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March 5

Vista taskbar problem

Resolved

I'm running Windows Vista (Home Premium version 6.0). The taskbar includes a little desktop button that takes me right to the desktop - very handy for me as I tend to work with a billion windows open. A couple of days ago, that handy little button disappeared, and I can't figure out why or how to get it back.

I know how to add items to the taskbar, but the desktop thing is stumping me. I can seemingly drag and drop any other object onto the taskbar, but nothing I have done can get that button back. I'm sure I am missing something simple. Any advice would be appreciated. - Eron^Talk 03:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

You can re-create it with notepad: see this site for info. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 04:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Perfect. Problem solved, thank you. - Eron^Talk 04:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

We aim to please - glad we could help. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 06:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Find the Maximum of a Set

Given an array(set) of integers, how do the various computer languages go about finding the maximum value? More to the point, if they use a specific algorithm to do it, what is that algorithms complexity class? While on the subject of what certain built in functions do; is there any place where this information can be looked up for Ruby/Python/C++, etc? Phoenix1177 (talk) 04:40, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, if the array is sorted, it's pretty easy. If it's just an array, then it will take O(n) time. Of course, integers can be stored in a binary search tree, and in that case getting the maximum integer takes O(log(n)) time - it's simply a matter of traversing the nodes to the right. I don't know of any specialized algorithm for finding maximums, nor any special data structure that works with an ordered set of integers to help find the maximum. --wj32 ^t/c 04:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Although alluded to by Wj32 above, on a sorted array which includes maxindex (a count of items), the time taken to dereference array[maxindex] would be O(1). Sorted arrays implemented as linked lists and sorted arrays without a count of items would require traversing the array to the final item, with complexity O(n). Such arrays, however, would likely be quite rare. – 74  05:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

If it's an unsorted array, all you can do is make a linear scan through it, keeping track of the biggest number you've seen so far. There is a very detailed analysis of the complexity in Knuth TAOCP volume 1, using the method of generating functions, which iirc lets him figure out the probability distribution of how many times the "biggest number seen so far" has to be updated during the scan, etc. But the main point of the analysis is to show how to use the techniques on a very simple algorithm so that they can be used on more complicated algorithms later. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 13:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Read from /dev/urandom and convert to binary

In a bash script, what's the simplest way to read 119 bits (or, if /dev/urandom can only be read an octet at a time, 120 bits) from /dev/urandom, express them in binary (in order to work with the individual bits as substrings) and store them in a variable? NeonMerlin 07:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I find scripts like that very ugly. It's better to write a program in a more reasonable language, python or perl or whatever. It would probably be a perl one-liner using the "%b" format specifier to get binary out, but my Perl is way too rusty to write it for you, and anyway this sounds a little too much like homework. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 13:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It is homework (for once), but it's a small part of a much larger project. The reason the shell script is a shell script is that it involves a large number of command line invocations, in iterated loops, with lots of options. I don't know how to invoke the command line in Linux in any non-shell-scripting language; even if I did, a shell script seems most logical. NeonMerlin 19:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

dd if=/dev/urandom bs=119 count=1 | xxd -b | grep -o '\([01].\{8\}\)\{6\}'

That leaves the hex-offset at the begining, but you should be able to figure out how to remove that pretty easily. Shadowjams (talk) 10:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Fire suppresor for computers/servers?

Do dry-chemical/clean agent fire extinguishers really leave no damage to computers? Argonite can be (and it is) used on servers and other sensitive equipment, but my professor argued that such extinguishers can still damage them.

Is my professor right about that, or not? Blake Gripling (talk) 08:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, there may well be reactions I'm unaware of, but I don't see how argonite gas it could damage computers. It's inert, and anyway, computers don't require oxygen to operate (unlike fire). In any case, a fire is bound to be far, far more destructive to a server room than argonite. You professor didn't offer any explanation as to how it would damage the computers? -- Captain Disdain (talk) 12:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

He only said that it is ineffective (perhaps based on his own experiences), and so do other types of extinguishers, practically leaving me and my mates with nothing to use for our defense/thesis. It is obvious that we can't treat a fire in a sensitive area such as a courtroom or a server as inevitable, right? Blake Gripling (talk) 13:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if argonite isn't an efficient fire extinguisher -- and I'd bet that has as much to do with how the system is set up as it does with the gas in question, because properly used, the argonite is going to replace all of the oxygen, and the fire pretty much has to go out -- that's a completely different thing; in that case the computers aren't damaged by the argonite, but by the fire that isn't going out. I'm not sure what his point is, beyond "fire bad" -- I mean, I don't think any fire extinguishing system is going to be 100% effective and prevent all damage. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

They don't require oxygen, but they do require air cooling. The environmental requirements specs for some server/comms grade equipment specifies a minimum air pressure, as lower air pressure means there's less air into which a heatsink can shed excess heat (and thus the cooling system is less efficient). Some high-end Sun servers, for example, ship with a barometer, and will shut down if air pressure falls too low (in practice this is only rarely an issue - only when the machine is installed in relatively high-altitude locations like ski resorts). Now I wonder what the specific heat of the extinguisher gasses is (I really don't know). If it is considerably lower than that of the air it has displaced, then that might compromise the cooling of the densely packed equipment, and maybe lead to dangerous or damaging overheating. Now I guess the power will be automatically switched off by the same fire alarm that triggered the extinguisher, but some will be held up by UPSes (and will still be engaged in the rather hot process of an ordered shutdown when the extinguishers go off). 87.115.143.223 (talk) 20:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, the argonite atmosphere isn't going to persist for very long anyway, though. It's only there to extinguish the fire... and frankly, I'm pretty sure that in most cases, any overheating problems involved are probably not going argonite-related, what with the fire and all. Still, fair enough. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 09:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd be more worried about people than a bunch of servers. I remember some carbon dioxide being used in a server room and these firemen rushed in and promptly fell down, they had to be dragged outside into the fresh air to recover. The computers weren't affected but the pressure caused some damage to the ceiling.Dmcq (talk) 13:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I've seen server rooms with gas-fire extinguishing setups, and they have panic cut-off buttons for people who would happen to be trapped in the room. I don't remember what the gas was, but argon seems plausible. Another pressure issue, aside from heat-transfer, is that most hard drives require normal atmospheric pressure to operate. As the drive spins it creates an air-bearing that the drive-head floats above. If you were to use your drive at 40,000 feet without pressurization, the drive head would crash into the platter. That's a far-fetched scenario, but another one to consider. Shadowjams (talk) 10:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Reverse a diff file

In Linux, do any utilities exist that can reverse the direction of a diff file (i.e. turn the output of diff file-a file-b into the output of diff file-b file-a) without having either of the input files? NeonMerlin 09:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't know offhand, but maybe what you really want is the "patch -R" command. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 13:59, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

No, that requires the second input file. NeonMerlin 19:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of a way to do what you want using just one command, but here's an idea:

1. Create a fake file-a using the information in the diff file, call this fake-file-a. (The idea is that fake-file-a will have the same lines as file-a where patch would change in the next step, so that patch won't choke)
2. Patch fake-file-a using the diff file to produce fake-file-b
3. diff fake-file-b fake-file-a

--98.114.146.46 (talk) 03:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Unless I'm not catching something complicated, wouldn't this be a rather simple script to write? The logic is:

• If the line begins with >, change it to <
• Else if the line begins with <, change it ti >
• Else if the line has a d in it, change it to an a and flip the numbers (ie: 1,10d3 becomes 3a1,10).
• Else if the line has an a in it, change it to a d and flip the numbers.
• Else, the line must have a c in it. Flip the numbers.

The results will not be identical to what you'd get if you ran diff on the files in opposite order, but it should work for running patch. -- kainaw™ 04:13, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Emacs has delightfully good support for editing diff files. To reverse a diff, all you need to do is open the file in emacs, press control-C then control-R. 84.239.160.166 (talk) 17:25, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

mobile broadband (1)

Thinking about getting mobile broadband from mi laptop but I do not have a credit or debit card. How exactly does one pay for mobile broadband such as those listed here: http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk/mobile-broadband/ ? I'm in the UK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 09:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

bump —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 12:58, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Generally all of those on that site are contract only and have to be paid by debit card, credit card or by direct debit. Some Mobile ISPs do have Pay-as-you-go options where you would top up the connection in the same way as a mobile phone - but you would have to buy the USB dongle outright at the start for a cost of between £30-150. See for example the Mobile Broadband Pay as you go packages on 3. Nanonic (talk) 18:00, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Applying column width changes to every sheet in Excel

Is it possible to make a change to a column's width in Excel be applied to every sheet contained in a single MS Excel document? Thanks. 213.13.148.4 (talk) 10:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you know visual basic in excel? If so, use the following (it resizes column D in all the sheets):

Sub Macro1()
   For i = 1 To Sheets.Count
      Sheets(i).Columns("D:D").ColumnWidth = 12.43
   Next i
End Sub

Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Or, without macros, control-click on the "tabs" (at bottom) for the sheets you want to change, control-click the column headings you want to change, right-click on one of the column headings, and enter the desired column width. Jørgen (talk) 13:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

want to save HTML of current page from Firefox 3

I'm looking at a particular web page and want to save the HTML of the page I'm looking at from the browser into a file. "View page source" does not do this--it sends a new request to the server which can send back different contents than it did for the first request. I want to save the stuff that's already in the browser's memory (I know it's there because Firebug can see it). I could take a screen shot but that loses a lot of information. Any other ideas? (The screen contents are a crash dump from an intermittent server side bug that I want to report). Thanks. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 14:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I assume that "Save Page As" (Ctrl+S), and then "Web page, only HTML" does not work? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 15:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like faulty behavior; I would not expect "View source" to return a new copy of the page. I tested this in FF 3.06 with a page that I know has changed and it displayed the source of the version already loaded (not the most recent version). On the other hand, *updates* since the page was fetched may or may not appear (some type of Ajax/XMLHTTP modifications). Presumably you could select that which you wish to save and copy it into a text file—again, you'll lose some information (the formatting) but the actual text should remain. If the error report contains diagnostic HTML comments (like the Wikipedia rendering statistics) then those will be lost, however. – 74  17:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, you could always just save the page, but that might send a new request to the server, too. Although I'm not sure if you're right that "view source" sends a new request. Well, anyway, the only sure-fire way I know to capture the exact HTML that the browser was displaying is to manually browse to your FF cache directory. Your page will be in there, but you might have to search through the files for a phrase that was in your webpage. There might also be FF plugins to do this, but I don't know of any. Indeterminate (talk) 09:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm certain that you're wrong, view source does not send a new request to the server, it shows you the page that it has already downloaded. I've tried it on a number of pages that generate automatic time-stamps and random numbers and the like, and it's always the same in the source as on the page (this page for instance generates two lottery tickets randomly, and if it did send a second request to the server, the numbers would be different in the source, but they're not. It also contains a time-stamp showing you exactly when the page was generated, and that doesn't change either). Another way to check this is to simply temporarily turning off your internet connection, and try viewing the source again. See, it works just fine. If it needed to send an additional request, using "View source" wouldn't work if you went offline after a page was loaded.

Using "view source" in Firefox gives you exactly what Firefox wanted in its original request. I'm curious to find out why you thought otherwise? Did you happen upon some page which look different in the code compared to how it looked layed out? Belisarius (talk) 23:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

internet on the go

what is the cheapest way to get the internet on the move with a laptop? i'm in england —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 15:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Look for unsecured wireless hotspots - I used one in a pub in London a couple of months back. All it cost me was a couple of pints that I would have had anyway. If you want access "on the road", you are probably better off looking for a mobile phone contract with an inclusive 3G data package. All the mobile networks offer such deals (though not to pay-as-you-go customers). However, the deals are pretty expensive once you go over the download limit. Also, your laptop will need a HDSPA slot in which you stick a SIM card, or a bluetooth facility, or you will have to get a USB dongle from network. Astronaut (talk) 16:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The mobile network three offer mobile-broadband on pay-as-you-go basis. They sell 1gb for £10, 3gb for £15 etc. the biggest problem it has is A) Your credit runs out 30 days after topping up regardless of whether you use it all and B) It is rubbish. I have had it for the past year in my apartment (didn't want to pay for a phone-line just for casual internet usage as never use home-phones) and it was constantly slow, regularly struggled to connect and frustratingly picky about where in the apartment you sit. Still it's pay as you go. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

People in our office use a Vodafone 3G service (in the UK); we pay monthly (quite a bit, for unlimited), but I think they do lower plans and pay as you go. While not as bad as the service 194.221.133.226 has had, you regularly miss 3G anywhere but cities and fall back to the painfully slow GPRS, and the international roaming rates (which aren't part of the unlimited usage plan) are exorbitant. I'd recommend it for a genuinely mobile business professional who absolutely must check email and deal with attachments on the road (someone like a salesman); for someone who needs to do basic mobile email a decent mobile phone should be sufficient; but it's not cheap and it's not fast and it's certainly not a nice replacement for a wired home broadband service. Prices on different mobile carriers vary a bit, but their tariffs are fairly similar and the underlying technology is common. Bar the inconvenience of camping on public wifi connections, I don't think there's a nice, cheap way to do mobile internet. Mimetic Polyalloy (talk) 11:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

thank you for the answers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 13:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

serving SVG to FF and png to IE?

Hi all!

