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July 4

Neurotypical computer scientists/programmers

What famous computer scientists or programmers, if any, have been conclusively determined not to have ADHD, autism-spectrum disorders or Pervasive Developmental Disorder? NeonMerlin 00:07, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Normal people don't need tests to determine normality - your question is kind of weird in that respect - however as far as I know Niklaus Wirth, Edsger W. Dijkstra, Dennis Ritchie, Bjarne Stroustrup have never been suggested to be neuro-socialially challenged.83.100.250.79 (talk) 00:41, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Which means to say, they've never eaten pieces of skin off their foot during a class lecture. --156.34.71.129 (talk) 01:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Dijkstra was a little 'out there'...he definitely seemed like an Aspie of some variety. I met him a couple of times (we both worked for Philips Research) - and I was on his 'mailing list' for a while (by which, I mean, he mailed me stuff that he wrote...about twice a week!) Only very rarely did he type his technical documents - he liked to invent his own symbols - so pretty much everything was hand-written, photocopied and posted out to whoever happened to be on his list. He had the most perfect handwriting you ever saw - then one day, you'd get a letter in different - but equally beautiful handwriting that starts "My left hand could use some practice". A fascinating guy.) SteveBaker (talk) 03:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Being famous implies that the person will be assumed to have a disorder. When a normal person does something such as state a preference for banana and peanut butter sandwiches, it is just considered a taste preference. When a famous person does the same thing, it is considered a weird eccentric result of some deeper psychological disorder. Therefore, all famous people are believed to have a disorder of some kind. -- kainaw™ 14:34, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Kainaw....you have to be kidding. Some famous people have their eccentricities blown out of proportion, but by no means are "all famous people...believed to have a disorder of some kind." You're just plain wrong. And more to the point, a "famous" computer scientist or programmer probably isn't famous enough to have the kind of media-visibility required for the type of (non-existent) phenomenon you described to occur. Your distinction between "famous people" and "normal people" is a bit strange in itself. Famous people ARE normal people (for the most part), they're just really well known. --Shaggorama (talk) 17:16, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I think there's a distinction between 'famous in the field' and 'famous in the public eye' to be made here.

We're here My boyfriend has Asperger's Syndrome, and now I think I might have it as well. How do I talk with him about this? are we not? 83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:04, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Unable to Login Into Wireless Router Configuration Page (Using Firefox)

Hello everyone! I hoping you could help me with a problem I'm having. This computer (connected via Ethernet) cannot login to configure the network but any of the computers in my house connected wirelessly can login. (Yes, I am using the right user name and password) Could anyone offer an explanation for this and some solution(s)? Thanks. [I just discovered this today but I haven't attempted to login for several days so the problem may have appeared anytime within the last week]--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 03:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

For some reason I can't login using Firefox [3.5] but I can login through other browsers like Google Chrome or Internet Explorer. Strange... Does anybody have any possible explanations for this? And hopefully some solution(s)?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 03:15, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. You didn't say the brand of the router or what it says when you can't log in.--WinRAR anodeeven (talk) 03:43, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Apologies; it's a Westell router and the message it states is "Login failed, please try again: " Though I just tried it and another error message appeared mentioned cookies being disabled. (I have third-party cookies blocked but cookies from sites are still allowed; I tried to login again but with third-party cookies enabled and the login still failed)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 05:13, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm - if you know when you were last able to login you could use system restore to roll back your pc to that point. Maybe you installed/changed something that borked your connection - this might be faster than trying to dig out the exact problem? Exxolon (talk) 12:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 17:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

geforce gt220

I recently bought a new PC with a GeForce GT220 graphics card. Do it have a 40nm chip?
This is the PC: [1]. As far as I had known, the GT220 was not supposed to come out until after this summer ends, so you can imagine my suprise when I saw a retail computer with it! --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 05:51, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably (yes) see http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=6229 , sounds like you got number 1 .83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:07, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

YTMND audio loop problem

OK, so I was browsing some YTMND sites, but one thing that bugs me is the broken looping sound. Sites that are supposed to loop properly, i.e. LOL, Internet and many others, pause at the end and cut a bit of the beginning part. I'm using Firefox 3.5 and Quicktime 7.6.2; there had been at leat one thread in the forums describing the problem, but I couldn't seem to track it down and resolve it. Even other browsers don't loop wave and MP3 files properly. Any thoughts on this? Blake Gripling (talk) 06:13, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

VPN w/o tweaking router

Can I set up a VPN on a home compuer without making any edits to the router? I share itnernet use with a few others in the hosue and I don't own the router, so if I could set up a VPN on my terminal with just a software package or something like that without making any edits to the router, that would be ideal. Right now I'm looking at Gbridge. --Shaggorama (talk) 17:03, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

All traffic into your local network goes through the firewall. So, assume you set up VPN on your computer on port 5252. If I try to use it, I will hit your router on port 5252. It won't know what I want and I won't get anywhere. You have to configure the router to forward all traffic on port 5252 to your computer. Then, when I hit your router on port 5252, it will forward me to your computer and all will be great. This goes for ANY service you want to run on your computer, not just VPN. If you want someone outside of your local network to access your computer, you must have the router forward the traffic to your computer. -- kainaw™ 00:47, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually there are a bunch of ways of doing this (see NAT traversal#See also for a list) and probably most VPN software supports some of those ways. The Gbridge web site seems pretty dumbed down and I couldn't find anything about NAT traversal, but chances are good that it will just work. -- BenRG (talk) 09:52, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow, Gbridge includes a couple of things I wouldn't have thought to bundle (VNC, mainly). What about Hamachi? It shows up as Just Another Network Adapter, so you can Remote Desktop and file share over encrypted links. Unfortunately, Hamachi is owned by LogMeIn now, but the free version is still as functional as before it was bought.

