:You should first tell us what software you are using. In any case, the odds are it can't do what you want it to do. What you want it something that allows you to arrange the images within the PDF arbitrarily—there are programs that will let you do this (like Adobe Acrobat, which is expensive), or you can just arrange the filenames ahead of time in an order so that the will sort "alphabetically" in the order you want them to (e.g. adding 0001, 0002, 0003 before the filenames to denote page number). But there is unlikely to be anything that automatically creates a table of contents for you—metadata like that has to be entered in by hand. Acrobat lets you put in "bookmarks" which is something like what you want. I don't know what free equivalents might exist that replicate that, though. --[[Special:Contributions/98.217.14.211|98.217.14.211]] ([[User talk:98.217.14.211|talk]]) 15:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
:You should first tell us what software you are using. In any case, the odds are it can't do what you want it to do. What you want it something that allows you to arrange the images within the PDF arbitrarily—there are programs that will let you do this (like Adobe Acrobat, which is expensive), or you can just arrange the filenames ahead of time in an order so that the will sort "alphabetically" in the order you want them to (e.g. adding 0001, 0002, 0003 before the filenames to denote page number). But there is unlikely to be anything that automatically creates a table of contents for you—metadata like that has to be entered in by hand. Acrobat lets you put in "bookmarks" which is something like what you want. I don't know what free equivalents might exist that replicate that, though. --[[Special:Contributions/98.217.14.211|98.217.14.211]] ([[User talk:98.217.14.211|talk]]) 15:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
== Excel API ==
Dear Wikipedians:
I'm thinking of making an Excel data input wizard for a Win32 application I'm developing. But I am loath to wade through 230+ pages of Excel file format material supplied by openoffice.org.
Since the excel files I work with are just tables of straight numbers, with no formulas, no macros or anything else. I'm wondering if there is an API that Excel supplies that would allow me to easily extract these numbers. I am developing my software using Dev-C++.
Thanks.
[[Special:Contributions/70.31.157.47|70.31.157.47]] ([[User talk:70.31.157.47|talk]]) 15:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Revision as of 15:39, 12 June 2009
Welcome to the computing section of the Wikipedia reference desk.
The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
I am trying to make a portable version of VirtualBox to run on Linux, but I'm not sure what might be the best method to use... I already have a container format for it, RUNZ (think of it as a self-extracting file, but even better), but now the problem is getting a "portable linux kernel" so that VirtualBox can run on any PC without the need to install the kernel drivers... What method do you think is best: user mode linux, OpenVZ, chroot (I don't think that works for this!), FreeVPS, Linux-VServer... ? Any ideas...? Thanks. Hacktolive (talk) 03:17, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure if this will help you, but there is a Protable Virtualbox for Windows available here, might be able to get some ideas from how they do it 8I.24.07.715 (talk) 20:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorting MSN contact list by e-mail address
I just downloaded the latest version of Windows Live Messenger. In previous versions, my contacts were organized solely by e-mail address. Now, when I go to Tools, Options, Layout, the only two options I see are organizing contacts by Display name or by First and last name. Is there anyway to revert to the way of organizing contacts solely by e-mail address? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjmcfarland (talk • contribs) 08:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
auto web crawler
I'm looking for a way to automatically download all pages from a given website, at set intervals of say three hours. The sites content changes every few hours, and the crawler must not overwrite the previous saved pages when it begins it's next download, but should update any pages which still exist since it's last crawl. It this possible? Sort of like creating a cache of any pages which existed so that I can search them later even if they have been removed from the actual website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 10:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On a badly designed web page, the link I want to use is hidden by something else so I cannot see it or click it. I have found the href in the source code. But the href only gives part of the URL. What else do I need to look for to reconstruct the complete URL please? 92.24.112.16 (talk) 11:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have tried that, and it does not work. I have also tried some variations such as removing the .htm part without sucess. Would the root be on the html page source code somewhere? 92.24.112.16 (talk) 12:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you have the page up you may be able to tab to the link using the tab key and then press enter even if you are finding it difficult to click on it directly. Dmcq (talk) 13:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the link is there, but is overlapped by something else (which I guess is what you mean by "hidden") then you might be able to fix this by disabling styles on the page temporarily. In Firefox: view->page_style->no_style, in Opera: view->style->accessibility_layout 87.112.85.8 (talk) 14:10, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Linux like security in Windows?
We all may be tired of Viruses in our daily lives. They are destructive and malicious, and damage our Computer to an enormous extent. Recently, Linux users have declared that Linux is more secure that windows. To understand this, we must understand why Linux is not quickly infected. There are three principle reasons for this, and these are:
By default, autorun option is disabled in Linux.
Linux can not easily play .exe, .bat and other executable files.
The setup of Linux. This is perhaps the most interesting point. Linux has one root or superuser account, like the Administrator account in Windows. But generally, the user accounts we use on Linux are like the limited accounts on Windows. Tey do not have full access to the system,and the system files of Linux are kept away from their reach. For instance, when a Linux Computer Acount is infected, the Virus tries to infect the system files. But for this, the Computer asks the virus the root password. The virus fails to access the password, which is kept stored int eh System files. Hence the virus fails to access the system. The computer remains safe. ut here is a way to prepare the same setup in Windows.
Many have migrated to Linux from Windows for sake of security, but are not regretting for such a move, mainly facing the out-of-the-box usability of Linux. So, the challenge continues, causing each user to choose any one alternative, either the Grand environment and tremendous usability of Windows, or the Secure but complicated Linux (I have both in my possesion). Now, we have two alternatives, namely:
"Using a multi-OS computer, having both Linux and Windows."
"Preparing the Linux-like security setup in Windows."
Many of my friends use Windows for all purposes, and Linux for Internet Surfing, since Internet is the primary source of Virus and Malwares. Doing this is fair, but one problem is there, that is the speed of the PC decreases. So, we must focus onto the second option, that is to prepare a Linux like security setup in Windows. To do this, we should keep one Administrator account in Windows, and should outselves use a limited or poweruser account. Now, we cannot directly remove the Administrator account we use (not the default Windows Administrator) from the Control Panel/User Acounts. To do this, right click "My Computer Icon" and select "manage" or "manage local users and groups", whichever is available. Now, select Computer Management (local)/System Tools/Local Users and Groups/Users, and right click your administrator account (not the Default Windows Administrator titled "Administrator" itself), and select delete. But be sure, that you know the default Windows Administrator password. Now exit the Window, and go to All Programs->Run, and open it. A small run window will appear. There, in the box, type "control userpasswords2" and press enter. A window titled "User Acounts" will appear. There, select your limited account and click on Properties. Anew window will appear. There, select the Group Membership Tab, and select the "Standard User" radio button. Your account will now be a power user account. Lg off once and log in again to activate the Power User Account.
Now, you may use this account to browse the Internet, and feel free, for most virus can not infect your PC now (even you do not use any Antivirus Software). But An antivirus is always good, so please try one. There are many available freely across the net. When ever you run any virus files unknowingly, the virus tries to access thwe system files, but fails, since it does not get any access to the Administrator password and can't open it. Now, only one question lies ahead. That is, if we download a trusted programme from the Internet, and want to install it, we won't be able to directly, because the Computer does not allow any power user to modify any system file. For this, we should press shift and right click the Installer and select "Run As" command. There, select the radio button "The folowing User" and type the user name "Administrator" exactly and enter the Administrator password. Then type the user name "Administrator" exactly and enter the Administrator password. Then it will get installed. Thus we have both the security of Linux and the power of Windows. By this way, can we make Windows XP to some extent more secure? Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 12:10, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If all that means "is it better in XP to run most of the time as a normal user, and only run as administrator to do admin tasks" then the answer is "yes". Hopper Mine (talk) 12:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the answer. But my question is that,since normal or power users do not have rights or permissions to modify the system files, so if they, by mistake execute any virus, and the virus is primarily targetted to System files, will the virus be able to modify the System files? Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 12:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I took the liberty of breaking your comment into paragraphs to make it easier to read. Let me know if I've done this wrong.
