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April 24

Downloading

My torrent file of Forrest Gump has finished downloading.But out of 1.2 gb file I have got only 763 mb file that too broken.Should I wait till the uploading also also completes?It is now seeding.Is it necessary for seeding to complete?The ETA ishowing 18 hrs to complete!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.246.174.130 (talk) 03:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Is it just one file? What program are you using? You can usually force a re-check of the file by right-clicking the torrent in the program and selecting "Re-check". --wj32 ^t/c 04:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

You will in general never be "done seeding", since new peers will connect. If you are seeing a time until completion you are doing something other than seeding. Taemyr (talk) 04:38, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

In μTorrent, at least, there's an ETA displayed while seeding. It's the estimated time until you've achieved your desired ratio of upload to download. Algebraist 10:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Common ancestor class in C#

Is there a way in C# to find the closest common ancestor of two classes? NeonMerlin 05:59, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Here is something quick that I just threw together. It should get you pointed in the right direction. Modify as needed:

static IList<Type> GetTypeHierarchy<T>()
{
   IList<Type> hierarchy = new List<Type>();
   Type type = typeof(T);

   while (type != null)
   {
      hierarchy.Add( type );
      type = type.BaseType;
   }

   return hierarchy;
}

static Type GetMostCommonDerived<T, U>()
{
   IList<Type> hierarchyT = GetTypeHierarchy<T>();
   IList<Type> hierarchyU = GetTypeHierarchy<U>();

   Type t = null;
   Int32 minCount = Math.Min(hierarchyT.Count, hierarchyU.Count);

   for (int i = 0; i < minCount ; i++)
   {
      Type typeT = hierarchyT[hierarchyT.Count - 1 - i];
      Type typeU = hierarchyU[hierarchyU.Count - 1 - i];

      if ( typeT == typeU )
      {
         t = typeT;
      }
   }

   return t;
}

Then pass two types into GetMostCommonDerived. Regards, Bendono (talk) 06:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Cell phone chargers

They show television commercials about how cell phone chargers are consuming power even when there is no phone connected to it. But how? There is no current in the charger when the phone is disconnected. There is nothing on the charger itself that consumes electricity. — Kjammer  ⌂ 09:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Because it's not just a charger that connects your phone to the ac outlet, but also a transformer. See standby power and wall wart for more. 96.227.82.128 (talk) 10:05, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly true that any kind of charger or 'wall-wart' consumes power when there is nothing connected to it. You can actually feel that they get a little warm all the time. Not as much power as when they are actively charging a phone - but yeah - you should unplug them from the wall when you're done with them. SteveBaker (talk) 14:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Will switching them off at the wall have the same effect as unplugging them? Vimescarrot (talk) 18:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

If you turn off the electricity to the charger by any means, it will stop consuming electricity. I put mine on a power strip and flip the switch to turn them off. -- kainaw™ 18:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Also note that some transformers will draw no real measurable wattage, with idle transformers typically drawing 0+ ~ 2.5 (I think 0.5~0.8 is pretty typical) watts from any info I've ever seen. IMO, it's insignificant compared to conserving energy when it matters, like switching from 60 watt bulbs to 13 watt CFLs, or turning down your AC, or not leaving the fridge door open, or leaving your computer on (way worse if running SETI/F@H), or... You get the point. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Screensavers

I have copied some screensavers to my System32 folder, but they don't appear in the Screensaver tab of Display. How can I fix this? 58.165.23.195 (talk) 11:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Try copying them to the C:\WINDOWS folder (that sometimes works). Also try right-clicking the screensaver and clicking "Install".  Buffered Input Output 12:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Wireless mice + keyboards

I've been asked to help a family member with some wireless computing advice; not using wireless myself, I don't feel I know enough about the security aspect. They'd be using a wireless mouse/keyboard up to 7 meters away, which rules out IR and suggests radio (RF) or bluetooth. The question I have is security and "ease of use" issues. I tend to be security conscious (wired ethernet, etc). They aren't using any other wireless devices. I need to consider:

• That they can switch from internal to wireless mouse/keyboard easily
• That the wireless is secure and doesn't expose them unduly to security openings, flyby hacking, scanning, whatever else can be done.
• That when they are using the internal keyboard in a public location, any open bluetooth/RF isn't posing a security risk.

So I'm after advice such as:

• Bluetooth or other RF?
• How secure it would be in practice? (both for malware/intrusion as a point of entry, and for data interception)
• Any particular configuration/s or "things to check" needed to maximize security?
• Is built in bluetooth low risk or should they use a removable dongle?

Any tips from someone technical much appreciated - thanks! FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Bluetooth is a bit 'iffy' at 7 meters. There are three classes of bluetooth gadget, Class I is good out to 100meters - but class II is limited to 10m and class III to 1m. At 7m, the class II devices are really rather unreliable - while they can reach 10m in theory, if there is any interference source or intervening walls or even heavy bits of furniture or many people - they don't work at 10m. So unless you have class I devices (which are rather rare), I wouldn't recommend it for this application. At 100m, bluetooth security is certainly a concern - and the bluetooth protocols really aren't very secure. They are designed for relatively trivial things like connecting headsets to cellphones and mice to computers where security is generally considered to be irrelevant - and the need for a hacker to get within a few meters of your equipment generally means that security is a non-problem. So I can't recommend bluetooth at all.

WiFi (802.11) keyboards and mice simply don't exist...your options are IR (which won't do 7m), USB (which needs wires) or BlueTooth (which I've already dismissed). So on the face of it, you're completely screwed! But you don't tell us precisely why they need to do this - but it sounds to me like they should be using a complete laptop as their "keyboard and mouse" and using WiFi (802.11) to talk to whatever computer needs the input. WiFi has more than enough range and is extremely secure when you use all of the encryption stuff correctly (which isn't hard - you just have to know how to do it). There are plenty of progams out there that'll let you drive one computer using the mouse/keyboard of another computer via the network - my son uses one all the time to do exactly this kind of thing - using a Windows-based laptop as keyboard & mouse for a Linux-based desktop computer. You can buy super-cheap WiFi 'sub-notebook' or 'netbook' laptops for a couple of hundred bucks these days - which includes your keyboard, mouse and WiFi stuff. Something like the ASUS Eee PC would fit the bill rather nicely. SteveBaker (talk) 14:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It's going with a general-purpose laptop for a relative. They will use it sometimes "stand alone" on vacation (internal keyboard/mouse) but quite often (almost daily) for group discussions, or on the TV in their living room.

In those contexts the laptop would be next to and plugged into a TV (visible to anyone in the room) and the keyboard and mouse would be on a coffee table or the lap of whoever happens to want to use it, and passed around as needed. Some of the rooms concerned are small conference rooms up to 6 x 6 m, and the keyboard/mouse would regularly be used 3 - 5 m from the laptop where IR isn't viable. The security issue is because the laptop will contain their private documents as well - letters to hospitals, credit card companies, all the usual stuff people have on their main computer. (I can secure the machine generally, but I'm not familiar with wireless aspects which I tend to avoid personally.)

Realistically a maximum range of 5.5 m would probably be okay, and there will be little in the way; I figured up to 6 - 7 m to include some safety margin.

I can easily set "non-discoverable mode" and tell the user/s not to accept any strange "do you want to connect to this device" pop-ups, but they aren't hacker savvy, so I don't know if that would be enough. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:19, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Bulk Mail in Outlook 2003

I am working on a project that has me sending out a lot of emails with a fax number for people to sumbit documents (each emIl only has one recipient). We're having technical issues and I want to bulk eMail people to give them a different fax number. I have all of the original emails I sent in an isolated outlook forward, so I was hoping I could just select a bunch of emails and hit "reply to all" or something but outlook wouldn't let me do that. Is there any function I can use to draw the eMail addresses out to bulk mail the new phone number? thanks --Shaggorama (talk) 15:06, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

How to adjust the 3d accelerator? And where...?

Hey, I have had some trouble with the graphics when playing a game. (presumably because it's a little old and my computer is new and strong with Windows Vista which means it's not entirely compatible) However, I found somewhere that I read that "turning on the 3d acceleration" will likely solve my particular problem. what does that mean really, or rather how and where do I turn it on?

I don't know, maybe that's not so much info and maybe it's difficult or even impossible to asnwer without more info?

Thank you for any answers, I'll come back soon to look for any —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.49.121.115 (talk) 15:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

3D Acceleration is a function of the video card. First, to be very clear: Many video cards do not have 3D acceleration. Do not start from the assumption that your video card does have 3D acceleration and you just can't find it. Start from the assumption that if your video card did have 3D acceleration, it would already be turned on. Starting from there, if it isn't turned on, it will be an option in the video settings. I don't know where Vista moved it to. It used to be that you could right-click on your desktop and choose settings. I'm sure it is now hidden beneath a long series of left and right clicks or strange commands from the run menu now. -- kainaw™ 15:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Without more directions though I don't think I should start any mission impossible here trying to find it. I would need more guidance... but I am grateful for your answer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.49.121.48 (talk) 16:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Be aware some games have a setting for turning 3d acceleration on and off. It may be presented as a choice between "SOFTWARE" and "OPENGL" (or "DIRECTX"), or it may just be a setting for "3d acceleration on/off". OF course, if you've got an older video card, or one designed exclusively for business use it may not have any 3d acceleration at all. APL (talk) 16:38, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

No I don't have a bussiness-use kind of card. It's a gaming machine so I suspect it should be 3d acceleration on it if this is normal on cards meant for gaming. But you mean that this might be an option in the configuration programme outside the game or in the Options-menu of the game itself while running the game? I see none... these were the first places I looked... hm.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.49.121.48 (talk) 16:49, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Just got a response from another IT guy... Go to start, then run, and run "dxdiag". You will see a window like this with 3d acceleration info. -- kainaw™ 17:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

If it's a setting specific to the game, then mentioning the game might help. Perhaps one of us knows it. APL (talk) 18:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Dual-booting XP and Ubuntu; multiple hard drives

Hi all,

So I've been playing with Ubuntu through a Wubi install for a while. With the new release of Jaunty yesterday, I've decided that it's time to switch to Ubuntu as my main OS, but I will install XP as backup, and for a couple of apps that I use in XP that don't work in Wine well enough yet. So, I've found these instructions here: http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_linux_and_windows_xp_linux_installed_first.htm which are pretty straight-forward. Here's my question:

I have 3 HDDs: 35GB (currently my primary), 70GB (slave), and 300GB (external/USB) used for data storage (pictures, etc). Any reccomendations as to what do to, in terms of where to create the partitions? I'm thinking: use the 70 as the primary, for the Ubuntu install; use the 35 as slave, but with the Ubuntu swap and XP partitions on it.

What will happen when I try to install XP? Will it force me to install on the primary, or will it give me the choice to install on the slave? Any other thoughts/reccommendations?

Thanks! --richardmtl (talk) 16:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I just thought of something that may be easier. I can keep my setup as is, and delete the Wubi install. Then, I can install Ubuntu fresh, on the slave drive. I can alswo resize the XP partition on the primary, and use the freed-up space as the swap drive. This way, I also keep my current XP install, without having to re-install the programs that I need there.

2 questions, then:

1) Is it better to have the swap partitionon a different drive than the OS, as I plan on doing? Seems to me that it could give better performance, especially on a somewhat older machine like mine (Dell P4, 2.4 Ghz, 786 MB RAM)

2) is it worthwhile to have a seperate /home partition and/or /usr partition(s)?