All sessions are Point-to-Point, and don't require forwarding (sessions are initiated by the central server, then become Point-to-Point), so no encrypted streams pass through their servers, but both ends do need Hamachi running (it easily installs as a service and is fairly non-obtrusive). Washii (talk) 18:08, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Steve Ballmer - lifestyles of the rich and famous

Without wanting to get in to the realms of invasion of privacy - I was wondering if Steve Ballmer has used any of his wealth on the usual stuff millionaires do - like a 4gigagallon swimming pool in the shape of the windows logo or something? The biography says nothing - not even a football team.83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:30, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

That would indeed be a freaky pool --Ouro (blah blah) 09:29, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

... and probably be leaking and generally unsafe to use ... 95.112.189.234 (talk) 14:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Baller really loves Microsoft so he probably just puts all his money back into Microsoft :-P Oligomous (talk) 19:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Edits

I got nothing for the title, but this is my question, is there a page that can tell me how many edits were made to Wikipedia on a certain day and then on that day what was the most edited article? Ever since MJ crashed Wikipedia I've been wondering what other days had a similar problem. Rgoodermote  21:25, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Check out all the links at Wikipedia:Statistics. Tempshill (talk) 15:26, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Unicode - Related Characters

Let x be a Unicode character (or, a codepoint). Is there any simple way of obtaining a list of all characters similar to (or related to) x? Of course, often similar and/or related characters have codepoints close to each other, but this is only the case in a very restricted way. For instance, among the mathematical operators, you have "∫", "∬", "∭", ..., but the characters "⌠", "⌡" are found in Miscellaneous technical. An even more striking example is "-" (Minus-hyphen) in Basic latin, where you can also find "‐", "‑", "‒", "—", and "―", but we have "−" (Minus sign) in Mathematical Operators, "─", "━", "┄", "┅", "┈", "┉" in (Swedish:) Ramelement, and "－" in Fullwidth forms, and "﹘" in Small forms. It would be great with a website, where you can enter a character (or a codepoint), and a list of related characters is returned. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:41, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Like this ? http://www.unicode.org/unibook/ it's a program not a webiste - but it definately seems to return all the different dashes, if you supply it with "-" , and has delete issues if you try to get rid of it.. :(

This works better and much easier:

or this http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/index.htm - select search, enter "-" and get the similar characters?83.100.250.79 (talk) 01:16, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's the result for "∫" : [2] Seems to work..83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

A bit restricted for hyphen-minus [3], though. But thanks for both suggestions! --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:29, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

July 5

How do i play the games stored on the hard drive of my chipped Xbox?

i have a chipped Xbox with several games on the hard drive, however, when i select them, the only options i get are; 'delete', and 'copy'. how do i play these games? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.43.197 (talk) 05:35, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

You're probably not going to get any information on how to play illegally copied games here, sorry. Exxolon (talk)

For what it's worth there is nothing inherently illegal about keeping games on the hard drive of an Xbox, (so long as you are in legal possession of the original media and hence a licensed user.) The illegal part is actually using the modified firmware that is required to coerce the Xbox into loading the alternative operating system and launching the games. The original code is of course copyrighted, and the modified code itself is not only an unlicensed derivative work but a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So no, it's not quite as black and white as "you are stealing games", it's more like "Microsoft would really rather you not do that so here are a bunch more laws to choke on". --Jmeden2000 (talk) 17:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Play speed

What media player would enable me to play music and video files at a faster speed than normal, but also let me adjust the speed? All the increase speed functions I've seen so far go too fast and distort the sound too much, and don't have precise settings, it's either "fast" or "slow" etc. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 08:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

In Windows Media Player 11 (maybe 9 onwards) - select enhancements, play speed, it's fiddly to adjust though.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

See [4]

Anything other than WMP? -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 21:38, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

vlc. --194.197.235.36 (talk) 22:41, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you can speed up sound in VLC... Theleftorium 23:11, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

BSplayer has a playback rate feature, but I don't quite know what you mean by "distort too much" - if you change the rate of playback, the sound has to be distorted. Sandman30s (talk) 11:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check that out. I mean that when the sound is speeded up it'll start to sound like chipmunks and I was hoping there would be a player that could compensate and reduce the pitch or something to make it sound more normal -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 11:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

chipmunks...lol. I was going to talk about laughing gas. Yeah, BSplayer's playback rate feature makes the original sound like a chipmunk or Darth Vader... I was going to suggest DJ software but then these don't typically handle video. Sandman30s (talk) 12:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably means changing the tempo without changing pitch. I don't know about BSplayer but I'd guess changing the playback rate means the same thing. A machine that can do that is a great addition when playing dance music to cater for the skill of the dancers or the moves they're making, just a small adjustment up or down can make a big difference in the enjoyment. What happens is the fourier spectrum of the music is taken then converted back with a scale difference in frequency. and It involves distortion of course but mainly of phase which the ear can't detect. Dmcq (talk) 11:41, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

