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December 3

No interface to Parse method in C#

Why aren't methods such as int.Parse() and double.Parse() in C# (each of which takes a string as its only argument, is static, and returns an instance of the class it belongs to) part of an interface so that they can be invoked with generic type? NeonMerlin 01:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

That's easy: because they are static methods. Interfaces are contracts for instance methods. Bendono (talk) 01:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Then why aren't there any contracts for static methods? On a related note, is it possible to specify that a method's return type is the class it belongs to, and that this must be true of all overrides as well? NeonMerlin 03:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about some of the more complex uses of C# and .NET, but in general Object-Oriented Programming, you rarely need to invoke a static method polymorphically, so the concept of a "static interface" wouldn't be that useful. That is, you wouldn't normally have a class without knowing what class it is, only that it satisfies certain contracts - you would normally have an instance of that class (even if it's a singleton), in which case the methods wouldn't be static. - IMSoP (talk) 21:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

DIAS

Please add content about.Direct Internet Access System(DIAS).Thanks

Put your request at WP:RA. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:24, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Requested Article is not currently the correct place. Direct Internet Access System exists. It's just too short to be helpful. Taemyr (talk) 04:27, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Internet. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 06:44, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

cheapest ICANN registrar

I am looking to register a domain name with an ICANN registrar. Does anyone know the site/registrar that charges the least amount of money? I've Googled this a bunch, but all I found was like 20 different sites all claiming to have the cheapest domain registering service. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 06:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

.tk? --Ouro (blah blah) 12:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

That's a domain name, not a registrar service. I think he wants to be able to register his own arbitrary domain names. Personally I don't think haggling over domain registrar prices is worthwhile unless you are planning to buy in bulk. GoDaddy is pretty cheap, as far as they go, and often has "specials" if you are registering in bulk (e.g. 20% off all domain names if you register more than $50 worth, or something like that). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you might be right there. Well, in this case I wouldn't know where to start outside of Poland, I'd turn to my local registrars for this I guess... Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 20:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

One and one^link seems to have it for four dollars. I have never tried them and cannot offer any recommendations, though. Kushal (talk) 23:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd avoid the cheapest companies: they're often not as cheap as they appear to be. Either they add on fees, or they don't give you ownership of the domain you register, forcing you to stay with them if you want to continue using your domain. --Carnildo (talk) 23:45, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

turing machine and ucon model

HELLO,

I WANT TO ASK ABOUT HOW TURING MACHINE IS UNDECIDABLE AND HOW THIS DECIDABILITY IS SIMULATED WITH UCON UNDECIDABILITY?

I think you are looking for the Halting problem article. -- Tcncv (talk) 08:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

A suitable wiki for an Insurance company's internal manuals?

Hello, I work for an insurance company and I am trying to persuade my bosses to move to using a wiki for our insurance manuals. I’ve got agreement to look into this in more depth and to make an argument for it so I am exploring the technical requirements and trying to find a wiki software which contains those features which we would require in order to overcome management’s likely objections and concerns. As such I wanted to ask here for some suggestions and advice.

The wiki would be used as an underwriting manual (though I also plan that it can be used to give users contact & personal info, general discussion like the refererence desk, and recording underwriting authorities for users) and would be used regularly by I estimate about 300 people who would require different levels of access/editability.

First of all the main requirement is that it be available at no cost and able to be used for commercial purposes, as if they have to pay for it I doubt if I’ll be able to get it agreed. Similarly it should be capable of being modified & tweaked by our IT guys. I don’t think this should be a problem but the other requirements are:

• Only logged in users should be able to edit, so that all edits can be traced if necessary.
• It should be purely internal to the company and unable to be viewed by those outside.
• It should be able to run on Windows 2000, if possible through our group intranet (which runs through windows explorer)
• It should be able to support categorisation of pages
• There should be the ability to restrict ability to edit pages – that is to restrict the editpower of particular users or groups of users (eg sales people shouldn’t be able to edit pages containing rating data). I’m thinking of categorising users & pages & restricting access based on this. I believe this would require Access Control Lists.
• There should be the ability for authorised users like admins to lock certain pages, like on wikisource.
• It should be able to support the use of templates and bots to facilitate rapid & easy multi-page changes.
• It should be able to hold pictures and other files

Also, though we could probably get by without it, I would like one which can also do the following:

• Use PHP scripting language like on wikipedia, if not some easy or well known language would be required without a lot to learn by casual users.
• It would be handy to have the ability to be able to set certain users or groups of users to be able to make edits but to require these to be checked by higher authority users before they go live
• I would also like it to have the same functionality as wikipedia does, including history pages, talk pages, what links here, related changes, watchlists, ability to easily revert edits, compare different versions of the same page & if possible the same visual format as wikipedia.

I realise that a lot of these requirements go against the general ethos & principles of a wiki, full editability by everyone, though due to the nature of the insurance industry and my particular company, and general management and regulatory concerns I’d never be able to get agreement for a completely wikipedia style wiki manual (and there would be too low a user base to ensure vandalism/self-serving edits to insurance rates were corrected speedily) so I want to try to get as many benefits of a wiki as I can while addressing our concerns over the security & integrity of sensitive date (like rates).

I’m currently only in the exploratory stage and I would appreciate any advice, or suggestions as to the best software and features to meet our needs. I would also appreciate any info you may be able to provide on the benefits & problems experienced by other companies in going down this route. Much thanks in advance AllanHainey (talk) 09:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

You can use MediaWiki along with compatible server software. I tried it via XAMPP, although you need to tweak the settings to make it more secure and easier to manage. Blake Gripling (talk) 09:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I had seen on http://www.wikimatrix.org/wiki/MediaWiki:ACL that MediaWiki doesn't support Access Control Lists, is this inaccurate or is there a way to get the required access/edit restrictions on MediaWiki without ACLs? If so how would I do this? AllanHainey (talk) 11:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I heard TWiki is pretty good -- better than MediaWiki. It's free, has ACLs, better watchlists, better page histories, a much better page editor, and works in Win 2k. It uses Perl, but doesn't need mySQL. The support is better, too.--Rjnt (talk) 12:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a specific recommendation, but none of your requirements seem particularly problematic. Wikipedia (and hence to a great extent Mediawiki) is rightly very big on fully-open editing, but ACLs, permissions, types of users, etc are the norm in business wikis and so fairly well supported. The wiki software my company uses has a very configurable permissions system that's hooked into our LDAP server, but unfortunately it's commercial (paid-for) software and therefore outside your scope.

To be honest, I strongly suspect that your biggest problem is not technical but social. It's easy to set up a wiki, but it can be very hard in a traditional business to get people to use it in the way we who are used to wikipedia expect them to. Some people will be flat-out scared of change, and object to it on principle. When they do look at it, early on, and find there's not much content, they'll consider their reactions proven, and refuse to change them forevermore. Most people probably won't bother to write anything (the ratio of readers to editors at Wikipedia is huge too, but we have so many of both it doesn't matter), and then when they find there's not much to read they'll stop checking. I do wonder who you think will be answering questions on your version of the RefDesk - and will their bosses think it's time well spent? (It probably is, assuming most of the questions are business-related, but bosses probably don't see it like that). You're unlikely to get any significant amount of "wikignoming" or "wikigardening" - the quiet background actions that keep pages up to date. My team has embraced its wiki really quite well, but even so most of it is out of date as there is no culture of correcting things or even marking them as obsolete. I don't want to paint too dark a picture here, but you really need to put the social and political aspects of effective wiki adoption in business at the top of your list, with the actual technical implementation an easy second. 93.97.184.230 (talk) 00:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments, I'm now leaning towards Twiki, though I'm going to explore MediaWiki to see if it gives suitable access controls. I take your point that the main problem will be social and getting people to adapt to and accept the new system of a wiki manual and I think my company would need to manage this aspect very carefully & explain the thinking, expectations & procedures carefully. As far as content goes what I'm thinking is to transfer our current manuals, with some specific stuff written by HO and then throw it open to wiki editing so that'd remove the initial lack of content problem. I recognise that a lot of folk won't bother to write anything but I've got the idea of spinning it as a staff development tool for the branches to encourage branch uw management to get staff to research & contribute for the manual as part of their general career/knowledge development so this may go some way to dealing with that issue.

As far as the reference desk page goes, ref desk is probably the wrong exampl, I was thinking more of a discussion page for issues affecting the business - initially I'd expect it to be answered and commented on by HO underwriters but I'd try to encourage people to check it regularly if there are any issues being discussed which affect them or which they have knowledge of. We have a lot of uw & sales agents who're often pushing an agenda on particular issues of uw (what business we write & how we deal with it) so I'd expect a number of them to approach this with relish as another way of getting their views across and having a 'big discussion'.

I recognise there won't necessarily be that much organised wikignoming - categorisation, general maintenance, etc - but I want to do as much of this as we can with bots & templates & to just try to encourage staff to get involved, though I recognise some of this would need to be done by HO at least initially.

I'd welcome any other thoughts or comments on the social & cultural problems and how these could be addressed, particularly by folk with some experience of this in their own companies. AllanHainey (talk) 10:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

insurance company IT departments are pretty "conservative". ours decided the only wiki software they would trust was MS Sharepoint. If your IT has the same idea, don't bother trying to set up a wiki with Sharepoint. It is doable, but so is using Excel as a word processor. Neither is worth trying.

that said, your need for different levels of control, which is necessitated by the fact that as a manual this is an important thing with big real world ramifications, makes it sound like Sharepoint might be what you need. I've not found a huge amount of googlable support for it, but it's certainly a big item in the corporate software universe with lots of articles about how Sharepoint is the future of corporate collaborative software, so I assume the support is all via MS for $. Maybe your IT guys already know about it.

back to wikis though, the next issue is that apparently everybody on earth has a different idea of what a wiki is. you wouldn't think so. but you'll see every idea from setting up a departmental blog where people tell everybody how wonderful their last vacation was to a calendar where people post the date of the departmental picnic to an official departmental web page where the department crows about all the recent projects successfully completed and has links thereto. Oddly enough, the one thing people are least likely to imagine as a goal for the wiki is a place where end users can quickly and easily post their thoughts/ideas and share bits of information/knowledge/experience, however big or (especially) small for others' benefit. which is what i had in mind; and of course, that's not at all what you are looking for, for an official corporate manual. Gzuckier (talk) 00:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

We won't get MS Sharepoint, if for no other reason than that we'd have to pay for it & I suspect the company would rather just continue as befor with the same sort of HO generated manuals than pay for a commercial wiki software. I agree that IT conservatism may be an issue though, along with general company reluctance to do something 'new' and 'untested'. I'm going to try to make the case for it though and see how it goes.

I suppose the wide variety of ideas of how to use a wiki is just testament to its great number of different uses, though I'd aim to keep it fairly limited as a manual & place for sharing thoughts and experiences at first to avoid overwhelming folk with different functions and tools. AllanHainey (talk) 08:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Javascript checkbox, input text, text area

I need to write a very simple javascript program in which the user inputs their name, number of objects they wish to order in a text input, then 2 checkboxes for additional options for their purchase. Then I need the name to appear in a text area with the total price added up from the text inputs and check boxes. I have very very basic knowledge of javascript so I just need a basic bare bones description of how to get started to I can work out this project. I have all the check boxes, inputs, and text area layed out on the page I just need to know how to make the code work. Thanks --143.200.137.158 (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

you will need to use something like an onchange or onclick tag on your form items that tells the javascript to execute. Build up a text string from the input values. Then set the form.textboxname.value to what text you want there. You may want to put your script as a function rather than just code in quotes. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Reading in XML in Google Maps

I am trying to create my own google maps from scratch using Javascript, HTML and XML. What i want to do is create maps that automatically update themselves by reading from an XML file. One example of this would be weather information I am not the most code-savvy person, as this semester I am taking my first computer programming course (C++) Any help is much appreciated Jastman (talk) 19:34, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Well you really need to dig into the Google Maps API. They have examples for this sort of thing. I would go about piece by piece. First write something that shows Google Maps. Then write it so that it'll load a static XML file (something you can make in Google Earth, for example). Then see about loading dynamic XML. Each step will have a little learning curve, but the main trick of programming something complicated is to break it into component parts and tackle them individually. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The part I'm having trouble with is DISPLAYING the XML file 67.194.159.149 (talk) 00:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Total win/loss records

I suffered a brain injury 22 years ago after being hit by a drunk driver. I mention this because I'm having major trouble navigating this website. I'm looking for the all time win/loss records of The Washington Redskins and San Antonio Spurs. My local paper gives a brief box every gameday of the football matchups ie. date, time, who's favored, the score of the last meeting and the all time win/loss records. These stats are always inaccurate. If someone can please help me find this info. I'd be grateful. Thank you!

Greg Tattini

You can check out the Spurs record at San Antonio Spurs seasons (the total record is at the bottom of that pretty table). The Redskins are at Washington Redskins seasons and that is actually a Featured Article, which means it is among the best articles on the site. If you're looking for in-depth historical stats for teams, I doubt you can beat Football Reference and Basketball Reference (and there are related sites for Baseball, Hockey, etc.). Matt Deres (talk) 21:05, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Unfair bandwidth distribution?

My internet connection is ridiculously slow right now; is it possible to determine whether one of my housemates is getting more than their fair share of bandwidth? ----Seans Potato Business 21:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but you'll need a device or something capable of doing so. A router with some sort of QoS and traffic monitoring, probably. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Wireshark, but I think your housemates won't like it as you can intercept both passwords in cleartext and their favourite porn site. HardDisk (talk) 23:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I used to use wireshark (ethereal) back in the day, when our house network was based on a hub. But assuming the OP's network is switched, none of the other users' packets will be going anywhere near his NIC. My former ISP used to produce usage graphs per IP address (and every machine in the house had a public IP...) - very very cool, but also highly unusual in home networking. So the best bet, as the crustacean said, is monitoring in a router of sufficiently high specification. 93.97.184.230 (talk) 00:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Correct. Ethereal doesn't work anymore because all those "hubs" for home connections are actually switches. All you get is your traffic. Even in work places, everything is usually switched. You're lucky to see 3 other computers. I used to run ethereal with webcollage as a screensaver. It showever every picture that passed my nic. But, it only shows pics I view now since there's no other traffic going past my nic. -- kainaw™ 02:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure of this (someone else ought to confirm whether this is the case), but I've been told that the tomato firmware can do this. So you may want to check to see if the router you use can run it.--droptone (talk) 00:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

December 4

Port Assignment reg,

can well known port be used for other services

for example can i use 21 for HTTP ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by R.srinivaas (talk • contribs) 12:22, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

yes. -- Fullstop (talk) 12:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

but firefox does not allow to access these ports when i type http://12.0.0.1:21 ;it reports an Error. why ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by R.srinivaas (talk • contribs) 12:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

You can't just pick a port unilaterally; the server at 12.0.0.1 must be running something on port 21 that can respond to an http request. Ports are "well known" so that services can be used without any specific knowledge of the configuration on the server. --LarryMac | Talk 13:08, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

yes, the server at 12.0.0.1 is listening to 21 , but still firefox reports error ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by R.srinivaas (talk • contribs) 13:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a problem with your server, obviously. I just used telnet to connect to 12.0.0.1 on port 21, and didn't even get an error message. If the server worked, it'd at least give me an error message. Are you hosting a page on the site?