Thanks! --richardmtl (talk) 17:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It used to be that XP would not boot from a USB drive. I await others' responses with interest, since I could use the answer. EdJohnston (talk) 17:24, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Swap: well yes, it's better for the swap to be on a different drive, and ideally a different interface, and ideally to be a particularly fast disk (like a solid-state drive). But don't think that "good swap" makes for "good performance". Swap is, for interactive applications and desktop machines, the epitome of >teh suck< ; once your (sum of) working sets has grown so big that it doesn't all fit in RAM and you need to be paging apps in and out, your user experience has degenerated to sitting listening to disks grind while looking at a screen full of unresponsive apps. If more apps were properly written to handle failed malloc() properly, I'd probably just disable swap altogether. Short answer: don't worry very much about swap (it sucks whatever you do). 87.112.75.169 (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

That 786 MB isn't a bad size (I've been using a 512Mb laptop for ages, without major issues), but more RAM (as much as you can get in there) is the best way to avoid the suckage of swapping. 87.112.75.169 (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

home partition: well yes, I guess so, but don't bother. People sometimes advocate /home be its own partition so that, if ordinary users totally fill their accounts so that the partition is totally full, you can still login as root and do stuff. But you can still login as root (if you enable that, which you don't need to) or anyone else (and su or sudo from there) even if the disk is full. If it's just you using it then you don't care (you'll be the only one to suffer), and if it's a truly shared machine then you should look at a proper quota scheme. People also used to advocate a /home partition because they used a partition based backup scheme (where the whole partition was replicated or tarred or whatever); you'll probably backup to DVD or by rsync to another disk, so that's not an issue. Short answer: don't bother. 87.112.75.169 (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

If you have two "Jaunty Jackalope" Ubuntu systems set up just the way you want them, one with /home in its own partition and the other not, but the two systems otherwise identical; and then next year you want to update the pair to "Leprous Lizard" (or whatever), wouldn't this be simpler on the one with a separately partitioned /home? (I don't know, and I'm asking as an Ubuntu computer will soon be on its way to me.) -- Hoary (talk) 16:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Video Screenshots ?

Is it possible to take pictures/screenshots while playing a video?

Like when I'm watching a dvd, or you know, a private video or movie clip and such on my Windows media player, RealPlayer, Quicktime or VLC player or whatever, can I somehow pause the clip and take a screenshot, getting pictures in BMP or JPG formats or such? I have already tried the simple way, pausing my clip and pressing the button on the keyboard called "prt scn" (Print screen) but that didn't work obviously (Or if it did, I can't find where the pics was saved, but I really doubt it worked), so I was thinking maybe this is not possible to do... but I really hope so because I have some clips that would make for some good photos to have in our photo album

tnx

VLC player has this function. It's in the "Video" menu, under "Snapshot". By default, it saves a png file to the My Pictures folder. This can be changed in the video section of the preferences panel. Cycle~ (talk) 17:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

WOW! Thanks! I have been struggling to figure this out for quite some time. The VLC player is probably the only of the many players I have that I had not tried. Thanks alot, you made my day ;D Krikkert7 (talk) 17:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason you can't normally is because the video is being played with hardware acceleration (your video card is beaming it directly to your monitor, skipping your operating system). You can turn off hardware acceleration under your display settings—dial it down to zero and you can take screenshots as usual. However hardware acceleration is a Good Thing so after you are done with your screenshots, you should turn it back up again. "Print Screen" takes a screenshot and copies it to the clipboard—so you've got to paste it somewhere (like MS Paint) before you can save it. --140.247.249.237 (talk) 17:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

mplayer has this function too, while playing press "s" key

Gom player can do this easily. And when you press shift-PrintScreen the image is saved to the clipboard and can be downloaded into Irfanview and another similar freeware picture editor I've forgotten the name of. 78.151.148.89 (talk) 21:55, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

iPod DST

I have a 3rd generation iPod nano. The features guide, [1], says that the DST option is in the settings>date&time menu. I dont have any sort of option for DST on the screen. What is the problem? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.71.53.143 (talk) 18:17, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

What time zone are you set to? Perhaps the iPod has decided you don't have DST where you live? Nil Einne (talk) 12:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks like your in Pakistan? From Pakistan Standard Time it appears DST is a bit adhoc in Pakistan so it seems likely that Apple has not properly implemented DST settings for Pakistan. You could try e-mailing Apple support and hoping a new firmware update will eventually fix it. Nil Einne (talk) 13:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I can change my location in the time zone option on the iPod and see if that gives the DST option. And btw how did you know im from pakistan?

Couldn't get on Internet earlier, screen turned completely blue with no messages or anything

I don't remember how to find what kind of computer I have, but it was on this desk once before.

I know it's an HP Pavilion desktop.

I tried to get on the Internet when I turned it on, and the screen just stayed blank. The circle just kept turning.

The modem lights were working normally. The last time I told tech support this they said to do a system restore (though the lights on the back of the computer were working normally this time). So I pressed F11 and maybe selected the wrong option because the screen turned completely blue and I couldn't do anything or even turn the computer off. I could, however, unplug it. That didn't help, and furthermore, there was no more place for the URL and no buttons at the top. I pressed F11 again and the information at the top of the screen came back.

I finally realized unplugging the modem sometimes works. It did.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:57, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I figured out how to find my information. OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001 Other OS Description Not Available OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name System Manufacturer HP-Pavilion System Model KT369AA-ABA a6512p System Type x64-based PC Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2200 @ 2.20GHz, 2200 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s) BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 5.23, 4/21/2008 SMBIOS Version 2.5 Windows Directory C:\Windows System Directory C:\Windows\system32 Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1 Locale United States Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.0.6001.18000" User Name Time Zone Eastern Standard Time Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB Total Physical Memory 3.99 GB Available Physical Memory 2.15 GB Total Virtual Memory 8.18 GB Available Virtual Memory 6.13 GB Page File Space 4.28 GB Page File C:\pagefile.sysVchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

And on 7 August 2009 I was told to always say I HAVE A DSL MODEM.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

How much do I use the Internet?

Several weeks ago Time Warner Cable was doing a test in which users in certain areas would be charged according to not only their speed, but also the number of gigabytes used. I was not a customer of theirs at the time I got the Internet and still don't get my Internet access from them, but if my Internet service provider were to do such a thing in the future, I'd like to know how much to cut back. One of the articles on the Time Warner test--which was cancelled after protests--said there's a web site you can use to measure your usage before the company does it for you and charges.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:10, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

They (Time Warner) meant that there was an internal web site that offered users access to the tracking database (how nice of them!) so they could at least be aware of their usage before blowing past it on their way to a $150/month internet bill. Just to put this in perspective, from the article I saw they were going to cap their 6 megabit service at 40 gigabytes a month. This means that at full throttle it would take you 15 hours to burn through your 40 GB cap. Inversely, if you were to want to manage your bandwidth all month to stay under the cap, your average speed could not exceed 146 kilobits/sec. Now, to get to the meat of your question, how do you know how much you have used... There are a few mildly technical ways to do this. One is using a metric on your perpetually connected broadband device of choice, such as a cable modem. Chances are it has a web interface of some sort and a spot to report the cumulative bits/bytes/etc in and out. Using an old fashioned pencil and paper you could track this with mild accuracy, recording what the count is on given days. Be mindful that there is a chance the counter has a relatively low rollover point, for example 4.1 GB (if it is a 32 bit integer counting each byte). This is why frequent checking may be necessary. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 20:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. No wonder I couldn't find the specifics in the article.

I never watch videos or listen to music not only to keep my computer safer and faster, but to avoid this possibility.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Download the free Networx utility from here http://www.softperfect.com/download/ and leave it running all day. It tells you maximum and average download speeds and gives hour by hour reports of your usage - down and up load speeds and quantity. It is interesting to reset the meter and watch it for specific downloads/pages. This will tell you which activity is using the most. A very low average speed does not mean modem failure; it means a time where you were reading a page (by eye), not actively downloading it. I have successfully used logs from it to prove my ISP was giving me less than a quarter of the advertised speed.KoolerStill (talk) 08:51, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Another good (albeit commercial) tool is NetLimiter found here. In the free version, it will track usage and break down individual program usage over hours/days/etc. It also has the ability (in the paid version) to limit applications in order to keep under a bandwidth or transfer limit cap. --99.11.199.76 (talk) 13:43, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I use NetMeter, which has all sorts of logging built-in. It can also display a scrolling graph of the roughly current upload and download, with an optional MAX download (mine right now says 82KB/s, which will update as the spike moves off the left-hand side). Oh, and it is free. The graph is also totally optional. Washii (talk) 22:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

A free easy to use database that learns

I've started keeping a record of all the food I buy (and eventually eat) with various nutritional details copied from the packaging. I want to enter these in a database so that I can calculate my average daily nutrition. But, when I enter the name of something I have already entered the details of before, such as 1 litre of skimmed milk for example, I want the database to fill in the details for me. Is there / are there any free databases that are suited to doing this please, and that are easy to use for a novice please? 78.151.148.89 (talk) 21:49, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

open office comes to mind right off the bat. While I'm sure there are good "single purpose" databases that may serve you better, and a search for "free, download, database, food" might be a starting point. openoffice is a good general free alternative to expensive software. — Ched :  ?  05:09, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that what you're describing would not be hard to make if you were a database programmer, but if you're not... then the learning curve is steep. OpenOffice Base is free but not easy (even if you are a database programmer). -98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Could MySQL do this please? If I'm going learn a database language, I would rather learn one that is widely supported. 78.149.215.89 (talk) 20:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Want to download and check my online bank statements for regular payments

My bank provides online bank statements and in addition allows the data to be downloaded in two or three different formats such as comma seperated values and Quicken format (I have never used Quicken). I would like to be able to check automatically that some regular monthly or weekly payments to me have actually been paid, preferably by the programme dialling up and downloading the data itself. The amounts should be that same, the description should usually be the same, but the actual date of payment may fluctuate by a few days. Is there any software available that can automatically check or monitor these payments and alert me if they are overdue please? Rather than me having to do it manually. Proprietory, freeware, or any other licence will do. Thanks. 78.151.148.89 (talk) 22:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

April 25

Computer

Are old computers more likely to be found in rural/remote areas? 58.165.23.195 (talk) 01:35, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, this is really getting into an original research area, but here's my take. Simple statistics would indicate, that the more populated an area is, the more computers there are. Hence, more - "old computers". Just a thought. — Ched :  ?  05:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Adding to Ched's logic, rural and remote areas would have had the occasional computer for office, accounting or other business use. But for Internet, they'd not have had any (many places still have none) because they are lacking internet services....facilities ranging from none through dial-up through exorbitantly expensive satellite service would tend to reduce the total number of computers in use. As the service becomes available, NEW machines would be purchased to use on them. If an area is sufficiently rural/remote, even in First World countries, even their electricity supply may be home-generated or non-existent.KoolerStill (talk) 09:54, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