FOund an article about it: Audio timescale-pitch modification Dmcq (talk) 11:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Just found out the latest release of VLC has the feature now! Fuck yeah! --

Does it really? It looked to me like they just had a way of speeding or slowing everything by some factor other than 2 but the pitch would still go up or down, i.e. you'd still get chipmunks if you sped it up. That would be for compensating for playback problems or where the user had overclocked everything on their pc without the software knowing. Dmcq (talk) 10:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Jsp custom tags

I need to have a custom tag that has access to its inner elements. Actually I want a tag to be used instead of the HTML select. I would like to keep the structure of the inner option-tags unchanged but be able to read them, look at their attributes and modify the final output according to the specials of my application. I have lots of ideas for workarounds but I would like to do it the obvious way: in the doStartTag-method read the inner elements in a DOM-like way and then do what is necessary.

I have searched the net for two days now. Is there really no way to access the body elements of my tag? (I haven't tried evaluating the bodyContent into a string, write a parser and retrieve the object this way, I still hope there is a more straight approach.) 95.112.189.234 (talk) 12:19, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

running a c-programm

i have used turbo c for running my routine c-programms,now i have studied microcontrollers as well.in microcontrollers we burn the programm first and then controller runs the code picking instructions 1 by 1 from its rom.but what happens when i run a c-programm on turbo c.is it first saved (burnt)then its processed?i mean running of c-programm on pc involves how many stages! 119.152.53.191 (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the answer that you're looking for is that the Turbo C compiler compiles the C source code into object code, and saves it to a file on the hard disk, called perhaps a.exe. Then when you use Windows or DOS to run a.exe, the a.exe file is loaded into RAM and then the processor picks instructions 1 by 1 from RAM and executes them. Does that answer the question? Tempshill (talk) 18:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

A crucial distinction is that most microcontrollers are hard-wired to begin running the executable stored at a particular location in memory. As soon as the system turns on, the microcontroller automatically jumps (sets the program counter) to that memory location and begins executioin. While PC microprocessors typically have similar hardwired logic for boot-up, you rarely design your programs like this. Instead, your system is already alive and running, with an operating system. The operating system handles the low-level tasks like loading the executable and jumping to its location; Windows and Linux and most other modern systems also use multitasking (which is a big difference from a simple microcontroller code, though you can multitask on any CPU or microcontroller). You interface with the operating system, and when you are ready to run a program, you request the operating system to load the executable and jump execution to it. (You might perform this request by typing the command into a shell or terminal; or by clicking on an icon; but ultimately, you are asking the operating system to do the program-load for you). Depending on your operating system, the method of that program load can vary. On Windows, the program is loaded into virtual memory, and then the operating system assigns a hardware thread to it (or emulates a hardware thread with software). This allows the program to run "simultaneously" while the operating system is still alive and in control of the CPU. If your program finishes successfully, (or if it crashes or does something that is not permitted), the operating system should resume control. Because Windows has an interruptable time-sharing kernel, you can multi-task - meaning that your executable program can run side-by-side with other programs that also need the CPU. The exact method for this type of scheduling is very complicated, but it boils down to this: at all times, one program is running (the operating system's thread scheduler or "Process Manager" on Windows). This program is a great big while(true) loop. It runs as long as the computer has power; and it checks if there is any work for the CPU to do. Your program, as well as any other programs or system tasks, get allocated a time slot, and are allowed to run for a little bit, and then are stopped. Their intermediate state is saved somewhere (usually in main memory in the kernel's thread table). The next program that has work to do is re-loaded, including any half-finished work from the last time it was allowed to run. This continues until all programs finish, and/or the computer is powered down. Nimur (talk) 19:43, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

WiFi, iPod and Email

I will be creating a temporary email for travelling use to send emails on public Wifis because i don't want hackers potentially sniffing and stealing my password to my real email. I will be using an iPod Touch and its default Mail application to check my email. With the application, my email and password is stored and each time I start the application, it logs into my email and retrieves all my mail. My question is, if the iPod does this, will this be the same as entering my email and password onto gmail or Hotmail in terms of being sniffed by a hacker? Hence, does this mean i should "remove" my real e-mail addresses from the Mail application on my iPod and leave only my temporary email account turned on? Acceptable (talk) 19:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

If you use gmail access over IMAP (I forget about POP3, but it's probably the same) the whole thing goes on secure sockets. I've used gmail+imap+iPodTouch quite a bit, and it's a nice combination, and pretty safe. I'd consider not entering your password in the config screen, which makes it ask for the password when you connect - that way, if your iPodTouch is lost in darkest Peru, someone can't (easily) know your password or read your email. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

July 6

ActiveX on Wikipedia

The company that I work for disabled Flash and ActiveX for all our web browsers about 6 months ago. Until recently, Wikipedia had no issues with this. Well, one small issue is that I never see the WP logo in the top left of the page. Anyway, something has possibly changed at WP because as of tonight, every time that I go to a new page, I get a warning saying that ActiveX controls are not permitted with my browser's security settings and that the page may not display properly. I can't change policy here at work but is there some work around for this on WP? Can I change one of my preferences here so that I don't get this message twice with every page here? (yes, I get the message twice with every page.) Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 00:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