C:\>telnet 12.0.0.1 21

GET / HTTP/1.1

_

Nothing.--Rjnt (talk) 13:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

12.0.0.1 isn't even a valid IP address. It might be OK on your local network - but not out here in the big wide world. SteveBaker (talk) 22:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the original poster was referring to 127.0.0.1? -- JSBillings 16:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

pc not being able to use internet

I have a network in my house, in this network we are using now 2 notebooks and 1 pc. With the notbooks I am able to use the internet, but with the computer its not possible, this started 2 days ago. The computer is able to see other computers of the lan and the others are able to see then (a example get use the printer of this computer). My notebooks are connected by wires and not wireless. What can be the problem?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.92.244 (talk) 13:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Is the "network" wireless or wired? Is your desktop comp connected by wireless or wired? What OS is it using? What OS are the laptops using? All of these would help us answer your question. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 23:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

one laptop is using vista, the other is using xp, the computer with the problem is using xp. all the pc and notebooks are connected to the nertwork by wires. the network is wired only i dont have the need hardwares needed to make wireless only things connect to the network. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.168.112 (talk) 01:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This is pretty obvious but: Have you tried using different ethernet cords? The one you're using could be faulty. And, it may be that the Internet is working fine, but your browser setting are weirded up. Take a look at your network/offline settings in FF/IE. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 02:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

no didnt worked, on internet explorer i gone to "find connections problems" (dont know if is translated exactly like this in english, and the program said that there is a problem with msafd igmp, the windows program tell me to fix is but when i press the button to fix the program crashes.tried to make a repair install on windows xp but didint worked.201.79.168.112 (talk) 20:11, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

downloaded a program that fixed the corupted files and now i am able to use internet.201.79.168.112 (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Low-level protocol for international Internet connections

Hello.

Sorry for my bad english; my mother tongue is french.

When I read about the low-level protocols of Internet, I usually read "LAN" + "Ethernet". But nobody talk about the low-level protocols used outside the LANs: for exemple for nationnal or international communications. Do you know which protocols are used for these networks ? For exemple, in a country, the Internet wires between two towns do not use Ethernet...

Thanks in advance, A.C. from Belgium. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.166.19.61 (talk) 13:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it often is Ethernet (see Metro Ethernet, for example), but there are others listed at WAN. --Sean 19:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Technically - ethernet is a cable/electronic standard - not a protocol. They don't use Ethernet because Ethernet is limited to a few hundred meters of distance. TCP/IP and UDP are the main protocols that the Internet is built upon - and they are the same on big networks as on little ones - although they might maybe be built on some lower level infrastructure in some cases. SteveBaker (talk) 22:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Although there are Ethernet is the most common topology in local area networks, there are also other LAN topologies. WLAN (802.11) comes to mind, and there are some semi-obsolete ones like ArcNet (star topology) and a couple of ring ones (e.g. token ring). I think the article 212.166.19.61 is looking for is Data Link Layer. -- Fullstop (talk) 23:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If you're interested in knowing how internet traffic is handled between large networks, you might want to read Synchronous optical networking and Optical Carrier. -- JSBillings 16:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Downloading an ISO without it taking 2 days

I would like to download Fedora 10 onto my computer, but my internet connection goes all wonky about halfway thru. It starts out at 2 MB/s and then drops to around 433 KB/s. My computer is now bogged down with downloading this ISO image. Last time i checked, it was at 75% completion with 2 days remaining at a transfer rate of 104 KB/s. I know there are other ways to download ISOs without just downloading it. Can anyone help me with this? (PS: I do know about BitTorrent, but it is a sucky program and I hate it, so don't suggest it please.)

BTW, is it possible to extract the files from a .torrent file without using any special programs and NO connection to the internet?

 Buffered Input Output 14:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

With that kind of bandwidth, you might be better off purchasing a Linux CD. Here's a list of vendors. I used to use CheapISO.com

Extraction from the .torrent file would not be possible. It contains a checksum, but that does not contain sufficient information to re-create a larger file—otherwise it would be compression. / edg ☺ ☭ 15:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Instead of downloading the full ISO (which is a DVD image, not a CD image), download the Fedora Live CD. It is rather small and fits on a single CD (with plenty of room left over). Once you burn the ISO and boot from the CD, you'll go into a functioning Fedora run completely from the CD. On the desktop will be an icon that says "Install to Hard Drive". Click that to install Fedora. Then, you can run "yum update" to download the latest packages. Then, you can use yum to install anything else you want that wasn't on the live CD. -- kainaw™ 15:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Use a different torrent downloader if you don't like BitTorrent. Really, if you want to download it, and have connection problems, a torrent download is better than a direct download, because if something gets wonky in between you and one server there are a million other routes it can take to get to you. There are a lot of other torrent programs out there and many of them are not "sucky". --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Ask a friend with a better connection to download for you what you want and burn it to a CD/DVD - back in the days of old I used to do this. Also, when I didn't have a CD writer we used to have burn parties at a friend's place - imagine, just one day to burn ten to twenty CDs. --Ouro (blah blah) 20:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I had the same problem when I tried Fedora. But I think I downloaded the CD, so it slowed down a lot (which was depressing), but it still finished within a couple of hours. Once you get it installed finally, then you have another 250 MB or so of updates to download File:Rolleyes.gif. And then you can download your apps ;-).--Rjnt (talk) 21:31, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

You can also do a network install of Fedora (just get the small 114MB net install CD image), but if you have a bad Internet connection then it is going to suck too. --128.97.245.91 (talk) 01:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You might also look to see if there is a local Linux user's group in your area. Here in North Texas, we have NTLUG. At NTLUG meetings we have a free 'installathon' where we invite members of the public to bring their computers to the club meet and we'll install the Linux of their choice on there (and even feed them free pizza while we do it! Suck on THAT Microsoft!!) Additionally, many clubs will give away free Linux CD's and DVD's (we do that too) - and if you post a help message to their mailing list, you could probably even find someone who'll drive to your house with CD in hand and help you out. We Linux fanatics are fanatical (but also friendly!).

    .-.
    /v\    L   I   N   U   X
   // \\  >Phear the Penguin<
  /(   )\
   ^^-^^

SteveBaker (talk) 22:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Using USB flash drive in win98SE

Im trying to attach a 16GB USB flash drive to my OEM win98SE version 4.1. The computer installs it as a Plug and Play drive which shows up as E: on the My Computer screen. I downloaded the win98SE version 3.3 drivers from the net, it installed with no errors, and the device manager said that it has no errors. When I look at its proprties, it sometimes shows it as completely full and sometimes completely empty. In either event if I try moving anything to the drive it crashes the operating system. What can I do? Phil_burnstein (talk) 15:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Try these drivers - I've used them to access my Creative ZEN Stone Plus and other USB mass storage devices under win98se and got them to cooperate nicely (and Creative says that the said device will only work well with xp or that other recent OS, which turned out only to partly be true). One thing that didn't work well was when a particular USB device's battery was charged from the USB port - but data transfers worked fine. Try this and tell us if it worked for you. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 20:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It worked beautifully!!! Many, many thanks. Phil_burnstein (talk) 00:17, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Translating code from one programming language into another programming language

How easy is to 'translate' between programming languages? I am mainly interested into 'translating' from Python into Perl, PHP or Java. Is it possible to do it automatically?--Mr.K. (talk) 17:24, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It's going to depend heavily on how similar the languages are. A sufficiently "weird" language may require rethinking the problem in order to translate to a more conventional language. There have been automated tools in some cases to do this, but I don't know how good they usually are. To go from python to java, you may want to look into jython. It's not a translator per se, but it may be useful to solving your problem. Friday (talk) 17:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

O, yes, this jython thing looks nice. I suppose Python - Perl should be even easier. However, I didn´t find the appropriate tool. --Mr.K. (talk) 18:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I mean, it depending on what you accept with the definition of "translating". If you just mean you want a program that computes the same result as the original program, then it's trivial to do it automatically. Just get an interpreter for the original language in the new one, and include the original program as a text string or something, and run it through the interpreter. (Or if you can't find such an interpreter, get an emulator for the type of binaries your computer runs, and run the binary for the original program through it.) This follows from the fact that all programming languages are Turing-complete. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 20:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It is (in principle) perfectly possible. It is (in practice) utterly impossible.

• The 'church-turing' thesis says that any device which is 'turing-complete' (which certainly includes every programming language on the planet) is equivalent to every other turing complete device. So it is mathematically certain that language one can be converted into the other. That's the theory.
• In practice, programming language are subtle - they have teeny-tiny details that are unique to them that make automatic translation so insanely difficult as to be impossible for all practical purposes.

If someone had a gun to my head and was forcing me to do it (now there is a bizarre plot for a Bond movie!), this is what I'd do: I'd find an existing compiler for the source language (something like the GNU compiler suite, for example) which has a back-end that can be swapped out to make it write machine code for different architectures of CPU. Then, I'd invent a kind of "machine code" that was made up of instructions in the target language - simple things like an "add" instruction that said "a = b + c ;". I'd make up one or two lines of code in the target language for every instruction that the original compiler needed to generate - and I'd plug that into the 'back end' of the compiler for the source language. Then "compiling" the source language would transform it into the destination language. The result would work perfectly - and might not be too horribly inefficient - but the resulting programs would be utterly unreadable to humans - and therefore quite useless for all practical purposes.

If you want to translate between language A and language B such that the resulting code in B can be worked on by humans - then you probably need a skilled human to do the translation. It's difficult and painful work - but it's pretty much the only way.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Something is wrong with my iPod

Here's whats going on. My friend got a new iPod and gave me his old 4GB. I was using it, and i plugged it into my computer, and it did nothing. So i unplugged it, and now its been stuck on for quite some time now. The screen is locked up, and i cant shut it off. Any suggestions?71.223.209.11 (talk) 20:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any specific advice for iPods, but, in general, for other devices, holding down the power button attempts a reboot. If that fails, trying pulling the batteries out and putting them back in. StuRat (talk) 20:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I, and many other people, have experienced this same problem. There is no solution. You have to wait until the battery runs out, then plug it into your comp. It'll charge then, and should work. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 22:02, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean the batteries aren't removable ? That would mean they disabled the final reboot option, assuming their product would never lock up. And how'd that assumption turn out ? :-) StuRat (talk) 23:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, sure, the batteries are removable - if you want to void your warranty and risk screwing up the internal workings of your iPod by taking it apart. And I do think that they thought it might freeze up, but they thought that it wouldn't happen very often (they were right, too!); so they gave it some thought and decided, "Hey, maybe our buyers are smart enough to realize that it's solvable by just letting the battery die." flaminglawyer^cneverforget 23:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Did you try resetting it? Basic, but often the solution. Hold down the power and center buttons. I seem to recall this happened to my sister's iPod, and letting the battery run dead was the only solution that worked. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 00:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Thats what i ended up doing. thanks anyway 71.223.209.11 (talk) 02:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't make me kick my Puppy....

I have Puppy Linux on two computers, and Windows XP on two others. I'm able to communicate via the network hub between XPs or from Puppy to XP, but not from Puppy to Puppy. I also have 2 Windows 98s on the hub, and a Damn Small Linux, to boot. So, how can I get my two Pups to talk to each other (or bark, as the case may be) ? StuRat (talk) 20:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

What does "communicate" mean? --71.106.183.17 (talk) 20:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to be able to send files back and forth between Pups. StuRat (talk) 21:40, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

FTP should work regardless, using IP addresses. You can also set up NFS mounts between Unix filesystems. Franamax (talk) 21:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

How do I set up NFS mounts between Unix filesystems ? StuRat (talk) 12:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like your systems are using Windows domain discovery to "communicate", the XP's can find each other and the puppies can find the XP's. Do you have DNS set up somewhere? The puppies will need that to name each other.