So, by combining the first two answers, I'd predict both more old computers, total, and more per capita, in populated areas which have had the support infrastructure in place for computers for many years. StuRat (talk) 21:32, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing 58 was referring to neither of these instead percentage of computers (in use) that can be defined as 'old' even if it was poorly phrased. My gut feeling is that it is more likely working/in use computers in rural/remote areas will be old but this is just an educated guess and depends what sort of areas your comparing it to. For example a upper class sub/urban neighbourhood is going to have a far lesser percentage of computers that are old then sub/urban slums. It will also depend on how you define a computer. I inserted in use because it makes sense to only consider them IMHO but still, do you count a computer that is turned on once a year? BTW, I don't see any reason to presume new machines are going to be purchased. Old computers are commonly sold at a low price or given away to people without computers. People without much experience are also more likely to be unaware whether what they're purchasing is worth it. Sure this Pentium II 450mhz with 64 mb of RAM is worth $250... And if there's far less available you sometimes have to take what is available which is not necessarily new. There is probably also a greater willingness to re-use old computers as I expect rural communities tend to have less of a disposable society attitude. And of course rural communities tend to have a more sedate/laid back attitude so might not tend to be so concerned that their computer is a bit slow and so are less likely to upgrade. They probably are less likely to have reason to upgrade to. E.g. children (or adults) might be less able to convince their parents (or themselves) they need the superduper new computer for Crysis or whatever fab new game (which they may never have even heard of and potentially may not have time to play even if they have). Indeed there will generally be less demanding apps, e.g. video, photo editing, (both not extremely demanding but more then office work), video editing. And with slower internet connections the fact that Flash and other complex websites take a while to load is not necessarily going to be affected much by computer speed and the comp is also less likely to end up with a lot of junk which slows it down. There will probably be less 'peer pressure' too. Nil Einne (talk) 11:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

weird web traffic

my webpage has gotten some very weird traffic today. basically a LOT of different domains all hitting weird random (buried) pages. no referrers. the domains range from being in the US, Japan, Benin(!!), UAE, Korea, China, Hong Kong, UK, and Australia. All hits happened within a few seconds of the others. All identify with the user-agent of "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) ". This is strange, no? Could this be some sort of botnet? (I've no idea why they'd want my page, there's nothing interesting on it). Or what? (it is not slashdotting or something similar; each IP hits one and only one page, and does so within a second of another having hit a page, sometimes the same page. in my experience slashdotting has more variety in user-agents and people browse around a little more.) Any thoughts as to what I'm seeing here? --98.217.14.211 (talk) 04:25, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Could it be an attempted distributed denial-of-service attack? If your website is on a shared server, an attack is probably directed at your web host's server and not your particular website. In other words, there may be another website on the server that's the motivation for the attack, but all websites on the server are being attacked in an attempt to bring the sever down. --Bavi H (talk) 05:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, that might make sense. My site is on a shared server, so the 14 hits for my files (all of which were of relatively large PDFs) might have been that. Interesting. (Seems fine now.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec) As much as I hate to answer a question with another question, I have to in this case. How long have you been monitoring your web logs? It's not unusual really for bots (especially search engine bots) to suddenly show up and tick your pages. Some search engines (yep, there are still a lot out there besides google) will send bots around every 3 months or so to see what's out there. I'm guessing that that's what you're seeing here, but I don't know for sure. ;) — Ched :  ?  05:03, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've monitored it for years, it doesn't look like search bots. The funny bit is that the servers are totally random looking, and not the standard bots at all. What's weird is the geographical distribution. (I had never even heard of Benin before this, to be honest.) If they were all from the same server or server bloc, that would make sense, but given the random country distribution it looks like some sort of botnet. Anyway, they all accessed weird, random PDFs on the server. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

A distributed denial of service attack on your host like Bavi H says sounds the most likely, I would expect it to last longer though, perhaps they were trying to gauge the hosts bandwidth for some reason like a future attack. I certainly wouldn't refer to my websites as uninteresting though others might differ :) Dmcq (talk) 07:30, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

And another question-with-another-question response: how could they be hitting random buried pages? Some other agent must have already crawled your site or perhaps some agent has gained access to your directory information. I kinda suspect a compromise - check your access settings for FTP, strengthen your admin password, etc. If it's a truly buried page (i.e. unlinked from any other page) no-one should be able to find it than you. Franamax (talk) 09:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Further paranoia: yes, sounds like a botnet and if so, probably probing your web server responses for possible exploits (not the pages themselves, the HTTP response header could reveal clues about the webserver version you're using and how it's configured). And when you mention the user-agent field, is it just the text you quoted, or is there more? Most IE user-agent strings I've seen have a bunch of version information following what you've quoted. Possibly your logging software is stripping out the version information. And of course, I can access your site with whatever user-agent I want, it's pretty easy to specify (if you know how). Franamax (talk) 09:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I should have clarified, they aren't darknet buried, but they are pages-within-pages. What I meant was, they aren't hitting the main page and drilling down, they're hitting a page that is five times already down the hierarchy, and kind of random pages at that (PDFs of random things—not the sort of thing that would be linked to from another site). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

It might be a Doomjuice virus. This creates a spambot net, which could be active enough to almost be a DoS attack. Run both a virus and malware scanner (the one from www.malwarebytes.com is a good free one). Doomjuice is fairly easily found and removed.

Or it might be AVG anti-virus "link scanners" at work.In Versin 8 there was a toolbar that would check out all links on a search results page BEFORE the user clicked any of them, to be able to report on the safety or otherwise if they did click. This might account for the large number of strange locations the log is showing. There is an esoteric way of blocking these, using the Apache URL redirection tool. This site has some of the code needed : http://www.the-art-of-web.com/system/logs-avg/ -- it takes some learning, but is also useful for other purposes, such as fixing broken links.KoolerStill (talk) 09:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

(Just to say, if it is a virus, it's not on MY end of things, it's on the end of those who are creating the traffic. So there's nothing much I can do about that, obviously.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses! I'll keep an eye on it. It seems to have stopped not long after it started... we'll see if there's some future thing being heralded! --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

DNS sub-domain entries

Given a subdomain, xyz.abc.com, I'd like to discover all the A records for the abc.com domain (with the simplifying assumption that everything in abc.com is contained within one SOA). So I want to query the DNS server responsible for abc.com and discover that it has subdomains xyz., www., and qrs.abc.com. How can I do that?

If I still had a Solaris or Linux system, I'm pretty sure I could set up my named to do a zone transfer, then just look at the cache file - but they took my toys away, and I'm stuck with Win XP Pro. Also, I really don't want to set up any MS implementations of a DNS server, because, well, you know...

Is there a way I can do a zone transfer with telnet or nslookup? Any alternatives? If my terminology is garbled, please forgive and thanks! Franamax (talk) 09:36, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Assuming the DNS server allows it, you can do a zone transfer by starting nslookup then doing:

set type=any 
ls -d example.com > somefile.txt

This is according to [2] — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 10:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Playstation

I'm trying to install a Playstation 2 with a connection to an LG plasma television. 1) When we attach the system to the TV directly we get black and white images. 2) When he connect through the DVD player we get color on the screen, but interference of the "no disc" screen of the DVD player.

How do we get the system connected AND get color? - 82.173.183.1 (talk) 15:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Are you using the regular PlayStation composite video connector, or the component one? Try jiggling the video connector at the point where it connects to the PS2. Mine is "weak" and I often have video problems until I (seem to) bend the connector at just the right angle. Another thing to try would be borrowing a different video cable from a friend (preferably the cable with component connectors, since you have a newfangled, fancy TV.) Tempshill (talk) 16:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

• The point where I insert is the compenent input plug. What is the composite video connector? I got the three separate thingies. - 82.173.183.1 (talk) 16:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The red-white-yellow is common PS2 connector. Red and White are audio (no video on them at all). Yellow is video. There is another one that has Red and White paired off and another Red, Green, and Blue connector. In that one, the red and white pair is still audio. The Red, Green, Blue group is the video. If you have one yellow video on the tv, use the yellow connector from the PS2. If you have a red/green/blue connector on the TV, use the red/green/blue connector from the PS2. -- kainaw™ 22:43, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I should have asked first. How is the input connector on your TV labeled? And by "three separate thingies", are you talking about the red, white, and yellow cables on the PS2 cable? Assuming you have the regular PS2 composite video cabling (red-white-yellow), the yellow plug should go into a connector on your TV labeled "Composite In" or "Video In". Tempshill (talk) 04:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• The cable is red-white-yellow and it's connected to the "Composite In" section. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, that's the most common PS2 video connector, and you have it hooked up to the correct input. Did you try jiggling the cable connector at the point where it enters the PS2? If that doesn't work, then my next suggestion would be to borrow and try a different video cable - preferably a "component" video cable, which, as Kainaw said above, has red, green, and blue video cables along with the red and white audio cables. Tempshill (talk) 15:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I assume you are in the Netherlands. Did you set both pieces of equipment to PAL? F (talk) 13:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

High quality media player for website

Hello.

I am designing a website and I need a media player (like Adobe Flash Player) for high quality movies, that can play on ALL computers (or as many as possible)?

It is not suppose to be like Youtube. Its meant for another purpose. So still - A good platform independent or cross platform media player for very high quality movies.

Anyone knows one??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.243.235.218 (talk) 16:19, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Flowplayer? Tempshill (talk) 16:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

TeamViewer

When setting up TeamViewer is there any special requirements? Do I have to know any of the computers ip addresses or ports, or does it somehow just know how to connect to the other computer across the internet by the id number? thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shadowclouds6635 (talk • contribs) 17:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

It just knows. Both ends have to have it installed. When you open each end, it gives a code number and freshly generated password, which you have to pass on to the other party (via email or some other means), then both enter in the received codes into another dialog, to establish the connection. The codes are the private and public keys to an encryption system which makes it a fully secure connection at all times, using 256 bit encoding. A permanent connection can also be configured, allowing access to a remote which is unmanned (it must be powered up, of course). KoolerStill (talk) 18:10, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

It must make some sort of connection to a TeamViewer server which would store both computers id and ip; it can't "just know" by the codes alone —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 18:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The encryption is partly to make the data hidden even from their routers and servers. Clearly, those must have the ID and IP information, from when the session is started. I used "it knows" in the same sense as Shadowclouds did - that it is automatic, and the user does not need to know, in order to be able to set it up. All the users need to know is to download and install, then click the icon to start it.KoolerStill (talk) 18:38, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

April 26

Download flash video

Hey guyz! I go to a web site. I click on a flash thing or a video clip. It downloads on my computer for a little time and then it plays. Yhong is, I want (want it soooo baaad) to save it on my system to be able to play it when I'm offline. There gotta be a Guru out there who knows how I can do that 'cause I tried right-clicking to do the "save target as...." But it's always deactivated!!!! So please help me Thanks for your time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.247.4.68 (talk) 11:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

There are a lot of Firefox plugins that help download flash videos. I use FlashGot, it is pretty easy (when it detects flash content on the page, a little icon shows up that lets you just click to download the FLV file). Then you just need a FLV player (there are lots of FLV codecs out there that you can install so that your player of choice can view them). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

There is also stuff like Orbit Downloader which is not free but supports RTMP and works with multiple browsers Nil Einne (talk) 11:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

free forum without ads - Is this legit?

[3] It seems too good to be true. How do they make their money then? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.227.112.112 (talk) 12:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so considering they have ads on their homepage...  GARDEN  12:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe they're using the typical Dot-com company strategy of 1999 and trying to expand like mad by giving maximum services away for free, and then monetize the users later by adding ads. Tempshill (talk) 14:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Or possibly by selling value-added services additional to the free service (like how LiveJournal fails to make money). --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It might also be a cheap way to collect content and boost their Google pagerank score in order that they can host for-money services on the same host. Running a bunch of low-traffic phpBB sites isn't all that expensive. It's possible that they are harvesting email addresses for spammers - or hosting some horrible malware - it's hard to know. SteveBaker (talk) 22:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no ads; is it then not legit? – 74  03:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Note it says "no banners or pop ups". This does not correspond to "no ads". They could still run text ads. Another point is that your forum may disappear at anytime without notice. F (talk) 05:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

WTF Windows Activation

Resolved

Alright, i'm trying to activate windows but every time i try to call the number to activate it, a bunch of "The number you have reached is unavailable" and "your call did not go through" messages come up. I'd activate it over the internet, but i cant install the drivers for my ethernet card until i activate windows. NEITHER number works. Can someone help/confirm what i'm saying???  Buffered Input Output 13:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

A few more details might help. 1. What version of Windows? 2. What are the phone numbers you're calling, and where did you obtain them? 3. I am surprised that you can't install Ethernet drivers until Windows is activated. Normally after a Windows installation you have 30 days to activate before it gets disabled (per this link.) Are you past the 30 days? Tempshill (talk) 14:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Also where do you live? I could give you the Microsoft activation phone numbers for Iceland but you probably don't want to call them if you live in Antartica. Bear in mind if you are trying to call them via a mobile or a VOIP line this may not be possible particularly if it's a toll free number. I'd try a normal land line. Edit: If I'm right about who you are I believe you live in the US in which case I suggest you try 1-888-571-2048 Nil Einne (talk) 11:23, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

If it comes to the worst, slipstream the network driver into the Windows install disc using nLite or the like. Or you can download something off thepiratebay. F (talk) 05:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

FRACK ME! I forgot a 1 in front of the number. Sorry for wasting your time. ;)  Buffered Input Output 12:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

XP death with monitor off

I've got an XP machine whose power control panel is set to turn the monitor off after the computer hasn't been used for a while. Problem is, sometimes the monitor never comes back on. Banging on the keyboard and mouse doesn't do anything, and nor does Control-Alt-Delete; and I no longer see the machine on the LAN from other machines; so I assume there has been some kind of BSOD or other catastrophic failure. I have to power down the machine and power it on, wincing as I do so. I don't get any catastrophic failures when I'm actually using the computer - it seemingly only happens when the monitor is shut off. Drivers are up to date for stuff like the wireless PCI card.