This came up at WP:VPT#Why is there ActiveX on WP?. Algebraist 00:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, that helped a little. I took the suggestion of disabling the auto suggestions in the search box and now I only have to clear that error message once per page instead of twice... Thanks for the link, Dismas|^(talk) 02:47, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Question on size of English Wikipedia

If one added up all text, images and other media in all the 2.7 million mainspace articles on en.wp, what would the total size be? Where can I find this out? Muchos appreciated RD. 99.231.25.27 (talk) 03:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia. Algebraist 03:10, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Looked there already. It doesn't have it. 99.231.25.27 (talk) 03:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The latest dump of the plain wikicode of all articles runs to five gigabytes (compressed). That doesn't include media files, some non-article pages, or history (the history dump was 2.8 terabytes last time it worked, back in '08). It's hard to find figures on the total size of media used on en.wikipedia, partly because many of them are hosted on commons. 03:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

To complicate things... Many of the media files are on commons, not wikipedia. So, does this question want to include only the media actually on wikipedia or all media pulled in from commons? -- kainaw™ 12:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Missing file: NTDETECT

I recently deleted a file from my computer called "NTDETECT", found right in the C: drive. The computer runs Windows XP SP3. I had Googled the filename "ntdetect.exe", and the sites that came up suggested it was malicious, so I deleted it. Bah! Foolish of me! Apparently this is a necessary component for bootup. Next time I restarted, the computer was stuck in a bootup loop. It cycles through two screens:

• One with the manufacturer logo which says

BOOT Menu: <F10>

BIOS Settings: <F2>

• The other with the info on IDE, Bus Nos., Slave/Master designations, etc. which says at the bottom

Press F11 to start recovery (which is followed by a counter)

How can I replace this crucial file? I don't have a boot disc. There is a partition on the hard drive for System Restore—but doesn't this format the drive before re-installing the OS and system files? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:05, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Can you create a BartPE disk? Simply copy ntdetect.exe from another computer and use your BartPE CD to copy it over to C:\. --wj32 ^t/c 06:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Or even better, a Knoppix or Ubuntu LiveCD. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I used a BartPE disk to try booting up. I checked on the computer I'm using now that the file ntdetect.com (it's a COM file) is on the boot disk. It got me out of the loop, but didn't boot up. It took me to a screen that ended with:

[DR-DOS] A:\

So I typed:

copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\ (e: is my CD drive)

However, it says that the file is not found. I'll try putting the bad hard drive into this computer, copying the file, and see if that works. 99.225.38.10 (talk) 14:46, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

That seems to have worked. Thanks for the tip on BartPE! I have to ask though, since my computer has SP3 and the BartPE disk is supposed to be SP2, will this cause any problems? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 15:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Laptop battery life

Is it true that using a laptop on battery for a long time and charging it only when it becomes low , increases the battery life? Shraktu (talk) 11:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes and no. It depends on the battery type that is being used. The article Lithium-ion battery has some useful info, infact the section Lithium-ion battery#Advantages and disadvantages has more info. Basically some battery technologies (in general older battery products) used to like the deep-cycle, but these days it's different. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:47, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

WinTV Software Alternatives

I have a USB WinTV Nova - T stick with the correct drivers on cd. I am wondering, is there any alternatives to the wintv software for actually viewing channels? Like free, open source alternatives. This is for Windows XP / Vista computer. Thanks --

You can try DScaler and see if your device is supported. --24.162.196.86 (talk) 06:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Hibernation

What is the difference b/w hibernation and stand by in Windows shut down options?Shraktu (talk) 11:53, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

In hibernation the RAM is written to hard disk before power is turned off. When you turn it on again, RAM is brought back to the earlier state and you can resume your unsaved work from there. Sleep mode (standby) is not a state of "power off"—RAM is still active and consumes some power but other unnecessary components are turned off. —SpaceFlight89 (talk) 12:09, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Outlook 2003 IMAP warning

right I have two computers with Outlook 2003 working with the same mailbox via IMAP. There are many mails, so one computer often shows IMAP server notifications "Account is over quota" (see picture). Currently, I can't clean the mailbox, so I need a way to temporary disable these notifications which are annoying. On another computer (same version of Outlook, same mailbox), those notifications are much less often. Can I somehow disable these notifications of make them appear less often on the first computer? Please don't tell me to clean the mailbox, currently it's out of question for me. 0xFFFF (talk) 11:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Go into the mail server and change the quota. Do you really believe that you can make a change on your computer that will somehow magically change the quota on the server or allow your computer to somehow get magical status and tell the server that you don't need no stinkin' quota? The warning is not something your computer is doing to annoy you. The warning is there because you have too much email and you are over the quota allowed by the server. In other words, the server is the source of the warning, not your computer. -- kainaw™ 12:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I totally understand the meaning of the warning. No, I don't think that I can change the quota on my computer. I understand, that outlook gets the warning from IMAP server and shows it to me. But, I have another computer, with the same mailbox, which shows the said warning once a day, not once a minute. How can it be? 0xFFFF (talk) 18:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Are they both set to check for new mail at the same frequency? The quota warning normally only appears when you attempt to send mail or you move mail from one mailbox to another (this includes anti-spam filters that automatically move mail from you inbox to a junk folder). -- kainaw™ 19:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

context free grammar and regular expressions

Is it possible to verify "multiple lines of text" confirms to a defined set of simple context free grammar rules using regex (perl / java) ? CFG, and regular expression wiki pages are confusing. --V4vijayakumar (talk) 12:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