I have some nice logos that look great in SVG, but when I turn them into small png's (either by shrinking them from their original size in a program like Paint.NET, or by having the browser shrink them on the fly), they lose lots of detail. I would like to have some way of displaying the nice SVG to non-IE browsers, and the png replacements to IE, but I can't find a way of doing it. Wikipedia's solution is to create a png every time there is a svg file and display that to all browsers. Can anyone help me? --richardmtl (talk) 16:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

A simple javascript function can change the "src" of an image. I'd suggest something like:

1. use HTML to set the image to the png (works for everyone)
2. use javascript to detect non-IE and modify the "src" by switching to svg

This has the advantage of failing gracefully if javascript is disabled. You could also make use of CSS to show/hide alternate images, or use a hypertext preprocessor to create "customized" versions of the page based on the client's browser. – 74  17:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Server-side content negotiation should be more reliable than detecting the type of browser. MTM (talk) 17:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I found a decent solution: use <object> tag (sometimes called the "object fallback" technique). The only problem I have is that the object is not clickable in FF, still looking for a solution to that, though for my puruposes, it's not a big deal. Any clues for that?

--richardmtl (talk) 18:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Honestly you are practically guaranteed to have something hacky that only works 1/10th of the time and looks totally wrong if not broken the rest of the time if you try to dynamically serve up SVGs to a browser. You're better off trying to find a way to export your SVGs to a raster file in a way that looks good to you. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 23:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

excel macro help

I've never even tried to use a macro before, so i'm stumbling quite a bit here. I'm working on a project that requires that I input 0s and 1s into thousands of lines of a spreadsheet as one phase of an audit of documents at my office. To make things visually easier to handle, I would like a macro that automatically turns the font green in a box containing a 1. I found this code, but I can't seem to make it work. I tried replacing (1, 1) with (ActiveCell), still no good. Help? 208.73.108.118 (talk) 20:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't have my compiler on hand so I don't know if this will work but try:

Sub Example()
    With ActiveSheet.Selection
    For i = 1 to Selection.Cells.Count
        If .Cells(i).Value = 1 Then 
            .Cells(i).Font.Color = vbRed
        Else
            .Cells(i).Font.Color = vbGreen
        End If
    Next i
    End With
End Sub

You have to select the cells you want to format before running. If it works, it will make all the 1s red and everything else green. You can also try conditional formatting. Hope this helps. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 22:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

As Zain Ebrahim briefly mentioned, conditional formatting will do this easily. (These instructions are for Excel 2002) Select the cells you want to conditionally format, then select the "Conditional Formatting..." option on the "Format" menu. Set condition 1 to "Cell Value Is | equal to | 1", then click the "Format..." button and change "color" to a green. Click "Add>>" to insert a second condition and set it to "Cell Value Is | equal to | 0", then click "Format..." and change the color to a red. Click "OK" to apply the changes. Note, however, that font color makes only a small difference; you might want to color the background shading instead ("Format..." → "Patterns" on the conditional formatting menu) for a clear indication of the value. – 74  02:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Spam using anothers address?

I just got some junk turn up in my junk box, pretending to be from HSBC bank. It said I had a message waiting for me and to click the link. Before I deleted it I had a look at the link out of curiosity. It was www.letraset.com.ar/novedades/IBlogin.html so I went to Letraset.com out of curiosity, and as I thought it's the actual website of the company Letraset. Except this specific address shows you a page that looks just like the HSBC login page.
So is somebody using the Letraset address as a host or what? How does this work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.111.64.177 (talk) 22:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Somebody probably broke into their webserver and set up a fake login page. --Carnildo (talk) 23:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Note that the phishing domain is letraset.com.ar (do not visit - the homepage contains a trojan) - it's a completely different domain to letraset.com. .ar is the TLD for Argentina. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 23:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

March 6

skype to irc (or similar) gateway?

I use two computers, A and B, both running linux. They are at separate locations but both have reasonably fast internet. Computer A has a Skype client installed. Computer B is under a software policy that forbids installing a Skype client on it. I want to participate in a certain Skype chat, from computer B. It's a text-only chat--I don't care about voice or video for this purpose. I'm wondering if there is some kind of program that lets me run an IRC or Pidgin client on computer B, and proxies the conversation through the Skype client on computer A, or a straightforward way to set one up. Even better would be if Pidgin could talk to Skype directly, but my impression is that Skype is a closed network.

Hmm, it occurs to me that the simplest approach may be to tunnel an X window connection by ssh between computers A and B, so that the Skype client on A can open a window on B that I can type in. A and B are both behind firewalls and can't connect to each other directly, but if necessary I can use a third computer C (which is directly on the net) as an intermediary. Should that be straightforward to set up with ssh port forwarding on the three machines? I've always found the ssh docs confusing about things like this.

Thanks. 76.195.10.34 (talk) 02:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There are third party instant messaging programs (most notably on the iphone) that do have skype interfaces. This makes me think there is some skype API, or open standard, similar to what AOL has with AIM, but I haven't looked into it beyond that. That would seem to be the most straightforward solution, although maybe more work than setting up an x tunnel (although that is wrought with problems too). Shadowjams (talk) 10:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Current processor offerings

Can someone give a very quick breakdown of high-end, mid-range and low-end processors currently offered from AMD and Intel? As I'm looking for a pc I have become familiar with the names of different families but am not sure how they relate to each other. Specifically I'm looking for something midrange for a laptop that doesn't choke on photo management and post processing, but doesn't need to do gaming, 3d rendering etc. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.154.31.121 (talk) 03:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

High end = Intel Nehalem and Core 2 Quad, AMD Phenom. These are 4-core cpus that aren't in laptops yet because they use too much power. Midrange: Core 2 Duo, AMD Turion X2 and some follow-on whose name I've forgotten. This is probably what you want, if by "post processing" you mean you want to run photo editors. I think the Core 2 Duo is mostly dominant now because of higher performance per watt compared with the AMD counterpart. Low end = Intel Celeron and Atom, AMD Geode, and similar. These are used in netbooks for convenient email and web browsing, but will be annoyingly slow if you're running Gimp or Photoshop on large images. 76.195.10.34 (talk) 03:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Sort order in Windows explorer

On Windows XP, when listing files sorted by name, what is the sort order used? My observations are that numbers come before letters. That upper and lower case are treated the same, that "-" is treated as a non-character. But where and what order are other symbols and punctuation? Are they asciibetical? I've read lots about numbers being sorted numerically or alphabetically and that isn't a problem. I would like to find a symbol that comes before numbers though. -- SGBailey (talk) 09:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I haven't tested it but my hunch is that it's the ASCII character table (in other words, the hex equivalent). I use an ( or a ! for the purpose you're talking about, and that works almost all of the time. XP also has some sort of intelligent sorting, they have some term for it, that will put 3 before 10. Shadowjams (talk) 10:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Truely unlimited broadband

Many broadband services say unlimited but actually have fair usage policiles that limit it to 4 gig a month or something. Are there any truly unlimited broadband services in the united kingdom that are really unlimited? thanks you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 13:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

No. All policies have a limit. Even if it's a 'hidden' or 'soft' limit.

If there was a truely 'unlimited' broadband plan, then Google would use it and save a fortune.

(Four gig a month seems painfully low, however.) APL (talk) 19:04, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

You can get a T1 or other leased line that is truly unlimited, but it's going to cost you -- figure several hundred pounds a month. --Carnildo (talk) 00:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

4 GB a month is low...most people will probably never exceed the limits on their plan. The limits are usually in the few hundred to several hundred GB range though. :)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 03:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

MS Excel cross-reference help

In MS Excel I can read the value of another's sheet cell by using the following string in the destination's cell value: ='ORIGIN_SHEET_NAME'!A1 (supposing I wanted the content of the A1 cell)

This, however, still means that I have to manually type the origin sheet name every time I want to create a reference of this kind. Is it possible to read the name of the origin sheet from the content of a cell in the destination sheet? Something like: ='B9'!A1 (This won't work) That would be useful, as I wish to automate the process. I would just type the origin sheet name in a cell and the values I wish to transport from one sheet to another would automatically show up. 213.13.148.4 (talk) 13:33, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe you want Excel's INDIRECT function. This function evaluates a text string as a cell or range reference. Using the example details you provided:

=INDIRECT(B9 & "!A1")

Note: the ampersand concatenates strings together. – 74  14:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! But when I drag the cell over the adjacent cells in order to apply the rule to them it doesn't work. I'm trying to read, for exemple, the value in Q1, which is the name of a sheet, and then pick the Z9:Z26 values in that sheet and put them in a column with 17 rows. How would you do that? 213.13.148.4 (talk) 14:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There are two potential problems here. The simplest is that the sheet reference changes when you use autofill. To prevent a reference from changing, add '$' before static values. So, to make your B9 reference entirely static, use $B$9 instead.

The more complicated problem is that a text string *doesn't* change when you use autofill (so all your references point back to A1 in the other sheet). Fixing that requires a little more indirection:

INDIRECT($B$9 & "!" & ADDRESS(ROW(A1),COLUMN(A1)))

This results in a formula that can be autofilled and will pull corresponding cells from the specified sheet. – 74  15:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That last part of the formula (the address part) doesn't seem to work, or I didn't understand it. 213.13.148.4 (talk) 16:07, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you be more specific on how it doesn't work? – 74  16:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

It just lacked a semicolon (: <- that thing, semicolon, right?) a ; instead of a comma and its fine now! Thanks a lot! 213.13.148.4 (talk) 17:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Ultramon Wallpaper (Vista)

Ultramon advertises that it supports having different wallpapers on each monitor, and their web site shows screen shots of it in action, and how to set it up under Windows XP. But I have Windows Vista (violins) and have been unable to figure out how to set up multiple wallpapers in that context. What I've tried:

• Google--many articles that tell me that the feature exists, finally gave up on finding one with how-to
• Ref desk archives
• Ultramon web site

Ma^t_chups 13:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

You might find this page helpful (it's not Ultramon, but it may be an alternative). – 74  13:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually configuring it on Vista is exactly the same as the way you configure it on XP (I use it myself). Right-click the system tray icon and select Wallpaper. Click the "New wallpaper" button to create and give the new configuration a name. Make sure "a different background/image for each monitor" is selected and then click/select a monitor in the preview. The selected monitor will have a square round it and then you can just use the "Browse" in the bottom right corner (of the same form) to select and image. Click another monitor and then browse to another image for that monitor and so on. Hope this helps! ZX81 ^talk 16:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Question on ACID

There is a question on Talk:ACID that basically asks "What does Atomic mean in the realm of Transaction Management?" After answering the question twice, I suggested that the user ask here. However, if anyone wants to jump over to the ACID page and answer the question there, I'm sure the person asking the question will appreciate it. -- kainaw™ 13:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I added a comment. Atomic does mean isolation when you discuss test-and-set systems. So, I see the confusion. Youth in Asia (talk) 14:07, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't bother. The questioner does not want an answer. He wants an argument. -- kainaw™ 22:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, User:Kainaw isn't saying that he himself wants an argument, but rather that User:Water pepper, who posed the original Q on the ACID talk page, does. StuRat (talk) 15:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

How do I capture live webcam from livejasmin

OK there's a hot chick and I wanna capture the live video as a flv. file or something how do i do it? Im missing some good stuff right now. THANKS!--Tripping Over The Stones (talk) 18:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

mplayer -playlist http://path/to/stream -dumpstream -dumpfile filename.ext

¦ Reisio (talk) 03:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft Word "bugs"

Typing "=rand(x,y)" onto its own line, and then hitting [ENTER], in a Word document gives x paragraphs of y copies of "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Does anybody know of any other such "bugs?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas Brown 42 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

This type of feature is more commonly known as an "Easter Egg". We have an article on Easter eggs in Microsoft products, and you can Google for more. Note that not every version has the same things built in. --LarryMac | Talk 20:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft calls it a feature. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 09:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

In Word 2000 and 2003, it gives the behavior described above. In Word 2007, it gives some text from the help, but the arrangement of sentences and paragraphs remains. Ma^t_chups 15:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Blogger layout 100%

Can someone tell me how I can get the wide layout in my blogger as Google sites http://googlesitesblog.blogspot.com/ does? Thanks. Kushal (talk) 20:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Please? Kushal (talk) 19:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=CssLayouts

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=25

irc://irc.freenode.net/css *

¦ Reisio (talk) 06:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Vista Enterprise vs Windows 7 Beta

I just got a new laptop and don't know which operating system I should install on it. My MSDNAA license allows me to get some free operating systems and other microsoft educational programs. The latest OS's on the website are Vista Enterprise Edition and Windows 7 Beta. So which operating system is the best in terms of compatability/performance? 70.171.29.89 (talk) 21:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)newLaptopGuy

The one that isn't a beta version. yandman 21:25, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the Windows 7 Beta will cease to function some time later this year (August, IIRC), so Yandman is exactly right. That aside, I found that most programs that function under Vista will function under 7 (with the exception of some firewall/antivirus software). Your mileage may vary. Hermione1980 21:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Can vista be installed from CDs which hold vista iso cd files which were split from a vista dvd iso file? 70.171.29.89 (talk) 04:29, 7 March 2009 (UTC)newLaptopGuy

For the first post, it's the kind of question that is generally IMHO. For me, I'd put the stable (Vista) on the new computer - and throw Windows 7 beta on an older computer (nope - haven't done that yet myself). As far as the actual Vista DVD, I'm not sure of the makeup of the disk - but I would guess that it would be difficult. Naturally, just copying an *.iso file to disk isn't going to get you anywhere, but if you did write the ISO - perhaps it would function. My doubtfulness stems from the fact that Microsoft has and does use their own particular way of doing things - including file compression (see *.cab files). It would be pure conjecture, but I would think that you would be continually bouncing back and forth between disks in an effort to get the install to work properly. That often leads to install errors. You might be better to just invest in a DVD reader. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 05:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, if you have a 4GB USB flash drive, you can (probably) install Vista from that, too. The specifics of how to boot from usb vary from bios to bios. Indeterminate (talk) 09:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