Any ideas on how to start to diagnose this problem? Thanks in advance - Tempshill (talk) 15:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Disable the monitor off feature so that you can see the mode of failure. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying this, but my assumption has been that the failure is tied to the act of powering off the monitor. Sort of like a Heisenbug. Tempshill (talk) 15:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried pushing the power button and seeing if it turns itself off? Also are you sure the machine isn't going to some kind of sleep mode? Make sure you turn this off in Windows and in the bios Nil Einne (talk) 11:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Pushing the power button (once, briefly) does nothing. I'll try turning off sleep modes - though I'm even having trouble doing that because the user account doesn't have access, and the admin account's sleep setting doesn't seem to cause the user account to sleep. Tempshill (talk) 15:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I suspect there is some process running on your computer (possibly a virus) which gradually takes up more and more resources until it locks up the computer. This probably takes many hours to happen, by which time the monitor has powered down. So, in other words, it's likely just a coincidence. StuRat (talk) 13:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Internet Explorer pop-ups in Yahoo Browser

I use the Yahoo Browser(for security reasons), but since Internet Explorer is also installed on my computer, I sometimes have pop-ups opening in that browser. The Yahoo popup blocker doesn't seem to be able to stop them. Is there any way to ensure these are blocked as well, short of uninstalling Internet Explorer? 69.224.37.48 (talk) 15:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I've heard of a Google browser but never of a Yahoo browser. I still have one Windows computer, and it still has Internet Explorer; whether I browse with Firefox or Opera, Internet Explorer never appears. So you might wish to install a third browser. -- Hoary (talk) 15:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking about the Yahoo toolbar? There is no Yahoo browser. Or, possibly you may have an Internet Explorer version that is "branded" with the Yahoo logo - Comcast does this, for example. Why not try the Firefox browser instead? It's got popup blockers. Tempshill (talk) 16:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The browser I use says "AT&T Yahoo Browser" in the top bar. 69.224.37.48 (talk) 17:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The browser you are using is Internet Explorer, it's just been rebranded by your ISP (AT&T.) Whenever it opens popup windows, it's just doing it in an IE window that isn't relabeled. Also, you can not uninstall IE from a windows machine, it is part of the operating system. You may, however, be able to get rid of the extra software packages your ISP installed on your machine. Then (for security reasons) I'd recommend checking your browser version (help --> about) and maybe upgrading to IE8, or firefox, or opera. Taggart.BBS (talk) 18:23, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

[simultaneous post] That sounds very much like a copy of IE branded by your ISP - if you hit Help -> About, you will probably get an IE version number (if that is the case, I can think of no "security reasons" for using it). What's probably happening is that whatever mechanism the popups are using to dodge the popup blocker is creating Windows where the branding is absent (or less obvious).

The other possibility is that you have some kind of adware installed that is opening IE Windows whether you're browsing or not. Try installing Ad-Aware or Spybot Search & Destroy to see if they can find anything. (Pet peeve: they'll probably find lots of tracking cookies and imply that these are "threats"; that's a very different kind of threat than actually spyware, and I wish the designers of these tools would make that clearer!) - IMSoP (talk) 18:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually there is a Yahoo Browser which is not a branded Internet Explorer - it was installed on my mum's old PC. It is distributed if you sign up for a BT Yahoo account and installed automatically off the supplied CD unless you choose not to. BT did a deal with Yahoo in the early days of them providing ISP services and so I presume AT&T went down the same path. The program can be identified in the Task Manager as "ybrowser.exe" along with a whole lot of other Yahoo crapware.

Anyway, I noticed that in my mum's installation it did not change the program associated with .html, .htm, and some other internet file types. In the control panel, take a look at the Folder Settings and see if any are still associated with IE. Astronaut (talk) 03:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Paypal account (with no associated credit card)

Resolved

I have money in a paypal account, but it is not associated with a credit card, can you tell me if I can:

• Send money to other account
• buy online stuff (on stores that support paypal)

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.241.118.253 (talk) 15:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't need a credit card. There is a section where you can associate it directly to your bank account. You can send money like that.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 19:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You can use money in a PayPal account to purchase from many online sites. -- kainaw™ 23:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Even if that paypal account is not associated with a credit card first? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.241.124.178 (talk) 00:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Here's a scenario: You have $10 in PayPal. You want to buy something for $8 off EBay. No problem. However, if you want to purchase something for $12 off EBay, you need to add $2 to PayPal to cover the difference. There are many ways to do that - one of which is debiting a credit card. -- kainaw™ 01:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Kainaw (the IP was me on other PC) Thanks SF007 (talk) 09:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

DVD Burner

What is an excellent dvd-burner that can burn dual layer DVDs under $60? I've been shopping around newegg.com but I don't really know what are the good brands. And one that supports changing the book type of a DVD+R/DL to a DVD-ROM (preferably but optional)? Thanks. --71.117.47.111 (talk) 19:23, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If you're already familiar with newegg, why not browse all the comments? I find them very useful in deciding on a brand. Tempshill (talk) 15:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The reviews at cdfreaks and cdrlabs generally make note of book type support, as well as burn quality, etc. - mako 21:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Disabling a Hotmail Account

Is there any way to delete/disable a hotmail account, because I have been inundated with Spam (as usual with hotmail) and friends of mine (who never listened to my request to change my MSN to my new one) are getting annoyed that every now and then my account logs itself in and asks them to look at party pictures or some crap. Also, is it possible to delete a Facebook account, because I am getting sick of friend requests from people I never met and people leaving silly messages like 'I just ate a cheeseburger I got for free LOL' etc. etc. --KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 19:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Re Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php. It doesn't actually delete your data, though; just hides it. You need to contact Facebook directly for it to be permanently deleted. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 20:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

To fix the Hotmail/MSN "logs itself in" problem, simply change your Hotmail password. At somepoint your login details have been captured (usually from a "Do you want us to check your address book to see if your friends use us? If so give us your Hotmail details...") so changing your password is the simplest way to stop them logging in as you to send spam messages. I'm afraid I can't help on the account deletion part though, but if it's not in the Hotmail options, then you'd probably need to contact them. ZX81 ^talk 22:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

According to the Hotmail web page, the account will be "inactivated" if you don't log in for 270 days. Any incoming mail will be returned as undeliverable, and existing messages will be deleted. After 90 more days the account "may" be permanently deleted. Arakunem^Talk 20:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

mac disc recovery after format

I've just reformatted a hard drive from my Macbook Air, but I didn't use the "secure delete" function - which overwrites the stuff so it can't be recovered. Could someone recommend a piece of software used for recovering the files that were on it? The disc hasn't been used at all since it was formatted. It was in five partitions, now it is in one. It's Mac OS X (Journaled).78.33.187.178 (talk) 19:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not an easy task. Google "Undelete OS X" and you'll find a lot of supposed approaches but everything labeled with large disclaimers about how unlikely it is to be able to reconstruct things. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

April 27

Floating Windows logo screen saver

So you know that floating logo XP uses as a screen saver? How do I replace the Windows logo with another image but still have it act the same? I'd like an image of my choice to float around in the same way as the default Windows logo does now. Ideas? 69.180.160.77 (talk) 00:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

A (rather convoluted) Google search led me to Any Logo Screensaver Creator and WG Screen Saver Creator. You can find a number of other options on cnet. – 74  02:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Removing write access to previously mounted partition: Ubuntu

I have accessed my NTFS partition in Ubuntu and suspect that it's caused Windows XP to lose theme settings and messed up IE toolbars on separate occasions. A check for bad sectors on the hard drive turned up nothing, but Windows's indexes contained an error after the latter incident. I remember granting automatic access to the NTFS partition, so I'm wondering how to remove that privilege. Thanks. Imagine Reason (talk) 01:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit /etc/fstab, find the entry with a type of ntfs and change the 'rw' signifier in the options string to 'ro' (or if there is no 'rw' present then add ',ro' to the end). You can then umount and mount the partition again or just reboot. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab for more information. Truthforitsownsake (talk) 13:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

PostgreSQL: Use transactions to suspend constraint checking?

In PostgreSQL, if a transaction contains an update that violates a constraint followed by one that rectifies the violation, can constraint checking be suspended until the entire transaction's end state is reached? NeonMerlin 05:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

See the doco and (many) caveats for "SET CONSTRAINTS". --Sean 12:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixing magnetized hard drive from working partition

My friend, messing about with a Neodymium magnet in an rather stupid way (if you must know, he was testing the magnetic switch that detects whether the screen is shut or not), has managed to apparently corrupt the hard drive of his MacBook, and OS X now refuses to load (instead, it hangs at the screen with the Apple logo and the loading sign). Booting OS X in verbose mode gives me the error message "disk0s2: I/O error", which sounds pretty serious. Fortunately, he had it Boot Camped, with Windows XP on the other partition, which works fine. Is there any way to CHKDSK or fsck the Mac OS partition from either the Windows XP partition, or on boot (i.e. before loading Mac OS)? Or is the hard-drive just ruined, and he should just try to salvage what he can off it? Laïka 13:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

All signs point to the drive being totally fsked (if you'll excuse the pun) because of how powerful the magnet was. 212.219.8.233 (talk) 13:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

If you're getting I/O errors, in my experience it usually means a hardware error. But my experience is mostly with Linux, not OS X. To recover his OS X files from Windows, see this [4]. I would pull everything important off the OS X partition and reinstall OS X. If you're lucky, that'll fix it. It might be time to get a new drive, though. Indeterminate (talk) 05:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Linux context sensitive layout optimization

Somebody might remember the context sensitive layout question a while back. I made a program that allows to have context sensitive layouts on Linux (available at http://cslh.sourceforge.net but with a quality warning). In addition to what was described in that question I added the possibility to bind not only single characters to buttons but character sequences too (ie pressing the 'z' key and then the 'a' key could result in 'that'), but it didn't make the optimization problem any easier, so I need help. If somebody here has a godlike "I can see a graph" vision, now it would good time to share it. If not, to get you on (or maybe off, I don't know :( ) the track, I'll give out some of my initial thinking. Let's assume the keyboard has only 26 (a-z) buttons. Let's forget all that home row, finger roll, and avoiding same finger repetition stuff layout fanatics like to talk about. Let's also forget about the "context" in context sensitive layout, instead just assigning varying length button press sequences to character sequences . Notice that this starts to sound a bit like Huffman encoding. If we then consider the human memory is limited, we need to put some restrictions on what is allowed, maybe so that the maximum character sequence length that can result from a button press sequence is X, and there must at maximum A character sequences that result from a button press sequence of length 2, B that result from a button press sequence of length 3, and so on. For a sane layout, all the single characters a-z must be typeable within Y button presses. Given a lot of sample English texts, what should be used to optimize that? --194.197.235.70 (talk) 19:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you're working on a sort of predictive text input system somewhat similar to T9. Also see if the description for pinyin abbreviation input method sounds interesting; the article doesn't describe it very much, but it's pretty neat. Indeterminate (talk) 04:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It also sounds, sort of, like Microsoft Word's "AutoCorrect" feature (but you're doing it for the entire system, if I get you right). Jørgen (talk) 12:58, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Masters Thesis No 85 need copy and Info:

Violet Houser, Thesis for her Master's Degree,(MA) Business Education, 1955. For use in providing information to the public in connection with the anniversary of the "Town of North Kansas City " celebration of November 12, 1912 and "December, 24 1924 when the Town of North Kansas City became the City of North Kansas City". ? Copy of the Thesis currently available? ? Violet Houser, author, alive, deceased, information would be helpful.