No. You cannot capture a (truly) context free grammar by regular expressions. But then, yes, you can use perl/java to build a parser that parses your cfg, which might uses regular expressions for some of the simpler rules. One simple example of a cfg is { S->x; S->(x) } . The language generated contains the letter x enclosed in parentheses, but only if there are exactly a much opening as closing parentheses. This is more than a regexp can do. 93.132.180.226 (talk) 14:51, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

(EC) In theory, no, but in practice, yes. Some languages that can be described by CFG's, such as "all strings that start with some number of as and end with that same number of bs", can not be described by formal regular expressions. That said, they can easily be described by general programming languages with approaches like:

say "matched" if /^(a*)(b*)$/ && length($1) == length($2)

You could also use a parsing framework like yacc or Parse::RecDescent. If you post exactly what you're looking to match you might get some more specific advice. --Sean 14:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

It's been a while since I reviewed theory here, but wouldn't these exceptions that have been brought up be "context"? By definition, shouldn't a context-free grammar not need to save state, like "number of as counted last time"? So, in that case, the issues that regular expressions cannot handle are not really a case of failure for "context-free" grammars. I could be incorrect here, this stuff was always mind-boggling to me... Nimur (talk) 15:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Context-free refers to the non-terminal fired, not to some state the recognizing machine has reached. See Context-sensitive grammar. There, you can fire (expand) a non-terminal only if it is preceded and followed by special strings that are part of the rule. 93.132.180.226 (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu operating system?

Is is technically correct to say that Ubuntu is an operating system? From a neutral/unbiased point of view of a computer scientist? Or is it Linux (or GNU/Linux or GNU/Linux/X) that is the operating system? SF007 (talk) 16:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Please, avoid ethical/philosophical/political opinions, that is not the point of the question SF007 (talk) 16:33, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu is a distribution (or flavor) of Linux. The key point is that the different distributions use the same operating system. They use different package managers (or use the same one with different versions of the packages). -- kainaw™ 16:36, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Is the difference between two Linux-based distributions comparable to two different Windows or Mac OS iterations? Put another way, are Gentoo and Ubuntu (or any two Linux distributions) more alike than Windows 95 and Windows 98 (or any two Windows iterations)? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 17:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Not at all. An equivalence would be comparing the Linux 2.4 kernel to the Linux 2.6 kernel. A single distribution may contain multiple versions of the kernel. For example, Fedora began with the 2.4 kernel but has adopted the new kernel. So, it comes down to "what is the difference between Ubuntu and Fedora?" They are both using the 2.6 kernel. Most of the optional packages, such as Gnome, KDE, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc... are the same versions on both distributions. The difference is that Fedora uses RPM format packages and Ubuntu uses deb format packages. So, if you want to be technical (which the question is asking for), Ubuntu could be called the "Ubuntu GNU/Linux Operating System". If you say "Ubuntu Operating System", everyone will know that GNU/Linux is implied. -- kainaw™ 19:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

It would be correct or incorrect based on one's definition of "operating system". The general public usually thinks of an operating system as the system software and all the stuff that comes with it (so Ubuntu would be one). Computer scientists often think of operating systems as the kernel (computing) only (so Ubuntu would not be one). They are both correct, in given contexts. --Sean 21:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

In all technical terms, anything that can handle multiple tasks and provides things like semaphores is an operating system (see things like uC OS). Linux is the operating system of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is Linux running GNU programs. GNU likes to combine both and call it GNU/Linux operating system, because they believe the kernal is useless without the programs. On Windows the GUI is tied to the kernal, not so on GNU/Linux, so its hard to believe GNUs position. It is fair to say Ubuntu is GNU/Linux, but its probably not fair to say Ubuntu is an operating system.--155.144.40.31 (talk) 22:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

M4A conversion software

Hi, I had to sing the Thriller on my iPhone and send it to my friend (don't ask). But the file emailed as a M4A and not a MP3. What conversion software let's you convert the two said file types? --32.161.10.116 (talk) 18:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I use this program. It's free. There are probably many others available, too. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 19:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

question about library programs for solving partial differential equations

On someone elses behalf, please see Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Simulate_semiconductor - question 2.

83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:51, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

gnuplot

Hello,i'm having a question about gnuplot and i was hoping that someone could help me find a solution. I'm trying to make a contour out of some files with gnuplot for a 2-d graph.Although i've read the manual i can;t find the way to do it.Either it expects more data so that it can make a third axe for 3-d plot or it doesn't make contour. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzzmith (talk • contribs) 22:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Post some input data and describe what you want the output to look like. --Sean 14:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I want to plot 10 dat files with two coloumns in every file all together in one 2-d plot(x,y)with only one y number to correspond in every x number.One of these files would be for example like this:

0 , 2
0 , 3
1 , 5
2 , 7
2 , 8
3 , 9
4 , 9.5
4 , 10       

etc. So by plotting all the 10 files i want to have 10 different lines in one plot. THAKS FOR YOUR EFFORT —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.4.16.71 (talk) 18:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Just type/paste in the following (all on one line):

plot "1.data" with lines, "2.data" with lines, "3.data" with lines, "4.data" with lines,
     "5.data" with lines, "6.data" with lines, "7.data" with lines, "8.data" with lines,
     "9.data" with lines, "10.data" with lines