The advice you provide is good basic advice, but many XP users find the restricted accounts too restricted for even day-to-day use. Vista is a big improvement is this area with the introduction of the much hated User Access Control. However, I believe the biggest factor in the vunerability of Windows to malware is the sheer amount of it compared to Linux. Writers of malware. target their efforts at the largest market share and that is Windows. Astronaut (talk) 13:02, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot to all of you, for answering mu question. And friend Astronaut, Thanks for splitting my paragraphs, you really added to the view of the writting. Actually, I am not very good in editing in Wkipedia, so I just did it wrongly. As for the fact about the day-to-day inconveinience faced by XP Users, can we use Run As shortcuts (with Administrator privileges) to overcome this trouble to some extent? 117.201.99.153 (talk) 12:35, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Xpdf honours the DRM permissions in PDF files (limits on copy, print, extract-graphics). Xpdf is licenced under the GPLv2, and naturally the source code is distributed. The author is acutely aware of the irony, but feels obligated to do so. This is because Adobe claims (and may well be correct) that anyone implementing a PDF reader infringes on its patents, and further Adobe agrees to licence such readers providing they honour the DRM features of PDF files they encounter. 87.112.85.8 (talk) 20:43, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting, I was aware that Adobe had an agreed to allow people to implement PDF without paying royalties but didn't know they have such a caveat. Does Microsoft's XPS have similar problems? Nil Einne (talk) 09:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously it's a silly restriction though - if you have the source code then you can trivially circumvent the DRM. However, doing that is illegal in the US under the DMCA and in many other countries under similar laws. SteveBaker (talk) 02:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 7
Linux on older laptop: recommendations?
Could anyone recommend a user-friendly Linux installation that would run well on a laptop with 128 mb RAM ("Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600")? I'll just say the laptop is running Windows NT right now, and beyond a slow boot-up, it seems to function OK with NT. Thank you, Outriggr (talk) 00:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(2ec) I've found Puppy Linux pretty effective on older hardware. It has good hardware detection, a lot of applications squashed into a small distribution and can be run in memory straight from the CD or pen drive. The current version is 4.2, but if that doesn't work for you try the slightly older 2.17 - both can be downloaded (in the form of .ISO CD images) from the offical site or one of its mirrors. Astronaut (talk) 01:00, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'll try Xubuntu first as I'm looking for a traditional hard-drive install (where I get to purge a half-decade of corporate non-admin WinNT crappiness in the process :). Tx for all ideas, Outriggr (talk) 01:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So it's the usual death of a thousand cuts with Linux (last used, years ago). I downloaded and installed Xubuntu alternate. It's working, but not at native laptop screen resolution, and Xfce has no option to change to higher than 800x600. So I search the internet--oh, maybe I need to change "\etc\x11\xorg.conf" settings (currently a blank file, so I'm thinking that's not going to magically fix it either). But I can't save the change, presumably because my account isn't an admin. So I try to log in as root, after changing the password. But the GUI won't let me log in as root. Whatever... and it's about two thirds slower than WinNT was. Laptop=doorstop I guess. My only goal with this system is to make it a cheap "ebook reader": To transfer PDF files to it with a USB stick (which works) and b) read them from the screen, but I'm not getting the real estate. I'll try one more "lightweight" Linux distro before swearing it off forever. I thought things were supposed to have changed. <harumph> Outriggr (talk) 08:00, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well to be fair, I don't know how it was "years ago", but nowadays, no one does (or should) login as root. Pressing Alt+F2 will bring up a Run dialog, and typing gksu mousepad /etc/X11/xorg.conf (notice the capital X, it's important, and would be why the file is "empty" when you try an access it) will open up editing of that file as root. Good luck in your search! ~fl08:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you're talking about slowness to repaint windows and the like, it's probably due to the use of a slow fallback video driver and will go away once you fix that problem. -- BenRG (talk) 18:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well I've just tried Xubuntu on two machines, running as a live CD in both cases. On the pretty new laptop, it ran nice and fast, with no problems (true, I couldn't change the screen resolution, but 1280x800 was quite good enough for me). On the much older desktop machine (~10 years old, 400mhz PII, 640MB, with 17" CRT), the maximum 1280x1024 screen resolution was also good, but it was a lot slower - no big surprise there, but it was noticably slower than Puppy Linux installed in a disk partition on the same machine. Astronaut (talk) 21:07, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for my earlier whining (I'd burnt the CD(RW) three times and attempted installation four times by that point. A little frustrated.) Fl, I was able to edit the .conf file, to no effect. I found that the system would regenerate the .conf file as well if it was corrupt (due to my spelling error), which didn't help. I'm guessing the resolution problem is due to a lack of specific-enough video driver (having read "man xorg.conf"). Would I be better to give up and try a different distro, or attempt to install a video driver (without knowing how, at this point). Thanks again, if you're still reading. Outriggr (talk) 23:19, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rainbow function
(also might be one for maths and science)
Can anyone suggest a mathematical function for generating a rainbow of colours. (Not a look up table) - I've already made one but I'm not 100% satisfied with it - it has the colours in it - but doesn'r really look 'rainbowy' (ie as in My Little Pony. Along the same lines - the RGB spectra of a reallife rainbow - is anyone aware of a function used to curve fit to it (in terms of the RGB values) since that might be useful. Finally - question 3 - although I said I didn't want one - what about look up tables - are there any well known ones for a good rainbow. ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.10.194 (talk) 00:56, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The secret of all colour work is to think not in RGB space (RGB is for machines), but in HSL space. For a rainbow you want S (saturation) at full, V at 50%, and the n coloured bands you want are H values that equidistantly fill the space (which is a polar coord); so if you wanted 6 colours they'd have Hs of 0,60,120,180,240,and 300 degrees. You need to convert HSL to RGB for output, but most graphics libraries have utility functions to do that. Hopper Mine (talk) 01:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note that using the HSL space like Hopper Mine suggested will not really give you "true rainbow colors" in the sense that it includes magenta (H = 300°), which isn't a spectral color. The solution is, don't use the whole hue space, just divide the arc up to about 280° instead of 360°. — Kieff | Talk01:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks -good link - so I need from the article up to somewher between 240 and 300. I had my 1st effort which was doing a similar thing - except a little skewed... (it's a graph if the intensities - not the rainbow itself..) The HSL_and_HSV#Conversion_from_HSL_to_RGB is pretty handy too.
If you want a cartoony rainbow then just pick some colors that look good to you. Judging by pictures like this, the My Little Pony illustrators don't care much about scientific accuracy. Accurate reproduction of a real rainbow is complicated. This page has some information. -- BenRG (talk) 12:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, another useful link. What would be really useful is a mathematical approximation to those response curves - actually if anyone can supply actual points (data) for the curves I could have a go at that myself. It looks like a cubic might be able to give a fairly close fit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.10.194 (talk) 22:02, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can get the raw data here. You probably don't want the RGB color matching functions given there since they use the wrong RGB color space. Instead download the XYZ color matching functions, then multiply by the matrix given at sRGB#The forward transformation to get sRGB color matching functions. Then force those into the [0,1] range by adding white and scaling and whatever else, then convert them from linear to nonlinear with the formula given later in the section, then multiply by 255 and round to the nearest integer. Most people use the CIE 1931 2° functions, but the Judd–Vos modified functions will probably give you a slightly more accurate rainbow. -- BenRG (talk) 00:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I tried but was a bit dubious as the images on http://www.techmind.org/colour/spectra.html didn't look anything special , however after finally getting the functions to work (I think? is there supposed to be clipping?) it worked really well - especially in terms of the 'purple fring' at far blue, that I was failing to get right in my guesses. It came out most like image b in the above link but seems better. I was going to upload it but the licensing seems overly tedious since I would have to mention all those references in from the site I got the data off - interesting that there is only a very small patch that is only blue. Consider this resolved and thank you very much.