Inquiry by James R. Rich, member of the North Kansas City Historical Society. Any information would be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.229.47.4 (talk) 20:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Per Ref Desk policy (see the infobox at the top of the page!), I've removed your contact information for your own protection. Sorry, you're gonna have to check back here for an answer. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 20:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be in the archives of Truman State University's Pickler Memorial Library, presumably the institution that awarded the MA. Their catalogue lists:

85
Houser, Violet
A Teaching Unit on the Industrial Development, History, and Commercial Aspects of North Kansas City, Missouri
1955 

On the catalogue webpage they have an email address for contacts, so writing there would probably be the best move. You will probably be able to view the thesis in person at the library or it might be possible to arrange an inter-library loan.[5] --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 16:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

PC help.

everytime i give my PC a tough job to do it reboots. Like copy a cd or dvd and if the dvd or cd has a scratch the machine reboots and acts as if it's really struggling. What could be the problem and do i need to buy anything. Also if the dvd has many files and i open it in thumbnail view it reboots or brings the "windows explorer has experienced a problem...send don't send report " error message ...Please if you know what's up holla. By the way the problem just started recently...it's a P4, 3.2ghz, 1 gb ram. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.220.225.251 (talk) 21:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The first thing I would check is whether your computer's cooling works properly, because it sounds like your problems appear whenever things start to heat up -- and when an optical disc spins up, that certainly produces extra heat. Are all the fans inside the computer turning properly? Is there excessive dust build-up in there? Just replacing a faulty fan and using an air duster to clear things up may solve the problem. And, of course, with a Windows machine, reinstalling the operating system often fixes problems like this. How long has it been since the current operating system was installed? -- Captain Disdain (talk) 21:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

A good way to diagnose a heat problem is to remove the case and point an external fan at the innards. If this solves the problem, then you know heat was the issue. StuRat (talk) 13:30, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Another thing that makes a PC struggle is having to do a lot of page swapping, into a very large swap file and/or on a very full hard disk. 1Gb is borderline enough for an XP box expected to do large copying jobs or screen displays (like multiple thumbnails) if you have integrated video. Go to Control Panel - System - Advanced - Performance settings. Choose the Advanced tab, virtual memory. Change to User-managed,and type in 50 Mb for minimum and 1000 Mb for maximum. Save it. Reboot the machine. This will kill the automatic paging file, which might be as big as 3Gb if you've never killed it before. Every few weeks you can change between Windows management and User management, thus keeping it always small. (Also turn off automatic updates and "quick launch" options for everything, as they waste memory the machine is better off using for what you are actually trying to do right now).KoolerStill (talk) 09:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

XP System Restore won't work, possible Conficker infection

Resolved

Almost all infections cleaned up. One major thorn (An infected userinit.exe file) left. Will resolve through the WOT - Web of Trust forum.

Bear with me, this is a long one and I'm not the most knowledgeable about computers. Sometime yesterday I started getting popups warning me that my computer was infected and recommending I purchase Spyware Protect 2009. I actually used the article here as a reference and deleted two "sysguard" files, stopping the popups. I assumed that this was Conficker-related, but I am not entirely sure; a free program I ran stated I did not have Conficker, so I gave no thought to it.
Today, I noticed a small error on my Internet Explorer browser: the small symbol on the left side of the browsing tabs remained the default IE logo, and did not change to the symbol of whatever site I was on (Wikipedia's symbol not appearing right away as usual caught my eye). Thinking it related to yesterday's virus attack, I tried to use the System Restore function. I get as far as the page showing which restore point I have selected and displaying the disclaimers about the process, but when I click Next to allow the restore to proceed, nothing happens. I've tried waiting for an hour, clicking it repeatedly, restarting my computer (5 times now), but it won't work. When I last tried it, a notice popped up saying System Restore could not protect my computer. I know my computer's infected, there are dozens of errors on my browser now, and now certain webpages are showing bright red headings saying "Too many errors and faults WERE found in your system. Possibly that IT WAS THE RESULT of virus attack.YOU MUST scan your system." I'm running the free edition of AVG in the hopes that will work, but the scan won't be complete for another hour at least (a whole scan takes 2 hours for my computer); it's currently picked up 8 threats.
Anyway, I've got no where else to turn. I don't want to have to reset the whole thing to factory condition because I've unfortunately never made a separate backup disc. Is there any way for me to get System Restore to work, and if not, is there a simple way to confirm I have Conficker and remove it if present? -- Commdor {Talk} 22:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It is likely System Restore will be of little use here. The restore points may have already been infected and System Restore can only help so much even if the restore points were good. In this case, malware on your computer appears to have disabled it. System Restore should be disabled when removing malware anyways; please check to make sure it is disabled before moving forward with the following clean-up instructions. Spyware Protect 2009 is a rogue that Conficker does distribute. However such rogues can be encountered by accident online through regular web browsing. Under no conditions should you offer up your credit card details to the rogue! There have been cases of people being forced to cancel their credit cards because they were charged $30-60 every hour! The notices in web pages may be indicative of an active rootkit or Trojan. Adware could also be used to this purpose. Scans with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware are needed immediately! Please tell us if you encounter redirection while attempting to visit security-related sites. Please post the Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware logs here after both finish scanning. (Update both then run full scans with both; one at a time; they may ask you to reboot to remove malware) AVG Free stopped being that effective after version 8.0 (In my opinion; it lost anti-rootkit!) so remove what you can with it but dump it and replace it with avast! or Avira AntiVir afterwards. You should quarantine any threats that AVG Free detects and give us the list of items before installing avast! or Avira as all items in the AVG quarantine area are lost after is uninstallation. Note that AVG Free has suffered false positives in the past so do be alert. I cannot determine if Conficker is on your machine. Rogueware can come from many sources. Also, for the purposes of cleaning up your computer and because we do not exactly what is on it yet, consider not using it for any online banking and such for the moment. Good luck.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 00:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I'm not saying you aren't infected with any viruses, but if you get websites saying things to you like Too many errors and faults WERE found in your system. Possibly that IT WAS THE RESULT of virus attack.YOU MUST scan your system — these warnings are fake. They are trying to get you to click on them to pay for some service, or to download some malware. Tempshill (talk) 05:05, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The user is infected (See the logs)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 13:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

m4b help..

I have just purchased a HUGE audio book from Itunes, it is 3 x 2hrs in length and now I cant do anything with it other than play it back on my computer.

The plan was to put it on CD and mp3s for my car and travel... I tried some kind of "m4a" converter but it keeps saying that it is all "protected".. what can I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.202.217 (talk) 23:33, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry the audio book appears to be DRM protected.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 00:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

FairPlay#Circumventing FairPlay F (talk) 06:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't use it, but didn't iTunes just make a big publicity push about how all their stuff was now free of DRM? APL (talk) 13:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

They have refunded me my money...("as a one off")...this one was not DRM free however. Very silly for an audiobook! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.87.142 (talk) 15:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Closed source freeware OS

Are there any operating systems that are closed source and proprietary but free? --Melab±1 ☎ 23:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I doubt you'll find it useful for anything, but WinPE is closed source, proprietary, and free. Made by microsoft. Take a look at some of the OSes in List of operating systems if you're looking for more; I don't know of any others. Indeterminate (talk) 04:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Mac OS 7.5.5 is available for download from Apple. Of course, it only runs on Old World Mac hardware. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 05:11, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Old versions of the Mac system software were freely available at the time of release. It wasn't until around version 6 or 7 that Apple started branding it as a separate product (called Mac OS); before that upgrading your system software was like (these days) getting a firmware upgrade for your router or a new driver for your video card. A lot of operating systems that are bound to proprietary hardware use a similar model. Comparison of operating systems lists some others. It doesn't seem to list anything that's closed source, free of charge, and runs on x86 boxes. WinPE seems to be available only to people running a licensed copy of Windows (there's an online validation process before you can download), so I'm not sure it counts either. (If the requirement is only that some people can get it for free then any OS would qualify—Microsoft gives free Windows licenses to students, for example.) -- BenRG (talk) 12:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The trouble is that most of the operating systems that are closed source and proprietary (with the notable exception of Windows) are pretty much tied to a particular piece of hardware that's sold by the same manufacturer who wrote the operating system. Hence, for example, I believe that Silicon Graphics IRIX is "free" (ie you don't have to pay extra to get it when you buy one of their computers) - but since it only runs on Silicon Graphics hardware (which costs a small fortune) - and the hardware is basically worthless without IRIX - it's hardly relevant. The same thing is probably true of IBM mainframe operating systems and such. If you're asking about proprietary-but-free for PC's - then I don't know of any. SteveBaker (talk) 05:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Some social site about documents or source codes

Can people give me some social sites that are about posting documents or source codes? I'm trying to find one that I can't remember but telling me some of the sites I asked for might jog my memory. --Melab±1 ☎ —Preceding undated comment added 23:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC).

Pastebin? "Collaborative debugging tool" — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 09:41, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

April 28

Quick MySQL question

If I create a database on MySQL on WinXP, are there going to be any "gotcha" issues if I want to use this database on a linux installation of MySQL? (i.e. is it as simple as just copying the database file(s) from one OS/filesystem to the other, and mounting/attaching the database, or would I have to script a bulk INSERT via SQL or something along those lines?) Thanks!! 68.40.217.217 (talk) 00:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You'll want to do a database dump on Windows, and then load that dump onto the Linux MySQL install. Databases often provide very few guarantees about their on-disk formats when moving across platforms or (even minor) version numbers. Read about mysqldump and/or mysqlhotcopy. --Sean 12:18, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! 68.40.217.217 (talk) 04:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Changing pitch in WMP 11

Is there a way to alter the pitch of tracks in Windows Media Player v11 (Vista) – possibly involving some sort of slider control? I think there may be plugins that do it, but I'm not sure how to add those on. 137.205.74.169 (talk) 00:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about pitch control, but there is a playback speed slider already in WMP11 which might change the pitch as a side effect. From WMP's menu choose View -> Enhancements -> Play speed settings. Astronaut (talk) 02:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

HELP! Tried to reinstall Windows XP...

Hi, I removed Ubuntu 8.10 in preparation for 9.04, and got rid of the partition it was installed on. That uninstalled GRUB, making the computer unbootable. So I put in the XP recovery disc, and now it has a dual-boot with two Windows XP's... Easeus Partition Manager doesn't show a partition, neither does the Disk Management thing in Administrative Tools... how do I get rid of this second XP? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.40.181.237 (talk) 01:30, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

This happens when you choose to reinstall XP without formatting the partition it was previously installed on. To prevent the dual-boot menu from showing up, you can [edit your boot.ini file] to delete the "Windows XP" entry that you don't want. Make sure to back it up! Indeterminate (talk) 04:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

search the refdesk archives for "attack of the undead boot.ini file!" I had this same problem and this worked for me.  Buffered Input Output 13:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

What's new in Firefox 3.5b4?