In any case, you should be able to telnet between the Linuxes, using their IP addresses. Franamax (talk) 20:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if I have a Domain Name System set up on the Puppies. How can I check ? StuRat (talk) 12:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You may find some useful information in the "Setiing up a lan with two Suse machines" topic higher up on this page. --LarryMac | Talk 21:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

You say you have these seven (2 puppy, 2 XP, 2 win98 and one DSL) computers connected to the internet via a hub??? Where do the ip addresses you use come from? Is there a device in your network that acts as a DHCP server? Is your ISP providing them?? Are you using static ip-addresses??? (if you don't know, the answer is "no"). We need more precise info to give a complete answer, but please examine the /etc/hosts files of the puppies, to see if they reference each other. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a hub, yes, but for only 4 PCs, 3 of which are dual-boot. I don't understand why this is so hard to believe. Are 4 PCs an absolute limit for all hubs ? We just installed a switch, too, on one of the hub ports, to support additional PCs. I really don't understand the diff between these, however, or how it affects Puppy-to-Puppy file transfers. My ISP, Yahoo/ATT/SBC/whatever_they_call_themselves_this_week, provides a device (is this a DHCP server ?) to access the Internet via the phone lines (a Digital Subscriber Line, I believe, not dial-up or cable). I think this assigns one (dynamic ?), external I/P address to our network. I believe we also have static, internal I/P addresses for each PC. Would those have been assigned by the hub ? See the /etc/hosts contents below. StuRat (talk) 12:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(Please try to be less scream-ish; it hurts the ears of others, and is sometimes interpreted as "Go away, n00b!" by the receiving party.) flaminglawyer^cneverforget 23:08, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Please accept my apologies. I'll reconsider my use of repeated question marks and bold fonts. However, StuRat has been around here for a while, and has contributed a lot to the refdesks. StuRat is in my mind no n00b, and that is why I perhaps was a bit careless in the way I worded the response. You are right, of course, that it is unnecessary to be noisy. However, I'm confident that it'll take more than this to scare StuRat away :-). StuRat, please give us a bit more info, and we'll be happy to help. And I promise, I'll be more gentle on true n00bs. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Good. I don't consider Stu a noob either, so I'm glad we agree. So on with the show. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 00:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, when it comes to PC/Linux networking, I am a newbie, and was afraid that, if I posted this Q, I'd get a bunch of questions I can't answer (and maybe be teased for not knowing the answers). I should add that many of the machines are dual-boot, and boot in Windows unless I use a Linux boot disk. Here's the map:

PC A) Windows XP or Puppy Linux
PC B) Windows XP or Puppy Linux
PC C) Windows 98 or DSL
PC D) Windows 98

This creates a complication that the one Puppy may not know the I/P of the other Puppy, since it may not have been a Puppy at boot time. The contents of the /etc/hosts file on one Puppy are as follows:

127.0.0.1   localhost puppypc
192.168.1.1 pc2
192.168.1.2 pc3
192.168.1.3 pc4

StuRat (talk) 12:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)

I'm sorry my previous post came out sounding arrogant, no teasing was intended. First, the basics:

• To communicate on a network, a PC needs an ip-address. There are two ways of obtaining one: the PC can request one from a DHCP-server, or it can be configured to use a fixed (static) ip address. The usual setup in a windows-only network is that the PC requests its ip-address from a DHCP-server.
• There is no guarantee that a PC receives the same ip-address on subsequent boots. The ip-addresses assigned, may depend on the order in which the PC's are booted.
• A hub is a passive device, which just would just forward a request for an ip-address to the device that's connected as its "uplink". I actually had a setup like you described (several PC's connected to the internet through a hub, each getting a separate ip-address from my ISP's DHCP-server), but that was back in 1995, and that's the reason I was so amazed. Now (or soon), the number of PC's in the world is larger than the number of ip-addresses (IPv4 addresses, to be precise). Therefore, I was amazed that an ISP would grant you seven IP-addresses for the price of one.
• Therefore, I think there are two possibilities: either the device you refer to as a hub is actually a router, or the device provided by your ISP is acting as a DHCP server. It doesn't really matter which is which, there is a DHCP server between your PCs and the internet.
• I'm not completely sure about the difference between a switch and a hub either, but a hub is a more old-fashioned device. My understanding is that hubs send all the network traffic they receive everywhere, while switches make point-to-point connections, and avoid swamping the network with unnecessary traffic. If we take the trouble to read the articles, I'm sure its explained there.
• As a workaround for the global scarcity of ip-addresses, your router, when acting as a DHCP-server, will give you a private ip adress, that is, an address that's unique on your network, and that is prohibited for use externally on the internet. What's visible on the internet, is the ip-address of your router, and your router gets its ip-address from your ISP. Your PC, and the PC's of millions of other users, gets addresses in the 192.168.1.1 − 192.168.1.255 range. The address is unique on your network, but it isn't transmitted to the outside world, so the fact that there are millions of PC's with the ip-address 192.168.1.100, isn't a problem.
• When setting up a network, you need to make sure that no two machines have the same ip-address. If some of your machines use DHCP, and others have fixed ip-addresses, you must make sure that there are no ip-address collisions. Most routers by default reserve some ip-addresses for static use, and have a range that is assigned dynamically (e.g. 192.168.1.100 - 192.168.1.200 being reserved for DHCP, and the rest for static ip-addresses).
• The fact that you use boot disks for puppy linux is important. I very much doubt that a boot disk would use static ip-addresses, it would use DHCP. I think the problem is that your /etc/hosts entries don't reflect the actual ip-addresses used. First, 127.0.0.1 is ok, that's a generic reference to self, i.e. the local computer. However, "192.168.1.1 pc2" is probably bogus. Most routers I've seen, reserve the 192.168.xxx.1 address for themselves - you can access the router by typing 192.168.1.1 in the address bar of your browser. The "192.168.1.2 pc3" and "192.168.1.3 pc4" entries are also suspicious. As stated, routers usually reserve the lowest ip-addresses for use as static addresses.
• To determine which ip-address your puppy uses, you can type "ifconfig" from the command line as root. There will be several lines of output, one of which shows the actual ip address used. If you type "ifconfig" from one one of your puppies and make a note of its ip-address, you can access it by ftp or sftp using the ip-address, both from the other puppy and from the windows machines. Remember that the ip-address may change upon subsequent boots.
• I tried out puppy linux a couple of years ago, and I vaguely recall that it had a file or something in the PC file system, where you could save settings. Thus, even if you boot from a CD, you may have the option of setting up static ip-addresses. But first, do some diagnostics based on what I've written above. If you can confirm that you are able to save settings, and want to try to assign static ip addresses to your puppies, let us know, and I (or someone else) will be back and try to guide you. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

StuRat,...

On each linux box type ifconfig eth0 and tell us what it says.

On each win box type ipconfig -a and tell us what the section that begins with "Ethernet adapter <some name>" says.

-- Fullstop (talk) 23:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok, here's the I/P addresses (with rooms noted so I can recall which is which):

PC A) Windows XP or Puppy Linux  (living room)    192.168.1.103
PC B) Windows XP or Puppy Linux  (basement)       192.168.1.102
PC C) Windows 98 or DSL          (my bedroom)     192.168.1.101 
PC D) Windows 98                 (computer room)  192.168.1.100

But, are these permanent I/Ps or different depending on the boot order ? Do I now edit the /etc/hosts files to add these addresses ? StuRat (talk) 03:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

These are definitely DHCP-generated addresses. That implies that they're not guaranteed to remain stable, although your router may have a mechanism that reserves an ip-address to each MAC address for a given period of time. How did you get the ip-address for PC D? With a linux boot CD or from windows? In windows, the command corresponding to ifconfig is called ipconfig. Note that the ip-address of a dual-boot PC may be different when you boot into windows and linux (and if you set up static ip-addresses in linux, but not in windows, it's guaranteed to be different).

Did you try ftp'ing or sftp'ing your puppies using the ip-addresses?

The /etc/hosts that you posted is useless because it doesn't reflect the ip-addresses being used. I'm on a ubuntu PC that uses DHCP now, its /etc/hosts looks like this:

127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.1.1       nemi

Followed by some IPv6 stuff, which you don't need if it isn't there already. All 127.xxx.xxx.xxx addresses map to your local computer, whether they're listed in /etc/hosts or not, see Loopback#Virtual_network_interface. And note that there is no mention of "real" ip-addresses. You wont break anything if you modify the hosts files of your puppies like so:

127.0.0.1        localhost puppypc
192.168.1.103    fido
192.168.1.102    guido

If you do this on both puppies, you should be able to ftp or sftp one from the other using its name, ftp fido from guido, provided the ip-addresses remain stable. Something they probaby won't do, in the long run.

To set up static ip-addresses, the relevant files are /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/resolv.conf. If you want to try this out, please show us their contents, and we'll be back and try to help. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 10:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I used Fullstop's advice for finding the I/P addresses (except for the -a flag, which choked on Windows 98). They were the same when I booted under Windows XP or Puppy, which is good. I certainly do want static I/P addresses, if those are needed so I can update the /etc/hosts files and allow Puppy-to-Puppy writes. However, if there's a way it could automagically figure out the dynamic I/P addresses and update the /etc/hosts files accordingly, that would be even better. StuRat (talk) 14:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I checked out the files you mentioned, and /etc/network/interfaces doesn't appear to exist on the Puppies, while /etc/resolv.conf is a link to /etc/ppp/resolv.conf, which is a link right back to /etc/resolv.conf. If I try to ping one Puppy from another it works fine, but if I try telnet it fails with "Connection refused". Also, what I was calling a hub is apparently actually a router, if that makes any diff. StuRat (talk) 16:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• (outdent)

Your description of the files in /etc was so different from what I'm used to, that I had to check this out for myself. I downloaded the most recent version of puppy linux, "puppy-4.1.1-k2.6.25.16-seamonkey.iso". /etc/resolv.conf was just an empty file (not a softlink), /etc/network/interfaces was, as you said, nonexistent, and I did not immediately have a working internet connection. On the top left of the screen, there was a triangularly arranged set of icons. The bottom left of the triangle was an icon named "connect". I clicked it, and a new dialog appeared. I selected "Internet by network or wireless LAN". The next dialog shows your network card, or cards, if you have more than one. I'm assuming you only have one. There'll be a button, "eth0", click it. The next dialog starts out with "OK, let's try to configure eth0". Select "Static IP".

Now, you'll have to chose a static ip address for each puppy. From what you already have told us, we know that your router starts assigning dynamic ip-addresses from 192.168.1.100 and upwards. Therefore, you want to select an ip address lower that 192.168.1.100. Let's start with 192.168.1.18 for puppy1, and 192.168.1.19 for puppy2.

When setting up puppy1, enter 192.168.1.18 as its ip-address, 255.255.255.0 as its net mask, and 192.168.1.1 as the Gateway. I'm assuming 192.168.1.1 is the address of your router. You can doublecheck this by examining the output of ifconig (linux) or ipconfig (windows), but it's a pretty safe bet. In the DNS parameters fields (primary and secondary), enter the first and second DNS server addresses of your ISP. You may find these on the website of your ISP. Otherwise, use Knoppix, and have a look at the nameserver entries of /etc/resolv.conf after booting with knoppix. There'll probably be three nameserver entries. I selected the first two, and entered those in the DNS parameters fields. Then, I pressed "OK". (When I did this more than once, attempt number 1 was successful, 2 gave an error message because the configuration already existed, and appeared to wipe out the previous configuration, attempt number 3 was successful and so on).

At this point, the internet connection worked, and ifconfig told me that my ip-address was 192.168.1.18. resolv.conf was no longer empty, it was not a softlink, but a file containing these lines:

nameserver 193.213.112.4
nameserver 130.67.15.198

There was still no /etc/network/interfaces. However I found an /etc/network-wizard/network/interfaces/00:f0:a3:79:E1:0C.conf, which contained

STATIC_IP='yes'
IP_ADDRESS='192.168.1.18'
NETMASK='255.255.255.0'
DNS_SERVER1='193.213.112.4'
DNS_SERVER2='130.67.15.198'
GATEWAY='192.168.1.1'
IS_WIRELESS=

The 00:f0:a3... name probably reflects the MAC address of my network card (and btw I've modified the name, out of paranoia about posting details of my system on the internet). This file appears to correspond to /etc/network/interfaces. Now, this PC has a static ip-address. I was prompted about saving the modifications to the local hard disk, answered yes, and they were intact when I booted again.

Now, we modify /etc/hosts. Mine was at this point exactly like what you posted. A reasonable modification would be:

127.0.0.1 localhost puppypc
192.168.1.18 puppy1
192.168.1.19 puppy2

Finally, there's a file callled /etc/hostname, containing "puppypc". I would change that to the name you have chosen for each PC, let's say puppy1 for the first one. And that's it, you should now have a working setup with static ip addresses. If you set up the rest of your PC's correspondingly, ftp'ing using the names of the PC's should work. Note that you need to start the ftp daemon on the puppy, it wasn't on by default. It's in the menus, under network|PureFTPd ftp server. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Were you able to do this on two Puppy Linux computers and have them send files between each other ? StuRat (talk) 00:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I set up one computer with Puppy linux, and tested ftp against a Debian computer (which already was set up with static addressing). I set up /etc/hosts appropriately on both, ftp'd in both directions, using the computer names. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I see. Did you get the same "Connection refused" error before you did the set up ? StuRat (talk) 17:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I think "Connection refused" indicates that you haven't started the ftp daemon on the pc you're trying to connect to, see my post above about how to start it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Set up static IP addresses and host names on the router. In fact, unless your router is some really cheap job, it will have already done something of the kind. The Windoze boxes will also have "registered" themselves with the router (more precisely: its DNS relay) using the names you gave them. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

actionscript question

My Actionscript 3 is a little rusty.

I have a Flash CS3 project with, say, 50 movieclips on it of the same thing, called CLOCK. They do not have individual instances.

What I'd like to do is first apply the .stop() command to all of the CLOCKs, and then one by one enable the CLOCKs in a random order.

The basic coding of this I know, I just don't know the best way for referencing all of the CLOCKs one by one. They don't have individual instance names and I'd rather not key that in by hand. I can't have them generated on the fly programatically because their positions are rather important.

Best approach to this? Point me in the right direction? It's been quite awhile since I used Actionscript so I'm having a hard time figuring out what I'm looking for... --140.247.237.64 (talk) 22:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about this language in particular, since I have never used it, but I can say that (like in most languages) it seems reasonable to assign each clock a number, then use some form of random number generation (your language probably has one) to stop each one individually and randomly. I realize that this is vague, but at least it's some form of idea. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 22:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I wasn't clear... let me reiterate. I know how to set up the basic loops and random number generators. That's not hard. What I need is know how to reference the movieclips even though they don't have instance names. --140.247.11.38 (talk) 23:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Try giving each clip an "instance name" by assigning it to a variable (a rather short variable name, since you said you didn't want to key them in seperately). flaminglawyer^cneverforget 23:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Actionscript doesn't work this way. I think I might have to wait for someone with more specific knowledge of the language. "Instance name" is a technical term. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Proxy

What is the deal here? I just downloaded FoxyProxy for Firefox, then went to whatismyip.com , and the website correctly told me my IP address. Is there a point to this? I mean, if websites can still see my IP, then I am not exactly 'anonymous'.--KageTora - the RefDesker formerly known as ChokinBako (talk) 22:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

FoxyProxy is not an addon that is a proxy. It just allows you to set up a proxy, much easier-ly than just with standard Firefox (because Firefox's proxy options are very minimal and bare-bones). flaminglawyer^cneverforget 22:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, so that means I need to download Tor's Vidalia Bundle as well? Okeedokee.....--KageTora - the RefDesker formerly known as ChokinBako (talk) 22:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

C++

I realize that this questions sounds extremely noobish, but I'm OK with that, since I'm a programming noob. So - I know that C++ is a programming language, and I've looked at some tutorials on it, but I still cant figure out: What's it used for? It seems like a useless language to me... (and) how would I execute a file written in C++ script (and what's their file extension)? flaminglawyer^cneverforget 23:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Um, C++ isn't a scripting language. You would need to compile the source code before you have any executable program. The C++ article says what it's used for, but just as an example, the Firefox web browser I'm using is written in C++ (along with some other languages). I understand a lot of the heavy lifting in major applications is done in C++, although the C Sharp (programming language) may be replacing it in some areas, I'm not sure to what extentFletcher (talk) 00:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec) C++ is one of the most frequently used programming languages today. You seem to think that it's a scripting language. It isn't - it is a compiled language. Its number one advantage is that programs written in C are usually also valid C++ (or at least, can easily be linked to a C++ program). Java (programming language) and C Sharp (programming language) are similar to, and inspired by C++. C++ was inspired by Simula (programming language). It is an object oriented language, that is statically typed. It also has support for generic programming, i.e. you can write code that deals with containers (sets, maps, arrays) of a certain type, without specifying the type. The template mechanism has spawned an entirely new programming paradigm, template metaprogramming, leading to marvellous stuff like the Blitz++ library. Several file extensions are used: .cpp, .CPP, .cxx, .CXX, cc, C. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 00:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

So... I write a C++ file, then use a "compiler" to execute/use it? Ok, I get it... kinda... (and yes I looked at compiled language) flaminglawyer^cneverforget 00:22, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Almost, but not quite. You write a C++ file, which is a text file. You use a compiler (with a built-in linker) to convert it to an executable file (an .exe, if you're a windows user). That is, a binary file which contain's machine code, packaged in a way that allows the operating system to easily load and execute it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 00:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] Yeah, what they said. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 00:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, so here's what I've heard: I write a text file that contains C++ code, then I convert it to an EXE file using a compiler. My computer can execute the EXE file. (correct me on anything if I'm wrong) flaminglawyer^cneverforget 02:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Nothing to correct, you've got it right. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 08:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Certainly C++ is far from useless - the VAST majority of the software you use on a day-to-day basis (games, operating systems, wordprocessors, web browsers) are written either in C++ or it's predecessor; C.