You'll need to first remove the commas from your data files. --Sean 16:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

comp

what is the role of o.s in developing the software

Read our article operating system, which will probably help you. Tempshill (talk) 03:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

OS means operating system. The article in Wikipedia here may help. --98.154.26.247 (talk) 05:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Adding MP3 durations

I have hundreds of MP3 files, by various artists, and it would be convenient if I could quickly add up the duration of groups of MP3s on the fly, without having to go through them and laboriously add them mentally. But when I highlight a group of songs, right-click, and enter 'Properties', the 'duration' value is 'multiple values', so that doesn't help. I've tried various things, like copying the songs into a separate folder, or selecting them and pressing 'play selection', but I'm just groping in the dark. Does anyone have a solution? LANTZY^TALK 23:09, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

iTunes can do this easily. I expect other music players can too. Algebraist 23:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Using Windows Media Player, you can (temporarily) create a playlist. The total play time of the playlist is displayed at the bottom (or top?) of the list. Astronaut (talk) 13:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

On Linux you could do:

mp3info -p '%S\n' song1.mp3 song2.mp3 song3.mp3 | perl -lne '$t += $_; END { print $t }'

--Sean 14:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. I figured it out. LANTZY^TALK 17:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

BEAV for Windows 98 ?

I'm looking for something like the Binary Editor And Viewer that runs under Linux. I have a 2GB binary file I'd like to view with it. In case you're wondering, the file is an apparently corrupted file cabinet full of my AOL e-mails, which AOL can no longer read. I'd like to be able to view the data in any way possible. Thanks. StuRat (talk) 23:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Comparison_of_hex_editors - maybe someone who knows the program could add a link from BEAV to a description on this page as well?83.100.250.79 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC).

Thanks. StuRat (talk) 12:33, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

July 7

1000 ft Ethernet Cable

I need to get internet from one building to another: let's say building 1 to building 2. The problem is that building 2 is approximately 1000 ft. away from the modem/switch in building 1. I've done some research and determined that it's not a good idea to just run a cat5e cable the whole length (due to loss), and it's not practical to boost the signal partway through (since the wire will be outside). I've thought about using baluns, but I'm not sure if they make them for that application, or which ones would work. Is there any other way to boost the signal so that one wire could be used? A different kind of wire perhaps?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks! -Pete5x5 (talk) 00:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

What's the budget? - Akamad (talk) 02:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you're simply not going to be able to do it with Cat 5e because (as you've said) after ~100m/328ft you'll lose signal and there isn't a way round that. However, you're probably be better off looking at using a fibre connection instead and 1000Base-LX could easily handle the distance you're looking at and you could simply have a converter at each end to change it back to copper for your two networks (a lot of switches include the ability to plug in different gigabit modules of various types to do this automatically. Hope this helps! ZX81 ^talk 02:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

If you have a line-of-sight between the rooftops then a microwave link is a good way to do it - but it's gonna cost you $15k for the equipment. SteveBaker (talk) 03:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Or, needless to say, you could spend $15 without the K and use a Pringles can, though the fact you are considering running a wire tells me that you want more speed and reliability than the Pringles company can provide you. Tempshill (talk) 03:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I was going to suggest pigeons. Wireless! — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 03:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

While some of the options such as fiber and wireless/microwave are certainly viable options, my immediate thought would be that the most cost effective solution would be to lay the problem in your ISPs lap. A second access point/modem/account. Once both buildings are "online", then the solutions to data sharing, communication, intranets, or VPN setups multiply. Just a thought. — Ched :  ?  04:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

There might be 2 solutions using this ~330m ethernet cable: 1. at both ends use DSL modems (or something similar), since DSL has much more range than ethernet, cheap (reasonably) modems will be much slower than ethernet. Using modems made for this particular purpose, will be very expensive. 2. add 2 cheap ethernet switches in middle (and run an additional power cable along ethernet cable, to power them). -Yyy (talk) 04:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Why not use several cables and connect each one into a hub or someshit to boost the signal half way through —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 07:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Because the cables would be outside. These signal boosters would be outside in the weather, could get stolen, and would be difficult to power without a nearby outlet. Useight (talk) 14:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

You could stick them in weather proof casings, and run a power supply to them.. (a bit like telephone companies do)83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively you could boost the signal using UHF amplifiers, though you'd need to know the attentuation to prevent the boosted signal being too high and frizting the electronics.83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I can second the DSL-style approach. There are several companies that sell equipment for just this sort of purpose, with speeds ranging from a few megabit all the way to 100 mbit full duplex (as budget allows) and distances well in excess of 1000ft. Look for "ethernet extender" products on Google. --Jmeden2000 (talk) 18:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. The budget is $4000 or less (preferably less, but I have a very nice budget for this project). I would prefer not to join multiple cables, but before this that's the only way I could think of. I will definitely look into the 'ethernet extenders' you speak of. Hopefully there's a way to do it with only one wire. I think the technology must exist for that amount of money.. -Pete5x5 (talk) 07:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

