engine. So, if I send you a Java program, you must first install Java and then install my program. That is why those languages are not as popular as C programs. Then, there is the library support. There is extensive library support for the C languages to do just about anything you like. PHP has a lot of libraries for web page stuff, but not for creating windows, menu bars, handling mouse actions, and all the rest of the GUI stuff you can think of. So, if you were to write a program in PHP, the user would need to install PHP to run it and you would need to work very hard at getting any sort of nice GUI since the libraries for that are missing. -- kainaw™ 15:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

In general PHP runs off of a server and is used primarily for web applications and the occasional terminal application. PHP scripts are also interpreted and not compiled—they need an interpreter installed as well. In a more ideal world there would be a way to run PHP programs installed locally in a browser without installing both PHP and Apache and having all of the settings be identical, but at the moment no such solution exists. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

PHP can be run from command line (like Perl or Python). --grawity 18:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's what I meant by the occasional terminal (e.g. command line) application. But even then you have to make sure all of your install options and compiled libraries are the same if you want to make sure you get the same result as the person who sent it, if the program is of any complexity. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

What is this?

Every 20 minutes or so my computer will pop up a box informing me that:

The web page you requested is not available offline. To try to connect, click try again. Otherwise, click "Work Offline" to see offline web content on your computer.

If i click try again, my computer tries to dial 425-555-5555 on my modem. Now, i have not used a dial-up modem in 10 or more years and my current one is sitting in a landfill. If i click Work Offline, the message pops up again 20 minutes later. Is this a spyware problem or is this a sign of a dying computer? 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 16:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Definitely spyware. You can try to root the problem out, but probably the only option is to nuke the OS and reinstall 195.58.125.57 (talk) 17:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

See Dialer#Fraudulent dialers. Strange that it's trying to call a 555 number though. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 18:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If a computer dies, it dies. It doesn't start doing complex behaviours like this; it's even incredibly rare that a computer slows down at all due to age (if it does, it's probably something a bit more complex, like the fan wearing out and the motherboard dialing down the CPU's speed to keep temperature down, or something). It's a far too common misconception that results in too many landfill'd computers. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 23:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Virus or spyware?

In an unrelated to me incident, my parents got a virus/spyware on their computer from a greetingcards.com e-mail. After their computer loads ZoneAlarm (Firewall) and Norton AntiVirus, the computer BSODs with a STOP 0x08E error. What is the problem here? PS Please don't refer me to microsoft KB or MSDN; they never help us that much. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 16:12, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Who knows what the problem is, other than something has been fairly horribly screwed up or corrupted. Your best bet is to load the whole thing up in safe mode, copy the important stuff off, wipe the drive clean and reinstall Windows. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Could try running ComboFix in safemode. Generally wiping/reinstalling Windows is the best bet though. Prevention is the most important part of security. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 23:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Installing Ubuntu from Linux

I have copied the Ubuntu alternate CD to a separate partition, configurated the Grub loader and I am able to boot from it. However, after the first settings, the installer is not able to mount my partitions, no matter what I do (different fs, different tool, reformat).

What can I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 16:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Why so many Linux distros?

I know the Refdesk is not meant to be a forum so I'll try to keep my questions targeted. Excluding server editions and specialised versions such as DSL,

1. is there no movement in the "Linux community" (is there such a thing?) to standardise, unify and supply the average Windows convert with a single choice? Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu, and even the Gnome/KDE choice, is simply confusing. The average person knows nothing about how computers and OSes work and just wants to install this thing called "Linux", to replace this thing called "Windows".
2. In a few short years Ubuntu has become the dominant distro for the "average user", borne out by the number of times it's been recommended on these very pages. Why don't the other "desktop" distros simply fold all of their efforts into making Ubuntu the most fully-featured, best supported OS? AFAICS there is no advantage to be had in fragmenting development efforts across so many different distros. Are there historical reasons for this or is it simply a matter of pride/stubbornness?