Resolved
Intelligence as absence of stupidity
It is often said that "intelligence has its limits, but stupidity knows no bounds." This suggests that intelligence is merely the absence of stupidity, just as cold and darkness are the absence of light and heat (hence there is a minimum possible temperature but no maximum possible temperature), and that as a perfect vacuum would be perfectly dark, so too would it be perfectly intelligent. Is it possible, then, that computers and other inanimate objects could be made more intelligent not by adding anything to them but by extirpating the stupidity from them? NeonMerlin06:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think your argument could go either way; one could also argue that stupidity is the absence of intelligence, but that's the standard view. Anyway, you might be interested in Panpsychism, the theory that everything in the universe has consciousness and intelligence (to some degree or another). Indeterminate (talk) 07:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, stupidity is the absence of intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to understand things, and stupidity is an absence of it. To say that intelligence is a lack of stupidity is to say that intelligence is a lack of a lack of understanding.
In order to make programs more intelligent, you generally have to add more code to do more things, and then run them on more powerful CPUs. Note that humans are more intelligent than other animals because our brains are larger and have more neurons. That allows us to ponder more complex thoughts. Likewise, more powerful CPUs allow computers to run (ponder) more complex programs (thoughts).--WinRAR anodeeven (talk) 07:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think intelligence is the added substance; stupidity is the base. There is definitely a lower-bound on stupidity, as defined as a lack of intelligence processing. Inanimate objects are about as stupid as it goes—it makes no sense to think of anything possibly being stupider than them, they has a net intelligence of zero. Once you start adding a brain, intelligence becomes a factor of increased brain size, capacity, wiring, etc. Intelligence is the light; stupidity is the dark. There's no really defensible other position on it if you are thinking in terms of what cognition really means. Stupidity is the absence of intelligence—plain and simple. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:13, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dear all, I'm not sure if there's any way out of this other than trying to use a windows machine to install the drivers, but any help would be appreciated.
I am trying to print onto a roll of epson premium canvas satin using a macbook pro OS 10.5, photoshop elements 4.0 and the epson stylus R2880. Nowhere, and I do mean nowhere, is the the option to choose "watercolor paper-radiant white"(as dictated by the documentation with the roll paper) to be found. Not in the printer driver, not in the print options from photoshop, and also the tools icon to change options is also not to be found. I am only able to change the media type to roll paper A3 from the print menu in photoshop, but this does not permit printing as the correct type of paper cannot be selected alongside in order to tell the printer it should be printing onto a roll of canvas.
The epson manual says that OS 10.5 will not show the print tools icon, and that refusing to share the printer could help, but it doesn't.
I have also checked the ink cartridges so that the matte black is installed, and none of the cartridges has been used yet, so ink volume is not a problem.
A friend of mine using windows said he has had no problems, and I fear that using a windows machine could be my oly option. The epson call centre didn't reply in 50mins today so I hung up.
Well, it is Sunday. Your call probably got routed to the 3-person backup team. But even if you called again tomorrow, they might not be that helpful - in my experience many support teams only offer decent support if you have Windows.
As for the "watercolor paper-radiant white" how important is it to have this exact setting. Maybe your Mac driver has a similar setting that will work just as well. Astronaut (talk) 13:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can understand you don't want to experiment too much, as that canvas sounds expensive. However, regardless of paper quality settings, a printer will just print on whatever you actually feed to it. You do need a roll setting so it won't try to eject after a page. Choose the print quality setting closest to the canvas surface, ie if it is porous use a plain-paper setting, if it doesn't suck moisture when you test it with water, use a gloss-paper setting. If you can spare a single sheet piece, use it to test print small areas on various settings, to see which gives fair resolution without colour bleeding. KoolerStill (talk) 20:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fuse.conf access denied (Linux security)
Resolved
I need to access the file /etc/fuse.conf (on Ubuntu), to make a project I am working on work. However, this file is not readable by non-root users, and I am planning to make it world-readable. Do you think that is a security risk? (I need it to be able to mount files with FUSE with the "allow_other" option, so I need to enable "user_allow_other" in fuse.conf) thanks_ Hacktolive (talk) 18:03, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On my Windows XP machine, I ran VirtualBox from an admin account and created a new virtual machine and virtual hard disk. (I installed Windows 7 RC1 to the virtual hard disk from Microsoft's download page, but that's not important right now.) I now want to use that virtual machine from a different user account on the XP machine, but it doesn't show up in the VirtualBox window. How can I do so? Or should I just create a different virtual machine, and set it up to use the same virtual hard disk? Tempshill (talk) 03:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You might be able to move the .virtualbox folder from your Documents and Settings folder into 'All Users' and see if that works.
(Move .virtualbox folder from C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\ to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users. The folder may be hidden, so you'll need to disable hiding system folders in Folder Options) Washii (talk) 04:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Email with pictures
I noticed when you attach pictures to an email, most email clients or web-email providers show the attached pictures at the bottom of the email. however, when i send an email with emoticons using gmail, instead of referencing the emoticons with html tags and keeping them saved on their servers, they send them as attachments. i find this quite nice, its better not to have an email that depends on images on servers which may change url's someday or get changed if you want to archive the email. what i want to know, is how can they keep those emoticons in the right places if they are just attachments? they place them in-line with text. would it be possible to give them specific co-ordinate locations and wrap text around them for bigger pictures? in other words can you send html emails and reference the img tags to attachments rather than pictures available online? why dont most email companies like yahoo and hotmail do like gmail? its better! 209.148.195.177 (talk) 04:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand the question right, It depends on both the client being used by the sender, and the client software being used by the receiver. I don't think there is an option to use graphics "in line" with g-mail, but other clients do allow that. I believe much of what you're asking revolves around the "send as html" thing. Many email clients now default to send as text, for security reasons. (phishing, malware, etc.). I've probably not answered your question directly, but perhaps there's a bit of insight as to the why and how. Best. — Ched : ? 10:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Add user to FUSE group (Linux - Ubuntu)?
Resolved
What is the best way to add an user to the FUSE group?