I could only find the list that lists the new features compared to 3.0.x. What's new in Firefox 3.5b4 compared to 3.1b3? 121.72.172.232 (talk) 13:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Until 3.1 is released, I doubt you'd find an official list. Your best bet is to compare the changelog of 3.1 vs 3.0 to 3.5 vs 3.0 and work out what features are in 3.5 that aren't in 3.1 Nil Einne (talk) 14:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay I just realised 3.5 is basically 3.1. Well in that case, the release notes or changelog should say what's new in this beta Nil Einne (talk) 14:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually surprisingly you seem to be right, the info seems to be missing. Maybe ask someone their suppor forums or whatever Nil Einne (talk) 15:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually looking more carefully none of the 3.1 betas have the info either. Only the 3.0 betas seemed to offer some explaination of the differences between betas. Your best bet appears to be [6] if you're desperate Nil Einne (talk) 21:51, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Trying to understand why others use the IP address I've used

I think I'm understanding this right, but let me know if I'm off.

I understand that DHCP, because it's dynamic, is what causes my IP address to change. I read on an answer from the archives that AOL, in fact, has it change every time I load a new page. My question is, why do I see on here occasionally that someone else has used the IP address I used only last week, for instance? Even to the piont of it being blocked a number of months back.

My theory is that AOL only has a limited number of IP addresses; it's large enough that it's still rather rare for it to happen. But, if two people have AOL, it is possible for each to happen to have the same IP address at different times when they load this page. Am I right? Close? Way off? Thanks.209.244.30.221 (talk) 13:48, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

AOL does change IP addresses for users at a much higher rate than most internet service providers. The probability that someone else using AOL has used your current IP address (whatever it is) is very high. The probability that someone else on AOL has caused the IP address to be blocked is also high enough to note. It is very easy to avoid this problem. Create an account and log in when using Wikipedia. Your "identity" will always be the same and only you will be responsible for behaviour that could get it blocked. -- kainaw™ 13:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

They certainly reuse your old IP after they assign you a new one. They would be out of business if they didn't. They could not possibly assign a fresh, single-use IP every time you log on. There aren't enough IPv4 IPs in existence, let alone allocated to AOL. APL (talk) 14:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

And what is the advantage for the ISP of changing the IP of one specific user? I understand that if the user is not connected anymore, they could assign his old IP to a new users.--Mr.K. (talk) 14:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

If requests from AOL users are showing a different IP address for every request, then it's probably not the user's DHCP-assigned IP address changing that frequently, but rather AOL using a pool of proxy servers to cache web pages. The IP address that the web server sees depends on which proxy is handling the request. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The whole point of DHCP is so that they can have more users than they have IP addresses available - hence it's very likely that the address you had not long ago will have been given to someone else sometime later. The odds of you getting the same address back again sometime later are harder to estimate...but it certainly happens. Probably they allocate a block of addresses to a particular DHCP server - which might maybe only serve a few hundred addresses. It's easier for them if they don't hand them out totally at random - for example so that it's easier to track ill-behaved net users down to a smaller subset of people than "All of AOL".

Complicating the matter still further is the meta:XFF project - which AOL are (kinda) supporting. This might explain an unusual amount of constistency of address when editing Wikipedia.

But hold on a minute. If we go to our OP's Talk: page (where there are a ton of vandalism complaints) we see that someone did a check on this IP address and it resolves to Level 3 Communications - not AOL. Anyway - the range of addresses they use goes from 209.244.0.0 to 209.247.255.255 - which is something like half a million addresses - so the odds of getting the same one again by pure chance is VERY small. SteveBaker (talk) 05:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Level 3 is a Tier 1 provider, i.e. an ISP's ISP. I don't really know how the system works, but presumably AOL contracts its proxy service out to Level 3 in some way. -- BenRG (talk) 13:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Windows Portable Executable

I know that when using Visual Studio it is compiled into the .NET Common Intermediate Language and not machine code. But when I compile a C++ or C program for example is it compiled into CIL or straight into machine code and CIL is just for programs made using the .NET framework? --Melab±1 ☎ 14:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

.Net executables are PE files, but mostly contain IL data sections. They are JITed before execution. C/C++ executables, even those compiled via Visual Studio .Net, are also PE files, but contain machine code instead of IL. They are executed directly without need for JITing. (There is also C++/CLI, which I will ignore since your question does not seem to be asking about it.) Regards, Bendono (talk) 15:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Firefox 3.0.10

Just days after letting my one surviving Windows machine update Firefox to 3.0.9, I've just let it update to 3.0.10. The latter seems to be a turkey, Firefox often deciding not to "respond", as even Windows points out. (This prompts the three-finger salute.) Is it a turkey, or is it more likely that there's something wrong with this ageing system? (A Ubuntu replacement is already on its way to me, so I don't particularly care; but I'm curious.) I really don't have to describe the symptoms to you: Firefox here is so obviously "off" that if it's like this for you as well then you will very soon realize it. -- Hoary (talk) 14:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've been running 3.0.10 and have not even noticed the update, so you're going to have to discuss individual symptoms. Tempshill (talk) 00:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - I caught the automatic update on my work machine this morning - I've been using 3.0.10 under WinXP all day with no problems whatever. My SuSE 11.0 Linux box here at home is running last night's nightly build of Firefox 3.5 beta 5...so 3.0.10 is quite a way back from the 'bleeding edge' ! :-) SteveBaker (talk) 05:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Automatic updates can get damaged if they happen while you are doing something else (one good reason to do them manually, when YOU want to). One possibility is a corruption in the cookies. First use Tools - Options to clear all your cookies and caches, and restart the browser. If that makes no improvement, then the containing file itself is corrupt. Change your folder view settings to show hidden files, then go to C:\Documents and Settings\(your-name)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder and find a file called cookies.sqlite. Delete it. This is the actual file that controls your cookies. After you delete it, restart the browser, and it will create a new clean version. If it's still no go, try downloading and installing the latest available FF (though this involves the nuisance of having to get all the add-ons again....use Tools - Add-ons to record what you have before you start the upgrade). KoolerStill (talk) 08:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, but no, it wouldn't be cookies.

I use Firefox, then I use OOo, then I return to Firefox: it doesn't respond. Closing Firefox often (but not always) brings the Windows message that the program isn't responding. Today for the first time ever I got the message Windows - Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low / Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file [...] Well, my system is low on everything (notably resale value), but it was pretty happy with FF 3.0.9.

Not that I mind much, but it is odd. -- Hoary (talk) 15:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Harddisk problems on a laptop

The hard disk shows damaged sectors using a diagnostic tool. when I try to partition it, it shows 1555 error. I run chkdisk and that does not solve anything. Do you have any solutions please?

Iam also thinking about buying a larger HDD as the older HDD seems to be dying. This laptop ( ZE5700 by HP )supports ATA-100 according to some parts resellers on the internet. Iam trying to buy a HDD in ebay as it is cheaper. IDE/P-ATA is the only option in ebay.de, would that be compatible with this laptop?.

131.220.46.33 (talk) 15:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)HDDdeath

If the size of the hard disk and the connector type are the same as your old hard disk, then yes. "PATA" is a synonym for the old-style "ATA" (and an antonym for "SATA"). Tempshill (talk) 00:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

By size, you mean the 2,5" form factor?. How to find out the connector type? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.24 (talk) 14:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Klein bottle gnuplot

I found the following gnuplot script in the Commons for a Klein bottle. I don't understand what the colons indicate (example: sin(u): sin(u)), so could someone "translate" this into, say, Mathematica syntax or something more standard?

x(u,v)= v<pi ? (2.5-1.5*cos(v))*cos(u): \
        v<2*pi ? (2.5-1.5*cos(v))*cos(u):\
        v<3*pi ? -2+(2+cos(u))*cos(v): -2+2*cos(v)-cos(u)
y(u,v)= v<pi ? (2.5-1.5*cos(v))*sin(u): \
        v<2*pi ? (2.5-1.5*cos(v))*sin(u): \
        v<3*pi ? sin(u): sin(u)
z(u,v)= v<pi ? -2.5*sin(v): v < 2*pi ? 3*v-3*pi:\
        v<3*pi ? (2+cos(u))*sin(v)+3*pi: -3*v+12*pi

Lucas Brown (talk) 17:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the syntax is the same as the conditional operator in C and related languages. a ? b : c evaluates to b if a is true; otherwise, it evaluates to c. I don't know Mathematica very well, but it looks like you can translate a ? b : c to If[a,b,c]. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes - so if you look at that first line:

x(u,v)= v<pi ? (2.5-1.5*cos(v))*cos(u): \
        v<2*pi ? (2.5-1.5*cos(v))*cos(u):\
        v<3*pi ? -2+(2+cos(u))*cos(v): -2+2*cos(v)-cos(u)

...it translates to:

 if ( v<pi )
   x(u,v) = (2.5-1.5*cos(v))*cos(u)
 else
   if ( v<2*pi )
     x(u,v) = (2.5-1.5*cos(v))*cos(u)
   else
     if ( v<3*pi )
       x(u,v) = -2+(2+cos(u))*cos(v)
     else
       x(u,v) = -2+2*cos(v)-cos(u)

Ditto for each of the remaining lines. SteveBaker (talk) 05:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You could try with the switch statement or its Mathematica equivalent (if available). This would make reading the code significantly easier. --Pero-- 93.136.110.115 (talk) 12:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Mathematica has a Switch construct, but what is desired here (the equivalent of if-else-if-...-else in C) is Which. You'll need to provide it a True condition to get a default value at the end. --Tardis (talk) 20:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Blu-Ray player needed for Ubuntu 8.10

I've installed a Blu-Ray drive, and now I'd like a player, or better yet a ripper. Any recommendations ? StuRat (talk) 18:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the question; I know nothing about Blu-Ray but isn't a Blu-Ray drive also a Blu-Ray player, and you can rip the disk contents with it? Am I missing something here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 20:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The Blu-Ray drive came with PowerDVD for Windows, which is a player only. What I need is a player for Blu-Ray under Linux, and preferably also a ripper under Linux (although a ripper under Windows would also work). StuRat (talk) 13:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You can't rip BD movies yet, the format hasn't been cracked. Hideki (talk) 20:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

What about AnyDVD? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 21:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