In summary, when it comes to a desktop distro, things should be kept simple. Have one distro that everybody works on and supports massively, make it scalable for older PCs by disabling certain features of the standard install set. Specialised distros for specific applications will of course always have their place. Am I missing something? Why can't it be that simple? Zunaid©® 16:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

As far I know—sure, there are those who think that there should be standardization. But they disagree on what those should be. Hence the big ones you named—many of which are clearly contenders for "the one and only distro to worry about." Without any coordinating committee or centralized organization, and with a long history of vigorous forks, you're not going to get anything but half-hearted centralization unless one particular fork becomes immensely more important than the rest (e.g. the Firefox or Wikipedia scenario, where the sheer popularity of one particular variant on a theme makes it that much more worth one's time to participate in it). I don't think any particular distro is at that stage yet—you still have to be pretty dorky to know the names of any of them. When my mom knows the name of a distro, then it'll be at Wikipedia/Firefox importance. She wouldn't even be able to tell you what Linux is at this point. (And, let's admit it, even the most user-friendly distros require a high level of comfort level with computers.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:33, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Point is, the Linux "community" should dam well stop being so insular and try to come up with one distro. The mere fact that Ubuntu has made such inroads in such a short time is telling. It means to say that people were not entirely satisfied with the other distros that had been on the market for years before. With the backing of Mark Shuttleworth the project has no fear of ever losing steam or financial support. Frankly it's crazy that everyone is spending time developing "their" version. But that's just me</rant> Zunaid©® 18:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Shuttleworth is one of those people you speak of who decided to develop their own version for no reason. He had a vision to develop a distro that is easy to use and proceeded to fund his project with a paltry $10 million. Microsoft spent billions of dollars on Vista. There are companies (like Novell and Red Hat) that back their own distros with much more money than him and have been trying to make them easy to use for much longer. I trust them more. He should have invested the money into another distro (like Mandriva or Debian) instead of trying to take all of the glory for himself.--Birdsusing nnn (talk) 03:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Or, as another approach, you are arguing for a cathedral, whereas the Linux "community" prefers a bazaar (see The Cathedral and the Bazaar). I think, in fact, that most people in the West actually prefer cathedrals to bazaars in general—we like reliability, we like quality, we like safety, and the closest we have to bazaars in our countries, e.g. flea markets, are completely stale and regulated by comparison to actual bazaars. But it's more fun to participate in a bazaar than a cathedral. And when much of your labor depends on people volunteering their time for free, it's no surprise that's what you get, even if the market overwhelmingly prefers cathedrals. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

• The reason there's only one Windows distro (so to speak) is that it's closed-source and patent-protected. If Windows were free and open source, I think there would soon be multiple Windows distributions too. --[[::User:N Shar|N Shar]] ([[::User talk:N Shar|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/N Shar|contribs]]) 17:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
  • This almost makes my point. Let's follow through this thought experiment: 1. Windows is open source. 2. Every man and his dog starts developing forked versions that they prefer. 3. There is no longer one market-dominant version. 4. Thus there is no longer a thing that the average consumer can point to and call "Windows". 5. Consumer confusion. 6. Consumer frustration. 7. Q.E.D. Zunaid©® 18:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The main complaint is that Linux isn't Windows. In Windows, you don't get a choice. It just does what Windows does and if you don't like it, you just have to suck it up and do it the Windows way. After dealing with that for years, Windows users get angry with Linux for making them choose. I use KDE and Yum because I prefer them to Gnome and Apt. I'm sure there are many Gnome and Apt users here who hate KDE and Yum. I'd be rather upset if someone came down and said "All linux users must now use Gnome and Apt or their computer will be confiscated!" As for making it "easy"... Computers are not easy. Windows is not easy. Linux is not easy. Macs are not easy. Even that stupid Ipod thing is not easy ... ever see a first time user trying to get that little wheel control to do what it should do and not what Apple wants you to do? You have to be willing to learn and change.

I believe this is coming straight off the "why is it so hard to install stuff on Linux" complaint above. It is mind-numbingly easy. I just installed Go for the first time. I chose to install qGo. All I did was open "install software" and typed "Go" in the search box. I selected "qGo" and clicked "install". After a few minutes, it was installed. I selected it in my program menu and played it. I suck at Go. -- kainaw™ 17:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Shoot me for saying this, but sometimes choice is BAD. Too much choice leads to massive confusion, especially if the user doesn't understand what he is actually choosing between. I take your point that Go installed perfectly for you. Windows users expect this as a norm, in Linux, it is regarded as something of an achievement. It still grates that Linux distros feel the need to brag about having a good package manager. Zunaid©® 18:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

IMO package managers are one of the areas linux is miles ahead of windows in. If I want to install a program in windows, I have to find the website to download it, download it, install it, and then check the website for updates if I want the latest version. the fact that I can just "yum install package" in fedora is a great advantage, IMO. (yeas, I know not all the programs you could ever want are in the repos, but the worst-case scenario isn't any worse thna that in windows.) 91.143.188.103 (talk) 18:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"It still grates that Linux distros feel the need to brag about having a good package manager. " That's not grating, that's envy! Decent package management is one of the things I miss the most on Windows! Every Windows program I install has a different installer, and many of them don't work very well. Removing programs is a little easier, many programs appear on the "Add/remove programs" window, which while deadly slow, will often remove up to 90% of the program you ask it to remove.