Basically, there are two ways to run a computer program - in the C++ way, you first 'compile' the program to translate it into the set of low level hardware instructions that your computer can understand. Then you take the compiled code (which isn't C++ anymore - it's "machine code") and run it on your computer. In (for example) Java, the program is compiled into a kind of half-way state (called 'byte code') which is not the low level instructions that the computer can directly understand - but instead a much simplified set of instructions. Then, there is another program (called an 'interpreter' - probably written in C++!) which takes each one of those simplified instructions in turn and runs it. This extra step makes things a lot slower (maybe 50 times slower) - but in some ways more convenient. So basically - there are two kinds of languages - compiled (like C++) and interpreted (like Java). Technically, there is a third kind - you can write programs in the raw 'machine code' of your computer - and in theory, you can write programs that are even faster than C++...but it's an absolute bitch to do - and for all practical purposes, if you aren't some god of computing prowess - the C++ compiler will do a better job than you can for all but the very simplest of applications.

In the past, nearly all programming languages were compiled - but C++ has become so successful that most of the other compiled languages (Fortran, Pascal, Algol, Cobol) are vanishing. The interpreted languages are popping up like daisies though (Java, PHP, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Lua)...and the competition between them is hot. So it seems like C++ is the oddball weird one - when in fact, it's by far the commonest for general purpose work.

It's true that (for example) Java can be used in more places than C++ - but it so amazingly slow that it's unlikely to really take over from C++ for cutting edge stuff like video games and operating systems.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:22, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

"most of the other compiled languages are vanishing" - where do you get this information? Absolute nonsense. C++ has a very specific market. Delphi (which is Pascal based) and Visual Basic are still huge in the market. Just because you're a C programmer doesn't mean you must impose your bias here. I'm sure others can name many compiled languages that aren't vanishing. And your comment on Java might be short sighted too - watch v8 by google coming along to blow everything out of the water. Sandman30s (talk) 00:18, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

A smart programmer would stay out of this mess, but I do have to interject that V8 is a Javascript engine, and thus has no bearing on the performance of Java. Yes, the names are a problem, and yes, the person at Netscape who renamed what was originally called Mocha and then LiveScript should be one of the first against the wall when the revolution comes, but there you go. --LarryMac | Talk 15:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Delphi? That's not exactly a big-time language...it has a niche - but it's nothing like as commonly used a C++. Visual Basic is dying. But don't take my word for it - make up a fair search criteria and check for yourself. If (for example) I google "C programs" I get 51 million hits, "C++ programs", 780 thousand, "Delphi programs" 200 thousand. I go to 'hotjobs.com' and search "Delphi" and "Technology" I get 16 jobs on offer - I do the same for C++ and there are 1600 jobs on offer. If I go to sourceforge and search for Delphi developers or companies offering Delphi services or projects written in Delphi - the numbers are each about 1% of the numbers I get for C++ and about 0.01% of the numbers I get for C. It's not exactly scientific - but can't think of a single major application that's written in Delphi...no games, no major office-automation...if I have to list C++ applications, I can list just about every major computer game written in the past 10 years - Photoshop, Word, Firefox...almost anything. Visual Basic is used in some financial apps - and for lots of ad-hoc programs written for odd single jobs - but again, no major applications of any kind. SteveBaker (talk) 04:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

So, and correct me if I misunderstand your "statistics", you claim the current standard for determinng how widespread a programming language is; is the number of google hits for a term not likely used on the majority of applications websites, a niche market of freelance developers, and your word that Visual Basic, the most used, if highly flawed, programming language in the world, is used in no "major" applications, and is infact "dying"? Well it's good to know these things, I was going around listening to the results of numerous well thought out studies! Silly me. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 18:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Slow? 50 times slower? That's not even remotely accurate, although it was closer to being true 10 years ago. The speed of java code on a modern JVM is pretty comparable to compiled C++. As more stuff becomes web-based, the idea that the vast majority of common apps are C++ is becoming less true. Nobody uses C++ to write web applications. If Java were as slow as you seem to believe, people wouldn't be using it so much. A quick google turned up [1] which says "On Intel they found that the Java performance was very reasonable compared to C (e.g, 20% slower)" - and that's from several years ago. JVMs are getting more efficient all the time. Friday (talk) 22:32, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

that's not what Steve said. Steve was referring to interpreted code being 50 times slower than compiled code. That is correct. But the comparison to Java is indeed weak. Java served by web apps is of course byte-code, which then close-to-silicon once the byte code has been translated in the native VM. -- Fullstop (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

He included Java in the "interpreted language" category which he said was so much slower. It's a bit of an oversimplification to call Java "interpreted" but many people refer to it that way. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that it's a complete myth that Java is vastly slower than compiled C code. Many old-timers still seem to believe it tho, but it's time it was dispelled. Friday (talk) 22:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Java programmers often make this claim of speed - but it's only true if your program spends most of it's time executing inside libraries (which are probably written in C++). The speed for code that's actually written in Java is still around 50x slower than native binary. SteveBaker (talk) 04:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, reliable sources say otherwise. Do you have a reason for this belief, or it is just based on something someone heard once? Friday (talk) 14:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

BTW, we don't need to guess here. Java_performance#Comparison_to_other_languages has a reasonable summary, with actual sources. The details can be complicated, but the gist is that Java is not significantly slower for most tasks. Myths to the contrary should be discounted. Those "Java is terribly slow" rumors were mostly unfounded even 10 years ago; today, it's completely unreasonable to repeat such nonsense. Friday (talk) 15:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

December 5

Firefox forcing re-enter of password

Using FireFox 3.0.4 on a Mac, whenever I go to change my enwiki preferences FireFox forces me to reenter my password (even when I'm logged in). For example, I can't change my skin without reentering my password; when I try to save the new skin, it tells me my password is too short. I have to go into the User Profile tab under the Change Password section, enter my password once and again for confirmation, click back to the skin tab, save, and only then are my preferences saved. (I do not actually change the password, just retype it). Any other FireFox users have this happen? It does not happen in Safari. Fletcher (talk) 00:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a result of FireFox's password autocomplete feature, I believe. It enters your current password in the change password field, so mediawiki thinks you're trying to change to the empty password and gets annoyed. I've never had this problem myself since I don't use autocomplete. Algebraist 01:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This seems to have helped. I did not want to turn off auto-complete; however, I logged out, logged in again and at Firefox's prompt, told it to never remember my password. This created an "exception" to the auto-complete feature. Hopefully the cookie will keep me logged in for 30 days at a time, even if Firefox doesn't remember the password. Thanks for your help, Algebraist. Fletcher (talk) 01:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This happens me. Simply blank all the password fields that Firefox has filled in on your preferences and you're sorted. No need to make an autocomplete exception, since I for one use the autocomplete to speed up log in far more often than i change my preferences. Fribbler (talk) 21:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Youtube

I don't like Youtube's new look. How can I view Youtube in its original state? 60.230.180.175 (talk) 01:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

One of these maybe? Fletcher (talk) 01:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't be silly. Please give me a proper answer. I really want to see the original Youtube. It changed very recently and I don't like the change. Please help. 60.230.180.175 (talk) 02:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This might end up being like the old-facebook thing... No one liked it at first, but after a month or two, everyone was OK with it. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 02:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It's kind of a silly question as you can't control how they want their web site to look. But they do let you customize the home page a fair amount if you are logged in, apparently. Go to Add/Remove Modules and Customize Home Page. You can stop some components from showing and move them around a bit as you please. Fletcher (talk) 02:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You might be able to find a userscript for Greasemonkey. I am not sure if any stable script would be up yet, since the changes are so recent ... Sorry, I wish I had better news. Kushal (talk) 02:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Please! I hate the new look! It's much more awkward to use with that new look! 60.230.180.175 (talk) 03:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I don't mind the new look. Just that I don't have a "widescreen" (for lack of a proper word in my mind) camera. Kushal (talk) 16:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Complain to them! Not us! --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

How do I install winxp

I bought a used IBM Think Center 3Ghz with no o/s.How do I install winxp ? I have the xp disk but the pc doesn't seem to boot up this way, I get a msg of no o/s. I have minimal knowledge of this,should a novice attempt this? Thanks in advance ```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldskooloutlaw (talk • contribs) 02:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(please don't put all those things, it's really annoying) Anyway, back on topic: check your BIOS (when the comp starts up, it should have options like "press F1 for setup"). Make sure the CD drive is the first on the list. Next, make sure your CD drive actually works, and that the CD isn't scratched up or anything. If none of these work, I suggest downloading a DSL Linux iso and burning it onto a disc, and seeing if that is able to boot. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 02:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Refrain from staining your pure machine with the vermin that is xp, choose a better OS! --Ouro (blah blah) 06:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Or take a look at Comparison of operating systems for a less biased view...! Booglamay (talk) - 12:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

When your computer boots, it will probably display a message that you need to press one of the function keys to boot from a CD, or chose boot device. Often, these messages are shown very briefly (like a fraction of a section, so you need to pay close attention). As flaminglawyer suggests, you can also try to modify the boot order in the bios. However, since you consider yourself a novice, I should add that modifying bios settings is one of the riskier things you can do on a PC. You need to write down what the settings were before you make a change, so that you can restore the original settings. The path from being a novice to being more knowledgeable goes through trying out stuff. Note that if your xp cd is an OEM version and has been used before, Microsoft will give you the genuine advantage of not being able to reuse it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 11:18, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

In SNMPv3, what's the relation between contexts and views?

In SNMPv3's view-based access control model, there are the concepts of "context" and "view". Views are subsets of objects and object instances in a context. Contexts are also themselves subsets of objects and/or object instances. What's the motivation for basing access control decisions in terms of a context and then a view? Why not just define views directly as a subset of all managed objects (and/or object instances)? --173.49.9.141 (talk) 03:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

asm/semaphore.h

In the newer Linux kernels, asm/semaphore.h was removed. Many programs require this library. I know that I can simply use an older kernel to build programs, but when I'm building a module, I need to use the current kernel. Is there any online resource to aid in updating code that still uses asm/semaphore.h? I can see that the library moved to linux/semaphore.h. What functions changed? What structs changed? I'd like to have a list that says "search and replace the following to create buildable code". -- kainaw™ 03:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that when I was building OpenAFS packages. I just wrote a patch that changed all instances of asm/semaphore.h to linux/semaphore.h. There's probably a better way but I was in a hurry. -- JSBillings 22:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Is a MacBook Air better than a MacBook Pro?

If I'm considering a Mac laptop, would a MacBook Air be a better choice? Does the fact that it's super thin make it less reliable than a Pro? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 05:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that a lot of reliability data exists yet. The Air is thin- if thin is very important to you, it's a good choice. Otherwise, it's less machine for the money. Friday (talk) 05:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There is no 'better' in an absolute sense. Their specs are different, with the Macbook Pro having quite a bit more power (and firewire, an expresscard slot, and an optical drive), and the Air being lighter/thinner. There are also more competitively priced alternatives to the Air from other computer manufacturers. Which is 'better' depends on what exactly you're looking for. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:14, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If portability is your main concern, then the Air is "better". If having more features and greater power is a priority, then the MBP is better. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 06:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If you want an out-and-out opinion from someone who owns Mac products, I'd say, go with the MacBook Pro unless you absolutely need something as ridiculously lightweight as an Air. The regular MacBooks are not all that heavy, and have way better features than the Air. I don't know if the size of the Air makes it less reliable but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more susceptible to damage and problems incurred from being shlepped around all the time. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The RapidShare servers

What are these RapidShare servers?