I think it is:
usermod -a -G fuse hacktolive
However, I want to be 100% sure this is safe, since I am going to include this code in a program I will distribute (RUNZ), And "playing" with usermod has already broken my current PC. And is the fuse group a "primary group", or "secondary group"? Thanks. _ Hacktolive (talk) 11:48, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On Ubuntu GNOME you can just do System -> Administration -> Users and Groups -> Unlock (type in your password) -> click your user -> Properties -> User Privileges -> check "Mount user-space filesystems (FUSE)". Alternately, after unlocking, you could have gone to Manage Groups -> fuse -> Properties -> check your user. --128.97.244.41 (talk) 22:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I just got a Nokia E66, and I really love it, but I was wondering one thing: currently the "desktop" (i.e. the screen that is showing when the phone is idle) is nothing but a picture of a big blue ocean. That seems like a waste, and I'd like to have some icons there to frequently accessed programs and services and the like, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to put them there. Can anyone give me some assistance? 83.250.236.75 (talk) 16:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Go to - Tools > Settings > General > Personalisation > Standby mode > Active standby (set to "On"), then go down to "Active standby apps." (which is again in "Standby mode") and you should be able to set 7 applications. --Rixxin (talk)21:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Alternative earphones with remote and microphone for iPod touch
I recently bought an iPod touch (2nd generation). I would like to replace the included earphones with ones including a microphone and a remote (for volume control, play/pause etc). Do I have any options beyond Apple's own in-ear headphones? Even better, is there a standalone remote/microphone for the iPod into which I can plug my own earphones (my Sony Ericsson W850 mobile phone comes with one of these, but only compatible with the phone)? Thanks in advance! — QuantumEleven11:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Apple has earphones which are exactly like the ones that came with your iPod, except with mic and remote. These just so happen to be the earphones which come with the new iPod Shuffle. You can find them here. Just so you know I own a pair of these earphones and they are excellent quality. They are $30 USD, but they enhance the experience greatly :D. Sorry, but those are the only one's I know of :( Marx01 (talk) 02:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
T2400
Hey guys, I think the answer to this question is a "no" but I am not certain.
Hello, is there a program out there that can keep track of changes within a computer comparing the current version to say, a set time ago? Zango has gotten into my computer again but this time right under the nose of both AVG and Windows Defender and I would like to have something to inform me of changes like this instead of having to look at the startup menu every time I turn on the computer.
Another question, I can't remove Zango using the typical method of using the Add/Remove Programs menu. I googled other solutions, but they are much too technical and I don't understand them. Could someone help me? --Jeevies (talk) 19:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of great freeware solutions are the following: to uninstall the program use Revo Uninstaller and do a deep search--this will remove all traces. Secondly, a good firewall is Comodo Firewall Pro (released free for non-commercial). This has a "Defense+" setting which will not allow any changes / install to a computer without your express permission. Thirdly, I'm not sure what version of Windows you're using, but if it's XP you can set-up a limited account to log-in to your system with that won't allow any software to be installed. You would need to expressly log-in to the administrator account in order to install anything. If you use Vista, you can enable the UAC (user account control) which will prompt before installation is permitted (a more formal solution implemented in Vista similar to the use of the limited account in XP). If you're using an older version of Windows than that, I don't remember enough to tell you what to do. Lastly, Microsoft has a One Care Live Safety Scanner that's available to scan online, if you use that it should help clean up your registry and other elements of your install as well. Hope this helps! - Geoff —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.69.196 (talk) 22:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have installed Spybot and used it both offline and online to remove the majority of the zango spyware, yet there are still two zango related files in my startup menu, OEAddOn and ZangoSa. So I installed Revo Uninstaller but both this program and Windows Explorer are unable to locate them. Now I'm really stuck. --Jeevies (talk) 04:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Part of Spybot Search and Destroy's install is something called TeaTime (I think. It might be TeaTimer. It has tea in it for sure!) that will tell you if a program is trying to change things. It bugs the hell out of me because I install and uninstall things all the time but it should do what you ask. Gunrun (talk) 10:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A long while ago, I used to have a piece of shareware called InCtrl which did exacly what the OP asked for - it took a scan of the disk contents; you installed your program (plus spyware?); you re-ran InCtrl and it re-scanned and created a log file of all the differences, including any changes in the registry, changes to critical system files, new files, etc. It was a long hunt through a lengthy text file, but it gave me some insight into how the registry works and helped me get rid of some viruses. Unfortunately, it didn't work on the newer (NT based) versions of Windows - ie. 2000/XP/Vista. Whether it would have helped you clean up Zango, I have no idea. It would be nice if I could find something similar to InCtrl. Astronaut (talk) 23:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Wikipedia does have an article on InCtrl5 and it is mentioned on several forums. I used version 4 of the program and never found a replacement... until now. Astronaut (talk) 23:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Flatbed scanner light moves back and forth several times before the full scan - normal?
I had to replace a duff power adapter on a flatbed scanner that I got via Freecycle before it would work. The new adapter was the same voltage, but the wattage was lower than the previous one. When I use the scanner the light bar usually moves back and forwards about an inch or so a few times before making the full scan. Is this normal, or is it because it does not have enough power from the new adapter and has to have several tries? Its some time since I previously used a scanner, so I do not remember what they usually do. 78.149.238.54 (talk) 19:48, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mine has done that since it was brand new. I have always assumed that it was some sort of calibration process. I've owned printers that did something similar with the print head. APL (talk) 20:46, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes they do this, but using a power supply with a lower wattage is not a good idea - you run the risk of overheating the powersupply, alternatively the power supply voltage may drop causing the scanner to malfunction. Alternatively none of the above may happen.77.86.10.194 (talk) 11:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 9
Undelete, and, searching the Reference Desk
I'm looking for the ideal free undelete software that runs under Windows Vista 64-bit. (I tried searching the refdesk; I would have assumed this is a FAQ; but unfortunately searching for "undelete" seems to come up with a billion entries which do not mention the word "undelete", because it seems to be a keyword embedded somehow in the archives.) Tempshill (talk) 04:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
lsass.exe is part of the winlogon process, and authenticates the user logging into that PC. Why are you wanting to close it? — Ched : ? 10:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)lsass.exe is supposed to run the whole time you are using the computer. You can force close it through the Task Manager, but that will cause the machine to restart, see Local Security Authority Subsystem Service. If you have more than one running, one may be Isass (capital I instead of lower case l)which would be a virus. That can be removed with a good virus scanner.-KoolerStill (talk) 10:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify - I would guess the catch here would be if there is any programming mode or method (not non-standard) that requires a set of instructions to always take x clock cycles - my guess is no since cache tends to mess up overall timings - maybe an expert will know?77.86.10.194 (talk) 16:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There will be changes noticeable to system programmers (in a very small number of cases). Code that relies on exact(ish) instruction timing is mostly limited to odd places like bitbanging i2c/spi on bios bringup and pre-os flash operations; for these people will have to rely on an external timer (or maybe the processor will boot initially into a predictable synchronous mode to make this stuff easy, and can be set to async once the bios has run). Cache isn't an issue in these cases, because cache isn't enabled yet (and neither is DRAM), and once the RAM is up the system programmer can control what's in cache (during this early boot phase when there's no great competition for resources). After that there will probably be some weird corner cases where other system level code makes assumptions about how long one piece of code takes to run vs another (perhaps spinlocks or memory barriers), but most device code already has to contend with its devices being desynchronised devices at the end of a lethargic system bus, so as long as on average things can keep up (which is an issue anyway) then they shouldn't care. At least for desktop and server programmers, even in the system, gone are the days when you'd need to stick in some NOPs until the raster is on the next line or the drum head has moved to the start of the track. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk17:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I hadn't thought of spinlocks - though in general asychronous processors have their problems when trying to access shared resources - I think this would be an example of that case, though I'll have to think about it. <text color="00000> or even wonder what sort of madman ever creates a spinlock in the first place - theres a good chance no one will ever read this</text> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.10.194 (talk) 18:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There was a lot of work on asynchronous processors till about five years ago. Now the only place I hear about them is for things like smart cards or chips in passports. They should be good for a number of things like array processors or power saving or modular computational building blocks but it looks like familiarity has won out and their advantages are just not great enough. And with that I suppose some foundry will just go and prove me wrong by announcing some heavy duty processing application :) Dmcq (talk) 23:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
By the way the most interesting case I've come across where the number of cycles taken mattered was in an algorithm where they were able to decode the password one letter at a time because the check bombed out one letter at a time. Dmcq (talk) 23:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess you mean about the passwords since I phrased it unclearly. If a password check does a string comparison between the password and what it should be, or even their encrypted forms which is more normal, then the string comparison routine will stop as soon as it detects a difference. Timing the password check will tell how far the string comparison routine went. That way one only need use 256 probes at most per character of the check and so only a few thousand to decrypt the full password. Smaller differences like cache timings can also be used to gain information about passwords but they are much more difficult to exploit. An asynchronous processor for instance might have slightly different timings dependent on how many zeroes are in an operand. Having exactly the same instructions executed in all failure cases of a password check is very desirable.