I get the feeling that you don't really understand what Package Management is or you wouldn't have chosen it as an example of window's superiority. Just about any Windows user I can think of (fanatical or not) would love you if you could offer them a perfectly integrated, completely seamless way to install and uninstall programs, that is always the same for every program, and doesn't ask any stupid questions. APL (talk) 19:27, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, at least in FreeBSD, I can run one command, and upgrade all of my installed software to the latest version, with correct handling of dependencies. I would assume that the various Linux package managers offer similar functionality. (Proper dependency handling also means that programs don't bring along their own copy of shared libraries and other tools. I think I have something like like 3 copies of dcraw on my Windows machine.) -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Those who don't want to make the choice don't. Again, if any one distro got to the level of OSes that, say, Firefox is to browsers, it wouldn't matter how many other forks there were. There are a million browsers out there in the world. In reality there are really about four that matter. The presence of many doesn't matter, though, because those who aren't interested in being on the bleeding edge don't have to be. If you're arguing, "on set of distros should try and convince everyone else to give up theirs and lobby behind theirs"—well, you can see the difficulty here. There's no central organization. There's no reason to prefer one over the other from an objective point of view. There is not even a shared goal, in my opinion—some people are working for themselves, some for people they imagine to be like themselves, and only a rare few are working towards the idea that their distro should supplant Windows or something like that. Again, you might enjoy the book I linked to up above, it's all about the different organizational models you can use to develop software (and other things). I disagree with the Linux boosterism in the book (for reasons I have hinted at above—the book is very down on the cathedral model, even though there are good reasons to prefer it to the bazaar from a consumer point of view) but it helps one structure one's thinking. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You may as well ask why there are diferent types of automobiles. Why don't all the automakers of the world make a single "perfect" car? Because different people want different things from their cars. It's not in human nature to agree on a single "best" anything.

This happens even with large closed source projects. See Windows Vista editions. APL (talk) 19:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Well applied car analogy, sir. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 02:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't pay attention when you see on distro tracking sites that there are "300 distros". Most of them are abandoned. --mboverload@ 00:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

There are many distros because it is easy to create them. The code is freely available and legal to modify. Many of them are very specialized. For example, Puppy Linux is good for legacy computers. Others, like Auditor, are good for security testing. However, many Linux projects are created for silly reasons (mostly politics). Gnome, for example, was started because KDE wasn't completely openly sourced. KDE later became completely open sourced, ironically. I didn't care at the time whether it used all open-source code, since it was free for me to use and worked better than Gnome.

So, obviously, this diversity is a mixed blessing. Development efforts are spread across many distros and GUIs instead of one. Bugs are more prevalent than in Windows and OS X. Linux is also less intuitive to use than Windows.

But regardless of your opinion of it, Linux diversity is here to stay. Developers have already spent many hours polishing their own distros, and they're not too keen on abandoning their work. Us end users, too, would not appreciate giving up our favorite distros for whatever's popular. For example, if we had a vote, Ubuntu might win, even though it's buggier than openSUSE and Debian. A lot of people like it for trivial political reasons and claim it's easy to use, but it isn't. I wouldn't sign on to a plan like that and I hope people start exploring more stable distros in the future.--Birdsusing nnn (talk) 03:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

GnuPG - Commandline

Hello Wikipedians!

I have GnuPG and GPG Shell installed on my system. I have been sent a key (like myPrivateKey.asc) and a couple of encrypted files that also require a passphrase. I can decrypt the files just fine with the gui, but I was wondering how i can accomplish the same using the gpg commandline version (am interested in doing it in a batch file)...