Advanced download settings Download via:

• Cogent
• Deutsche Telekom
• GlobalCrossing
• GlobalCrossing #2
• Level(3)
• Level(3) #2
• Level(3) #3
• Level(3) #4
• Teleglobe
• Teleglobe #2
• TeliaSonera
• TeliaSonera #2

Are they server-hosting companies? -- Toytoy (talk) 09:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Level 3, Cogent, Deutsche Telekom, Global Crossing, Teleglobe, and TeliaSonera. Level 3 and Global Crossing are classic tier 1 networks, Cogent, TeliaSonera, and Teleglobe are listed as transit free networks in that same article and Deutsche Telekom is listed as a tier 2 network. The labeling has to do with what kind of agreements they have with other networks they connect to. But basically they are (some of) the major companies with provide the networks that make up the internet.--droptone (talk) 12:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

MSN Live Messenger

hey guys I had a simple doubt, I dot know if this is possible or not, but I heard its possible to tell which contacts are appearing offline in msn live messenger using some softwares or so. Something to do with the status called idle or something, not very sure, but is it possible to tell anyways if one of my contacts is appearing offline by any chance? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.188.90 (talk) 09:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There is no point. You can send them messages whether they appear offline or are actually offline or not. They are appearing offline for a reason. It is a total PITA to be getting loads of messages off people when you are working on something. Some people (like me) login to MSN only to speak to people who can help with their current work, and getting chit-chat messages every five seconds in text-speak can seriously annoy someone who is on a serious project.--KageTora - the RefDesker formerly known as ChokinBako (talk) 19:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Picture upload

Where is a free site where one can upload one's photos so that the public at large can access them by clicking on a link, but where it is impossible to download the picture? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.116.175.119 (talk) 16:30, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Nowhere. If you publish something on the internet, it can and will be accessible to anybody with the right tools. Some types of content may be harder to get than others, but pictures are dead simple. --LarryMac | Talk 16:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You could embed them in Flash files. That would not entirely prevent them from either deconstructing the swf or taking a screenshot, but it certainly will stop all but the most motivated.--droptone (talk) 17:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(After edit conflict)

What you want is impossible. Even if you did something complicated like encapsulated the image in a flash file or java program it would still be possible to get it out with the right tools, and lacking the right tools anyone can simply press the "PRNT SCRN" button on their keyboard to copy/paste the entire contents of the screen into MS Paint. APL (talk) 17:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The images on Orkut also are not "downloadable" but can be screen captured. Is it possible for a script running on the browser to temporarily disable the Print Screen keys? Jay (talk) 05:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

To put it even more directly: In order for the picture to get from your website to the eyes of the viewer, all of the pixels had to be placed in the frame buffer of the end user's graphics card. Reading back from that buffer (ie doing a screen dump) will recover those pixels NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. So, no - this is impossible without some kind of fancy DRM hardware in the end-user's computer...and even then, he can point a good old-fashioned film camera at his screen and get a copy that way. SteveBaker (talk) 21:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

For some related concepts, see analog hole and digital watermarking. - IMSoP (talk) 21:04, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Device not shown in device manager

I have an external mouse which I have been using for sometime. Lately, my laptop has stopped recognising it to the extent that it wont show up at the device manager. My mouse's perfect as I have used it in other systems. Also, my mouse powers up and I have checked the connected device list under USb Root Hub properties, which says that all the hubs are not drawing any power, even when the LEDs glow in my mouse! (Windows Vista Ult SP0). Thanking you in anticipation, 218.248.70.235 (talk) 17:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the happy, fun-loving world of Vista!--KageTora - the RefDesker formerly known as ChokinBako (talk) 19:10, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You could: a) connect said mouse to another port (if possible); b) remove drivers and try to reinstall them (wonder if this is at all possible though); c) upgrade. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Besides getting Linux and having it work (Linux is no fun! Windows is fun because it has problems and we have to fix them!), upgrading to Vista Ultimate SP1 through Microsoft/Windows Update may help with your problem -- just a thought. [Belinrahs | 'sup? | what'd I do?] 19:03, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Estimating Associated Content traffic

How can I estimate how many pageviews I'll get for my Associated Content submissions from search engines and indirect e-mail/Digg/etc. referrals? NeonMerlin 17:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If this is the first time you have done it, it will be almost impossible to predict. One estimate could be about 2 or 3 per day mostly from internet spiders. But if you have proven content, look at the previous results. One clue will be do you have content on a popular topic? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Mac terminal/Unix: how did I overwrite my directory?

I was trying to move a script file from one directory to another in the Mac Terminal. I used the following command:

sudo mv /opt/local/bin/curlxml.sh /usr/local/bin

I then tried to look inside /usr/local/bin to see if the file was there, but it kept telling me that bin wasn't a directory. I then tried to open it up in a text editor, and /usr/local/bin was the script itself! I had deleted the (huge) contents of /usr/local/bin..!

Now, I guess I was dumb not to do it interactively so that it would warn me, but the manual here says

To move the file into another directory:
  $ mv file dir1

Isn't that what I did?

Please let me know what I did wrong...

Thanks, — Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 22:14, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure you had a /usr/local/bin before you did this? I just looked on my mac, and it looks like the only stuff in /usr/local/bin is stuff I've installed. So I'd not be surprised that it didn't have one out of the box. Friday (talk) 22:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I just did the following, and everything performed as expected:

WirelessW-1930-1:~ user151$ sudo mkdir -p /testing/some/dir
Password:
WirelessW-1930-1:~ user151$ sudo touch /testing/some/dir/a
WirelessW-1930-1:~ user151$ sudo touch /testing/some/dir/b
WirelessW-1930-1:~ user151$ sudo touch /testing/some/dir/c
WirelessW-1930-1:~ user151$ touch foo.foo
WirelessW-1930-1:~ user151$ sudo mv /Users/user151/foo.foo /testing/some/dir/
WirelessW-1930-1:~ user151$ ls -l /testing/some/dir/
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 root     admin  0 Dec  5 16:42 a
-rw-r--r--  1 root     admin  0 Dec  5 16:42 b
-rw-r--r--  1 root     admin  0 Dec  5 16:42 c
-rw-r--r--  1 user151  staff  0 Dec  5 16:42 foo.foo
WirelessW-1930-1:~ user151$ 

I don't see any evidence of a bug doing what you've described. Friday (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You did a different "mv" command, you had a "/" at the end, signalling that it was a directory. What probably happened (although I can't confirm, since I'm neither at a Mac system or a Linux system at the moment) is that there was no /usr/local/bin before he moved the file, so the mv command was interpreted as "move the file /opt/local/bin/curlxml.sh to the directory /usr/local and name the new file bin". I don't think it would work if there already was /usr/local/bin, so Friday was probably correct in saying that there wasn't any before. 83.250.202.208 (talk) 00:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi all, thanks for the replies so far. (a) There was definitely a /usr/local/bin before -- it had several dozen programs I had installed. (b) My command definitely did not include a trailing slash -- I pages back through my terminal to check. (c) Before I performed the move I had a functioning /usr/local/bin folder, afterwards, the only thing with the path '/usr/local/bin' was the useless script I had created. Any other thoughts? Thanks, — Sam 146.115.120.108 (talk) 06:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's unlikely that mv file dir would remove the directory and replace it with a file, unless you've got 'mv' aliased as something else. The BSD 'mv' command is just not going to do that. Either the /usr/local/bin directory didn't exist before you ran the command, or 'mv' isn't the command you ran. -- JSBillings 16:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether you have the trailing slash or not. Friday (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

What Friday says is true. Try it yourself with the detailed example he gave above if you don't believe him. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 11:48, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

What's going on here?

Resolved

 – Figured it out.

What's going on with the main page? Is it just something messing up with my browser, or did someone make a uh oh? All the bullets are replaced with the Meta^? logo... It's baffling me right now. –  LATICS  talk  22:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Cancel that. Purged the cache and it disappeared. –  LATICS  talk  22:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

December 6

Forcing Google to recognize punctuation

Is there a way? I thought maybe, the same way that you can substitute that percentage language for problematic urls (I have no idea what that's called but you computer gurus must know what I'm tallking about, right?), there might be some code you could use to make Google search with punctuation. An example of what I mean: I was just trying to look up whether a certain animated short, T.R.A.N.S.I.T., was available online. Of course, I searched with various delimiters like "animated short", etc., but it would be much easier if Google would actually search for the punctuated term.--71.247.123.9 (talk) 01:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's a way to make them recognize it. It's likely because the database itself doesn't recognize punctuation, which would optimize it for situations except those which required specific punctuation (which are, you must admit, comparatively rare). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

anything I can buy for an 80 gig iPod classic that puts a headphone out on the bottom (from the "dock" connector)

okay, I'm thinking of something like this but with a headphone jack out instead of a whole bluetooth thing. Anyone find this solution?

the reason why is because i have an iPod where the headphone jack at the top got damaged (don't ask) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.107.213 (talk) 01:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Try googling "ipod line-out" and you'll find a lot of likely things... not sure how that would work with headphones, as headphones amplify the audio whereas line out does not... hmm. Might be worth just getting someone to replace the head port. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. A line out won't work with headphones. You won't be able to control the volume with the scroll wheel and such a port would not be suitable for hooking up to headphones, from what I gather. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

thank you. actually I have reason to believe such a thing is possible, because, in a forum post about this speaker thing you dock the iPod into (just an example, it might have been a different specific one) people were saying the sound quality is worse than with a typical iPod stereo dock on these things, since it uses the dock connector's headphone line instead of the dock connector's line out line, in order to allow the remote control to control the iPod volume. so there's already a line in the dock connector for what I want ... I'm just looking for a manufacturer who makes the bluetooth-like thing in my first link, but with a speaker out instead (and going to the headphone, not the line out line)....

worse comes to worst I'll just have to use that bluetooth model, though it's too expensive for me...

actually! while having to type the captcha I thought of this: couldn't I just buy the cheapest PORTABLE iPod speakers on the planet (that use the dock connector) and just rip it up, cutting the lines that go out of the dock connector to the speaker, and instead wiring these lines directly to a headphone jack? I have NO electrical experience, is this even feasible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.107.213 (talk) 04:18, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

From [2] it seems that there is no "headphones out" on the bottom connector. However, it could still be that there are speakers available that use the "control" signal from the Ipod to do volume adjustment on the line-out signal. If cheap speakers are very cheap you could try your idea, otherwise I think it may be better to open the iPod and try to see if you can fix the headphones-out port, or attach the headphone wires directly into the internal workings of the iPod (where you see the headphones port is (or should have been, I don't know how damaged it is...) ) Jørgen (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Video to audio transcoder.

I am looking for a program which I can use to extract the audio into a video (mpeg to mp3). I tried using VLC and it produced some quite annoying clicks that also resulted from plainly changing the file extension on my mac. Does anyone know of a transcoder that doesn't do that?

♫Deathgleaner 04:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm having difficulty understanding "extract...into". Do you mean "extract...from" or "insert...into" ? StuRat (talk) 04:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's say you have video with audio. I want to take that audio and put it in a separate file, and kick out the video. So yes, I would like to extract the audio from the video. ♫Deathgleaner 04:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe many CD/DVD rippers have that feature. StuRat (talk) 14:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Could you give me the name of one? ♫Deathgleaner 22:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I use Puppy Linux, and they have the PupDVDtool, which contains such a video to audio ripper. I haven't tried it myself, though. StuRat (talk) 04:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Under Linux, mplayer/mencoder can do all of that stuff. I believe there is a port of those into the Mac environment. SteveBaker (talk) 04:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you give me a link so i can download such file? ♫Deathgleaner 04:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a link in our mplayer article. SteveBaker (talk) 05:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Why are Blue-Ray recorders so freakin' expensive ?

They seem to run around US$3000. What's the deal ? Do they have a pixie inside each one, captured from Peter Pan at great expense ? StuRat (talk) 04:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Not at all, this page shows far lower prices and I know for sure I can get them around $250 locally (South Africa). And I think it's officially called "Blu-ray" instead of "Blue-ray". Sandman30s (talk) 07:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm confused now. This page lists the model numbers for Blu-Ray recorders: [3]. It doesn't list prices, but when I Google the price of those models I get listings around US$3000 each. The model you listed is for mounting in a bay on a computer, while these are standalone units for TV. However, that shouldn't make them cost 10x as much. Perhaps these are high-speed devices for production of Blu-Ray discs ? StuRat (talk) 14:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Recorders linking directly to TV systems have always been far more expensive, and I don't know why. Look at the prices of "commercial" DVD recorders vs the $30 units you can get for computers - and there's no difference in their capabilities but range between 5 and 10 times more in cost. Perhaps it's commercial greed aimed at technophobes who are desperate to record without having to learn how to use a computer. The same goes for hard drive recorders in satellite decoders, or for that matter the hard drives in the PS3 - they should not cost that much as they are cheap for PC's. Sandman30s (talk) 19:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Do manufacturers of devices for recording off TV have to pay massive bribes to the producers of TV content ? That might explain this discrepancy. StuRat (talk) 02:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"What's the deal" is basically that Blu-Ray is still fairly new and is bound up very tightly in patents and lack of licensing. So this would be absolutely the worst time to try and buy a recorder. Give it a couple years and you'll start seeing the knockoffs. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

In Australia they are around $1800, which is a fair bit lower in USD, but in the past the same happened with CD recorders, and DVD recorders when they were new. The developers are trying to get as much money as possible, so they will get payment from those who are prepared to pay thousands first, before the price drops to hundreds. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

However, if selling them at one tenth the markup means that they'd sell 100 times as many, wouldn't that be the better strategy ? StuRat (talk) 04:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Only if you could manufacture 100 times as many. APL (talk) 21:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

BluRay uses different light frequencies (blue ones) than regular DVD's and CD's. Laser diodes with the right color and enough power are both expensive and in short supply. So prices are still high. It'll get better over time (of course). SteveBaker (talk) 04:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Is there any inherent reason why blue lasers are more expensive, or is it just due to a shortage ? StuRat (talk) 06:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

According to laser_pointer, a Japanese company basically has a monopoly on blue-laser production, which could in part explain the high prices. In addition, I remember from shopping for laser pointers that red lasers are pretty cheap, but green ones are well over $100. Green lasers are very powerful and can pop balloons at close range and the beam is visible in the night sky (great for pointing out constellations). The blue laser must be even more powerful, and perhaps creating stronger lasers just takes more money, though that article does mention that green laser diodes are in shorter supply than red ones, so low supply probably contributes greatly to cost as well.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep - and remember that a CD/DVD WRITER has to have a much more powerful laser than a READER - that makes matters still worse. SteveBaker (talk) 13:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

StuRat, you didn't mention that you were actually interested in purchasing a B-R recorder, but assuming you are, there are some things you should keep in mind. First, every standalone DVD-recorder I've owned has made proprietary discs that were unreadable by other DVD players and recorders, or even the DVD-RAM recorder in my 'puter. I can't say anything about the B-R recorders you're looking at, but I'll add that nowhere in the print ads or on the boxes or manuals did my standalone recorders mention that shortcoming. Second, I've recently purchased a Samsung B-R player and it doesn't play recordable discs (CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, etc.) of any kind. I don't have any recordable B-R discs, so I can't try them out, but I'll assume that they can't be played either. That doesn't bode well for your recordable BR discs being usable in other players. Be forewarned... especially if you're dropping three grand on something! Matt Deres (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

telephone calls over the internet: Recommendations?

What software do you recommend for phone calls over the internet? I've heard too many bad stories about Skype (and it's just ways too popular and I'm all for the underdogs ;))... so... what would/do you use? --Thanks for answering (talk) 07:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Skype 4 *is* cool - even I use it (but only for IM). There's also Gizmo 5. --grawity 15:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Is Gizmo more secure than Skype? That's pretty much my main concern. Apart from reliability, sound quality etc., which I assume isn't such a bit problem anymore with pretty much any software? --Thanks for answering (talk) 17:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello-o-o? Anyone out there? I'd really appreciate tips. There's just too much out there... Thanks!! --Thanks for answering (talk) 04:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Youtube (2)

I really hate the new look of Youtube, so let me just ask why they added/changed/deleted stuff:

1. Why, when searching for vidoes, are the video details on one line instead of their own lines?

2. Why are the "x minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years ago" missing from Related Videos?

3. Why does it no longer say "From:" before a user's username in Related Videos?

4. Why is the text in Related Videos smaller?

5. What's with the new Recent Activity feature? It allows you to spy on other users. Yes, I know users can disable the feature, but still!