And not all computers support booting from a flash drive. StuRat (talk) 15:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

OpenGL

I'm trying to get OpenGL running on my computer (Windows XP, Visual Studio 2008) but I'm not very familiar with C. How do I get all the libraries in the right places so I can compile something? Right now, whenever I try to build something (eg sample programs at [1]) I get build errors on the "include" lines. Black Carrot (talk) 22:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you using Visual Studio? If so, those headers should work right off the bat as described in that article (so long as you've made a normal project and not messed anything up terrifically). If not, you're going to have to make sure you get the right headers and libraries and whatnot; ie. if you're using GCC on Cygwin [2]. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 09:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that was dumb of me. Make sure you're #include-ing windows.h first, and not #define-ing anything too strange before the includes. Other than that, I'm not entirely familiar enough with visual studio yet to be certain. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 10:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

If you're unfamiliar with C, maybe you should consider using another (easier) language? There are frameworks that let you do OpenGL in .NET for example, which is far, far easier to configure (the opengl framework integrates with VS). yandman 09:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm using Visual Studio. It fails on the "#include <gl\glaux.h>" line. If my computer doesn't have that preinstalled, how do I get it? Black Carrot (talk) 17:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Try just not including that header. It's apparently old and deprecated, there may not even be anything in the tutorial that actually uses it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Layout Issues

I am currently using Safari version 2.0.4 to view and edit wikipedia. However just yesterday I noticed something odd. When viewing/searching for pages on wikipedia, sometimes the layout of the page isn't right. The text appears smaller and the header and the text are all centered. The search bar on the left is pushed down towards the bottom of the page. Any suggestions on how I can fix this problem? This does not happen everytime but it happens every 3-4 or 5-6 searches/viewing of a new page. Thank you. JayJ47 (talk) 22:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

It might just be that you're running into memory errors and it drops the layout from memory. How much RAM does your computer have ? Do you have several other applications (or Safari tabs) open at once ? Does this happen more often when viewing large pages ? Does the computer also occasionally lock up ? What's your O/S ? StuRat (talk) 14:55, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it might have been a temporary thing. It stopped happening yesterday. Thanks for answering my question though. JayJ47 (talk) 06:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

StuRat (talk) 20:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

March 7

SSD comparable to Intel X25-M

Are there any SSDs with capacity (80GB) and performance (0.1ms access and better than HDs read/write) similar to the Intel X25-M that cost less (its $350 on Amazon now)? I know there are some cheaper ones that don't perform. 66.91.255.120 (talk) 00:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

counting blocks in aurocad

can anybody tell me how to count blocks in an autocad drawing? are there any commands? thank you.124.43.43.22 (talk) 07:13, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Count blocks? I use AUTOCAD to do stuff at work, but I've never come across a way to do that. But AUTOCAD is a huge program, so there might be a way I don't know about (I'm not an expert). Have you searched the help section? Press F1 when you have the program loaded and it'll pop open the help files. Killiondude (talk) 04:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Music in PC

Is there any freeware that can generate stream of musical notes from the recorded sound file and vice versa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.89.118.53 (talk) 12:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean you want it to generate sheet music from an audio file and vice-versa ? If so, generating audio from the sheet music seems far simpler. To go the other way you'd probably need very simple music, like just a piano, playing single whole notes. Trying to decipher all the sheet music for an orchestra would be far more complex. StuRat (talk) 14:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I remember either freeware or more likely commercial that can a) convert an audio file to .midi and b) other program(s) that can convert a midi file to a textual representation, possibly even to sheet music. See Music sequencer, List of scorewriters, List of MIDI editors and sequencers. You do not have to have any extra hardware for midi - most midi files can be played through the computers speakers. 89.240.206.60 (talk) 23:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Step 2 is much, much, easier than step 1... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 00:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I know Gama, but I guess you were referring to a much newer program than that. --grawity 19:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Program refuses to completely uninstall

About a month ago I tried to remove and reinstall a BETA version of Windows Live Messenger (I can't remember the exact version number) and did so through the usual route of Add/Remove Programs. However, it soon became apparent that this hadn't completely removed the program and despite me removing all components of the program, eventually resulting in deleting the Program Files/Windows Live Messenger folder, it refuses to accept it's fully uninstalled. Since this didn't work, I tried to use a program that tries to delete every aspect of a program from your system, including the registry entries. However, this hasn't worked either. Until it's uninstalled, I can't reinstall as it insists I have "a newer version installed on my computer". Anyone have any ideas, short of reformatting my hard drive? —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 16:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey cyclo, i suggest you download a registry cleaner and run it once as a reference of few files does not get deleted manually. Let me know if that works ,i believ it should.Vikk

ccleaner might work, if you've not already tried it. I had a similar problem to op and eventually had to delete the registry entries manually, but be careful if you do that as you can potentially cause massive errors in Windows if you delete the wrong thing.

Thanks, EasyCleaner seems to have done the trick. Thanks to you both. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 20:04, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

StuRat (talk) 20:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Using Clonezilla

I have been recommended here on the Comp RefDesk to check out Clonezilla as a means for backing up my entire computer. Just to clarify, on my external hard drive, I can create a folder named, for example, "Upstairs Computer" then then back up my entire C: drive on my Upstairs Computer into this folder? Will I be able to boot from the external hard drive should my internal hard drive crash? Acceptable (talk) 18:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

You'll have your entire C-drive on there, but you can't "boot" from it. Booting requires operating system files. I'm no computer guru, but I don't think backing up a C-drive will put your operating system on it. I've actually backed up C-drives before, not on my own accord, but because others have asked me to do it for their systems. You'd save much more room on your hard drive if you just backed up what you need. Killiondude (talk) 04:13, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If your hard drive actually physically fails and you have to replace it, you'll probably want to buy a new hard drive, then restore the Upstairs Computer folder back onto the new hard drive. Indeterminate (talk) 07:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Clonezilla comes as a CD image. (It's actually a special version of the Debian Live CD.) You burn the CD and then boot off it. It asks you whether you want to copy from an image or a disk or a partition or logical drive, and whether you want to copy to an image or a disk. You say from a disk to an image, and the image goes into some directory of your external disk.

Some time later, disaster! Your regular hard drive gets scrambled. You replace it. Now you boot off the same Clonezilla CD. This time, you copy from the image to the drive. You then remove the CD and boot off the restored hard drive.

So no, you won't be able to boot from your external hard drive. However, you'll be able to boot thanks to what you put in your external hard drive.

Killiondude is right in that all of this takes a lot of space. (It's definitely not something you'll want to do at the end of every working day.) However, Clonezilla won't copy unused parts of the hard drive (unless you perversely insist that it does so), it normally compresses what it copies (unless you perversely insist that it doesn't), you can cycle backups (make a new one, delete the oldest one, make a new one, delete the oldest one, etc) and giant external hard drives are cheap.

Clonezilla asks many questions. For most, it suggests an answer. I found that for most of the time I could hit Enter to take the suggestion. But be careful: it does -- it has to -- throw in the occasional question that needs human thought, notably the one about what you want to copy from and what you want to copy to. So do pay attention.

Clonezilla also has prompts that are in slightly wobbly English and that have a few "!" too many. One or both of these may offend some people's sensibilities. Me, I can happily live with them. Hoary (talk) 10:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Reload a web page every x seconds

Resolved

I've probably asked this question before but I really can't be bothered to trawl through the archives so I'll ask again. I'm looking for a simply bit of html that will reload a set url every two mins. I'd edit the html file in notepad to set the url and then open the file in the web browser and it'll do it. Many thanks.

This should work as long as the page doesn't break out of frames:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Reloader</TITLE> <META http-equiv="refresh" content="5" /> </HEAD> <FRAMESET cols="100%"> <FRAME src="http://wikipedia.org"> </FRAMESET> </HTML>

Change the "content" for the # of seconds, the "src" is the page to reload. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks a lot :D

Both Firefox (perhaps requiring a plugin) and Opera support reloading webpages automatically at a set interval. – 74  21:17, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Computer programming for chatterbots.

Can someone advise me on a learning path to creating my own own chatterbot/ artificial conversational entity? I glanced briefly over pages about natural language processing, but I'm left wondering so can one use Java or C++ etc computer languages to create these? Can someone outline briefly the steps to take? Thank you in advance.

The programming language doesn't matter much (Java or C++ will be fine), although you'll find a lot of the material you'll find on the subject expresses itself either in Lisp or Prolog, these traditionally being the languages AI and NLP have been done (Prolog much more so in Europe than North America). Simply put, you read in a line from the user, parse it into syntactic units. Then you perform some kind of semantic analysis (to try and figure out what the sentence actually might mean); simple bots just dig out a noun or verb or two and parrot them back ("tell me more about <insert item here>"), smarter ones do a more thorough job. If you want the bot to behave in anything more than a toy way, it'll need state - that is, it remembers a bunch of things that have been said, and uses this as a frame by which to "understand" the conversation as a whole (so if we were talking about trains a few questions ago, and you now started talking about the engine, I'd probably infer that you meant an engine that is somehow related to you, or to trains). To really make something worthwhile, a bot would need "domain knowledge", that is it's been programmed beforehand with some knowledge of the "real world", or some department of it. So you might tell it that cars and bikes and trains are vehicles, that cars and bikes have engines, that horses and bikes can be ridden, and that people and horses eat food. This is where everything gets very difficult, as writing useful information about even a trivial domain takes a lot of effort, and can produce relatively little result. Anyway, back to your bot. After it has "understood" the sentence (I write "understood" in quotes, because it mostly hasn't really done anything of the sort, just formed a very primitive model of the sentence and the knowledge it might possibly contain) the bot must compose a reply; naively it just parrots words or ideas found in the submitted sentence (or based on the knowledge frame it has built up). To make it behave a bit more like a person you might build it with a set of conversation patterns (e.g. the beginnings and ends of conversations, asking directions, discussing something we like or don't). Now writing a general-purpose artificial conversationalist is doomed to failure (if you follow the above prescriptions) because the thing's understanding is so primitive that it quickly becomes like talking to a drunk idiot. Writing a conversation-type and knowledge-domain specific bot will be a lot more likely to succeed, and will probably be a lot more fun. For example, write a bot that the human (pretending to be a police detective) must interrogate about a crime. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 21:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Urgh, I forgot about ambiguity. Consider the sentences "John said he and Peter had gone to the pub. Then he went home". Who went with Peter to the pub (was it John, or someone else)? And who when home (John? Peter? the unnamed other male?)? While your bot's internals will function with some kind of rather formal system like first-order logic, vexingly people rarely write in unambiguous logical statements. Figuring out who went to the pub with Peter is hard enough for people, with better equipment and lots of real-world experience. Your bot will make a lot of (probably rather amusing) errors in this regard. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I tried some of this stuff for an old-school text adventure. It's really tough:

• Use the sword in the chest to hit the wizard. You remove the sword from the treasure chest and use it to hit the wizard
• Use the sword to hit the wizard in the next room. You walk into the next room and hit the wizard using the sword
• Use the sword to hit the wizard in the leg. You hit the wizards' leg using the sword
• Use the sword to hit the wizard in the chest. There is no wizard in the treasure chest

It goes beyond parsing the sentence. The amount of specialised knowledge you need in order to make sense of these things is enormous. Worse still, you need the knowledge in order to parse the sentence - but without parsing the sentence, you don't know what knowledge to consult. SteveBaker (talk) 02:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Using an existing sim card in a new iPhone?

I have just received a new, though rather cheap, phone from a family member. It is an AT&T phone with a 3G sim card, and the family member is paying for the service. I also just received my tax return, and would like to get an iPhone. I have not found a consistent answer online, so my question is this: If I got an iPhone 3G, would I be able to just put in the AT&T 3G sim card I already have, thus bypassing having to sign up (and pay) for new AT&T service? I know the sim cards are removable, but, as noted, I have yet to find a consistent answer on whether or not I would be able to activate the device without purchasing a new plan. Thanks. --Abin Sur (talk) 23:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

You might want to read the iPhone article, particularly the part about the SIM lock. -- JSBillings 14:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That mostly talks about doing something to the phone to take non-AT&T sim cards. He is talking about using an existing AT&T sim card and just popping it in, no hacking or cracking or anything like that. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 15:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

March 8

How do I update OpenOffice2.4 to version 3?

I cannot find anything about this on the OO website. Do I have to uninstal OO2.4 beforehand or what? I'm worried abut losing my documents. Thanks. 89.240.206.60 (talk) 02:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Your documents are not in openoffice. They are files on your harddrive - wherever you saved them (likely on your desktop or in My Documents). You can uninstall OO, which will only uninstall the actual word processor program, spreadsheet program, etc... I suggest just installing OO3. If you like it, you can uninstall OO2. If you don't like it, you can uninstall OO3 and keep OO2. -- kainaw™ 02:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

What's that computer virus called that pops up "you have a virus" messages?