More relevant to this question though is people do sometimes check a device again a couple of times after a command if it normally responds very quickly in that context. It can be faster overall than returning to user level and then getting interrupted again. There the device self times by its delay in answering. Dmcq (talk) 07:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a list where the next places in the UK that will be on streetview will be, i cant seem to find one...
thanks, --Abc26324 (talk) 12:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They don't publish one; they don't even announce when they do add stuff (people just notice). I've seen the car twice, in two different places that aren't yet covered on the live site, so clearly they're chewing through a lot of data for more places right now. Hopper Mine (talk) 14:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have a friend who drives one of the Google Street View cars. According to him they've covered pretty much every built-up area in mainland UK. They are mostly doing update work now on places they've already covered. I think Google have a vast amount of data to go through, it's just a matter of time. -Phydaux (talk) 16:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
UK vat on computer DVD etc
When buying from online retailers in the UK many ship from Jersey. I have read that there may be a tax avoidance reason for this. Previously I assumed that the goods were often cheaper due to the companies not requiring store frontage etc.
Question what is VAT on computer DVDs etc? How do I know if I have avoided paying tax? Can anyone explain the 'goods under £18' sometimes mentioned?
As this may drift into the legal domain can someone also tell me what goverment department I should contact for specific clarification. If anyone can explain the basics of what is going on though, I would appreciate it - (it's unclear to me if I have broken the law) Thanks.77.86.10.194 (talk) 13:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
ok thanks - with your help I managed to find the information I needed. Now all I need is some replies to emails hopefully telling me they have already added the vat to my purchases...
Resolved
using reconstructor withubuntu
I have been playing around with reconstructor and I cant figure out how to modify a ubutnu cd in to a live only cd. can some one please point me to a list of packages that can be removed from ubuntu but still keeping the ones nessary for hardware usage and for the x server . . thank you and sorry for the lack of links and for my bad spelling. I am on my phone right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smileyhill (talk • contribs) 18:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean, maximum number of songs? Apparently any given playlist can have a maximum of 4,000 songs, but you can have probably an unlimited number of playlists. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Winamp doesn't "contain" the music. The library contains a list of the music files, their location, and perhaps some other info too, but not the music itself. I presume the library has an ultimate maximum size, but I don't know what that is. The number of gigabytes of music is most likely governed by how much disk space you have. Astronaut (talk) 21:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can list over 5400 songs (about 25GB) with the "Playlist Editor" in Winamp. The playlist performance decreases with this amount of data, it can take a while to scroll and refresh. This is probably affected by hardware performance too. ~~ Ropata (talk) 07:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Redirecting yahoo mail
I got yahoo mail recently as I wanted a Flickr account and a yahoo ID always includes email. I am happy with my current email service and would therefore like to know if it is possible to redirect yahoo to my msn account! Thanks. --217.227.100.89 (talk) 20:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why you'd want to do this - presumably you're not giving out your Yahoo email address to anyone because you're happy with your current service, so you're not going to be receiving any emails at your Yahoo address. If you're worried about emails from Flickr going to your Yahoo address, you can always change your Flickr contact email here — Matt Eason(Talk • Contribs)20:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As a regular on Yahoo's equivalent of RefDesk, let me give you a workaround. The above redirections work only with the $19.95 Premium Mail. But as long as you don't give the Yahoo email to anyone, you'll only get Flckr-related mail on it. Go to My Account, Edit the email section and put your msn email, then choose that to be the primary email. The Yahoo one will still serve as your ID, but communications will go to the msn. While you are there turn Marketing Preferences to nil. This will redirect in-house mail from any Yahoo property.
You have also acquired a Universal Profile Card. From the Yahoo home page, choose Profile from the drop down under your name (top edge of page). Click Settings (top right) and scroll down to Hide My Profile, select and save. This way nobody will be able to search for you by name, ID or email address. - KoolerStill (talk) 03:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Scripting language for image manipulation
Octave is fast but color images and IO are not so fun. PDL works well for color and Perl is good, but (at least PDL::ImageND::convolveND) is slow, > 1min vs Octave < 2s (???), though octave did it only for grayscale. The real question is in the title, can you tell any? It needs to have support for fft/convolution/stuff. --194.197.235.28 (talk) 22:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why does a power converter from 110V to 240V have a warning saying not for electronics that use above 25 watts even if the converter is rated from 0-2500 Watts? Is it safe to use with an electronic device (specifically iPods and digital cameras) that use over 25 watts, but less than 2500? Or can those use just an adapter as the products in question are all rated for a voltage of 100-240 despite saying recommended to be used in the US only?--71.165.84.18 (talk) 22:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A very small unit might only deliver 25 watts for something like charging a phone, but I guess you've got a higher end power converter there and that is 25 Amps instead of Watts which is enough for a power tool or microwave oven. I'd reread the spec carefully and see if it really is Watts. Dmcq (talk) 08:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC) Yes a small unit makes no sense, you only get things that small for directly powering small devices. Dmcq (talk) 08:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much. That's really quite dreadfully horrible. It probably won't even work with some things that aren't normally considered as electronic because they also do switching like a power tool for instance. And I hate to think what it would do to a microwave. Dmcq (talk) 14:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In fact I wonder what voltage they clip it to, I'd guess so the root mean square came out the same or even an iron might overheat. Dmcq (talk) 14:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd very much doubt that product is legal if the review is correct - at least it wouldn't be in the UK, I imagine there are laws in the US that prevent potentially dangerous electrical devices (it would make a 'short circuit' in a transformer if the voltage is clipped to dc half the cycle...) Maybe the reviewer got it wrong - I would have guess it to be a switched mode power supply which would be possible and sensible??77.86.10.194 (talk) 16:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For the original question, if the appliances say "100-240 V, 50-60HZ" (like almost all things with trafos such as cellphone chargers), you can just use a simple adapter and don't need a transformer. At least that's what I do... Jørgen (talk) 18:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. That is indeed what they say, so I will travel with them and adapters only. No converter. The packaging should really be more clear for converters.--71.165.84.18 (talk) 00:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 10
Protective case for Toshiba NB 200
Can anyone recommend a protective case for a Toshiba NB 200 with a 6-cell battery attached to it? Regular 10.1" cases won't do because the 6-cell sticks out and adds another inch to the back of the netbook. I thought about grabbing a 4-cell battery but I'm not willing to give up the battery life and don't want to bring an additional battery around with me, whatever the size. Not really looking for one that can stay on while the netbook is in use, would prefer something that will protect it if I toss it (gently) into a small knapsack or shoulder bag. Thanks!--Silvaran (talk) 00:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Video Conversion
I'm trying to convert a .dv file into a different, smaller file that YouTube will allow me to upload while keeping the video a decent quality-I already have a .mov, but it's excessively pixelated. I use a Mac Version 10.5.6, and I have the sub-par iMovie version 7.Tuesday42 (talk) 03:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What free webmail services offer address book quotas that can at least reach 250 to 300 hundred addresses? How about a compose screen that offers the same? Vltava6806:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My phpinfo() doesn't show any info about Mysql, eventhough mysqld is running. Also, in the apache folder there is no mysql file in 'available modules'. How do I install mysql module for apache so that i can LAMP on my PC.