I did a search and found this batchfile (by someone named frank)..:

@rem Script wrapper for GNU PGP utility function: Decrypt a file encrypted
with password-based encryption
@rem Arguments: 1 - password that file was encrypted with
@rem 2 - path to EFTS keystore
@rem 3 - fully qualified name of decrypted file to create
@rem 4 - fully qualified name of encrypted file to decrypt
@rem Watch it! - on Windows do NOT include space between %1 and the pipe
(|) - will get bad
@rem passphrase error

echo %1| gpg --homedir %2 --batch --yes --passphrase-fd 0 --output %3 --decrypt %4

I cant seem to see where the keyfile.asc that i have would go here... and what the 'EFTS keystore' is referring to (running it with gpgBatch my_passwd_here key.asc a.mp3 a.mp3.gpg fails (i path to c:\program files\gnu\gnupg\ before this, the batchfile, key.asc, and encrypted file are in the same dir)

Thanks a lot in advance 119.111.70.146 (talk) 18:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, usually you aren't "sent" a private key -- that kind of defeats the point of it. The private key is supposed to be your own and kept very secret. If you really do have a secret key, then I think you can import it with something like gpg --import key.asc.

The private keys are usually stored somewhere in the GnuPG configuration directory for your user on your computer. That directory is what the second argument is referring to. This is {your home directory}/.gnupg/ or something like that on Linux; I don't know what it would be for you on Windows. You can probably just remove that option if you don't know. --Spoon! (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

html help

OK, I'm a real html noob. I'm trying to add a caption to an image but I'm having problems. I typed:

<TR> <TD><IMG src="EXAMPLE IMAGE" align=right></TD> <TR> <TD align=right><FONT size=-1>EXAMPE CAPTION</FONT> </TD> </TR> </TABLE>

The caption under the image is fine but the whole lot is on the left hand side even thought the image is set to align right. What am I doing wrong? Is there an easier way to add captions?--217.227.94.48 (talk) 18:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.227.94.48 (talk) 18:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You need to make sure that your open and closed tags match up. Notice that you don't close the table row (TR) which has the image in it. Also note that if you are aligning your image you are aligning it within the table element. If you want the table element to be aligned, you have to align it separately. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

how do you mean?

As for an easier way, yes, but it involves getting beyond the TABLE element. For example:

<div class="image"> <img src=whatever> <p>Caption.</p> </div>

Then you use CSS to make the .image class do what you want it to (e.g. float: right;), and to make all paragraph elements within the .image class into the size you want for captions, etc. (Note that the downside here is that the captions won't automatically wrap unless you hard-code the DIV size.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) The align attribute of the image tag specifies the alignment of the image relative to the text around it. This page shows some examples. And I know you didn't ask, but using tables for layout is frowned upon these days, CSS is preferred. --LarryMac | Talk 19:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It appears you want the table aligned to the right, ie: <table align='right'> or <table style='float:right;'>. -- kainaw™ 19:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

aol instant message records of ims

is there a place where records of my instant messages are saved on my computer? i use xp.Jwb6466 (talk) 20:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If it helps any other contributors, AOL Messenger logs is, succinctly, what we need.My name is anetta (talk) 21:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Starting Direct3d 10

I have been trying to learn OpenGL, but now when the 3.0 is coming out, I got a new computer (vista preinstalled, heh) and wlan card doesn't yet work on Ubuntu I thought it would be nice to see how things are done in Direct3d. So is the "fixed function pipeline" removed entirely from direct3d 10? Is there no default lighting/transformation or should it all be done with shaders? All the tutorials I have found use shaders only. Also, it would be nice if you could point me to a good book. --194.197.235.221 (talk) 20:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

IPA rendering

I'm using Camino on OS X (10.4.11) and I'm having trouble reading Unicode. It displays most of the IPA characters, but some of them like the horseshoe U are just rendered as question marks. I've set the default Unicode font to Lucida Grande, but it's still doing it. What should I do? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 23:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Interactive Fiction Programming Languages

All right, not sure if I'll get any replies to this, but is anyone out there familiar with the languages used to write text adventures (or interactive fiction, or Adventure games, or whatever you call them... like ADVENT or Zork)? I'm quite familiar with TADS and I've used Quest before, but I was wondering if someone who knows a wider variety of IF languages (like ADRIFT, Inform, etc.) could tell me which they considered the best to use, that aren't too difficult to learn and use, but are still powerful? --Alinnisawest(talk) 00:46, 28 August 2008 (UTC)