They are really realistic but i know it's a scam, and that its a major phisher/spyware etc. More importantly how can I get rid of it? I had it on a laptop i used to have and lost the battle that lappy is dead now and I don't want this desktop to die. What can I do?Troyster87 (talk) 08:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Dead? I don't know of any virus that outright kills a computer. The most common malware that gives this type of message as far as I know is antivirus 2009, which can be a pain to remove. Last I checked, Malwarebytes tends to do a good job of killing it, and there's a guide to using it for this purpose at [3]. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

i saw an article about it on yahoo, isn't there a wikipedia article about it? do you know if the free version works against it?Troyster87 (talk) 09:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The free version does just as good a job as the pro version, it only lacks the scheduled and real-time scanning. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

oh sweet dude, thank you so much. and it did kill my laptop, it has the blue screen of death now. what is real time scanning?Troyster87 (talk) 00:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Our article on the virus is MS Antivirus, and Malwarebytes can get rid of it if one hasn't done the install/Upgrade now thing. The BSOD thing though sounds more like one of the Smitfraud/Winfixer strains - if you move your mouse to the very top of the screen, does it show a title bar that allows you to close it? .. (tricky little full-screen graphic thing they did). If you have files you want to save, but can't get it back to running condition (meaning you have to format - reinstall Windows) try ERD Commander, or one of the Bart PE LiveCD disks - (UBCD for Windows I think) - or even a Knoppix or Ubuntu disk if your comfortable with Linux. Good luck. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 04:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

rename files

I need a free Windows program that can rename loads of files easily from "Word2008 T77th.doc" to "Word2008 77.doc" where the number "77" would be different for each file. Thank you for your' help

Try looking through the appropriate section in freewarefiles dot com, for example. 89.243.46.238 (talk) 13:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

You can also hack something together yourself. Pull a directory listing into a word processor, delete all the cruft other than the filename, make it into a table, duplicate the column, do a "change every" on the second column to get rid of the T and th, remove the table structure, use "change every" to put rename at the beginning of each line, and save it as a batch file in text format. You'd also have to add some quotes because there are spaces in the filenames. Ma^t_chups 15:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Or, from the command line, enter

 for %d in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) do ren "Word2008 T7%dth.doc" "Word2008 T7%d.doc"

to rename all the 7* files, then change the 7's in the command to 6,5,4,3,2,1 and repeat. %d acts as a variable, that is substituted with the numbers within the parentheses before the command is executed. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I've found Lupas Rename and Oscar's Renamer to be pretty powerful. Lupas is quite good, you can replace patterns in the filename, crop any amount of characters from any point in the filename, and many more. Oscar's lists all your your filenames in a directory as if it were a text document so you can literally edit the filenames, copy/paste just as if you're typing in Word. Zunaid 09:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Touch pad turned off

I have a Panasonic CF-T5 notebook. I like to use a tap on the touch pad instead of left-clicking the botton. How do I turn on the touch pad so that I can use a tap?68.237.250.249 (talk) 19:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That is generally an option provided by your touchpad driver. On Windows the option might be available in Control Panel (Start → Control Panel) under either a touchpad-specific icon, or a touchpad tab under the "mouse" icon. If neither location has that option, you may need to download and install updated touchpad drivers for your computer, then check Control Panel again. – 74  00:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Motorola KRZR K1 Custom Ringtone

One of my friends has a Motorola KRZR K1 cell phone, but has no idea how to do anything except phone people. I have downloaded a song for her, and have transferred it to the phone, via the USB cable that came with it. I am wondering how to set it as her ring tone. The instructions here don't work, as she don't have on of the options in the options menu. She live in Canada, and uses Rogers, if that helps. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 23:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

March 9

Pointers/References C++

Alright, I have been trying to figure out in what circumstances each of the following would be useful and how efficient each is, but in the process, have only confused myself further. One particularly confusing thing is that I know that * represents th dynamic allocation of memory, such as in the case of a dynamic integer array, but what does it mean when used with a class?

int get(MyClass* x)
{
return(x->get());
//Will this cause a memory leak?
}

int get(MyClass &x)
{
return(x.get());
}

int get(MyClass x)
{
return(x.get());
//I know this one is not very efficient, but why would you use it?
}

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also, what does this do?

int get(MyClass* &x)
{
return(x->get());
}

Nkot (talk) 01:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to answer your homework questions, but I just want to say a few things. First, * in the type indicates a pointer type. Pointers can point to anything. Sure, this could include dynamically-allocated objects; but it could be anything else. You can take the address of any variable and you would have a pointer. You should really read up on pointers; the topic is very large and one cannot go into all the details here. Second, no code you've posted has any memory leaks. No dynamic memory allocation is done anywhere in that code. You should get rid of this * = dynamically memory allocation notion because those things are completely unrelated. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 07:31, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

As .45 says, you need to do more reading, but I do want to say the fundamental de-mystery-ificating thing about pointers: it's just a number. If you think about all the memory in your computer being a big array, a pointer is nothing more than the index of the pointed-to thing in that array. Obviously just mentioning that index does not create anything new, so there can be no memory leak by just using a pointer. --Sean 13:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

How would you recommend organizing digital media (photos, videos, maybe audio in future)

I'm building up a collection of mainly photos and some videos too, and I'm not sure how best to organize them. My home PC is a windows one, and the folder system there is useless because you can only place an image in one folder (or redundantly copy it into many folders). How else can I organize them? I don't think they're all worth uploading online, and it would probably be more work anyway. I quite like the organization of a wiki (to the point that many non-wiki sites annoy me); perhaps having my own offline wiki would be a good solution? It could also be used for other purposes too, like keeping a record of the species I've seen, to-do lists etc. Has anyone had any experience with this sort of thing? Do you have other ways of organizing your files? If I do use a wiki, where should I get one from? Does GNU/Linux or similar systems have better file organization? Richard001 (talk) 07:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Am I completely off-base or are you not simply looking for photo album software? Every one since the dawn of time supports tagging photos (allowing multiple categories per photo). I think Google Picassa should do nicely. As to storing the photos on your HD, I always name my folders as YYYY-MM-DD Event. Doesn't help me to group together photos of e.g. flowers, but then again I'm more interested in keeping photos of events together. Zunaid 10:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Folder-setup is largely irrelevant if you have a good application/operating system. Picasa is highly recommended for photos, not sure if it takes video as not used it for a few years. It also includes decent editing stuff and it's free. Not free, but a professional product and truly wonderful, is Adobe Lightroom but that is not really a 'storage' unit (though it performs the job) it is more a photo-management suite. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say "...the folder system is useless because you can only place an image in one folder..." You are free to create, move, copy, and delete folders in Windows. You are also free to copy, move, ... etc. individual files to whichever folder you prefer. If you are referring to the hierarchical structure in the MS file system vs. the trend to 'tag' files with 'keywords' - then yes, various software programs can help with that type of organization. Programs like Thumbs Plus, Windows Live Photogallery, (download.live.com) and the programs mentioned above could fill your needs. I got away from Picasa (other than an occasional lighting tweak) because of it's nature to duplicate the actual files within it's own program's file system - but like User:194..., I haven't tried any new versions in a while. As Zunaid mentions, you're free to name your folders in the manner that best suits your particular needs. If you want to clarify a particular need or question, I'm sure someone can help point you in the right direction. ;) — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 17:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are still interested in the wiki option, try MoWeS. Instructions are here. I have it et up, and I love it! Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 19:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses, I'll look into these options. Richard001 (talk) 06:41, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

programming a physics engine?

Can someone suggest how one would go about programming a physics engine like those used in computer games? I don't want too much detail, just point me in the right direction. And what program might you suggest is a good place to start learning this subject area. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbjohn (talk • contribs) 13:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You could do worse than reading the source code of one of the several open source packages listed here. Also, here's a book called "Game Physics Engine Development", which seems relevant. --Sean 14:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The type of physics needed would vary dramatically with the game. Obviously there are some games where no physics is required at all. Then there are others, like those with space ships firing at each other in space, which require nothing more than constant acceleration and maybe collisions. A game set on Earth (or some other planet) would need to account for gravity and air resistance, too. Then we get into really complex physics like fluid dynamics and finite element modeling for explosions. At this point it's likely the game designers would just "fake it" with a small number of fixed explosion clips, rather than actually model them mathematically within the game. StuRat (talk) 23:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

And StuRat hasn't even got into model physics. Most games have model animations. The model is a single entity that reacts to the world with preset animations. Ever notice that when you kill the monsters in most games they always die the same way? Other games, like Little Big World for a current example), use sackboy or beanbag models. The components of the model interact with the physics of the world independently, allowing a unique animation for each event. -- kainaw™ 23:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll tell you - it's a major undertaking and most definitely not something you should attempt unless you have a ton of experience playing with existing physics engines. The problems are all in the horrible details. Suppose we have a world where the only objects are simple cubes - the ground is dead flat - there is no air resistance, a simple 'school-boy' model of friction - and there is gravity. That's about as simple as it could ever be (usefully anyway). We have very simple and well known classical mechanics equations for all kinds of rigid-body interactions. There is no unknown physics here...it's been well known for maybe 200 years. How hard could it possibly be?

Well, what's difficult is that computer software has to quantize time into whatever intervals the game is iterating at (say 30 times per second - ~33 milliseconds per time 'step'). What you find is that you're going through all of your objects saying "Accelleration = sum-of-forces / mass", "Velocity = old Velocity + Acceleration / 33msec", "Position = old Position + Velocity / 33msec" - this is a bit of a work-out for your knowledge of high-school mechanics - especially if you blanked a bit on coefficients of rotational inertia, tensors, torque and such. Doing arbitary cube-on-cube collision testing is a pain because of all manner of special cases...But you CAN do it without any serious college-level math - it's not that hard. This is definitely not the problem.

But then (because time is 'quantized') you notice that two objects that weren't touching on your last cycle have moved a bit over the past 33msec - and are now beyond 'touching' - they are partially embedded inside each other. In the real world, they wouldn't do that - they should stop when they collide and possibly bounce off a bit with some kind of elastic collision (which we understand how to do). But the laws of physics fail us here - real world solid objects simply don't "overlap" on a day to day basis! So now you've somehow got to work backwards in time to partway through the 33msec time step to the precise instant when the collision happened (not a trivial matter for objects with complex shapes that are tumbling!)...then you 'reverse time' - back everything up to the point of the collision - compute the consequences of the collision and then figure out what happens as a result of that change. But that backing-up of time causes calculations you already did to be incorrect - and you can go round and round fixing things up - and NEVER get to the end of the process! Just imagine something as seemingly simple as a pile of stationary cubes sitting on top of each other. Each one tries to fall under gravity - so it interpenetrates the one beneath with one of it's four vertices on the bottom sticking into the topmost face of the cube below. But all of the cubes are interpenetrated a bit - backing whichever one you first test back to where it's just touching the one beneath it isn't too terrible - but after you fix that up, the one beneath it hits the one beneath THAT....this in turn messes up other things you've already done...it gets ugly fast.

Ideally, you'd want to solve the equations for all motion of all objects to find when the next intersection is - but that's a HORRIFIC amount of arithmetic - for even a fairly simple scene, you could easily be solving 100,000 equations with 100,000 unknowns - and you've only got a few milliseconds to do the math because in that 1/30th second you've also got to draw the graphics, figure out the AI, read the joystick...you name it!! You really can't do it...and as fast as computers increase in performance, game players expectations rise - so when you get twice the compute power, you'll be expected to do physics on twice the number of objects (which is generally four times the number of collisions!)

What most software does is to cheat - abandoning "real" physics and saying that when one object interpenetrates another - we'll simply create a fake force that pushes the buried objects apart as if they were made of jello. A "restoring force" if you like. But if the force is too small, our pile of cubes wobbles and shakes just like jello (well, duh!). To make objects that behave 'stiffly' like blocks made of steel or something - then under these kinds of collisions you need HUGE restoring forces - and the problem with that is that these forces don't obey the laws of thermodynamics! You're injecting 'free' energy into the system. Now if you take your pile of cubes is that they 'jiggle' instead of sitting there in a nice pile - and because each jiggle adds more collision energy, they tend to jiggle more and more until the pile collapses or cubes at the top of the pile get enough energy to be catapulted into orbit!

So now you say things like "if the amount of interpenetration is "small" then we'll ignore it and not bother with restoring forces. But then you get problems like objects refusing to slide down slopes - so you have to tweak these ugly constants to try to compromise between "jello", "free energy" and "super-stiction".

Another thing that helps (although it doesn't FIX anything - it mitigates the worst effect) is to iterate your physics code at higher rates than things like graphics and audio - perhaps 120 times a second. But the math involved in doing this physics stuff consumes a LOT of CPU time - and doing physics on tiny time-steps means that you don't have enough CPU time left to do anything else!

The compromises that are forced on such systems are truly nasty to resolve. I believe that producing physics software that's robust (ie no objects catapulted into orbit or stuck), 'stiff' (ie no jello cubes), efficient (ie it runs in ~5 milliseconds for (say) 1000 objects), easy to use (no special 'tweaking') is the hardest job in game development. I'd go out on a limb and say that the best minds the industry has have NOT solved the problem to an adequate degree. People ALWAYS spend time kludging the physics code at the end of the project! (And I'm a game developer - I know these things!)

This problem I've explained - is just one of a dozen similarly annoying issues. Floating point math precision is another one, use of real-world data values for things like friction-versus-sticktion is another (especially for car simulation where the behavior of rubber tires is notoriously nothing like the physics text books say they are!)....even the best commercial physics engines are temperamental to deal with - they often require all sorts of 'fake' springs and dampers to be introduced into seemingly correctly described systems in order to make them behave.