Supposing that I'm ready to remove/uninstall PHP, apache and mysql, is there any package for ubuntu that installs all three together without complications.
I downloaded and successfully installed TiLP-II for Windows XP, along with the GTK+ thingy. I had GIMP previously installed, and I read somewhere that the GTK thing required for TiLP is compatible with GIMP, but the one that comes with GIMP isn't compatible with TiLP. So I uninstalled the one that came with GIMP and installed TiLP's. So I am thinking that I'll just have a wonderful time connecting my calculator to my computer and checking out all the stuff on the RAM and ROM.
BUT, that didn't happen. Every time I try to run TiLP, I get an error: "The procedure entry point g_filename_to_utf8_utf8 could not be located in the dynamic link library libglib-2.0-0.dll." I also got errors reading that I was missing "libglib-2.0-0.dll", "intl.dll", and "iconv.dll", so I downloaded them manually to the system32 folder (this isn't the issue anymore, I fixed it. I just need to find out how the procedure entry point can be found.).
I tried reinstalling TiLP and the GTK+ thing. Nothing has worked. I even tried reinstalling Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable whatever it's called. What am I doing wrong, and how can I fix this? Thanks for the help! --72.69.145.197 (talk) 15:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 11
WinXP notebook throttling
Hey all,
does anyone know a software for Win XP 32bit which reduces CPU frequency on modern Intel C2D (a T7250 here) for real instead of just applying some "soft throttle" like NHC does?
PS: Bonus points for a software also capable of throttling NV 8600 M GT - the NV CPL is not able to.
What do you mean by "soft throttle"? It should already throttle clock rate out of the box (at least SP2 does), try using CPU-Z to view the clock rate. Setting your power management settings in your control panel to "Minimum" might also help. --antilivedT | C | G01:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
help with a userbox
I'm working on a userbox for Wikipedia. Since I don't know html, I do this by editing the colors and words of existing userboxes' source codes. My (not yet published) user box currently looks like this:
I tried downloading wikipedia 3 times from two different locations, I get "corrupt media" error, while trying to extract the file.
I got the download information from this place [2]. Please let me know if there's a known resolution to this problem.ceo 06:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Possibilities include:
you're storing it on a volume formatted to FAT32 - FAT32 limits file sizes to 4GB, so trying to put any file bigger than that (and most of the dump files are much bigger) will fail. Using an ancient version of windows, like 98 or ME (which don't support NTFS) thus will always fail. Storing the file on an intermediate storage like a USB flash drive or a DVD may also fail, depending on the filesystem type.
the file has been truncated for some other reason - check that the size your computer reports reports the file is exactly the same as shown on the website. If it isn't, it's either been truncated by the filesystem or by the program (browser, probably) that you're using to download it
the file has been corrupted in transit; verify that the md5sums shown for the file downloaded match the md5 checksum you calculate on the file you downloaded
I'm trying to transfer a save file (LoZ: Twilight Princess) to my Wii, following the instructions here. I've downloaded the file as a .bin file, and I've verified that it is a North American file; then on my SD card I made a folder called "private", then in that a folder called "wii", then in that a folder called "title", then in that a folder called "RZDE", and then I put the file in that. But when I put the SD card in my Wii, the file doesn't show up; it's as if the SD card is empty (but it's not). What am I doing wrong? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 06:44, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are you trying to use the Twilight Hack? If you've upgraded your Wii to the version 4.0 software (the first version to include support to play games off the SD card) then I'm afraid the Twightlight Hack simply isn't possible anymore as 4.0 will remove the file automatically if detected before you have a chance to copy it to the Wii's internal storage. Bannerbomb is supposed to work as a replacement for the Twilight Hack (depending on your needs), but I have no experience with that I'm afraid. ZX81talk11:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not all saves work, I believe they are encrypted for the Wii they come from, some homebrews will let you transfer the saves regardless. Rgoodermote03:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Touchpad freezing
Hello all. For no discernible reason, the touchpad on my laptop has suddenly stopped working; both for clicking and moving the cursor around. Is there any reason why this would happen? How can I fix it? I have restarted the computer a few times but no change.
Have you checked the settings to make sure it hasn't been 'turned off'? Should be in the control-panel. Similarly some have an option to "ignore trackpad whilst typing" - if you have a key that is inadvertently lodged-down it may be that it is that causing the issue. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Go to "My Computer" and open up "Device Manager". There might be a hardware fault or address error. That would be harder to fix. Possibly a recently installed program is causing a problem. ~~ Ropata (talk) 08:06, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The device manager doesn't show a touchpad under 'mouse and other pointing devices'; it only shows my USB mouse. Is it supposed to show? I otherwise cannot find an error.114.77.68.9 (talk) 09:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it SHOULD be in that section. You could try and install a generic touchpad, if Windows has one (Use the New Hardware wizard). Or get the manufacturer's driver software from their website. ~~ Ropata (talk) 09:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed that favicons (the little icons in the address bar and on tabs) do not work in IE8's InPrivate mode (but the icon in favourites still works). Does anybody know if this problem can be fixed, and does Microsoft know about the problem? Thanks. 144.138.21.133 (talk) 09:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Folders of JPEG to PDF
I have folders of JPEGs with names like IMG_8333.JPG, IMG_8334.JPG. I have many folders each with JPGs like such in them.
What I'd like is to be able to run a quick script (OS X) that takes the JPGs and makes them into multi-page PDFs. So each folder would result in one PDF with all the JPGs from the folder in it, in the order as they would be sorted by their filename. The PDF would the name of the folder plus a .PDF extension.
Is there an easy way to do this? I've been doing this with Acrobat, Create PDF from Multiple Files, but doing that 80 times is going to drive me crazy. Any thoughts? I am using OS X 10.4.11 on an Intel processor. I don't see any way to do this with Automator. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This last one doesn't seem to work for me because the folder names have spaces and periods in them (e.g. "Joe Schmoe to John Doe (12.1.90)"). Is there a way to modify it so that it will work with that? Thanks so much, this seems like it will save me a lot of time. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
...OK, I got it to work. I had to change the IFS variable and now it works. hurray. thanks. It almost seems to work but it's not actually processing the full wildcard? It's just making a PDF with the first image in it. help? --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I ended up doing this and just pasting the output back in again. Annoying that I couldn't get it to work any other way but this method worked... for v in `find . -type d `; do echo cd \'$v\'\; convert *.JPG \'$v.pdf\'\; cd ..\;; done --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:30, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Adobe Photoshop Elements 7
Hi All,
Does anyone know if a mac version of Photoshop Elements 7 is planned or will be available soon? When trying to download from the adobe website, Photoshop Elements is available for PC only, unlike its bigger brother CS4. I assume that if you can't get it from the adobe website it isn't available at all.
Why is the inclusion of IE with Windows considered antitrust by the EU, but the inclusion of Firefox with most Linux distributions isn't? Why doesn't the EU sue, for example, Canonical for including Firefox with Ubuntu?
Is it because Windows is more widespread? Is it because Linux is free? But that wouldn't make sense. You can't add free software to commercial software but you can add free software to free software?