If you are going to be accessing file servers or suchlike from one building to the other I'd go for the fibre optics solution. Or even just to cater for the future. A building of any size can generate quite a bit of traffic. Dmcq (talk) 09:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Any reason you cannot use WPA encrypted wireless? Like WiMax? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 02:32, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

pspwxp(wobzip)

is there any way i can install pspwxp using wobzip.heres the address http://wobzip.org if there is can sombody pleaz give me a link to download it and instructions on how to download it. thanks

Hard drive space

I only have about 6.5 GB left on my hard drive, so I deleted 3 GB worth of files and put them on discs, then I checked my memory, and it still said 6.5 How can I get my space back? ---Scarce |||| Talk -Contrib.--- 04:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This might sound really obvious, but have you emptied the recycled bin? The space isn't actually reclaimed until you do that. ZX81 ^talk 04:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

My entire drive for the bin is erased. For future reference I'm talking about my main local drive ---Scarce |||| Talk -Contrib.--- 05:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Try disk cleaning (Start Menu -> Accessories -> System tools -> disk cleaning) if you have Windows. There's probably too much junk in the temporary folder that can be cleaned. Although it's strange that there is no change in disk space at all. --98.154.26.247 (talk) 05:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

If you burned them to disc your CD/DVD writing software may have created a disc image on the hard drive first before burning the files. The disc image will take approx. the same space as the original files, hence you don't see a change. Try searching for ".ISO" files or check your preferences of your burning software to find its "temporary" or "working" folder and delete the disc images from there. Zunaid 10:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll try it ---Scarce |||| Talk -Contrib.--- 21:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I opened up the computer search program and searched .ISO, it couldn't find anything, I'll try the disk cleaning now ---Scarce |||| Talk -Contrib.--- 21:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Try searching for files created in the last day or two and/or files greater than 100MB. You may find the offending files, or possibly some other files worth cleaning up. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:09, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

How? ---Scarce |||| Talk -Contrib.--- 02:09, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

If you are using XP, right click the C: drive and select search to open the search window. The search dialog has "when was it modified" and "what size is it" options that allow you to define your search. If you have Linux, a Mac, Vista or some other OS, let us know, so perhaps someone else can provide instructions. (I actually have Vista, but have yet to find equivalent built-in search functionality.) -- Tcncv (talk) 03:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Chipset flashing?

Is there such a thing as chipset flashing? Is it different from BIOS flashing? Or do I just mean updating the chipset drivers? Thanks 78.149.207.75 (talk) 09:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

"flashing" generally means "changing software stored in flash memory". The BIOS is stored in flash memory, so it's possible to change that stored program by flashing that memory. The chipset isn't a program, it's a very complex application-specific integrated circuit. It's not stored in, or run from, any kind of memory; its operation is encoded into its physical structure. So it's not meaningful to "flash the chipset". I think you just mean the drivers. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 13:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems possible that some chipsets could have an internal or external ROM. I don't know of any PC computer chipsets (north-bridge or south-bridge controllers, or audio or wireless peripheral controllers, etc) that make this option available to the user (though I have re-flashed my DVD-ROM drive controller). Generally, a controller chip might not have any ROM at all (a pure ASIC as mentioned above); or they may use a ROM intended to be programmed once at the factory. If there is an EEPROM, it can be flashed; but that does not mean that you can do it without special equipment. (The motherboard is usually designed to allow you to flash the BIOS without connecting any wires - this is not generally the case for all programmable devices). See programmer (hardware). Nimur (talk) 15:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I actually wrote, then deleted, an addendum to my comment above, about just this subject (fearing we'd drift off from the questioner's presumed intention). Yes, there is a microcontroller inside most chipsets, which takes care of some very basic functions (it's the thing that handles wake-on-lan, and that beeps when the CPU isn't installed or the CPU fan isn't working). I'm aware of no public documentation for these (informally I understand them to be 8051 or H8 logic blocks on the same die as the rest of the southbridge logic), and there's no reason to, or advantage to be gained from, field-programming one. While being factory programmable would be nice (as it stops you making 100,000 bad units for want of a single line of asm being wrong) having erasable memory for it may be a problem. I'm not at all sure that the process by which the high-speed circuits on the southbridge die are deposited would allow for either flash or EEPROM to be built on the same die. If they can't be, having a rewritable program store for the microcontroller would require a second integrated circuit (built with whatever process is compatible with those memory technologies) inside the same package - a cost and complexity that chipset manufacturers would no doubt wish to eschew. Given the very basic program for this thing, it would be tempting to test it very thoroughly and put its code into Mask ROM on the southbridge die. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 16:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

InstantAtlas Error

When creating a map on InstantAtlas I get an error when uploading my .xml data file ( something about Attribute version having a fixed value of 1.2) so I create a demo data file instead. I can then replace the data.xml file with mine in the location I save it. On opening the map with my data file the data that should be displaying on the map doesn't, it just says no data in the comparison table, under the headings I used, and there is nothing in the ordinary table. The map highlights the Popp areas of my map in black when i hover over them. Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.49.180.146 (talk) 09:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

malloc and structs

Ignoring the lack of error checking code, would this be the proper way to do this?

typedef struct
{
    int data;
} Mystruct;

Mystruct * lotsaStructs;
lotsaStructs = calloc(10, sizeof(Mystruct *));
lotsaStructs[0] = malloc(sizeof(Mystruct));
lotsaStructs[0].data = 5;

Thanks! Horselover Frost (talk) 13:53, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

No, that doesn't even compile. The following would be typical, though it's not clear whether you want lotsaStructs to point to a single array of Mystructs or to an array of pointers-to-Mystruct:

lotsaStructs = calloc(10, sizeof(Mystruct));
lotsaStructs[0].data = 5;
...