If you are passionate - I suggest you download the OpenSourced 'Bullet physics engine. It's free - and you get full source code - and there is a developer community that's friendly enough that you can ask dumb questions and they'll patiently explain stuff to you. SteveBaker (talk) 01:50, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Hot pixels and Photoshop CS3

I have a question for all the photography savvy wikipedians (I know you are out there.) I have a Canon XTi and just recently noticed a hot pixel showing up in the jpeg output. I know there are photoshop tools to manage this, and that a Canon service center can map out bad pixels to negate them, and I am weighing my options. However, I opened the RAW version of a shot with a very obvious hot pixel into the RAW import tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3, and unless I am going crazy I am convinced that it automatically erased the hot pixel immediately upon opening it up. I thought I was seeing things so I tried another with an obvious hot pixel in the jpeg version, and once I opened it in the Adobe tool and zoomed into the spot, it was completely gone! Now, the question is, does it do this with some knowledge from camera (an onboard hot pixel detector of some sort) that gets passed in with the RAW file, or is it a sort of noise reduction algorithm that can spot an obvious hot pixel in the image through some method like seeing a raw value of 255,0,0 (for a hot red pixel) in a sea of mostly 136,96,7 pixels (brownish background color)? --Jmeden2000 (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the RAW file is quite OK and it's the camera's JPEG algorithm (or possibly just the camera's LCD panel) that is faulty? Astronaut (talk) 18:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

My raw processor, Bibble, has automatic hot pixel detection (by some statistical method, not specific knowledge of hot pixel locations). It wouldn't surprise me if Photoshop/ACR had something similar. I also think dcraw lets you provide a list of known-bad pixel locations. -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A quick Google for adobe raw hot pixels suggests that yes, it's built into the RAW converter. I doubt the camera does any of the detection. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 21:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I guess I was hoping to find out what methods are actually employed and if they were documented *ANYWHERE* besides internet forums. There are apparently two ways hot pixels will "disappear" in a modern digital workflow. Using the "manual sensor clean" function on newer Canon cameras apparently instigates a feature that can identify and squelch hot pixels from ever re-appearing. This is totally undocumented but observed by many (including myself). Then, in Adobe Camera Raw there is a "simple heuristic" that will forcibly remove hot pixels from a RAW image. I say forcibly because there is apparently no way to turn this feature off. The problem then becomes what happens when this bit of mathematical magic oversteps its boundary, such as in stellar photography where little brightly colored dots are the norm? From one forum, a poster noted: "I have not seen any stars mapped out in [Adobe Camera Raw]!". Duh, of course you haven't! --Jmeden2000 (talk) 20:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It's pretty easy to detect in RAW mode because the camera's optical system is unlikely to be able to natually produce a single bright pixel without some kind of fuzzy blur around it on adjacent pixel - hence any single pixel anomaly pretty much has to be a faulty sensor pixel. However, it is in the very nature of the JPEG compression algorithm that it's not able to produce a single pixel bright spot because the image compression tricks will cause some disruption of adjacent pixels. Even if you have a single bad pixel, JPEG will store it as a fuzzy blob - which could easily be a natural feature of your photograph and not a fault at all. Hence you can't unambiguously discover if a bright (fuzzy) dot in a JPEG image is a bad pixel or not. That presumably explains why they don't remove artifacts automatically in JPEG...but they do in RAW where the risk of misidentification is almost zero. SteveBaker (talk) 01:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Mac/G4 question

Can I plug a new Epson scanner with a USB 2.0 into a 500 MHz Power PC G4 Mac port? Will it run slower or not at all? Or incompatible? Or do I need to change the port internally ? Trav Bickle (talk) 15:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It'll either work from the pre-installed drivers or you'll need to install drivers for it. Here (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/SupportIndex.jsp) is a starting point, you click through to your product and it'll have the drivers you need. It should work exactly the same as through a windows machine provided it is has a supporting driver. ny156uk (talk) 16:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

What matters is if there are PowerPC drivers for the Mac OSX version you are using. The USB number does not matter — if you use it with 2.0, it should work faster, but if it is just 1.0, it will probably still work to some degree. But check the scanner specifications. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Equipment found in a DNA Lab

I am trying to find out what the machine that vigorously shakes small vials is called. They have one on the show CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) They use it to shake up DNA samples or unknown substances before putting the sample into another machine that analyzes the sample. I don't want to know what the analytical machine is called. I want to know what the technical term for the shaker is. And where can I get one? ( this is not as important as knowing what the machine is called) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dunvegangroup (talk • contribs) 18:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Would that be a Vortex mixer? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A vortex mixer mixes by spinning the tube. I would think maybe a microplate mixer would fit the bill?

http://www.scientificindustries.com/pdf/download-microplate-flyer.pdf Livewireo (talk) 20:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The OP said the samples were in vials, not in microplates, hence a vortex mixer. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This would be an excellent Q for the Science Desk. StuRat (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If you type "laboratory shaking machine" into Google, you will get many different kinds of machines that are designed to shake flasks, bottles, and vials. Both the vortex mixer and microplate mixer will be in the list. -- kainaw™ 23:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Dunno about shaking small vials in labs, but there is a standard machine called a paint shaker that you can get in hardware stores. It is intended for use mixing colors of paints--you put colored paints in a can and let this thing shake the can for a while. They are sometimes used for low-rent electronic assembly testing (you build your electronic gizmo, then shake it with the paint shaker for a while, then see if it still works). One type of lab stirring device that I've seen (different from Vortex mixer) is a magnetic stirrer: you drop a slug containing a bar magnet into your flask of liquid, and set it on the stirrer base. The stirrer base has a motor that spins an attached magnet, and the magnetic field goes through the flask bottom and makes the immersed slug spin and stir the liquid. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 00:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

(I've actually done that myself - you don't really need any expensive gear. Take two magnets - drop one into a bottle and clamp the other into the chuck of a regular power drill, put it onto it's slowest speed setting and stick it up close to the bottom of the bottle...it worked just fine on the couple of times I've used it!) SteveBaker (talk) 01:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Firefox login window disappears and reappears

hey guys im having a problem with firefox when a login window pops up it will disappear after a second or two and then reappear after about 10 seconds is there a way to fix this it never did this in firefox 2 its just really annoying me now so is there a way to fix this?--Quickroom1 (talk) 18:31, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this on a website? If so what website? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 19:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

its on any website where a popup comes up asking for your username and password, such as this for example. works fine in ie7 but not in firefox!--Quickroom1 (talk) 21:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't have any idea what the problem is, but I have Firefox 3.0.7 (which I assume you are using) and the login box behaves just fine for me on your example website. It may be a setting issue, and if so, can probably be fixed by a reinstall.Nkot (talk) 23:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Auto-complete function

These are rather trivial questions and I should be able to find the answers myself, but anyway: my library login screen has two fields, "Enter your Vancouver Public Library barcode:" and "Enter your PIN:". I see no reason why my computer shouldn't be doing this for me, being as how I'm immensely lazy. Questions:

• Windows (XP SP3) starts off offering to remember passwords and I long ago told it to quit. Now I can't figure out how to turn it back on to see if it will fill those boxes in. Does anyone know where this is done?
• Google shows a yellow field for the PIN number, indicating that it would auto-fill, if I chose to turn on auto-fill. I'd like to 1) get Google to recognize the barcode field, since it's a 14-digit number; and 2) figure out what and how it recognizes to make the bold assertion that it can remember my PIN. I don't see any recognition rules in any of the auto-fill options.

If there are simple answers for these, please just point me to where I should have RTFM'ed. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 21:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You need to explain what web browser you are using. Windows XP is not a web browser. Do you mean Internet Explorer? Google is not a web browser. Do you mean Chrome? -- kainaw™ 21:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

From what I remember, Google Toolbar highlights auto-completeable fields in yellow, so OP is probably referring to that. That would narrow the browsers down to IE and Firefox. In IE: [4]. In Firefox: Tools > Options > Security > Remember passwords for sites — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 21:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, ha - I thought the default would be assumed, especially when I noted my laziness. :) IE7 (7.0.5730.11) - the standard browser that comes with XP, + updates; and the Google toolbar add-in GoogleToolbar3.dll v. 4.0.1601.4978 which loads to IE (I've suppressed toolbar updates on my FW, so it will be a little OOD).

Matt, thanks for the first link - that was the brain-gap I suspected, I was checking Control Panel rather than the browser settings. D-o-hh!

However, IE7 form completion doesn't seem to work either (though two days and two power cycles often do the trick for Windows config changes, so we'll see). If anyone has tips on how to tweak the Google toolbar completion rules to include that "barcode" text, or however else the hypertext is picked out to spot the fillable box, still most appreciated! Franamax (talk) 03:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Bit Torrent

I just went to BitTorrent.com and downloaded BitTorrent. I've just started playing around with it. Can anyone tell me where my completed files will go when they have finished downloading.91.111.86.221 (talk) 22:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Chances are you are using Windows. If so, chances are the files will either end up in My Documents or on the desktop. -- kainaw™ 23:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It's been a while since I switched over to uTorrent, but you can set the preferences to your liking (a temp folder while d/l - and a completed folder where the file gets moved to when completed). By default - I would look at what the settings are now, they be a folder in your "My Documents" or a folder in the Program Files\BitTorrent. (look for keywords like: Settings, Options, Preferences, Tools, etc.) — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 00:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

March 10

Modular network security software?

I'm pulling my hair out. Somewhere in the last few months I've seen on Lifehacker, TechCrunch, Delicious, TechRepublic, or somewhere a piece of software that is sort of an all-in-one network monitoring and security package. It includes several open source packages that it treats as appliances that you activate or install in a virtual rack (that's shown on-screen). It's got packages for bandwidth monitoring, spam, virus protection, etc. There were also commercial appliances that you could purchase/license.

This software would run on a single machine using only one network adapter (which was not recommended) or on a machine using two network adapaters. I really think this was windows-based (or would run in windows), but I'm not sure. It had a great video demo showing the features.

This isn't Cobia.

Anyone have any clues? I would really appreciate any help!

Thanks, -70.145.200.110 (talk) 03:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

search engines and multiple domains

Hypothetical: I operate birds.com and I have a page in it called birds.com/sparrow. I just purchased the domain sparrow.com. Does using them together have any benefit to search engine ranking? Basically, sparrow.com has high relevancy for someone searching "sparrow." Can I add that relevancy value to the popularity value of birds.com? websites do multiple domains all the time - is there SE benefit or merely the benefit of having people who directly to sparrows.com land on my site? Thanks --Ephilei (talk) 04:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I doubt the URL itself matters to ranking engines anymore as it is so easy to fake (e.g. whitehouse.org). IIf you have a lot of sites that link only to each other I'm pretty sure Google ranks you down for that (looks like a link farm). But having one or two that have alternative names... I would imagine the only effect is that if 50% of sites link to one and 50% link to the other, you are diluting your pagerank as Google will likely not recognize them as a single site. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

That's what I've come to think as well. Thanks --Ephilei (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Viewport area below BODY in Firefox

If you give a small BODY element a border in Firefox (but not in MS IE or WebKit/Safari/Chrome) you see a rectangle around the text at the top of the viewport/screen with a large empty area below it empty. The question is: to which DOM element does this "nowhere land" belong and how can you associate styles to this area (I am especially interested in setting the cursor property). Please also see my Mozilla Bugzilla entry. Thanks in advance, Cacycle (talk) 04:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It appears to me that you are talking about the area outside the body's box-model. Normally, people ask how to ensure that the body will take up the entire viewable area. If you set body's height:100%, it may only take up half the screen. That is because body is constrained inside the html box-model. You must set html's height:100% because body is inside of html which is inside of the viewport. Therefore, the "white space" you are referring to is outside the html box-model. Since html is the root of the DOM tree model, it is outside DOM. My suggestion is to set html's height:100%. Then, set html's cursor. Let body be whatever height it likes, but ensure you set body's cursor. Now, the html box-model will fill the viewport, but you didn't specifically ask the body's box-model to fill html completely. That white-space will be inside the html box-model, which is inside DOM, and you should be able to change it. I haven't tried this, but it theoretically should work. -- kainaw™ 19:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, that makes sense and would exactly do what I want. I will try it tonight and report back. Cacycle (talk) 19:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

In order to blow the body up to screen size and to get get rid of the empty area that does no belong to any DOM element the following settings worked:

• Normal html page: setting the height of either HTML or BODY to 100%
• Iframe: setting the BODY height to 100%, HTML settings had no effect

Thanks again, Cacycle (talk) 03:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Apache Tomcat and Apple

I am having a problem trying to run Apache Tomcat on my Apple laptop. When I install and try to run it I am getting an error that I don't have permissions and I am asked to enter a password. Any ideas?? BigDunc^Talk 11:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you are being asked by Mac OS X to verify as an Administrator. You should be able to put in the username and password for either a user with administrator powers or root, the super-user account. In BSD (the background of OS X), many network-related things need passwords for security purposes. Since tomcat is essentially a network server, it might need to bind to a low-numbered port. Ports under 1024 (I think) are reserved to the system and an admin must give permission to bind to such a low port. Freedomlinux (talk) 17:00, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Freedomlinux is correct. Assuming that you have edited <Connector port="nnn" ... > in {installpath}/conf/server.xml such that the port is 80 (and not the default 8080), you will run into the permissions issue you describe. See also List of TCP and UDP port numbers#Ranges. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I've never had a problem getting tomcat going on a macbook, but I'm running it on a high port number. Friday (talk) 18:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks folks you got it in one sorted now. BigDunc^Talk 14:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Free Photoshop-Like Website?