6. Why were bulletins removed?

7. Why are recent comments shown in italic?

8. Why are the video times merged with the video thumbnails?

9. Why do videos with very long names no longer have "..." after the part of their names that is visible?

10. Why, when looking at the list of videos a user is made, is that user's username shown under each video? They must think we're idiots or something. It's OBVIOUS who made the videos, so why show us?

And 11. And why, in the above question, is the user's username linked? It takes us straight back to their channel, a pointless idea since we can easily click the "Back" button. And clicking on that link in their 9 or so most recent videos in their channel - takes us to, you guessed it, A PAGE WE ARE ALERADY ON!

So there you have it. Ten easily noticebale bad changes. I'm not ranting; I'm just asking why those changes were made. 60.230.180.175 (talk) 07:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If Youtube's look changes every six months, you can safely say its because of fashion... :) Rilak (talk) 09:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Why do you think users on Wikipedia would know why designers at YouTube made particular decisions? Go complain at You Tube. 89.167.221.3 (talk) 10:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

As I said before, complain to them, not to us! You're ranting, because we don't have your answers and there is no reason to assume we would. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Suck it up. Redesigns happen, just deal with it. In a month, you wont even remember how the old style looked. Stop whineing and get used to it 83.250.202.208 (talk) 00:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Well please tell me why you think they made those changes. Those changes piss me off a lot and I will never like this new redesign! I'm not the only one who hates it. Almost everyone else hates it as well! 60.230.180.175 (talk) 10:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The reference desk is for factual questions, not a place for discussing opinions. Please take this either to youtube or some forum, here just isn't the place. YouTube is a business, they can do whatever they want. They could shut down their site tomorrow and there's nothing anyone could do about it. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 01:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of UTF-8

Is UTF-8 often criticized for discrimination against Indic scripts? --88.76.232.95 (talk) 10:30, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

UTF-8 is a form of representing Unicode characters as a sequence of 8-bit bytes. It uses one byte for any character of ASCII and more for others. For a Devanagari character three bytes are used. Any other "discrimination" of specific script is the same in all representations of Unicode, not only in UTF-8. MTM (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Multiprocessing without Registered RAM

Is there any current Processor family that supports multi-processing (a.k.a. having multiple physical processors) with unregistered,unbuffered RAM? Masterfreek64 (talk) 12:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

DNS lookup

One of my linux machines had really slow DNS lookup. I checked its /etc/resolv.conf, and it turned out it only pointed to my router's ip-address. I copied the nameserver addresses from resolv.conf on a ubuntu installation, and DNS lookup was fast again. My question is: how does the linux installer (and knoppix, for that matter) find the ip addresses of my ISP's nameservers? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

When you connect, your computer or router gets the settings - your IP address, DNS servers - from the ISP. --grawity 15:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

More specifically, from your ISP's DHCP response. -- JSBillings 17:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

And if you DHCP before the router has contacted the ISP, it may give itself as the DNS server. This will be configurable on the router too. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Is there a command that I can enter, from the command line, that forces a look-up and displays the result in real-time? Like this;

# what_is_the_nameserver_addresses_that_my_ISP_currently_is_using
nameserver 193.213.112.4
nameserver 130.67.15.198
nameserver 130.67.60.68

? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Most likely, your router/gateway is providing your computer's DHCP service, not the ISP , so you'd need to check what it is configured to provide. It depends on the manufacturer on what you can do to override the behavior you're seeing. I'd probably configure my /etc/dhclient.conf to override the DNS information with my own. -- JSBillings 17:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I had a router that provided the computer's DHCP service, because it was the only nameserver listed in the resolv.conf file of one of my PCs. And it was really slow (the router was acting weirdly in other ways too, something which a reboot fixed, but that is beside the point). I had two other linux PC's, and these had resolv.conf entires corresponding to the nameservers of my ISP. They were connected to the same router, and DNS lookup was fast. When I modified resolv.conf of the first PC with the nameserver entries from the other two, DNS lookup was fast again. The only way I can imagine that these nameserver entries could have gotten into resolv.conf, was that the linux installer must have sent some DHCP info request, and written the result into resolv.conf. Moreover, when knoppix boots, it has resolv.conf entries corresponding to the nameservers of my isp, and does not mention the ip-address of the router. So the linux installer manages to do this. Knoppix manages to do this. But I'm unable to find a command that does it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a command found in both Windows and Linux called nslookup that will tell you the DNS servers of your ISP. Just typing nslookup will tell you the currently-used server. Typing (I think) set q=a, ENTER, then ls -d and the domain name of your ISP, then ENTER, inside nslookup should output the names of all of the servers.--192.94.73.1 (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Web books

Please can someone who knows about Web books add me on msn messenger so i can ask them about them? email address removed Quidom (talk) 15:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

No, but you can ask about them here. StuRat (talk) 16:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I've removed your email address so it doesn't get harvested by spambots. Asking questions here is appropriate. -- JSBillings 16:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Own Wiki

I would like to set up my own Wiki site (not to create an encyclopedia!) and wonder what is the best way. I would anticipate that, at most, it would have 1,000 contributors and perhaps 50 concurrent users. Should I have a company host the MediaWiki software for me? Is there a company that allows you to "spawn" a whole new MediaWiki installation? Any advice on the best way to go, would be appreciated. Twotinsofbeans (talk) 16:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"We" have an article on comparison of wiki farms - a "wiki farm" here referring to a provider which, commercially or otherwise, will host and maintain a wiki for you. At a glance, it has some useful overviews of the services on offer, and more importantly lots of external links for further research. Hopefully somewhere in there is something that meets your needs. - IMSoP (talk) 20:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Many web hosters will let you run a Wiki. I use www.dreamhost.com - it has a one-click install for MediaWiki that'll get you going really quickly (I run several sites with MediaWiki - it's really quite painless). That'll cost you about $10 a month and should easily support the the numbers of contributors/readers you have. There are (of course) many alternatives. SteveBaker (talk) 04:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

fake antiviris software

The New York Times carries a chilling report saying, "A Russian company that sells fake antivirus software that actually takes over a computer pays its illicit distributors as much as $5 million a year." Can somebody tell me the name of the product? --Halcatalyst (talk) 16:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a lot of fake anti-virus software out there, software that claims it'll help you but really just is a virus. Stick with big names and just Google anything suspicious. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The first one that comes to mind is Antivirus 2007/2008/2009/2010/... --wj32 ^t/c 06:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

c compiler

I have been using, whilst at univeristy, the c compiler xcode, now I have to continue working into the vacation, but I have been told the xcode is only available on apples. Is there a compiler, similar in interface and usability that I can obtain for free, that runs on wondows. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.1.146.243 (talk) 17:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Xcode uses GCC to do all the compiling. You could use MinGW on your windows system to compile C, C++, etc., however if you're using Apple's Interface Builder and the Cocoa API to create graphical interfaces, you'll need to switch to using a MS API instead. -- JSBillings 17:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

MinGW is an option - you could also download the 'Cywin' package - which contains gcc/g++ and has a command-line interface, 'Make' tools, etc, etc. Also, (if you must) there is a zero-cost downloadable 'learning edition' of the Microsoft Visual Studio package - which include C & C++ compilers. SteveBaker (talk) 04:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

There's a list of free C compilers here. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Storing DVD-R/CD-Rs in sleeves safe?

Are there any dangers of storing DVD-R/CD-R in paper sleeves for long term storage? Are Tyvek or Plastic sleeves safer? All of my archival discs are in full size jewel cases and they take up quite a bit of space. I was thinking to switching to thin jewel cases, but sleeves even more space saving. But I'm pretty sure paper sleeves aren't acid free and I wasn't sure if there's any bad chemistry going on in paper and the recordable media dyes --69.149.213.144 (talk) 19:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Paper can be abrasive, so if there is any movement, your disks could become scratched slightly. If archiving for a very long time is of concern for you, then a proper case is the way to go, but check out how the plastic in the case holds up for the long term. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I had a lot of audio CD's stored in one of those plastic vinyl storage binders - the disks had been ripped - so I didn't use them for a couple of years. When I came back to use the physical cd's, the ink on the printed/colored side of the disks had somehow bonded to the plastic of the binder and the CD's were utterly ruined. Paper is better - but (as previously stated) it can cause micro-scratches. The original jewel boxes are the best thing - they hold the disk such that no part of it (other than the hub) is touching the case. No matter what - stand them on their edges for the best possible long-term safety. SteveBaker (talk) 04:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

So 1/2 thickness slim CD cases are probably the best trade off between size and protection? --69.149.213.144 (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Also note that DVD's and CD's WILL fail (randomly, at least in my experience) after a few months on the shelf. You will pick them up one day and your PC will complain about CRC (cyclic redundancy check) errors trying to read them. They are not durable media and not suitable for archiving. I would get a second hard-drive in another PC for archiving purposes. Check out CD rot. Zunaid 05:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I found an old CD-R from college (11+ years ago) and it worked just fine. Also, I've had DVD-Rs as old as 7 years (when the first SuperDrives shipped in Macs) that work fine. So I guess your milage will vary. --69.149.213.144 (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The nature of CD failures (at least the spontaneous kind) is that they either fail within a year or so - or they never fail. One mechanism is that microscopic pinholes in the metal layer grow slowly by a mechanism akin to surface tension in liquids until they are big enough to disrupt reading of the disk. Pretty much all disks have a few of these tiny holes - and the reason some disks survive and others don't is that disks have error-correcting codes built into the data - single errors can always be corrected but multiple errors relating to the same data sector may not be. So if the pinholes are in just the wrong place - the disk will work fine for a while - but then fail after a year or two. If you are luckier, they'll be in places where the errors can be corrected and no matter how old the disk gets, it never fails. The best way to be safe with archived data is to make several copies and check that they still work every six months or so. If any of your copies fails, make a copy of one of the good ones. Eventually, disks that are likely to fail will all fail and be replaced - and all of the copies that remain will be 'immortal'. SteveBaker (talk) 05:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Setting up password for website

I want to create a blank web page with a single link on it. The link will link to a Word Doc on my web server. When the user normally clicks on the link, they will be prompted to either open or download the file. How do I set a password for this download? I would like to prompt them to enter a password before they can either view or download the Word file. What is this simplest way to do this? Acceptable (talk) 19:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There are two ways that are pretty easy:

1. Put it in a folder that has a password coded into it by the server. You'll recognize this as that "username/password" box that your browser sometimes gives you before letting you access a page or directory. Whether this is easy to do depends on how your server is set up. Usually it requires either being in control of the server software itself or having a "server control page" or something like that through the web host. If you only have FTP access then you can't do this.

2. Make a simple little PHP script or something similar that feeds you the file if you have the right password. For example:

<?php
$pw = "yourpassword";
if($_POST["pw"]!==$pw) {
	?>
	<html><head><title>Password</title>
	<body>
	<form method="POST">
	<p>
	Password required: <input type="password" name="pw" id="pw" size=20> <input type="submit" value="OK">
	</p>
	</form>
	</body>
	</html>
	<?php
} else {
	$filepath = "YourWordDocSecretName.doc";
	$downloadAs = "WhatItWillBeDownloadedAsOnTheirComputer.doc";
	header("Content-type: application/x-download");
	header("Content-Length: ".filesize($filepath));
	header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$downloadAs\"");
	header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
	readfile($filepath);
	exit;
}
?>

In the second instance, note that if they had a direct link to the file, they could still download it. Hence having the file path being different than what the file will be called when they download it. (Note that the code above is

Note that neither of these are very high security, as they both send the password in the clear. You could get around that by setting it up as HTTPS session, if that was available, or you could have Javascript hash it for you (as MD5) or something like that, if you were really concerned about total security. Depending on the likelihood of someone trying to access it illicitly and the contents of the file, you may or may not think worrying about that sort of thing is overkill. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the requirements for using HTTP authentication (getting the browser to prompt for the username and password) are being somewhat overstated here: I think it's fairly common practice to allow this kind of setting to be over-ridden by a per-folder configuration file.

For sites hosted using Apache, this would be done by creating a file called .htaccess with the relevant settings; a search for password .htaccess turns up plenty of tutorials on how to do this. I imagine there are similar facilities available in IIS, but I've never had occasion to know about them.