To explain it in a better way, you can easily rip BD movies. Go to any torrent site, search eMule or usenet or whatever if you don't believe me. I don't believe there is anything for Linux yet and Blu-Ray is not permanently broken since they could change various things and you'd need a new version of AnyDVD but it's sufficiently broken on Windows for now. Note you may still need a commercial software player which often have silly restrictions imposed by the studios (e.g. refusing to work with BluRays in folders) since some BluRays only come with TrueHD or DTS HD MA audio streams, neither of which are supported by any free solution at the moment AFAIK. Anyway presuming you are talking Windows, there are basically only 4 commercial software suites I'm aware of that have more or less full support of BluRay. WinDVD, PowerDVD, Total Media Theatre and Nero ShowTime. Nero doesn't seem so popular. The other 3 are more popular. Bear in mind you may need specific versions for BluRay playback and that silly limitations imposed by the studios due to DRM are common. The folder one for example (most used to support it but it was removed) and many no longer provide DirectShow accessible/usable codecs so you can't use the codecs that come with them for any other purpose. From memory, WinDVD and TMT and probably Nero are available as free trials which at least support BluRay. PowerDVD trial lacks BluRay playback I believe. Bear in mind as well compatibility issues are not uncommon largely due to the DRM. WinDVD and TMT were recently updated with new releases but old versions are usually updated for disc compatibility AFAIK. You may end up finding using AnyDVD HD rather then worrying about the software updates, I've heard it tends to provide better compatibility. If you can't decide for BluRay reasons alone you may want to consider other issues like DVD upscaling. As already mentioned with AnyDVD HD you can in theory use something else, like MPC except for the audio codec issue. I don't believe there's any current solution but haven't looked in to it that well. Edit: Well I was wrong. TrueHD is supported by FFDShow. DTS HD MA is to a limited extent (it supports the DTS portion not the lossless additional portion). I believe it should be possible to play back BluRay with something like MPC and AnyDVD HD and with no other commercial software suite but I'm not certain if this requires an intermediate ripping step (and you also won't have menus [7]). It also works with VLC but I'm pretty sure you need to rip the disc first in that case. BTW if you live in the US, bear in mind AnyDVD HD probably violates the DMCA so depending on various things you may or may not be breaking the law. P.S. There are rumours of a SlySoft Player coming but the details are slim and it's unlikely to be any time soon [8] Nil Einne (talk) 22:18, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

well that was an epic post! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 08:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Which of those products will rip Blu-Ray for free (and how much do they charge for the rest) ? Overall, what would you recommend for ripping Blu-Ray under Windows or Linux ? StuRat (talk) 13:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Recording from HDMI

Now for a completely different approach to the problem. Is there any product which will take input from an HDMI cable (up to 1080p) and record it, as is, no questions asked, and then send the same HDMI output back out, exactly the same, at a later time ? (I'm assuming here that what goes over the HDMI cable is basically the pixels that display on the screen, not some encrypted data that needs to be decrypted to get the pixels.) StuRat (talk) 13:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It is encrypted, see HDCP. -- BenRG (talk) 18:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. So much for that idea. StuRat (talk) 10:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Recording from video stream

Now for a final approach (to time-shifting Netflix Blu-Ray movies, so I can return them before I watch them): Is there any way to intercept the video stream, say with a video capture card, and record that ? I know it can be done for TV, but how about Blu-Ray ? And can it be captured at full resolution, color depth, and frame rate ? What products come closest ? StuRat (talk) 14:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer, but I am pretty confident that "time shifting" only applies to broadcasts, in particular video broadcasts. Suggesting that you are going to "time shift" a movie in full definition is a pretty long way from the legally accepted definition; what you are doing is simply copying (and breaking the law.) Nevertheless, good luck with that! --66.195.232.121 (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Replace sort-values with names in PostgreSQL view

I have a PostgreSQL view whose definition is:

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW unique_card AS 
SELECT card.name AS name,
   array_to_string(array_accum(card.set), ','::text) AS sets,
   max(rarity.sortvalue) AS greatest_rarity,
   min(rarity.sortvalue) AS least_rarity,
   sum(card.foil_copies) AS foil_copies,
   sum(card.nonfoil_copies) AS nonfoil_copies,
   sum(card.foil_copies) + sum(card.nonfoil_copies) AS total_copies
  FROM card
  LEFT JOIN rarity ON card.rarity = rarity.abbr
  GROUP BY card.name;

How can I change this query so that instead of containing values from rarity.sortvalue, it returns the corresponding values from rarity.abbr? (rarity.abbr is the primary key in rarity, and rarity.sortvalue is also constrained to be unique.) I've tried replacing max(rarity.sortvalue) with the nested query

(SELECT abbr FROM rarity WHERE sortvalue = max(rarity.sortvalue))

but this yields an error message saying that WHERE clauses can't contain aggregate functions. Note that min(rarity.abbr) and max(rarity.abbr) won't do it because the rarities don't ascend alphabetically. NeonMerlin 20:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Subqueries, while slow, are easy to work with: select abbr from rarity where sortvalue = (select max(sortvalue) from rarity) -- kainaw™ 07:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Hide columns in a PostgreSQL view

In a PostgreSQL view, is it possible to select columns to use in the ORDER BY clause, but then exclude them from the view's output? NeonMerlin 22:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You can wrap a query in a query, such as: select a from (select a, b, c from table order by a, b, c) -- I don't remember if Postgres requires to you name the subquery. -- kainaw™ 07:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

April 29

How are tactical maps made?

I am looking for a program or explanation on how tactical maps involving NATO symbols are made? Such as this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Map_of_dnieper_battle_grand.jpg

But also on the smaller, batallion-scale, or any scale. What program is used? I have found military fonts online, but ideally i'm looking for a program that allows me to map tactical movements with proper NATO symbols. Autorealm is a program which I have used in the past, and there are some references of a military symbology pack online, but the links are broken. Any help in this regard would be greatly appreciated. --Baalhammon (talk) 04:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Autorealm uses True Type fonts, which is the format for most other specialist fonts as well. http://www.mapsymbs.com/maphome.html has NATO APP-6 and APP-6a symbols, for free. They should work with Autorealm. KoolerStill (talk) 09:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

linker

I need a linker that can connect my Samsung U708 Earphone and Microphone with my computer Audio and Mic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stool8888 (talk • contribs) 07:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You probably mean that you need an adapter. I don't know if such an adapter exists, but if it does, a well-equipped electronics store that sells Samsung cell phones would probably be a good place to ask for one. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

pc2mac, end of lines in text files

I transfer a simple text file from PC into a memory stick, then transfer it to Mac-System-9.2. Due to different encoding, I have too many additional blank lines. Question: Is there any FREE script of Mac-System-9.2 that would take care of the end of lines when I drag and drop a simple text file on its icon? Thank you in advance. twma 09:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

TEXT<->.TXT Converter seems to do what you want, though with a somewhat annoying interface (it defaults to converting Mac->Windows, and you have to change this for every file). -- Speaker to Lampposts (talk) 19:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

sound card volt meter

I want to measure a DC voltage with my computer cheaply. It should be possible using the sound card which has a high resolution ADC but is AC coupled. The DC would need to be chopped up, possibly using the sound card audio output. I've had a good look but I can't find references on the web. What would be a good, simple circuit for this? Cheers! PeterGrecian (talk) 10:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

This would be an interesting proof of concept, though not exactly the most practical way to measure DC. One way to chop up the signal would be to get an analog mux (such as Maxim's), run your signal to one input, ground the other, and use a 555 to toggle them. Conceptually it'd be straightforward. But I think you could also figure out some way using a 555 and an op-amp or two.

Note that you need a reference voltage of some sort in order to calibrate your measurement system. And don't apply too much voltage to your sound card inputs... they're probably not as forgiving as multimeters. (Multimeters are pretty cheap, btw.) - mako 20:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks mak. I'll have a look at the mux, but I'll probably use op-amps because I have some handy. The application I have in mind is testing battery capacities which requires measurements over several hours or days. Cheers. PeterGrecian (talk) 09:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

You may find this link useful: http://lea.hamradio.si/~s57uuu/scdsp/CheapChop/cheapchop.htm I was looking for exactly the same thing and found the link. I'm now happily using my sound card to record switch open/close events.--Phil Holmes (talk) 14:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Radio Button script

I was wondering how hard it would be to make a script that would automatically fill in online forms; specifically those that contained radio buttons. The script would just randomly fill in all available buttons.

--Drogonov (talk) 12:25, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Not too hard. The Javascript below does the radio-button thing you mention. You could save it as a bookmarklet for whenever you feel the need to randomly choose a radio station. --Sean 13:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

  javascript:  var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input');
    var radios_by_name=%7B%7D%3B
    for (var i = 0; i < inputs.length; ++i) {
        var t = inputs[i];
        if (t.type != "radio")
            continue;
        if (!radios_by_name[t.name])
            radios_by_name[t.name] = [];
        radios_by_name[t.name].push(t);
    }
    for (var name in radios_by_name) {
        var group = radios_by_name[name];
        var random_index = Math.ceil(Math.random() * group.length) - 1;

        group[random_index].checked = true;
    }

It kind of works but once you use the scirpt it checks the radio button ,as planned, but then goes to a blank white screen saying "true" --Drogonov (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Stick a "void(0)" at the end to prevent that. --Sean 13:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

what would this do?

 

    $("input:radio").each(function() {
        $(this).attr("checked","checked");
    });

I think it uses jQuery to check all the radio button inputs on the page. I don't don't know jQuery, so I'm guessing. --Sean 13:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

P2SP exist or not ? Or the real name is?

http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=960617 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ice77cool (talk • contribs) 15:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

http://article.ednchina.com/CE/20090330084408.htm http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Farticle.ednchina.com%2FCE%2F20090330084408.htm&lp=zh_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

As hardware already come out P2SP technology.. May be it is a marketing trick. I mean fake technology. But P2P mean Peer to Peer. Client-Server is connection between Client and Server.. Then how about connection with/without torrent server (DHT) to both Client (Peer) and Server? Is it so call Peer-to-Peer-Client-Server? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ice77cool (talk • contribs) 15:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

ITQ portfolio work

Could someone with experience of teaching or marking ITQs (ie, the final "Making Selective Use of IT module) give me some tips on what is expected? Or a link to a course syllabus - I can't find any detailed information on what I should cover.

I'm taking a level 2 ITQ course at my local community college in Liverpool, England, one evening a week. I only have to do the final portfolio module, because I already have a basic ECDL certificate which excuses me from all the other work. However, being let off all the learning modules means I have no experience of the work an examiner will expect. My ECDL was assessed thru multiple choice tests (and one short intray exercise) so it doesn't help, and my tutor says the things I'm suggesting (based on my work & study experience) aren't complex enough. I can only go to college once a week for 2 hours, my tutor is too busy with people who started at the beginning to sit around holding my hand, and without background knowledge I can't ask intelligent questions.

I haven't been able to find a syllabus anywhere, and my tutor's instructions seem to change every week. At first I was told a copy of my CV was an adequate piece of work (even though I'd already written it) but the following week that had changed, for no clear reason.

I've been asked to produce three separate pieces of work, each using a different module of MS Office 2007, but also told that one module can be research on the internet. These are my ideas so far:

• A training pack for new library counter employees (Word and/or Powerpoint)
• A budget for a student society exchange visit, with income & expenses shared among the participants to give a minimum fee (Excel)
• A presentation of the society's activities, to show to new members at the first meeting (Powerpoint)
• A relational database to track job applications and followup (Access)
• A web search for sources to use in a history essay, covering Google Books, the library catalogue, JSTOR, and relevant websites thru Google. I could print the search results from each place I looked.