I used the one month trial version of Photoshop but sadly the trial ended. I cannot afford to fork over the amount of money they are asking for to purchase it. Also, I am in no way a professional at photography. I used it for my photo of my friends to alter red eyes, remove any pimples on faces and to whiten the eyes and teeth a bit. Just general light cleaning up. Is there a free website that offers this same service? If so, how much would you trust it? --Emyn ned (talk) 13:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not a website, but I believe that GIMP can do everything you mentioned (and more). --Aseld ^talk 13:52, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I use Picnik via my Flickr page; I've also heard good reviews of SUMO Paint. There's even Adobe Photoshop Express. --LarryMac | Talk 13:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Google's Picassa also has red-eye and similar tools for photos. The newest version does not make a duplicate of all your photos, which I noticed an earlier version doing. -- kainaw™ 17:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I second Picnik which you can also use with Picasa Web and many others. The Picasa desktop client is more powerful and does syncs between local and the cloud, but does require an install. --70.91.110.41 (talk) 18:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

You should definitely check out GIMP. It's an awesome tool. I do computer graphics as my full-time job - and I actually prefer it to Photoshop - and it's completely, 100% free. There are a gazillion plugins too - so if you happen to find something it can't do - look for a plugin. SteveBaker (talk) 01:00, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Name the font

Could somebody name this font? -->

Thanks --217.227.85.200 (talk) 14:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a typewriter font. Something like Courier new or American Typewriter should work fine. It won't look quite the same though unless it is somewhat distressed, which is pretty easy to do in photoshop. --140.247.251.34 (talk) 16:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Courier would be very wrong. —Tamfang (talk) 21:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Or try some of these.91.111.86.221 (talk) 16:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

In the year of Nineteen Hundred and Thirty-Six, it probably was a typewriter. APL (talk) 13:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow - that's a seriously low-rent way to abdicate the British throne! You'd think there would be some fancy calligraphy and parchment and stuff - preferably with a big wax seal and a ribbon or two! SteveBaker (talk) 00:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

screenless display

can i get information regarding screenless displayPri3naik (talk) 14:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean a computer which projects the screen's image on a surface ? StuRat (talk) 17:00, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Or do you mean "display" in the Linux usage where a display is the graphical output that may or may not be bound to a physical image like a LCD or CRT. --Ephilei (talk) 18:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Or do you mean some type of holographic display technology, à la Paycheck? – 74  03:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Authentication using Mobile Phone / Sim card

Hi. I am wondering that is it possible that a mobile phone can be used as a key in an automated identification process, in a way that you just simply put the phone into a close proximity of a certain device, and it automatically identifies you (well of course not you, but your phone) without using any SMS service, or infra, or bluetooth. Thanx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.1.59.156 (talk) 20:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I have seen demonstration technology, where a 2D barcode is used to identify the phone. A normal barcode reader is used to read the image directly off the phone's screen. Of course you need to have got the barcode from somewhere, usually through a MMS message. I have also seen news reports of phones being used for contactless payments - in Finland I think - but I'm unsure how that might work. Astronaut (talk) 21:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Or Japan: see here Astronaut (talk) 22:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, a cell phone is a radio transmitter, so sure, it's possible. There are plenty of reasons why it could be a bad idea, at least if implemented badly, though -- the simplest one being that simply stealing someone's cell phone would give access to everything the owner is supposed to have access to via this system. But yeah, it could be done. There are applications that can track your movements through GPS, for example, and they can be triggered to do things like send information to your phone, or even unlock doors when you enter an area. Versions of this kind of technology have been in use in some experimental pervasive games, for example, in which the players have moved around a large area and completed various tasks with the help of customized hardware and software like this. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 22:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

You might actually be looking for something like an RFID badge. More generally, see authentication token. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 00:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

On a similar topic, a phone can be the source of identification. I remember this as being from Finland, but I travelled a lot and I've been told that Finland never had anything like this, so I'll explain what I saw in some European country (where everyone tended to be whiter and taller than me): From McDonalds to the Coke machine, everything had a phone number on it. Just dial the number on your phone and it is the same as paying with cash. I assume it turns up on your phone bill. Even in the Internet bar, the computers had phone numbers. Dial up a computer and it gives you credit. Since you dialed from your phone, it knows who you are and would restore your session. So, in this scenario, the phone is used as a form of authentication since you have to call the computer (or any other machine) from your phone. Now, if I just had a good enough memory to know where I saw people doing this... -- kainaw™ 01:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

We have Coke and snack machines that work with a mobile phone like that over here in Finland, sure. (Typically they work by SMS message rather than by dialing a number, but same principle.) There are also numerous other services that work on the same principle, such as buying time on an internet terminal, buying subway tickets, etc. I mean, the platform for the process is freely available from all mobile phone operators, all you need to do is make an application that takes advantage of it. Especially for machines that usually accept coins, it's a fairly attractive proposition, because you don't have to worry about someone breaking into the machine and stealing the money, you don't have to send someone around to collect the money, and the mechanism to dispense things or services on a single-item basis is already in place. I don't think they do that at McDonald's, though. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 08:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

So, it could be that I'm correctly remembering it as being Finland. I never looked to see what people were typing into their phone, so I didn't realize it was just SMS messages. As for the McDonalds, it was a very fancy one that even had two token Americans working there. I only noticed because I had been in Northern Europe so long that I was speaking in terribly broken English and it took me by surprise when one of the guys responded in perfect (though American) English. I just need to find some way to get back - Finland, Sweden, Norway... I don't care which. Doesn't any University around there need a Computer Science professor? I promise not to complain too much about your toilets being way too tall.-- kainaw™ 13:31, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I would be surprised -- shocked, even -- if no university around here had any use for a computer science professor. C'mon over, man. Enjoy the high standard of living combined with the high cost of living! (Essentially) free medical care! Cold winters! Long winters! Long, cold, winters! Casual nudity in the sauna! More than two political parties! Woo! -- Captain Disdain (talk) 15:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Pfft. Why go all the way there when he can get the same stuff just north of his border? We prefer topless women to casual nudity in the sauna, but ymmv, of course!

Presumably because Canada isn't "Finland, Sweden [or] Norway". -- Captain Disdain (talk) 22:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, you need to compare the beer, not just the bitter cold. I still have some friends ship me some now and then. I'm usually nice and share it with the locals, but it is hard to let go of a real beer in a country that revels in fermented rat piss. -- kainaw™ 18:51, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

March 11

Skype problems

Please help my microphone wont work with Skype on my laptop but it works with the Skype on my other computer. Skype used to work with my old microphone and I didn't change the settings so I assumed its broken so I got a new one and it won't work either! The test call doesn't say its muted or any other error message but I can't hear the message playback at all. My laptop is a Compaq, I'm running Windows XP, I have Skype version 3.8.0.188 and I have a Logitech headset. Can anyone help please? --124.254.77.148 (talk) 03:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

This is from the "blindingly obvious" department, of course, but have you ensured that your microphone's volume setting on the computer isn't turned way, way down? It wouldn't show up as muted then, but if it's turned down low enough, it won't pick anything up, either. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 08:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

This happens to me once in a while. Go to the Control Panel and open Sounds and Audio Devices. Click on the Audio tab and ensure that your microphone is enabled for the Sound recording. Mostly like it has been replaced by another device. Regards, Bendono (talk) 14:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Gnome Sort

Hello. Can someone tell me how the Gnome sort can have a best case performance of O(n)? Also, how do you find the average case complexity of such an algorithm?--202.88.229.115 (talk) 04:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Best case scenario is when everything is already sorted. It will check n-1 items, which is O(n). -- kainaw™ 04:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

okay,thanks. so the average case is also o(n*n)?--202.88.229.115 (talk) 04:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It is, in my opinion, just insertion sort. Instead of a nested loop, they mess around with the list pointer. The average case for insertion sort is O(n²). So, gnome sort would be the same. -- kainaw™ 06:06, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Even the ultra-crappy bubble sort is O(n) in the best case. Best-case isn't usually very interesting. We're mostly interested in worst case (if we know nothing about the data and are in need of finishing within some known amount of time) - or average case (especially if we know something about our data - and if we'll be doing a lot of sorting so that the average is likely to be statistically correct).SteveBaker (talk) 00:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

/stalk for pidgin

On Chatzilla, you could type /stalk some phrase and it would stalk that phrase or user. If that phrase was said, you would get the notification as if your name had been mentioned. Now that I've switched to Pidgin, it seems there is no such function. Is there any add-on, extension, etc. that will add this feature? flaminglawyer 06:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

PNG in PHP problem

Recently, I've been trying to teach myself PHP. I have a free domain at X10hosting.com where I am trying to make a PHP-based website. According to X10hosting, GD is already installed, but when I try something like:

<html>
<body>
<?php
    $img=ImageCreate(300,300);
    
   //Do stuff to the image...
                                                            
    ImagePNG($img,"images/test.png");
    ImageDestroy($img);
?>
<img src="images/test.png" border=0>
</body>
</html>

it doesn't display anything at all. And it isn't just this particular example, it seems to be more specifically the "ImagePNG" statement, I have tried it in various ways but it doesn't seem to work. Thanks in advance, Jkasd 07:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried checking the return from ImagePNG? I suspect your problem might lie in the image paths—the path used by executing code is *rarely* the same as the URL. But a better approach (assuming you don't need the images after the users' requests) would be to have a php script create the image and send it directly to the browser. You can accomplish that using the same ImagePNG command, just drop the filepath (see example at php.net). You could then just pass the URL of this image-processing php file as the src of the img tag. Not only will it be faster for single-use images, but it also conveniently avoids the problems of cross-session corruption and temporary file removal. – 74  08:40, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've tried that (I think). I've put something like:

<img src="image.php">

in a different html file. But it will just display the browser icon for an unreadable image. The image.php file is more like:

<?php
    $img=ImageCreate(300,300);
    
   //Do stuff to the image...
                                                            
    ImagePNG($img);
?>

this time. Is that how you mean, or am I still doing something wrong? Jkasd 02:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at the "unreadable image" — it might be an error message. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 03:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The correct image header needs to be attached to the image. Here is the php.net example code:

<?php
$im = imagecreatefrompng("test.png");

header('Content-type: image/png');

imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);
?>

Note the header "Content-type"; that's what tells a browser how to handle the byte-stream that follows. Essentially, you should be able to point your browser at image.php and see the image. – 74  08:14, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Java programming - how do I do this...

Hi,

I am currently writing some code which runs a loop, and in each run of the loop it creates an object (CD, say) - but I want it to create a differently named object each time, by incorporating the loop number into the name. How do I do this? Here's roughly what my code looks like:

for(int q = 0; q < database.size(); q++)     // where database is an ArrayList
{
   CD myCD* = new CD();        //where * is, insert the varible q
}

I want this loop to produce varibles myCD0, myCD1, myCD2 etc.

Anyone know how to do this? Or point me in the right direction?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.58.73 (talk) 10:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me point you in another direction. The name of the variable is internal to your application and in itself is fairly meaningless. Thus, if it your intention to store a number with each instance of a CD for whatever reason, then you need to store that within the CD object itself. For example, you could define CD as such...

class CD
{
	public CD(int number)
	{
		this.number = number;
	}
	
	public int GetNumber()
	{
		return number;
	}
	
	private int number;
}

In your initial code, please recognize that all of your CD objects will go out of scope (ie, become inaccessible) immediately after each iteration of the loop. Finally, you could use it like...

public static void Foo()
{
     // Suggest parameterizing this with a type
     ArrayList database = // ...
		
     // Need a place to store CDs
     List<CD> cds = new ArrayList<CD>();
		
     for(int q = 0; q < database.size(); q++)
     {
	// Create CD instance; store loop number.
	CD myCD = new CD( q );
	   
	// Add CD to list.
	cds.add(myCD);
     }
		
     // Test: Output the stored numbers for each CD
     for (CD cd : cds)
     {
	System.out.println( cd.GetNumber() );
     }
}

Hope this helps. Regards, Bendono (talk) 11:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Note that in Java, it is very uncommon for a program to have variable names like cd0, cd1, cd2, cd3... If that is desired, you should (at a minimum) use an array like:

CD[] myCD = new CD[database.size()];
for(int q = 0; q < database.size(); q++)
{
  myCD[q] = new CD();
}

It is nearly what you asked for - just the addition of a [ and ]. -- kainaw™ 12:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Certainly a typo, but if not obvious to others you will need to remove the type CD preceding myCD[q] in the for loop. Bendono (talk) 14:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Correct - changed code. Luckily, that's a typo the compiler would complain about. -- kainaw™ 17:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

digital pen/stylus

Would this work on my HP Compaq 4400? I want a cheaper alternative to this, which the tablet originally came with. ~EdGl (talk) 15:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Since my laptop screen isn't touch-sensitive, I guess I need to use the pen that comes with the laptop :\ I can't find any for less than $40 though, which sucks. Guess I'm outta luck, huh? ~EdGl (talk) 19:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid so. If your tablet using magnetic tracking you absolutely need a stylus specifically designed to work to work with that tablet. APL (talk) 13:20, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect behaivour or mailicious code?

Moved from misc desk

Hi,

I'm using Internet Explorer version 6.0.2009.2180.xpsp_sp2_qfe.080814-1242. When i search on Eliot Ness and press go. I get a file download. This does not happen with other search word as e.g. apple. And not in FireFox. I dont know what the file is I did scan it with symantec antivirus but that found nothing.