And just to be clear, as far as your web server's concerned, the "download" or "display" of an MS Word document is no different from the "download" or "display" of an HTML page or an image, so no special consideration is needed for that. - IMSoP (talk) 20:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Because PHP will not block people from directly linking to the word document, I suggest using .htaccess to protect the directory that the word document is in. Any attempt to access any file there will prompt for a password. -- kainaw™ 14:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

remote monitor shutoff

Is it possible to remotely shut off a computer's monitor? Explanation: I'm away from my house and on a sucky comp, and have a VNC software installed on my comp at my house. I manage a website, so I keep files on my computer (and nowhere else). I need to be able to access/edit those files, without downloading them to this computer (which, as I said, sucks/has a tiny harddrive). So I need to VNC to my house's comp. But the problem is, I have another person residing in my house, and that person is considerably comp-illiterate. If s/he saw the computer moving by itself, s/he would freak out and unplug it, smash it with a baseball bat, or just point at it menacingly and repeatedly yell, "Witch!"(end sentence) So I need to be able to shut off the monitor, or at least make it display a constant, unmoving image. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 22:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Why not just leave the monitor off when you are away? Also, I think you can configure your VNC or whatever to open a completely new session instead of attaching to the existing one running on the display. --128.97.244.52 (talk) 01:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that this other person actually uses the computer monitor at times, so you want it left on for them when you're not using it. There are appliance timers which could cut the power to the monitor at certain times, that would be the cheapest and easiest solution. I suppose there are also Internet controlled switches you could get, but that sounds rather involved and expensive. Also note that, depending on the monitor, when you turn the power back on it may not turn the monitor back on without physically hitting the ON button again. StuRat (talk) 01:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Eh... I believe that I should reword the question. The other person uses a different computer, but will see my comp's monitor (while walking by, etc.); so no, they're not actually using mine. I cannot go home right now to plug my comp into an appliance timer. I need some way to, without physically touching anything, make my comp's monitor display nothing. Maybe there's something in the XP control panel on this? The home comp is using XP (please, no switch-to-Linux comments). flaminglawyer^cneverforget 02:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I still don't get it. If nobody is using it, then why is the monitor on? --128.97.245.100 (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

(Sorry - but this would be REALLY easy in Linux!) You can't turn off the power to the monitor remotely. Windows really isn't a proper multi-user operating system - so I don't think you can do it. Can't you just phone the other person and ask them to turn off your monitor "because you forgot to do it before you left"? SteveBaker (talk) 03:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

For 128.x (hi), the monitor is on because I can. I leave it on so that when I have an impulse to look something up on Wikipedia, I don't have to wait 5 seconds (oh dear!) for my monitor to warm up. And for Steve (hi Steve), I'm not going to switch to Linux no matter how hard you push, and I'm not calling John Roommate just to say "I forgot to turn off my comp monitor. Can you turn it off, pretty please with a cherry on top, so that I can save some ridiculously small amount of money on my electric bill?". So I can't do any site-managing tonight... :( Oh well. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 05:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

On mine, I can go to the control Panel, pick the Display icon, go to the Settings tab, pick the Advanced button, and change the color map to 0 red, 0 green, and 0 blue. That may or may not work for you, depending on your monitor and graphics card. If it does work for you, be careful, as that may make it difficult to reset later. Another possibility is the Power Management settings. I'm not sure if they are triggered by any computer activity or only use of the keyboard or mouse. In the latter case, the screen might already be dark, and stay dark, even when you access the computer remotely. StuRat (talk) 05:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this whole story sounds a little... fishy to me. Can't you just call your friend and say "If the mouse is moving, don't worry, it's me doing it. I'm controlling the computer remotely. Yes, you can do that.". It's not that big of a deal. 83.250.202.208 (talk) 23:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - I agree. This sounds a lot like someone who is trying to hack into someone's PC and doesn't want them to see what's going on. It's simply not credible that you can't convince your roommate to either turn off the monitor or ignore what's going on. I'm sorry - I just don't believe you. Since I don't approve of hacking - I'm not giving any advice. SteveBaker (talk) 05:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree it sounds a little off, but we all have our weird hangups about stuff like this. I recall back in the day scanning through reams of gopher pages trying to find someone's email address. One of the help pages I came across said (paraphrasing here): "For some bizarre reason people won't just call their friend to ask for the address. That's insane! Just ask your friend or uncle or whatever and they'll tell you their address!" So I did and got on with my life, but I'm sure if WP had existed back then, I'd have asked a group of strangers how to look up my friend's email address rather than asking him directly and, based on the some of the pages I came across, I wouldn't have been the only one. Some plans sound fine in your head and only sounds really weird to other people. Matt Deres (talk) 21:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh! i know. This is genious, lol. While on vnc, change the resolution to something huge... so the physical monitor can't show it(so it'll show the crappy message saying out of range), but you still see it trough vnc(a little big i guess). Now.. if that doesn't work why can't you tell the person what you're doing exactly, i never had problems with that; my comp illiterate friends always understand how i can get into computers from the internet. Mile92 (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

If your monitor is off because the OS shut it off automatically, I don't think VNC will turn it back on. I think the wake-up is caused by interrupts produced by keyboard presses or mouse movement. (I'd have to experiment to be sure.) Certainly ssh'ing and port-forwarding a VNC session from my linux workstation doesn't wake up the monitor. For example, you wouldn't need to wait for the 5 seconds it takes for your monitor to "wake up" because pixels on the screen are being displayed from the same framebuffer as the VNC session, one view is not dependent on the other. -- JSBillings 17:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

December 7

Xbox

I have two original Xboxes (one is modded). I am wondering if there is a way to hook them up together to make a regular desktop computer. On one of them, the processor is fried, but everything else is ok. The other one works perfectly. Even if I can't hook them up, though, can I still put a desktop linux distro for the PowerPC processor on the one that works? 74.194.198.190 (talk) 00:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know anything specific about this, but I can say that you'd better have steady hands, a couple extra copper wires, and have ready access to a solder. And be aware that this will definitely void your warranty, and you'll never ever be able to use them as regular old XBOX's again. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 00:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The original Xbox has an Intel processor, not a PowerPC processor, so keep that in mind when you choose an OS. -- JSBillings 00:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

(OP here) I have already voided the warranty. I modded it. It only cost me 15 dollars anyway. I should have done my research about the processor, I thought I had read somewhere that it was PowerPC; however, it appears that it is a Coppermine processor. Is there is linux distro that will run on this type of processor? I found several that are Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 03:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC) I can't seem to find out what instruction set it uses. Also, what would I do with the copper wire. I have the solder and a gun, so what do I need to do? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 03:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

1. Hooking a dead Xbox to a good one: The short answer is "No". You'd need to know a heck of a lot about the functions of the specific pins of every chip - and be prepared to rewrite every line of software in the machine...if you have the skills and knowledge necessary to even consider doing that then you would definitely not be asking the question here - so I deduce that you don't - hence the answer is "No".
2. Linux: There is a Linux port for the Xbox360 (which DOES have a 3.2GHz 3-core PowerPC processor) - you can find out all about it here. If you are talking about the old (not-360) Xbox (which DOESN'T have a PowerPC - it's a 733MHz Intel CopperMine processor) then you need this page instead.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The only thing wrong with the dead Xbox is the processor. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 03:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Well...(a) How can you be sure of that? and (b) it really doesn't help because there is no remotely simple way to add the hardware from one Xbox onto the other and have it actually DO anything - and even if you could, you'd have to rewrite large tracts of the boot code, the operating system and the applications...and I'm sure you don't know how to do that. This would be a HUGE project - and a fairly useless one too. If you had the skills to do it (I've been in the business for 30 years and I doubt I could do it) - it would still be a ridiculous waste of effort - for the time involved, you'd be better off by far just buying a new computer.

The processor that the Xbox uses is custom hardware for that machine - you can't just buy a coppermine chip from Intel and plug it in. So repairing your older Xbox would require that you send it back to Microsoft to get it fixed...and that would cost more than a previous-generation Xbox is worth. Game consoles are simply not designed to be repaired, modified or otherwise tinkered around with.

SteveBaker (talk) 05:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess I won't put them together then. However, it seems that you were correct. The hard drive from the old Xbox also has a problem. I am getting Xebian right now, but the Xbox won't boot from CD (?) and since something is not right on the hard drive it won't boot into the normal Xbox OS, so is there any way to get Xebian installed? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 05:17, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Hold on - you can't just boot an Xbox from a regular CD. You need to look back at the links I gave you earlier - there is a complicated dance you have to go through to boot Linux on your Xbox. I have not actually tried it myself - so you need to check out the site links I gave you and ask your questions there. However, running Linux on an Xbox with a dead hard drive isn't going to work either. SteveBaker (talk) 05:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Word: Tracking changes though I toggled it off

I'm working in a Word document. In some version, I and another person used "track changes", and there are still a couple of comments marked as "changes." At the moment, however, I just want to work normally in the document, so I switched off "track changes." Or so I thought...

The document includes an automatic enumeration. When I move items in that list (so that, e.g., # 13 is moved above # 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12), all numbers get updated... but those changes get marked as changes. Strangely, they are marked in the color that is usually used to mark changes of the other person who worked on the document (not of me).

I've tried to switch "track changes" back on and back off, but to no avail. What on earth is going on, and how can I get rid of it?! --Ibn Battuta (talk) 06:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

TI 89 Titanium

I have recently removed and replaced all 5 batteries of my TI 89 Titanium graphing calculator, and, ever since, I have been unable to transfer files from my computer to it. Both devices will recognize that they are connected, and the computer will even recognize that the calculator is a TI 89 Titanium, but when I try to send a file to the calculator, a message pops up that says that the file could not be transmitted, and that I should "Please try again." What should I do? Lucas Brown (talk) 19:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Remove all batteries (including a possible backup battery - disassemble it if needed), and wait 4 hours, then re-insert the battery. Mighta be something got corrupt in the memory. Or you might try a factory reset.HardDisk (talk) 23:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Is it remotely possible that you put one of the batteries in backwards? With 5 batteries - it's possible that one or more of them are only there to support communications with the PC. This is actually pretty likely because batteries generally produce between 1.2 and 1.5 volts each - so five of them produces 6 to 7.5 volts. Since hardly any electronics needs more than the 4.8 to 6 volts you get from four batteries, that seems like a really strong possibility. SteveBaker (talk) 03:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Text messages onto computer

Hi, I have a motorola W375 with some text messages I'd like to copy verbatim (+ metadata, eg date received) onto my computer. When I hook the computer and phone up over usb, I can only access the pictures and music stored on the phone. How do I get at the text messages, short of emailing them to myself (at cost) or typing them out? 79.78.66.177 (talk) 21:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It is standard practice to store the text messages on the telephone company's server, not on your phone. So, you could rip your phone apart and copy every little spec of info stored on it and you won't find a single text message. -- kainaw™ 22:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In which case, I'd like to have a way of archiving them. My fundamental problem is the same: getting the text messages from wherever they are, onto my computer. 79.78.66.177 (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Really? Every phone I've ever owned (admittedly not many) stored SMS messages on the internal memory/SIM. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 23:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It may be network dependent. I've used Sprint, Nextel, and Verizon - all in the United States. All of them stored SMS messages on the network's server, not on the phone. -- kainaw™ 23:37, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know whether it's operator/location-dependent, but (here in the UK) I hook my mobile up to the computer using Samsung PC Studio and can use that to transfer messages, backups/synching etc - I can even type the messages in the program and send it that way. I'm sure it's the same with the Nokia PC Suite. [cycle~] (talk) · 01:40, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

You could always forward the messages to an email account. They would remain accessible to your in box and/or you could then cut and paste. Time consuming and possibly expensive (depending on your plan) but effective. cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 14:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC) oops, sorry, I just read your last sentence. cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 14:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

From your IP address, it seems you are in fact in the UK, so yes, the messages are probably on either a) your phone's internal memory or b) the SIM card, as will the phone numbers in your address book. (Try putting the SIM into another phone, and you'll soon discover which.) The idea of storing them on the network's server seems weird to me, but then I gather SMS doesn't have quite the same reach in the US.

I believe Orange offer a service, or used to, where they make a backup copy of all the data on your SIM for you. Alternatively, it's worth looking around for software or hardware for your phone that allows access to the extra data, since it's quite common to want to "sync" this kind of info. - IMSoP (talk) 19:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

All GSM phones stores SMS in SIM card and/or phone memory. (According to Motorola W375 page, this is a GSM phone) GSM network stores only sent, undelivered messages. (If messages were stored in network, it would mean network access every time you eant to access them (and they would be inaccesiible while out of coverage)). If you have data cable (and phone can be recognized as modem), messages can be read using AT commends by terminal application. I do not have expierence with motorola phones, but this (AT+CMGL and AT+CMGR) works for siemens a65 (but does not works for nokia n70). There might be some application, which might allow access to messages using some obscure protocol (as in case with nokia's pc suite). -Yyy (talk) 08:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

December 8

What's this charcter?

What is this character:

่

I can enter is with some alt + #### combination, but I forgot. Does anyone know? When entered into the old MSN messengers, it makes the font huge. Acceptable (talk) 03:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a Thai tone mark: mai ek, U+0E48. Bendono (talk) 04:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

How do I enter the character using alt + ####? Acceptable (talk) 04:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Use the hex code point that I gave above. Assuming that HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\EnableHexNumpad is enabled, then alt + 0e48. (You need to hold Alt the whole time.) Bendono (talk) 04:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but how do I enter an "e" with the number pad? Acceptable (talk) 21:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

WW2 Colossus versus modern laptop

A CBS News story by Shelia MacVicar [4] about Bletchly Park, World War 2 HQ for cracking Axis code messages, claims that the WW2 Colossus computer "still works as fast as a laptop." The Colossus computer article in Wikipedia says that recently a 1.5 Ghz laptop was able to break a code faster than a restored Colossus. It credits Colossus, according to some reckoning, as having "an equivalent clock of 5.8 Mhz", still orders of magnitude slower than the laptop. Is the CBS story full of beans? Edison (talk) 04:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Be careful. The Colossus wasn't intended to be a general purpose computer - it had lots of specialised hardware for code-breaking. So it might well beat a modern laptop at codebreaking - but take a week to balance your checkbook! SteveBaker (talk) 05:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm - having read the Colossus computer article, I think the CBS story is wrong. We have a direct (and referenced) quote from someone who broke a code using a 1.5GHz laptop 240 times faster than the Colossus replica could manage - so that pretty much says CBS were exaggerating. But it's still possible that there were other operations that the Colossus could do that are still more suited to it's highly specialized architecture - and might therefore allow it to beat a modern PC at that very specific task. SteveBaker (talk) 05:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I seriously doubt it. Modern computers are fast, I highly doubt there is anything Colossus would be able to do faster. A regular cellphone is several orders of magnitude faster than the Apollo-program computers, and that was 20 years later. I understand that application-specific computers are faster than general purpose ones, but it's been 60 years since Colossus. No way it would be able to beat a laptop in code-cracking. 83.250.202.208 (talk) 11:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Read/Write rating of CF card

What is a typical read/write rating (ie how many times can it read/write) of a CF card? I'm only look for an estimate (1000 or 10,000 for example). Thanks, --Fir0002 06:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The answer is that the number of read cycles is infinite but the number of write cycles is in the 10,000 range - (probably higher these days) but it varies a lot from one generation of hardware to the next. But the problem is not as simple as it first seems because you have to count the number of writes. Suppose you have a 4Gbyte MP3 player based on flash memory...when you write a song to it, it only takes up maybe 1Mbyte - but writing 10,000 1Mbyte songs to the MP3 player won't trash it because each song does not update the entire memory. So long as the software is smart enough to spread new data out across the media, your MP3 player (which can hold 4,000 1Mbyte songs) could be 'written to' 10,000x4,000=40 million times...so you could write (and then erase) 10,000 songs to it every day for about 10 years before it would crap out on you. Where things go horribly wrong is when device manufacturers are not very smart about how they use the devices. Suppose the MP3 player has a single memory location that counts the number of songs it's holding currently. Since that location would be written to every single time you wrote a track to it's memory, after only 1 day of loading 10,000 songs - that specific memory location would die and your MP3 player would stop working.