Another question, why is only the EU concerned with antitrust but no one else in the world is? 95.84.64.174 (talk) 17:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Linux does not have a near monopoly in the desktop operating system market. Antitrust is about abusing a monopoly in one area (in this case, the operating system market) to gain advantage in other areas (in this case, the browser market). I don't know why the EU is the only jurisdiction that seems to be taking any action in these matters, but US law is generally more friendly to big corporations than European law. I don't exactly know why - cultural reasons, I guess, whatever that means. --Tango (talk) 18:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be mistaken that the EU has taken the lead on this issue. The US has been on Microsoft's case regarding bundling IE for antitrust reasons since the 1990s. See United States v. Microsoft. They have additionally be involved in antitrust suits in South Korea. See Microsoft litigation.
But anyway, yes, as Tango says, it's about market share, not about the practice of bundling a browser per se. It's of note as well that it is EXTREMELY easy to uninstall and remove Firefox and other browsers, and for ages it was nearly impossible to uninstall IE (I believe this has changed to some degree because of the US suits, but I haven't tried it myself). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's simple (now) to uninstall IE, however I think one of the issues was that if you did do that various other things broke. Can't confirm this , and not trying either..77.86.10.194 (talk) 19:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
IE exposes parts of itself like the HTML rendering engine and URL fetching as libraries that other programs can use. Deleting it will break any software that uses it, just like, say, deleting Direct3D or the Crypto API. -- BenRG (talk) 20:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And similarly, also for antitrust issues, when MS says it distributes a version of Windows without Windows Media Player I don't think that means they also rip out the underlying Windows Media/Media Foundation stuff on which it (and a bunch of 3rd party media players) rely. I can find very little real info about the neutered XP-N/Vista-N versions to know if they've really torn this out; I really doubt it. 87.113.129.162 (talk) 22:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of the trouble here is that these court cases have been dragging on for too many years - when they started, there was no FireFox - there was Netscape's Mozilla. Microsoft were doing all sorts of extremely nasty things to try to kill Netscape at all cost - and they undoubtedly abused their monopoly in so doing. They'd previously done utterly egregious things in order to push WordPerfect out of it's number one slot in favor of WORD (the put code into the operating system to prevent WordPerfect from running - later claiming it was an innocent bug - they made scrolling of large quantities of text excruciatingly slow and put undocumented 'back door' tricks into the OS so that Word would scroll text more smoothly and efficiently than WordPerfect could via the documented interface. There have been hundreds of cases of this kind of thing. The company who invented (and patented) the idea of doing runtime compression and decompression of disk partitions was making good money selling their Windows application - Microsoft came along and infringed the patent and when the little guys tried to sue, Microsoft simply bought their company and shut it down in order to avoid what would have been a sure-fire loss for them in court.
Microsoft were very lucky indeed that the Democrats didn't make it back into power after they lost their monopoly case against Netscape and the Republicans quietly dropped the whole thing during the sentencing phase of the trial. Had that not been the case, the company would have been split into two or three parts for sure. What you're seeing now is the final end of a legal process that's taken over 8 years to unfold. In the meantime, Netscape dropped Mozilla and Mozilla became FireFox - and somehow the process resulted in FireFox becoming much more powerful. If those court cases were started now, Microsoft wouldn't have a case to answer. However, Microsoft's abuse of it's monopoly continues in other ways.
The solution is what we should have done 8 or 9 years ago - which is to split Microsoft into a purely operating system company and an entirely separate applications-oriented company. The applications company - rid of the corporate pressures to run only under Windows would almost certainly provide better ports for the Mac and new ports for Linux. Similarly, the near-monopoly of the operating system domain by Windows would be tempered by their new-found inability to lock people into the operating system by tying them down to specific file formats such as WORD and Windows-Metafile. Both applications and operating system would have to compete on a level playing field. An application-neutral Windows wouldn't have a monopoly on Microsoft applications - and they would have to start producing solidly reliable, efficient operating systems that people actually want - rather than the junk they produce right now. The applications house - now having no ability to crush their competitors by changing the operating system to prevent their programs from running well - would also have to start competing for real.
If you think for a moment that Microsoft have mended their ways - consider the DirectX-10 situation. Windows XP has DirectX-9 and even if you buy a DirectX-10 capable graphics card - it'll be forced to run in DirectX-9 compatibility mode. Why? Because Microsoft refuse to release DirectX-10 for Windows XP. Why on earth would any sane company prevent the latest and greatest graphics techniques from being used on their most popular operating system? Because they are trying to FORCE people to upgrade to Vista/Windows-7 against their will. They may make claims that DX10 can't run under XP - but that's an outright lie. Many people have seen Microsoft's internal port of DX-10 running under XP - and there is a 3rd party port of DX-10 to WinXP - so it's certainly possible. The decision not to release it is simply an abuse of their monopoly. It cripples people like me - who are trying to write video games for the masses (which means Windows XP) because a huge chunk of the capabilities of modern graphics cards is simply unavailable to me through DX9. It's just pathetic.
This makes the whole legal situation a little ethically difficult. Their original crime had been and gone - and the world has managed to recover. Sure, they put Netscape out of the browser market and came close to shutting down their entire company - but fortunately the OpenSource/Linux crowd pulled the world away from the awful specter of Microsoft "owning the Internet" by taking over Mozilla and calling it "FireFox". Fining MS for doing that today is pretty pointless. However, they have not learned their lesson - and they STILL need serious punishment for their exceedingly nasty behavior.
Linux has Firefox as it's most popular browser - but it's NOTHING like a monopoly. You can not bother to install any part of Firefox - and everything else runs just fine. About half of Linux installations use the KDE desktop - and on those systems, the Konqueror browser is installed by default. My SuSE 11 machine has probably half a dozen browsers that came with the 'full' install. That's about as far from a monopoly as I can imagine.
Being a monopoly isn't illegal. Abusing your status as a monopoly by cross-linking one product to another, locking people in, deliberately making changes to your system to unfairly prevent further competition, dumping product at below cost in order to push out your competition....that's illegal.
Depends on what you mean by "copyable". You could, for example, download PDFCreator, print to a picture format like PNG, and email the PNG file. But I would add that this could be considered unfriendly/rude and there is always a way people can get the data - OCR or just punching it back into the computer. You could also look into the "protection" features of the PDF format, but I do not know if there are any free programs that support generating documents with that feature. If you mean "not copyable" as in "the receiver should not be able to pass it on", I would say that is near impossible. Jørgen (talk) 20:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some companies sell plugins for Office that support enterprise wide rights management for MS Office documents, allowing pretty fine-grained control over who can do what. Unless you're in a large organisation that has such a setup (it's intended for outfits like insurance companies and hospitals) then there's not much degree of control you can practically exercise. The mere act of emailing someone a file is giving them a copy, and there's nothing to stop them duplicating it similarly. 87.113.129.162 (talk) 21:44, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can use something like Adobe Digital Editions. Basically you create a PDF or EPUB file that is registered on an internet server. Each person who downloads the file is registered and the rights are managed on the server. If set to no copy, the file won't open on a different PC. You can also set to no print, or a number of pages in a period. It will cost you to manage all of this, and there are other ways to do this, but they are similar. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk13:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Querying an Access database for upcoming deadlines
I'd like to set up an MS Access query that will return deadlines within a week from the current date. I've created my database and filled it with events, each of which has a deadline for further action. The deadline is a separate field in each record, of course. I know how to query the database for a fixed date range, by putting the following in the "criteria" field" of the query:
Between #1/1/09# And #15/1/09#
but I don't know the syntax to use for "today" and "seven days in the future". Can anyone help please? 86.166.68.203 (talk) 23:30, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The function Now() returns a date representing now. You can use the function DateAdd to add some number of days to Now(). For example, the criterion could be that the deadline is
<= DateAdd("d",7,now())
This will return rows where deadline is not null and contains a date that is less than or equal to 7 "d"ays added to now. Outriggr (talk) 00:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am considering converting my desktop computer into a dedicated server, and my laptop into a portable desktop. If I do this, can I turn my desktop's GeForce 7600 card into something external that I can plug into my laptop, ideally in addition to its existing video accelerator? Will USB latency be an issue? NeonMerlin01:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No. USB provide a meager 480mbps (60MB/s) bandwidth while a PCI-E x16 link used by graphics card provide 4GB/s bandwidth. USB video adapters exsit but they do not provide hardware acceleration, mainly due to the bandwidth limit of USB. --antilivedT | C | G01:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There really aren't any external ports on a laptop that can provide the speed you need to keep a graphics card fed at anything like the speed you need...but even if you were to suffer USB performance (it would be AMAZINGLY slow) - I very much doubt you could find a way to get the card interfaced to USB - or the graphics drivers to recognise the board as a USB device. When you buy a laptop - what you have on the day you buy it will pretty much be what you have on the day you throw it out. You can often replace the hard drive with something bigger - and perhaps increase the amount of RAM - but that's pretty much it. SteveBaker (talk) 02:49, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Count lines in file (bash - Linux)?