Just tought that I should inform you of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.31.11.24 (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem is almost certainly at your end. There is no known behaviour in the wiki software that would allow a file to pop up when you are just searching for an article. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:26, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Sync Evolution and Collanos

How can I synchronize Evolution (software) with Collanos? Is there any way of exporting Collanos' data and importing them into Evolution? Is there a general format for task data? Mr.K. (talk) 17:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Finding the same text in two different files

I have this Boston_Celtics_all-time_roster, and this Los_Angeles_Lakers_all-time_roster. Now, how can I find players that played in BOTH teams (if there's such a player)? I'd need something like diff or cmp but I'm not sure. Thanks! --Taraborn (talk) 17:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not on a unix machine, so I can't test this, but here's what you do: say you have two text-files, "players1.txt" and "players2.txt", concatenate them, sort them, and then look for duplicate lines (using uniq). So something like this:

cat players1.txt players2.txt | sort | uniq -d

But as I said, I can't test it right now, but that would be a way to do it. 195.58.125.47 (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! --Taraborn (talk) 20:03, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

What you should use is join. Assuming that both players1.txt and players2.txt are sorted,

join players1.txt players2.txt

will give you what you want. --173.49.15.165 (talk) 02:29, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

What you want is comm. The problem with comm is that it requires both files to be sorted. So, sort both files (sort will do that easily). Then, use comm -1 -2 boston.sort lakers.sort. The -1 suppresses entries only in the first file. The -2 suppresses entries only in the second file. What is left is entries in both files. -- kainaw™ 03:37, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Google Currency Converter to Only Two Decimal Places?

Is there anyway to get Google currency converter to display the result to only two decimal places, unlike the current way it's shown?

--91.104.49.185 (talk) 19:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you can set that in your preferences (if you have a Google account). I'll check it out and get back to you. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 19:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

hmmmm ... couldn't find anything in either basic preferences or the calculator. Maybe one of the links it provides with result would give you more the output you're looking for. Sorry — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 19:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

An easy solution would be to use a bookmarklet: just create a new bookmark on your browser's toolbar with the name as "Currency" and for the location paste this in:

(code hidden to prevent widening page in browser)

javascript:(function() { for (var i = 0, h2s = document.getElementsByTagName('H2'); i < h2s.length; i++) { var h2 = h2s[i]; if (h2.className == 'r') { h2.innerHTML = h2.innerHTML.replace(/( = \d+[.,]\d\d)\d+/, '$1') } }; void(0); })()

Now when you are looking at the ugly decimals, just click on "Currency", and they'll vanish. Greasemonkey basically does the same thing, but spares you having to click anything, at the cost of some complexity in setup. --Sean 21:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Speex audio from Adobe Flex / Flash Player 10 .flv via Red5 to .wav PCM?

Resolved

I am having trouble converting a .flv audio-only file uploaded from Adobe Flex / Flash Player 10 to a Red5 server using the Speex voice coder:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/flash/media/Microphone.html

http://jira.red5.org/confluence/display/codecs/Speex+Codec (which references an "official patch" to ffmpeg at the end)

Questions:

1. How do I extract the audio track out of such a .flv file?

2. How do I convert it from Speex to .wav PCM?

Thanks. 69.228.87.198 (talk) 21:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

This is resolved; I needed the speex-1.2rc1 tarball instead of the debian/ubuntu libspeech-dev package, which is too old to link up with current versions of ffmpeg's --enable-libspeex.

cd ~/src/speex-1.2rc1/
./configure --prefix=/usr
make; make install
cd ../ffmpeg
./configure --enable-libspeex
make; make install
ffmpeg -i SpeexQ6R16Efalse.flv foo.wav

...worked. 69.228.87.198 (talk) 06:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Access 2007 and autogenerated form fields

Hi, apologies if this is covered in the archives. My basic problem is that I don't know enough Access jargon to Google the answer, and the same goes for searching on Wikipedia.

I'm looking for a way to make Access 2007 create blank copies of a group of fields within a record, as soon as data is entered into any field of the original group. The idea is to use a database to track each action taken on different parts of a work project, and when details of an action are entered, to have the database automatically create blank fields for the next action. Ideally using a form to enter the details, with the form's target fields being autoupdated at the same time. Can this be done while keeping all the data within one record - actually, can it be done at all?

Love the refdesks btw - so far you guys have answered every dumb question I posted here, both as an IP and when logged in :-) — FIRE!^{in a crowded theatre...} 22:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Access already behaved in this manner (though I may be confusing it with one of its SQL siblings). When you create a new record, all the fields in the record should be created as well. You can set these fields to a default value, but I think the default default value is blank. When updating a record, new fields should *not* be created (they should already exist). You might try using some sort of status indicator to determine which actions have and have not been completed. – 74  08:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

iPhone and Blackberry

This may be a dumb question... can you surf the internet like you would on a normal computer on an iPhone or Blackberry? Alientraveller (talk) 22:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec):Yep! The method is quite awkward, in my opinion at least, and some pages don't display properly, but it is possible. Note: You would want a data plan from your service provider, otherwise it could get quite expensive. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 22:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The browser on the iPhone (I've never used a Blackberry, so I don't know about them) is extremely good and uses topical zooming to display large pages on the small screen. THis is different from other small-screen targeted browsers, which either just had a small pagesize (which breaks pages that assume a given screen size) or which tried to do clever things to pages (which inevitably breaks lots of them). It's let down by the network connection - even on 3G it's frustrating to use because of the network speed. So really "yes" in theory, but you probably wouldn't want to do (for long) in practice. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

So, to summarize, yes, you can "surf the internet", but no, it's not "like you would on a normal computer". StuRat (talk) 01:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

To add more detail, yes and no. Right now the iphone safari doesn't support flash, so those page elements will unviewable. But the iphone safari browser is a huge improvement over the old internet explorer mobile (have not used a recent version). Also, many pages, especially google pages, will default to a iphone specific version that may limit some features but fit better on the screen, and with the navigation elements. Sometimes you can override these page versions, but that depends on the site you're visiting. The iphone does not replace a computer-based browser, but it can certainly fill in a lot of holes. If you have some specific page you're concerned about, or concern you're getting at, you should ask about it. Shadowjams (talk) 05:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

When does a MAC Address Change?

Resolved

Would I be right in assuming that MAC Addresses only change if some hardware change (which hardware by the way?). Will my MAC Address be the same if I switch OS (XP -> Ubuntu)?

TIA. PrinzPH (talk) 22:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The MAC is generally encoded into the ethernet adapter. In times of yore it was fixed (either by pull-up resistors or jumpers) on the ethernet card. Now it's generally kept in non-volatile (flash memory, generally) storage alongside the ethernet firmware. That means that it won't change when you reboot your machine or boot to a different OS, even if you blank (or replace) the disk entirely. You can, however, change it yourself if you want (or need) to (although there's rarely much point) - on linux there's an option to do that in ifconfig (ifconfig eth0 hw ether ab:cd:ef:01:23); I don't know of a standard way to do the same in Windows. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 22:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't answer the "which hardware" part of your question. On old machines there was a separate ethernet card (and you might still have a separate wireless ethernet card or USB adapter) - the MAC address belongs to that, so changing that would result in a new MAC. These days most machines have the ethernet adapter built into the motherboard, so you'd have to change motherboard to accidentally get a new MAC. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 23:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Ahh thank you... I used to think that the MAC address somehow had something to do with being an identifier for your computer's current setup (what memory, hdd, etc)... Maybe I confused it with how windows recognizes your computer and if you change too many components it will refuse to boot (into windows)? PrinzPH (talk) 00:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft have, at least in the past, used the MAC as part of the algorithm to determine your Globally Unique Identifier; in addition Microsoft does use the MAC as part of the scheme for Windows Product Activation. So you're right. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 00:58, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

We have instructions for changing your MAC address under different OSs in b:Changing Your MAC Address. If you have changed the MAC address in one OS but not the other, or changed them differently in different OSs, then your MAC address would indeed change when you switch operating systems. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 04:21, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

What? How can a value that's stored in a chip on a card vary depending on what OS you've booted? 93.97.184.230 (talk) 09:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

On startup, the ethernet card loads its default MAC from flash and stores this in RAM. It uses this value when generating ethernet frames. When it receives the "set your MAC" instruction (e.g. from ifconfig) it changes that RAM copy, but not the flash copy. So the change lasts only until the card is reset or powered off. For a change to be almost-permanent, in the way 76.167.241.45 suggests, you'd put that ifconfig line into the OS's startup scripts. That said, some cards do allow you to permanently change the MAC stored in the flash. Note that changing the MAC is not without risk; factory set MACs are guaranteed to be unique, but if you set your own you risk duplicating an existing MAC on your network (in practice that's almost impossible if you pick a truly random MAC, but quite likely if you idly decide just to change one digit). In that event your local switch with get utterly confused, and the resulting network anarchy will be extremely difficult to diagnose. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 12:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

March 12

Hibernation Mode

Is it bad for your PC to be always kept in hibernation mode, and never shut down ecxept only about once or twice in a month?? La Alquimista 06:36, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Bad as in likely to damage something? No. Bad as in potential instability and possible OS errors? Maybe. Basically, if you don't experience significant problems doing so then there's no real reason not to. – 74  08:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

It will not harm anything directly by being in hibernation mode. But inevitable program errors can become increasingly problematic the longer a computer goes without restarting. These problems will be things like software/OS crashes, not physical computer damage. Also, in modern desktop OSes, programs that are assumed to be closed may continue to run or maintain pieces of themselves in RAM (memory, not to be confused with hard drive space), which may over time contribute to higher memory usage. You should also be aware that hibernation mode (opposed to "suspend" mode) writes data to your hard-drive, which means that anything you have open may be recorded on your hard-drive at one point or another.

As a very general rule, perhaps you should consider fully shutting down your computer on a regular basis. Perhaps once a week (although you could go much longer or much shorter). Shadowjams (talk) 09:30, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Applications will not stay resident in memory unless they're supposed to stay resident in memory (ie., if I quit Firefox, it's gone), and even then there shouldn't be any higher memory usage over time unless it leaks memory or has some funky memory fragmentation issues. Something is wrong with your software if 'inevitable errors' pile up and cause issues over time, especially considering that you're essentially forced to reboot occasionally for updates regardless; if you're having issues like this, you should reevaluate what you've chosen to install. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Hibernation simply pages out everything and shuts down your computer. It's that simple. You can unplug your computer if you want, unlike with "sleep" which puts your computer in a low power state. The only problems that may occur are with programs that depend on time - timer programs? --wj32 ^t/c 10:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

On my Dell M1330 laptop, with 2GB RAM, it takes longer both to go into and to restore from hibernation than it does to make a clean shutdown and restart. So I only hibernate if I have to power off the laptop while doing something I can't save. Your mileage may vary, but I imagine copying 2GB of data to and from the hard drive takes quite a while on any PC.
Also, hibernation can't keep a server session alive, so when you power on again you'll find yourself logged out of most websites you were using. Your data will be lost unless you copied it into a Notepad window before hibernating. — FIRE!^{in a crowded theatre...} 18:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Well no wonder my computer has been acting unusually slow lately. The only time I bother to turn off my computer is when it freezes and I have no choice but to restart it or if I click Turn Off Computer by accident. I'm glad I read this thread, because it's a question I've been pondering myself. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 21:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

That should not be happening even on Windows unless you're using ME/9x. I never do a full shutdown or restart of my Windows box unless I've patched something and need to do so. No issues. You've probably got some crappy or malicious software installed. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Extract the constant term from a polynomial, with Maple9

Hi, excuse this naive question. I'm doing a computation with Maple9. As a result I have a huge trigonometric polynomial, and I want to extract the constant term. As a mathematician, I would just integrate over [-pi, pi], but this can not be the right answer. How can I just make it find the constant term? Thanks --131.114.72.215 (talk) 14:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

You might try asking at the math desk if you don't have any luck here. --Sean 17:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Security Software

I just bought a new Dell Inspiron 1525 and it came with Trend Micro Internet Security and I have Windows Defender on it, too. Reason is that I have installed Stumble Upon and now I'm addicted. But I don't want to leave myself vulnerable. Is this enough security? I think I might be missing something. --Emyn ned (talk) 14:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Make sure that the internet gateway (DSL router, cable box, etc.) that you're using to access the internet (assuming you're doing so at home) has a firewall and that the firewall is enabled (with as few inbound ports open as possible; ideally none). If you're using a wireless connection to it, make sure the connection is secure (and uses WPA, not the earlier and much less secure kind). Have a spyware scanner (like Spybot Search and Destroy) and run it occasionally. Many people (myself included) will recommend that you use a browser other than Internet Explorer (such as firefox, safari, opera, or google chrome). If you do choose to run IE, adding the Yahoo! toolbar (which can catch some fishing and spyware sites) is a good idea. Always make sure your Windows Update is up to date, and that browser plugins (particularly Adobe Flash and Adobe Acrobat Reader) are up to date. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 15:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

yes, I use Firefox but I don't have any Spybot Search and Destroy. How do you know if I am using WPA? My landlord has the wireless connection set up and I am allowed to use it for free. --Emyn ned (talk) 15:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

You can get SD&D via the Spybot - Search & Destroy article; it's very good (and free). If you double-click on the little icon that appears when you wirelessly connect, you should get a little box that gives some details of the wireless connection (I don't have a windows machine to hand right now to confirm). I think it says "secure connection" or "WPA secure connection" or something like that. If you didn't have to enter a security code the first time you connected to the wireless then the connection is "open", and thus unsecured. If that's the case you should talk to said landlord and suggest enabling WPA security - that way only people he approves can access his network (and not Joe Pederast across the street). 87.115.143.223 (talk) 15:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

finding pixel with RGB in visual basic or visual C++

is there some code in visual basic or in visual C++ with which i could find a pixel with a specific color values(red, green, blue) at a particular Y- coordinate or X- coordinate? please post that fully.--harish (talk) 15:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

A pixel in what - in an image, on the screen, on a video? 87.115.143.223 (talk) 15:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

In Java, the AWT Robot can do this, either by creating a BufferedImage of the screen (allowing you access to a "copy" of that screenshot), or by returning the current color of the pixel at the mouse-coordinate. The AWT Robot can get screen information from anywhere rendered by the operating system (not just in the Java application window(s)). There's probably an equivalent feature in .NET Framework or Visual C++. Nimur (talk) 17:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

This article describes the WinAPI calls that capture the screen in VisualC++ (I guess they're also exposed to VB by the same names). 87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure, just use GetPixel and get a handle to the whole screen. (Replace with another HDC if you need something more specific.) Here is a quick sample:

#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <windows.h>

int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
	if (argc != 3)
	{
		return EXIT_FAILURE;
	}

	int x = ::atoi( argv[0] );
	int y = ::atoi( argv[1] );

	HDC hdc = ::GetDC( 0 );
	COLORREF color = ::GetPixel( hdc, x, y );

	::ReleaseDC( 0, hdc );

	BYTE red   = GetRValue( color );
	BYTE green = GetGValue( color );
	BYTE blue  = GetBValue( color );

	std::cout << "Red: "     << (unsigned int) red
		  << ", Green: " << (unsigned int) green
		  << ", Blue: "  << (unsigned int) blue
		  << std::endl;

	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Regards, Bendono (talk) 18:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Why does YouTube add black vertical black bars to my (windows movie maker) videos?