There have been some notorious cases of that happening. Apple had a printer that used a flash memory to remember the paper size settings - the intention was that this setting would only be changed through an interactive control panel on the computer and so it would happen quite rarely. That was back when the number of write cycles was probably around 1,000. It's very unlikely that someone would switch back and forth between 'letter sized' paper and 'legal sized' more than a few times a week - so the printer would probably last for years in normal use. Then someone came out with some new piece of software that redundantly reset the paper size at the start of every page it printed and these printers started failing after an alarmingly short amount of time.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The CompactFlash article indicates that most newer cards use "NAND" type Flash Memory, and the latter article indicates a write endurance rating of around 100K. --LarryMac | Talk 14:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Question

Why does [5] say "None that we know of" for games that have no multiplayer modes? There is clearly no multiplayer in those games. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.180.175 (talk) 07:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Because sometimes there's a third-party add-on that converts a single-player game into a multiplayer game. --Carnildo (talk) 00:20, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That reminds me...

Anybody happen to know if there is a way to get my music collection from my original Xbox hard drive to my computer, or to a 360 for that matter? I've ripped all of my cd's already, but I had some songs on the xbox that were by local artists and don't seem to be available anywhere anymore. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 07:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Question 2

What operating system is considered the best of all-time? 60.230.180.175 (talk) 12:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

That depends on your definition of "best" and your definition of "an operating system" and on whom is doing the "considering".

• Is Windows AN operating system or is it many operating systems that have gone by the same family name? Is UNIX one operating system or many? (Are IRIX, Solaris and Linux counted as "a UNIX" or not? Should we count MacOSX as "BSD UNIX"?)
• Is "best" the one that sold the most copies? Is it the one that crashed the least? The one for which most applications have been written? The most elegantly structured? The most widely ported? The longest lived? Depending on what you want, the answers will vary.
• Worse still, the definition of what an operating system *IS* is a little tricky to pin down. Windows is more than an operating system - it includes a windowing environment and a bunch of applications...but UNIX is the operating system and the common applications - the frequently associated windowing system is not a part of it. Linux is JUST the kernel - the applications are mostly GNU. BSD is like Linux in most places it's used - but as the kernel of MacOSX, it's just the kernel. If we consider the kernels that are incorporated into things like microwave oven controllers and car engine management systems as "operating systems" then the question opens so wide that it would be quite utterly impossible to decide.

At best, your question is vague - most likely it's flame-bait. Either way we cannot (and should not) answer it. SteveBaker (talk) 13:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't listen to SteveBaker. The best operating system of all time is clearly SHODAN. Duh. --140.247.243.245 (talk) 15:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The MCP might have something to say about that! <end of line> SteveBaker (talk) 03:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Topology Expert computer help

Could someone please try to help this user (maybe respond at his talk page)? He is having some sort of a strange problem with his keyboard[6] and asked me to ask for help for him here. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 17:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the prob is that many of the letters they type are being dropped. I would suspect the issue is with the keyboard itself. First, try cleaning it. Hold it upside down over a trash can and shake it. This should dislodge any crumbs, hairs, etc. If this doesn't help, try a new keyboard. If you don't have a spare one at home, buy a new one, they only cost around $20 each. StuRat (talk) 17:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

(double u)hen I type (double u), my computer log off. (double u)hen I type the firt letter of your uername, the ection blank.

TOP EPERT

I'm guess that the control key is stuck or broken. Ctrl-W is a standard "Close Window" command for Windows. Not sure which username first letter is being referred to, Ctrl-N in Internet Explorer will open a new window using the current URL. --LarryMac | Talk 18:43, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

If you're using Windows, hit Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Ease of Access -> On-Screen Keyboard. That's for Vista at least, but it shouldn't be much different on other versions of Windows, and it'll be along the same lines on other operating systems. Won't fix your keyboard, but it should make typing a bit easier. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 18:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou for your help (and to Nsk92 for posting this)! The problem does not seem to continue but basically I had these problems:

'w' logged off the computer 's' blanked the Wikipage 'x' did not work (just made 's' appear so the keys switched functions) '2' did not work (just completely blanked a microsoft word document and I could not undo to get back to the original) '~' made the letters PKWHF (or something like that) appear and blanked a few lines

Actually, two reboots ago, it was working but one reboot ago it was not and now it is working again... Maybe the control key was stuck (it seemed to work when I tapped the key so thankyou for that) but I am still unsure of exactly what the problem was. Does anyone know whether this is because of a particular setting of the computer (in terms of command keys) or something of that sort? If so, how to undo it?

Thankyou for your help.

Topology Expert (talk) 19:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Take apart the keyboard and clean everything carefully. The "bigger" keys are likely to catch loooots of dirt, at least on my experience in my friend's computer keyboards (HELL, what did they DO in front of their computer?!). You can wash the plastic parts (keys, housing) with warm water (a bit liquid soap is good for coke remainings). The electronic foil containing the printed logic can be cleaned by rubbing CAREFULLY over it with some wet piece of cloth or toilet paper. Please, do care about screws, btw... HardDisk (talk) 23:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou, but my computer i a laptop... (and the problem i back).

Top epert.

Choosing web-hosting

How should be proceed to choose a web-hosting company? All are incredibly cheap, promise 99.9% uptime, and lots of stuff and all seem to have terrible review all over the internet about how they were down for days...--Mr.K. (talk) 18:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

If you want dependable webhosting service, you need a service which your monthly payment matters. If you are paying $1/month and have a complaint, why should the company care? It is just a dollar. If you are paying $25/month, the company might listen to your complaint, but you aren't important. If you are paying $100/month, the company may actually start taking your complaint seriously. You will see this in what the companies offer. The dirt cheap ones say "you can do this" and "you can do that". The expensive ones say "we will do this" and "we will do that". I am speaking from personal experience on the webhosting side. I do not even attempt to compete with the cheap companies. I charge a minimum of $120/month, but I have a staff of people that handle any issues the clients come up with as soon as the client calls in. Most problems are handled right away while the client is on the phone. The clients I have do not want to learn to do things themselves. They want to pay someone else to do everything and have the ability to talk to a human whenever they have questions. So, you need to decide what you want and then find someone who will give it to you for a price you are willing to pay for. -- kainaw™ 20:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Note that servers that charge $1-10 a month are almost always colocating your site with dozens of others on the same server rack. Yes, your $10 a month doesn't mean much, but when the site goes down it's usually the whole batch that go down, and that has a bit more weight (suddenly we're talking $120-200 a month at stake). I've found that the reasonably cheap hosting (e.g. $10/mo. and lower) are, in my experience, pretty good about keeping good up-times, because they want the reputation and the mass signups that come with it. It's true that the individual matters little to them but their business model requires that many individuals be happy. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Who's your ISP? My ISP hosts my site for free without ads. It doesn't support server-side scripting, though. If you're a student, you usually get a free site, too. At my college, our sites are free without ads and with Perl scripting.--192.94.73.1 (talk) 22:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Even if your ISP doesn't host sites, many people have "always-on" high-speed Internet connections. If you want to "do it all yourself", you can host your site on a computer in your house and use one of many dynamic domain services to keep a domain name pointed to your home's IP address. -- kainaw™ 01:20, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

If you really need very cheap hosting, my suggestion is to try several of them out. At the same time. Use something like [7] to check on them regularly. Send them emails on several questions. After the month see which one is best for yourself. If you dont wanna wait 1 month, then time is to you more important than money so you should ignore those offering hosting for 1$ and pick a hosting with high ratio of good/bad reviews. And if you *really* need 99.9% uptime, then you need a [Service level agreement|SLA] guaranteeing 99.9% and that will cost you quite a lot. — Shinhan < talk > 11:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

There are lots of good web hosts out there. The review systems seem good and you just check the reviews and that they provide what you need. It is worth avoiding the free ones but even a tiny amount of money will get you a decent service if your requirements are basic. Support costs are especially important to suppliers so you can't expect many facilities if you don't pay much. Dmcq (talk) 12:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Question

What's an effective way, on any site, of avoiding a user you don't like if you want to post something in a page that they often use? Yes, I know you can post it while they are inactive, but there are some factors:

1. What if you don't know what time zone that user lives in?
2. What if you don't know what time zone that user lives in, but you know they live in a country that uses multiple time zones?
3. What if that user lives in the same time zone as you?

Are there any other ways of avoiding such users? 58.165.14.208 (talk) 21:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Does the page you and the user happen to work on mean a lot to you? If it doesn't mean a great deal to you, then avoid editing that page. Wikipedia is a very big place, so there are tons of other articles for you to work on. If the article you're editing is important to you , then try to be as polite and civil as you can in dealing with that user (easier said than done, I know). If you feel you can no longer reason with them, you can take it up to WP:WQA. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 05:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

No. Why not simply change your username or move on to a different website? Failing that, you could try keeping in mind that everyone is different and the fact you don't like this individual doesn't mean you both can't learn to at least get along. Is it just me or was a very similar question posted before? Matt Deres (talk) 11:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Installing software on Ubuntu

I have Ubuntu on my system on dual boot with Windows. I really want to learn to use it, but I cant seem to figure out some of the most basic things. Currently, I want to install Adobe Flash Player, but it's not working. For each build type, it's saying the architecture is not supported - it wants to use i386, while it is reporting I have x86_64 (apparently I have a 64 bit processor without even knowing it).

Help! Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Try nspluginwrapper, the Ubuntu wiki somewhere has an howto for Flash on 64bit... and you mighta take a look at this UF thread. HardDisk (talk) 23:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Uh oh - Dont try alternate flash installs...which can leave files that conflict with the flash plugin." I pulled a bit of a hack on the last install (Unix leaves me the impression that little else is possible) and installed the 32 bit version (which doesn't work). How do I undo it before following these instructions. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:32, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

There isn't a stable release of the x86_64 firefox flash plugin. Install the i386 one and use nspluginwrapper. There's experimental support for x86_64 now, check out the Installed user base section of the Adobe Flash article for a reference. -- JSBillings 00:52, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I downloaded the rpm (the only type available), and archive manager stated "Could not open: Archive type not supported". I will say right now that I am quickly losing my patience with Linux; it is no where near as nice convenient as Windows or Mac. Magog the Ogre (talk) 05:46, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

And why the heck can't I log in as root? It always tells me I have an authentication failure... don't know the default password. Magog the Ogre (talk) 07:07, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Copy whole IMAP repository to GMail

Hi all,

how do I clone my old IMAP repository to GMail (Google Apps)? Using Thunderbird ends up either in crashes or in mail loss (XP/Linux), KMail simply freezes (Linux)...what else options do I have to ensure that no single mail is lost?

Thanks,HardDisk (talk) 22:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

December 9

FTP Passive Mode behind NAT

Hello wikipedians,

I'm tryin to setup a Filezilla FTP server behind our router (which is a pc running pfsense). I was able to install FZ without a problem, and i forwarded port 21 (also made an exception for that port on the router) and im able to login into it.

Now, problem is, I can't list directories (been using WinSCP as client), so I set the passive-mode on the server with the following settings:

• External server IP: Obtain from http://ip.filezilla-project.org/ip.php
• (ticked) Don't Use external IP for local connections
• (ticked) Use custom port range: 44431-44431 (which i then also port-forwarded to the machine)

But I still can't get a listing... Any Ideas? Thanks in Advance PrinzPH (talk) 00:04, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

BTW, here's the log from the FZ server, IPs were changed:

(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - (not logged in) (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> USER n1listings
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - (not logged in) (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 331 Password required for n1listings
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - (not logged in) (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> PASS ***************
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 230 Logged on
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> SYST
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 215 UNIX emulated by FileZilla
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> FEAT
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 211-Features:
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> MDTM
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> REST STREAM
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> SIZE
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> MLST type*;size*;modify*;
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> MLSD
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> UTF8
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> CLNT
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> MFMT
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:52 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 211 End
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:53 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> PWD
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:53 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 257 "/" is current directory.
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:53 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> TYPE A
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:53 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 200 Type set to A
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:53 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> PASV
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:53 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 227 Entering Passive Mode (123,123,0,1,173,143)
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:07:53 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> LIST -a
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:03 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 425 Can't open data connection.
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:03 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> TYPE A
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:03 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 200 Type set to A
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:03 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> PASV
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:03 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 227 Entering Passive Mode
(123,123,0,1,173,143) (000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:04 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> LIST
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:14 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 425 Can't open data connection.
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:34 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> TYPE I
(000011) 12/9/2008 8:08:34 AM - n1listings (REMOTE-IP-HERE)> 200 Type set to I

PrinzPH (talk) 00:13, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe File Transfer Protocol#FTP and NAT devices would be informative. --128.97.245.172 (talk) 00:16, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Defeating Rhapsody

How do I reset the whole 25-plays-a-month limit when the month hasn't ended yet? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 03:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Um - that would be stealing. I don't think we really want to encourage that kind of thing. SteveBaker (talk) 04:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't download anything, I only listen, so no thievery involved here. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 04:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

And yet--isn't that the whole point of a limit? You don't need to download anything to do something illegal.--Ibn Battuta (talk) 07:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

If I can't keep the song then how's it illegal? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 07:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Try Playlist.com. It's not all-inclusive, but it doesn't have a limit. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 08:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

You can't. You agreed to this licence when you signed up to the service, and attempting to circumvent the protection would both break the licence agreement, and may breach your local copyright laws, depending on where you live. Gunrun (talk) 09:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

sending big files

How do you send big files (between 20 and 100MB)? I used to use Yousendit (before you had to register), and I wonder if there's still some (easy-to-use) option for which I don't have to register. (P2P won't work because of the receiver.) --Ibn Battuta (talk) 07:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Try Rapidshare, Megaupload, or Badongo. See Category:File hosting. Magog the Ogre (talk) 09:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Website

Is there a website where you can commission an artwork, say a painted sculpture, in ceramic, metal, or glass, where you pay who ever will do this for the least amount of money, and then say after a week (and that you can choose THIS time frame), noone can offer their price? (Like an ebay auction? (This is called best offer, I think.)) I know there's a website like this for like crafts, like for necklaces, and such.96.53.149.117 (talk) 08:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm afraid I haven't the slightest what you're talking about. Could you please rephrase in different language? Magog the Ogre (talk) 09:09, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I understand - they're looking for a website where you post a description of a piece of art you want created and artists bid on the commission. Lowest bid wins, creates the piece and sends it to you. You can choose the time frame in which bids can be received (a week, a month...) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 11:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Need to automate listbox in MS ACCESS 2003 like the one in MS EXCEL when we go to Menu: Format..Cells

Need to automate listbox in MS ACCESS 2003 like the one in MS EXCEL when we go to Menu: Format..Cells. On 'Number' tab, select number in 'Category' listbox and a 'Decimal places' listbox appears. This listbox changes the listindex value (ie the item selected) when we click on the up or down scrollbars.