What is the easiest/cleanest way to count lines in bash?
I have:
grep -c "" ~/info.txt
But I just got this working by chance and I'm not sure is there is a "better" or "canonical" way of doing this. I know there is wc -l ~/info.txt however, that also prints the filename, and I only want the number of lines. Thanks _ Hacktolive (talk) 03:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm having some trouble working out computer benchmarks. The way I figured, an off the shelf computer bought today (with an Intel Core i7) is roughly equivalent to the Cray-2 supercomputer of 1985. A five year old computer (2004) with a Pentium 4 would have the same computing power as 1982's Cray X-MP. I realize it's difficult to compare, what with FLOPS, Instructions per second, etc., but am I roughly correct? Also, is there a trend (say, a supercomputer to desktop in 25 years) that can be measured? The question came to me as I was trying to figure out in what year the computing power of the IBM Roadrunner will be available as a laptop. Of course, you never know what will happen in the future, the singularity, quantum computing, etc, but a rough estimate would be nice. Taggart.BBS (talk) 09:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
According to this BBC article Windows 7 will come without IE, supposedly to make it easier for people to choose another browser. How will this happen? If Windows doesn't come with a browser, how will the average non-techie download a browser without having a browser to download it with? Will there be a special program which lets people browse for software downloads or something? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 12:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I assume that manufacturers will load new machines with a browser - either one the user can choose or a random browser. I know several manufacturers have been offering this option for some time. The entire lawsuit against Microsoft was due to IE being integrated into Windows, which made removal hard to impossible. By making it stand-alone (User removable) it would cover the issues raised by the lawsuit. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)12:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My Alienware has died again, after 2 years of constant problems which have led me to conclude that there are inherent problems in the system due to poor manufacturing processes, and I have asked for a refund. I want to get a new one with:
Good reliability.
Stable.
Good or better cooling systems.
A reputation for solid components - I don't want to be replacing RAM chips, daughter cards, heating elements and motherboards within two months like I did with this current rubbish system.
Faily good specs
Capable of handling my workload at university and novel writing
Good capacity for significant internet use
Can handle its own when it comes to PC games - not a mammoth machine required byt something that could handle two or three fairly intensive games like Red Alert 3, Empire Total War and my beloved.
I do not want another Alienware, or a Dell (as I hear that Dell make poor laptops, and they now own Alienware - hence my problem!) are there any good suggestions? SGGHping!12:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Dell products are quite good these days. Dell used to be low quality in the past but that improved a lot in recent years. In the three years i had my Inspiron i only had to open it for cleaning once - and that was because i was stupid enough to spill a glass of coke onit. Regardless it would be difficult to advice a specific vendor, as it would always be user opinions. We have a list of manufacturers that create laptops that could be used as a guideline.
Personally i would advice looking around for various offers. Sometimes it is possible to find an excellent deal on a laptop that would normaly be much more expensive. If you aren't in a rush it is worth looking around a bit before buying anything. As for the laptop itsself, watch the specs. Especially make sure that the laptop has sufficient memory to handle its operating system. On Windows XP laptops i would advice a minimum of 1 GB for any form of perdormance, and for vista based laptops i suggest 2GB.
As you state you want to play games on it as well choose a laptop that actually has a dedicated video card and no on-board graphics. Video cards from NVidea and Ati outperform on board graphics by several miles. Other then that there should ve fairly little pitfalls. Wireless and networking is standard, and most vendors seem to add enough CPU consistently to make a laptop tick along just fine. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)12:49, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was opinions I was after :) yes I was planning for 2gig and dedicated cards. I had heard such bad things about Dell, are they ill-founded now then? SGGHping!12:51, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am of course completely biased in my opinion as i actually like the Dell brand. So far i had two PC's and a laptop build by them and i had no major issues whatsoever. The only time i actually had to open my old PC was due to an issue with the cooling. The PC was 2.5 years old then and had been standing on the same dusty place for all the time - without ever really taken time to clean it. I am still looking for a reason to open my new PC which is 3/4th of a year old now, simply to see what it looks like inside; Yet it does not give me any and i do not want to void the warranty for mere curiosity. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)
I've had bad experiences with a HP (Pavillion, I think) - overheating leading to broken components and other things. No problems at all with my Dell Latitude D620. In my experience, "professional" laptops, like the Thinkpad, are more robust and less prone to failure than the bloated "consumer" models, but if you want to do gaming these might not be an option perhaps. Jørgen (talk) 13:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I spotted a 2 gig Dell with a non-integrated graphics card for about £759. How is the cooling system on yours, Excirial? Also, Jorgen, I am not looking so much for a "gaming" laptop, merely one that one be comfortable running a couple of games every now and then. I want it for good internet connection and University work primarily, but with a 2 gig'er and a good graphics card so it can play games if I want to. SGGHping!13:47, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Images organized in folders to PDF (a freeware)?
Googling for a freeware that converts lot of images to a pdf resulted
in a software that lets you a drop a lot of images into it and it generates a pdf document.
This is a nice way to do it, except that there are no table of contents for the document. The images
are arranged in alphabetical order. As a result, the document looses the intended structure and it
cannot be navigated with a table of contents. Anyway to get around this?. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.24 (talk) 14:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What's the name of the software and the URL where you found it? What does the manual say, and how did the "Support" or "Contact Us" e-mail address respond when you asked them this question? Tempshill (talk) 14:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You should first tell us what software you are using. In any case, the odds are it can't do what you want it to do. What you want it something that allows you to arrange the images within the PDF arbitrarily—there are programs that will let you do this (like Adobe Acrobat, which is expensive), or you can just arrange the filenames ahead of time in an order so that the will sort "alphabetically" in the order you want them to (e.g. adding 0001, 0002, 0003 before the filenames to denote page number). But there is unlikely to be anything that automatically creates a table of contents for you—metadata like that has to be entered in by hand. Acrobat lets you put in "bookmarks" which is something like what you want. I don't know what free equivalents might exist that replicate that, though. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Excel API
Dear Wikipedians:
I'm thinking of making an Excel data input wizard for a Win32 application I'm developing. But I am loath to wade through 230+ pages of Excel file format material supplied by openoffice.org.
Since the excel files I work with are just tables of straight numbers, with no formulas, no macros or anything else. I'm wondering if there is an API that Excel supplies that would allow me to easily extract these numbers. I am developing my software using Dev-C++.
Resolved