I create them is WMM and when their uploaded no less than two different types of bars. The one outer ones are YouTube and the inner ones are WMM... How can I avoid them both? --217.227.127.109 (talk) 19:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you are not correctly setting the aspect ratio when you save the video. It also sounds like you are making this mistake twice, in both Windows Movie Maker and also during the upload step. What aspect ratio is the original video? Make sure you use that value all the way through the process. Nimur (talk) 19:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

it create them videos to convert to flash and that alters them s —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 13:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

March 13

after burning a dvd-r

May the disc then be too hot for the drive to read? I think this is happening now...--Open24HrsMotorwayStop (talk) 00:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

According to DVD recorder the write laser is no more powerful that 400 mW (some google searches I've done suggest that 200 to 250 mW is more normal). That's about 1/1000 th of the total power expenditure in your entire system. That seems much too low to raise the temperature to anything worth worrying about. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 00:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I'll try it again.--Open24HrsMotorwayStop (talk) 00:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I do find that freshly burned dvd's are pretty warm. That's probably from the general amount of heat in the drive when it's burning, rather than directly from the laser. I haven't noticed unusual problems reading the discs immediately after burning. I do notice a significant rate of failed burns (whether caused by defective discs or what, I don't know) no matter what I do, both with cheap discs and expensive name-brand ones. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 00:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What's really happening here?

My home computer system has a middle-aged Dell flatscreen monitor. Of late, it has been "color-shifting", for lack of a better or proper term; what I mean is the entire screen, not just areas or lines or pixels, shifts to a bluish tint, or pinkish, or something else. Usually this is sudden, not gradual; also, usually it is not permanent -- although it doesn't always revert to correct colors, sometimes it just changes tint. It is also not a flicker in the electrical sense.

Apart from telling me that my monitor has mere days (if not hours) to live, what's really happening here at the hardware level? Alternatively, since slapping the side of the computer case also causes this color shift (sometimes back to normal, sometimes not), perhaps the monitor is fine and it's a graphics card issue?

Thanks in advance to hardware gurus, --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you jiggled the video cable? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Definitely sounds like a loose connection at one end of the cable or the other. The fact that it changes when you whack the computer case suggests it's at that end...but maybe not. If not - then try to borrow a video cable from someone and try swapping out the cable...if that fixes it then buy a new cable. If THAT doesn't fix it then I'd want to try the monitor on another computer - again, it helps if you either have another PC or a friend who doesn't mind you trying it. If you find the monitor works OK on another computer then it pretty much must be the graphics card...but this is not the usual symptoms bad graphics gives you. So first suspect the cable - that's by far the most likely thing. SteveBaker (talk) 02:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

It isn't necessarily the cable itself, but just it's connection to the computer and/or monitor. Is it loose ? Does it have screws to tighten it down ? Are they tightened fully ? StuRat (talk) 04:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Gmail offline

Hello Wikipedia,

I've just downloaded Gmail offline but it doesn't seem to be doing what i thought it could. Whilst its great for when i lose my internet connection mid-session, when I'm just no connected, it doesn't load up (so i can't read old emails for example). Have i mis-understood what Gmail offline is supposed to do or is there a bug in the system somewhere? Thanks, 81.140.37.58 (talk) 10:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about Gmail offline but as Gmail supports IMAP you can easily set up any IMAP client, e.g. Thunderbird so that you can read your mail while offline Nil Einne (talk) 11:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

To expand on that answer a little: With 'normal' email (using the IMAP protocol, for example - as Nil Einne explains) you can choose whether you'd like your mail to be downloaded onto your own computer, stored there and deleted from the server - or to have it remain on the server. If you choose the latter (as you evidently have) then when you disconnect from the web, you obviously can't read your email anymore because it's not stored on your computer! The trouble with going the other route is twofold:

• If you have more than one computer - you can't read mail that you downloaded onto computer A while you're using computer B!
• If you get a lot of junk mail, it all has to be downloaded onto your computer before you have a chance to delete it. If you have a slow connection, that's a bad thing...but I suppose it might also expose you to more risk from malware...I use Linux, so that's not something I know much about!

Anyway - if you are using a web-based email client, then you don't have a choice. Because the email software is running on the server and displaying your email as a web page - then obviously, your mail remains on the server. But if you use an email client such as Thunderbird - you can set it up either way.

SteveBaker (talk) 12:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

No, you haven't misunderstood; you should be able to do what you describe. The last message in this thread may help. If not - what browser are you using? When you activated offline Gmail it will have asked you if you want to place a shortcut to it in the start menu or desktop - if they're there, do they work? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 13:35, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

question

if a softwares works is there any real reason to get newer version if you'res works ok? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

It's always wise to keep up to date with security patches and revisions. For a whole new version (costing more money) then you only need to update when the new version has features you want (that the old one doesn't). But software vendors want you to update, and by means of Planned obsolescence (e.g. no more support, no support for modern platforms) will try to persuade you to upgrade. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 13:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I go with the old standby: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Thus, I don't update working software unless absolutely necessary, as it's more likely to introduce new problems than help in any way. This is especially true of companies I just don't trust, like Microsoft. They are likely to sneak something in like a digital rights management system which makes it impossible to do what you could with the old version, or a bomb which disables the software if they think it isn't registered. Even if they don't do any of this, new software is often bloated with silly, useless features which makes it run slowly and lock up my computer. StuRat (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I need a boot disk

Can anyone recommend a free downloadable boot disk that will allow me to restore the master boot record for Windows XP? My MBR is currently trying to load from a boot loader that no longer exists (I forgot it was still being used and deleted it...), I need to get it to load from the standard XP boot loader (which I'm 99% sure is still where it should be and in working order!). Thanks. --Tango (talk) 13:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

If you won't have a Windows CD already (fixmbr in the recovery console), you can do it with this Ubuntu recipe. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 13:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately I left my Windows CD at home (I'm at uni at the moment). I don't have access to a CD burner (the only one I have is on the computer that doesn't work!) so it needs to be a bootable floppy. I've found shareware boot disks online that would do it, but it seems to need to pay about $20 to unlock the part of the program that actually writes the new boot record to disk. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a free one. --Tango (talk) 13:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Is a Pendrive Linux an option for you? 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately not - my computer doesn't seem to have an option to boot from USB. --Tango (talk) 14:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Then try FreeDOS: fdisk /mbr FreeDOS doesn't support NTFS volumes, but I guess its fdisk command is smart enough to recognise one and fix the mbr accordingly. But you're into data-loss territory if I'm wrong. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Or TomsRTBT (same caveats as freedos) 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

UBCD 4 Windows ? — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 14:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a working CD burner, so I need a floppy disk version. --129.234.4.76 (talk) 14:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Which UBCD doesn't seem to have - http://www.ubcd4win.com/faq.htm#floppy 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Missed that part: bootdisk.com would probably be your best hope then — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 15:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

A FreeDOS boot disk fixed the MBR, so thanks all of you for you help! However, it turns out the XP install isn't in working order after all, so I guess I'm now on a quest to find someone with a repair CD... --Tango (talk) 15:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Linux and Torvalds original source code

I've been using Linux exclusively as a desktop OS since November 08. I was just wondering, what, if any, code is still in the kernel from Linus Torvalds original version that he started spitting out on a keyboard attached to a 386 in a cold apartment in Helsinki back in 1991? Not really a useful question, but I'm curious. I think it'd be neat if there were still tiny bits of code from all those years ago still surging through my CPU right now...63.245.144.68 (talk) 15:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure many of the POSIX standard header files are the same, since they have usually no reason to change. --Sean 16:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The POSIX standard headers are part of glibc, not part of the linux kernel (and so were mostly authored by Roland McGrath, and none by Linus). The kernel does contain a very minimal version of some of the C standard library for use by kernel code only (which bears only a passing resemblance to POSIX). We have some pretty good evidence that even that has been overhauled - witness modern Linus slagging off 1991 Linus's coding of the (apparently simple) ctypes.h here. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Google toolbar and Firefox 3.0.7

Folks, this has been annoying me for days and I just cannot figure it out. I recently upgraded to Firefox 3.0.7 from version 2.something. In v2 the Google toolbar was below the Yahoo toolbar, but in v3 the positions are swapped and I have been completely unable to figure out how to put them where I want them, Google on the bottom. Anyone know the magic for this, or is it an issues with v3 itself? Thanks in advance. – ukexpat (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

An issue with v3? Heresy! ;) Right click near the awesome bar (the address bar) and click "Customise". Then just drag and drop. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 17:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't work for me. I can move individual buttons but not the whole toolbar. Your suggestion works for IE but not for FF, at least for me. – ukexpat (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Xlib fullscreen window sample

Can you give me a link to a minimal program that creates a fullscreen x window? Something along the lines found here but complete (the code there doesn't work for me or I miserably fail copy-paste). --194.197.235.29 (talk) 16:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've fused a nice Xlib tutorial with the code you describe, making the following (which works on my Ubuntu machine):

// code a fusion of:
// http://fixunix.com/xwindows/91585-how-make-xlib-based-window-full-screen.html
// and Ch. Tronche (http://tronche.lri.fr:8000/)'s xlib tutorial
#include <X11/Xlib.h>
#include <assert.h>  
#include <unistd.h>  
#include <string.h>
#define NIL (0)     

// compile with:
//   gcc -o foo foo.c -lX11 
int main (){
  Display *dpy = XOpenDisplay(NIL);
  assert(dpy);
  XEvent xev;
  Atom wm_state = XInternAtom(dpy, "_NET_WM_STATE", False);
  Atom fullscreen = XInternAtom(dpy, "_NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN", False);

  int blackColor = BlackPixel(dpy, DefaultScreen(dpy));
  int whiteColor = WhitePixel(dpy, DefaultScreen(dpy));
  
  Window w = XCreateSimpleWindow(dpy, DefaultRootWindow(dpy), 0, 0, 
				 200, 100, 0, blackColor, blackColor);
  memset(&xev, 0, sizeof(xev));
  xev.type = ClientMessage;
  xev.xclient.window = w;
  xev.xclient.message_type = wm_state;
  xev.xclient.format = 32;
  xev.xclient.data.l[0] = 1;
  xev.xclient.data.l[1] = fullscreen;
  xev.xclient.data.l[2] = 0;

  XSendEvent(dpy, DefaultRootWindow(dpy), False,
	     SubstructureNotifyMask, &xev);

  XSelectInput(dpy, w, StructureNotifyMask);
  XMapWindow(dpy, w);
  GC gc = XCreateGC(dpy, w, 0, NIL);
  XSetForeground(dpy, gc, whiteColor);

  for(;;) { // wait for MapNotify
    XEvent e;
    XNextEvent(dpy, &e);
    if (e.type == MapNotify)
      break;
  }

  XDrawLine(dpy, w, gc, 10, 60, 180, 20);
  XFlush(dpy);
  sleep(10);
  return 0;
}

87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, works very well on my ubuntu machine too. --194.197.235.29 (talk) 18:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

How backwards compatible is Windows 7?

What's the earliest software I can run on Windows 7? Can I run software originally written for Windows 95? 3.1? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 17:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that almost all applications that could run on Windows Vista will also work with Windows 7. Simple applications for Windows 95 did work on Vista. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Are stored procedures considered part of the data layer or data access layer?

In reference to business applications where you have data, data access, business and UI layers, are stored procedures considered part of the data layer or the data access layer? I used to think the data layer, but now that I think about it, stored procedures do access data. OTOH, stored procedures are physically located on the database server whereas a data acess layer can (and often is) located on separate machine. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)