Please let me know if any of these are good ideas, and how much detail & complexity I'd need to show. Many thanks!! 86.143.231.244 (talk) 16:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Wireless network security

How safe is it to use unsecured wireless networks to access sensitive websites such as internet banking? In case I'm using the wrong jargon, the situation is thus; I live in an apartment complex, many people have wireless routers- most are secured by password but I can access the net with my ps3 using one which isn't. Leaving aside any possible ethical issues for the moment, is it safe to access internet banking (an encrypted website i'd hope) using this connection. Thanks in advance for any replies. Stanstaple (talk) 17:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

In theory, if you have access to unsecured wireless you could log into the router with the default password and set up encryption for the duration of your internet banking. I'd do this when you're sure the other people are not using the net, like 3am early morning time. Then remove the security when you're done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 17:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If it's not his network (as is the case here), he probably doesn't have the router password (unless the router's owner is particularly incompetent), so he probably won't be able to change the settings. --128.97.244.41 (talk) 21:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Is that neccesary though? If I'm using an encrypted (?) website does that scramble the information being sent between the ps3 and the router or just between the router and the rest of the net? (I'm no techie in case thats not patently obvious]]) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stanstaple (talk • contribs) 17:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It's just an idea, a bit extreme I guess. An encrypted website that uses https should scramble the data from your browser to the banking site, so all data traveling over the wireless connection is scrambled too. But with wireless, anyone could use packet capturing software like Kismet to record all wireless traffic between your computer and the wireless router, then go through the data and extract your passwords, visited sites etc. Even if you used secured wireless they can still be cracked. But, the likelihood of someone doing this, especially in a residential situation, is quite low. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 17:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(HTTPS also makes phishing very difficult when correctly used with modern browsers. MTM (talk) 18:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's safe to access an HTTPS website using an insecure wireless connection. An eavesdropper could tell the name of the server (www.bank.com), and roughly how many bytes were being transferred in each direction, but nothing more than that. An active attacker could break the connection (denial of service) but not add/remove/alter any data. -- BenRG (talk) 18:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Though if it's not a wireless network you are supposed to use, accessing something important like your bank with it could be a bad idea. Because the owner can then inquire the bank and be like, "someone hacked into my network and accessed your bank with it", and that would look bad on your bank and it might make them suspend your account or something because either you did it and you dragged them into this mess and they are taking heat for it, or someone else hacked into your account, and in both cases they would really want to talk with you. --128.97.244.41 (talk) 21:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input- I'll believe it because it's what I reckoned anyway- just wanted confirmation really. ' Appreciate your help.

TBH, do you really want to take the risk that your irate neighbour might hack your bank account and clean it out; and them come knocking for a reason why you were using his wireless connection without his permission. Maybe your neighbour is stupid unskilled in securing his network, or maybe he is a skilled criminal waiting for a sucker to use his network for something important. Astronaut (talk) 02:41, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Flawed PHP code

I was writing a short application for a couple Wikipedian IRC users (it will be an RC notice script if it ever works), but I have a problem in my test bot; it can't write data to the socket. If anyone would like to, I'd be very grateful if you reviewed the code. I get an error from fwrite() at the end, on line 222. Thanks! --Yamakiri 20:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I see no fwrite() (nor anything that should call it) on line 222. --Tardis (talk) 02:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

which generally indicates that there is some error in parens or something like that. If you get functions causing errors right near the end of your project it means you should double check all your brackets, etc. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 09:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Err, I meant fgets ._. I'd checked my brackets, quotations, etc. but I didn't see anything. The thing is, how it won't recognize the socket I use ($YamaBot->socket) --Yamakiri ^T_C 04-30-2009 • 19:38:00 19:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

SoftSell

A friend of mine owns a consignment clothing store, and uses SoftSell on an ancient Windows 98 computer (yes I know...). Today, my friend started getting an error message: "Errpr DBFAT x/1104 Create error \\maint\softsell\Defentry.dbf (DOS Error 53)" and then gave quit, retry and default as options. The store has two computers, linked with a wire. This error only occurs on the front computer. The one in the back is the main one.

I know this is pretty much a lost cause, but any help at all is appreciated.

P.S. SoftSell Business Systems, LLC became Ascert, LLC in 2002, and the support website requires a customer login, whcih I don't have.

Thanks, Genius101 ^Guestbook 20:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

DOS Error 53 occurs when trying to map a network drive from a DOS PC (I assume this applies as Windows 98 is based on DOS) to a Windows PC that does not exist. First, try remapping the drive. If that doesn't work, check that the computer "maint" is correctly connected to the other computer and that its network settings (workgroup, name, etc.) are correct. Xenon54 (talk) 20:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I know how to remap in XP, but how exactly would you do that in Windows 98? Thanks, Genius101 ^Guestbook 12:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

In Windows 95, it's Network Neighbourhood -> File -> Map Network Drive. I'm not sure if it's the same in 98, but it likely is. NN should also show you "maint" if it's correctly connected to the network. Xenon54 (talk) 20:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The first thing to do is to make sure the network cable is intact and has a good connection at both ends. StuRat (talk) 09:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help, but it turns out that the network cable was completely unplugged. *sigh* If only people would check that first... Thanks, Genius101 ^Guestbook 21:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

New Retail System

Because of my above problem, I am looking for a free alternative to SoftSell, which is a retail management program. It needs to be free, because I think taht is the only way I can convince my friend to switch over. Also, it needs to work on Windows 98. Thanks, Genius101 ^Guestbook 20:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is not with the SoftSell, so there is no point in replacing it for that reason. There may be some old (no longer supported) programs around. But it is not a simple matter to change from one to the other,as all the data would have to be re-entered, unless you can find one that uses the same database format (not likely with proprietary software). The only way it would be worth doing that work would be in conjunction with upgrading the computers, too. Going to Win XP3 would be enough, and would run on as little as 512Mb RAM (although 1Gb or more is better). If money is an issue, excellent used XP boxes can be found for a few hundred dollars. The existing program might in fact run on XP (in compatibility mode) but faster.For a business machine, all these factors have to be considered before making any changes. KoolerStill (talk) 18:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

April 30

MSN Question

Is there a way to re-add an email address you recently deleted by accident? Note : Not having the email address does not give me the option of asking the person whose email address it is what the email address is because I can't contact them by email, otherwise this would be a pointless question.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 07:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

If you sent or received an e-mail from this address, you may still have it in an old e-mail, possible in the trash bin/recycle folder. StuRat (talk) 09:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

computer /network security

1.how to detect ,prevent and remove from infected computers the following vuruses,bacteria,trojan,worm,trap door,logic bomb,spyware,adware and password sniffers.

2.with reguard to computer security what are the definitions ,advantages and disadvantages of the following a)physical biometric accesss control methods,behavioural besed biometric access control,intrusion detection sysytems,one time passwords,and passphrases.

i have problems with above issues am just operating a small network and want some information on the above thank u am Mbabs —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbabaali1 (talk • contribs) 07:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Despite your claim that you're operating a small network, these look very much like homework questions to me. You should probably start at computer security and go from there. If there are specific things you don't understand, we can probably point you in the right direction, but we're not going to do the work for you. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Installing software on an MSI netbook with Suse Linux

Whenever I use Yast on my MSI Wind netbook to install something, it complains

Cannot access installation media

Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1 10 1-0.

Check that the directory is accessible.

When I check 'show details' it says

File /suse/i586.gcc-4.1.2_20070115-0.11.i586.rpm not found on media dir:///usr/share/lang

And indeed in /usr/share/lang/suse/i586 I only see two files, both beginning with 'aspell'. DirkvdM (talk) 07:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Opera Mini on PC?

Can I run the Opera Mini browser on my desktop PC? Whether it be Windows, Mac, or Linux? The reason is that I read that Opera Mini utilizes this proxy server to compress and reformat web pages. But presumably this functionality might also be useful to desktop users too. So I was wondering if there is a way to run it directly on my PC. Thanks, --71.106.173.110 (talk) 07:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It is possible, albeit under a J2ME emulator such as the Nokia Series 40 SDK. I often use it for previewing applications and/or games that I downloaded prior to installing them on my phone. You can get it at forum.nokia.com, although you have to be registered (which is free of charge). Blake Gripling (talk) 08:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

What is the name for this technique or design pattern?

I am trying to remember the name of a design pattern/technique of emulating calls to a client from a server. This technique involves the client making a call to the server, which is not replied to immediately. When the server has data to send it replies to the call with this data. The client responds by making another call, passing the response to the call as a parameter, and this call then waits for the next time the server needs to call the client. I think it is something similar to "reverse callback", and it is used a lot in AJAX. Its one of those terms that is on the tip of my tounge and I will kick myself for not knowing when I hear it! -- Q Chris (talk) 09:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Inversion of control? Jay (talk) 14:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly not what I would normally think of as IOC, I am pretty sure I have heard a more specific term. -- Q Chris (talk) 15:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

We have the article "Reverse Ajax". Is that what you're looking for? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Arranging Ubuntu for ease of later upgrades

[As this got no responses.]

Some time in the next few weeks, I'll get a little computer from Dell that will have Ubuntu 8.04 ("customized by Dell") installed ("preinstalled"). Ubuntu 9 is already out, and I daresay Ubuntu 10 is in the works. Before I start fiddling with Ubuntu to make it more like what I want, I'd like to do any juggling around that will make it easier to upgrade to 9, 10 and beyond. I'm rather out of date with (K)ubuntu. I imagine that /home will not be in its own partition. If my assumption's right, would it help later upgrades to retain the changes already made by Dell and myself if I were to put /home in its own, newly created partition? If yes it would, then I suppose I could boot off a Knoppix or similar CD, fiddle with the partitions, copy /home to a new partition and delete the original -- but would the system then recognize the new "/home", or what other tweaks would be needed? Other tips welcome too. -- Hoary (talk) 14:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu is on a six month release schedule. 8.04 (2008Apr) is a long term support release, which means it will be supported until 2009Sep. 8.10 Intrepid and 9.04 Jaunty have since been released. Separating your /home partition will make it easier to do clean installs, but you can upgrade within the OS from 8.04 to 8.10 (then to 9.04, if you wish.) I like separating by /boot partition as well, but I have not seen anything which demonstrates this as a best practice. Taggart.BBS (talk) 19:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Webbased email

What web-based email is good for me if I don't care about that 8 GB of Gmail, but do care about price, stability, reliability and privacy?--80.58.205.37 (talk) 16:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

GMail is free, stable, reliable, and as private as web-based email will get. What are you looking for that GMail does not provide? -- kainaw™ 17:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I have some doubts about its privacy. Google scans it to serve ads. --80.58.205.37 (talk) 17:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

But that's an automated process. I mean, of course it's possible that they violate their users' privacy despite their promises to the contrary, but there's absolutely no guarantee that another web-based e-mail service provider wouldn't do the very same thing, or worse. Google, at least, is an established service provider with a pretty good track record of not being evil, and getting caught on something like this would be a terrible blow to their credibility and, depending on the case, would probably be illegal. That doesn't guarantee that they can't do it anyway, of course -- but frankly, it's a hell of a lot more than most, if not all, other free web-based e-mail providers have going for them. I mean, if this is a major concern for you (and it's not an unreasonable concern in itself, I think), then this may be a "can't have your cake and eat it too" situation. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Another way to look at it... Free services need to turn a profit. Google makes it clear that they turn a profit by context-sensitive ads. If a service doesn't explain how they turn a profit, it is possible that they do it by selling the secrets in your emails to other people. -- kainaw™ 19:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

run application in background

Please help! tell me how to run a java application in background using windows? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avitashpurohit (talk • contribs) 18:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean as a background process? You can do this with Process Explorer; run the program, right click your java application from the list, go to Set priority and select either below normal or idle 8I.24.07.715 ^talk 19:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

How does a website earn money for its owner?

I heard that websites try to get high page views (or web requests?) to earn money. How does this work? 117.0.51.228 (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Well presumably they get better ad money if their site has high pageviews as it is then more likely the ads will be seen.  GARDEN  19:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

But what if a website doesn't have ads? ARe there other ways to earn money with high page views? 117.0.51.228 (talk) 19:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Some websites, like Homestar Runner, gain revenue through merchandise sales. Others, like the Wikimedia Foundation, rely on donations from visitors. These are not directly tied to pageviews, but both revenues are based on how popular a website is. —Akrabbim^talk 19:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Closed-source project hosting website

Does anyone know of some good free (free as in offers their service for free) project hosting websites for closed source projects that don't own the code and also that enable people to sell software like other proprietary projects? --Melab±1 ☎ 19:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Titles of external links in MediaWiki

Is it possible to make external links to automatically parse the title from linked pages instead of assigning the links numbers like [1], [2], and [3]? thanks. 85.186.103.89 (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)