--Sean 14:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm hoping to get an array of pointers-to-Mystruct. I guess the question wasn't to clear, sorry. Horselover Frost (talk) 14:40, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

TotoBaggins' solution (which is the sensible thing, in many cases) has all of the individual structs in a row (an array of structs). If you wanted to keep Mystruct being an array of pointers (which is what you'd do if you wanted to create the individual ones dynamically, or if they weren't all going to be the same size or the same kind of thing) then you'd do:

 Mystruct ** lotsaStructs;
 lotsaStructs = calloc(10, sizeof(Mystruct *));
 lotsaStructs[0] = malloc(sizeof(Mystruct));
 lotsaStructs[0]->data = 5;

your code was defective in two regards: firstly lotsaStructs is an array of Mystruct*, so you need to write Mystruct** Secondly when you're accessing data via lotsaStructs[0] that's an individual Mystruct*, so you need to dereference the pointer before retrieving the element: C uses the -> shorthand for that, although the line (*lotsaStructs[0]).data = 5 does the same thing (and makes the deref and the .data separate). Don't worry if this seems ridiculously complicated; once you understand this, there's really nothing left in C that's hard. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 14:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Accessing Wikipedia through my iPhone

Can anyone help with this? Until a few days ago, I had no problem accessing Wikipedia through my iPhone. Now, I just can't. It starts opening en:, seemingly redirects to "en-gb [something - it flashes fast past this] and throws up a "Cannot Open Page" message. I have no problems accessing other websites. Cheers. --Dweller (talk) 16:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

OK: a totally random theory: have you set something on your iPhone's settings to have your language be British English? It might automatically change en to en-gb. Unlikely, but a possibility. Thanks, gENIUS101 21:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This might be related to changes being made to the MediaWiki:Common.js file – something to do with redirecting mobile devices to an alternate site. I don't know the details, but I'll ask the user to comment. -- Tcncv (talk) 23:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Up until a few days/weeks ago, any iphone/ipod touch/etc requests to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/* had a banner at the top that offered "View this site on Wikipedia's Mobile Site". Upon clicking the link, you were taken to en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/* (Main Page - Mobile. It was very succesfull, and much easier to browse. More recently, due to the ease of use, you are automatically redirected to the en.m. site. It works fine for me. I have my iPhone loading it right now :) The page might have just been down when you tried earlier. — Deon555^talk_{I'm BACK!} 11:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

As a side note, check out Wikipanion for iPhone (it's free). It's a great browsing app that caches articles for offline viewing. Much better than just viewing Wikipedia through mobile Safari. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 02:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Still unable to "get in" - this has been going on for days now. The specific error message is "Cannot Open Page Safari cannot open the page because the server cannot be found". The url in the address bar when it finishes failing to load is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [whatever I've tried to open]. I can try downloading that app (does it support logged-in editing too?) but many others will just want to browse Wikipedia and not be able to access it. I've not changed any settings in my phone - it's just too much of a coincidence that it's happened simultaneously with the mobile site changes, so I suspect it's not my phone but the way the change has been implemented. --Dweller (talk) 11:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Are there any other websites you are unable to access or is it just Wikipedia? Durr, I can't read. Livewireo (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Mouse totally f....d up

Mouse problems - just doesn't work right

Used to select with left button, hold left button and move to select a block.

Now mouse selects with right button (sometimes), left button causes block selection from last mouse position, scroll button doesn't work...

Same on another mouse.

No such control exists in windows to do this that I'm aware of?

I just tried open office - is this program known to fuck up windows??? Because I've never had anything like this before, maybe it's a virus, anyone know?

Appears to be the "stuck shift key problem" - what causes that - is it open source software? ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC) 83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

If this is the problem, it means your keyboard thinks the Shift key is being held down. Try tapping each of your Shift keys repeatedly until the problem goes away. If that doesn't work, unplug the keyboard for a bit and see if that fixes the selection problem. If you can't make it go away by tapping the Shift key and if unplugging it does cause the problem to disappear, it's time to buy a new keyboard. Tempshill (talk) 21:56, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

If the keyboard thinks shift is being held down - why no caps? 83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I highly doubt it's an issue related to Open Office. Would I be correct in assuming that you've tried a restart of the machine? - Akamad (talk) 22:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I hope you're right, I actually uninstalled open office, since the computer has been stable for many moons, and had just very recently installed open office. The problem didn't start immediately, but did seem to appear after I had been messing about with the image program (can't remember it's name).

Then the problem seemed to go away. I intend to wait a few days to see if the problem recurs, then reinstall open office, and see if the problem re-occurs.

It appeared to be a 'software' stuck shift key that only affected the mouse, not keyboard - does this sound familiar to anyone?83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at the windows control panel applet for the mouse, and make sure some joker hasn't switched your mouse to be left handed. Also have a look at the mouse itself - if something got wedged under the buttons so your PC thinks one is being held down, you get all kinds of weird things happening. Astronaut (talk) 01:12, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Choose a topic

The "choose a topic" at the top right of the page keeps dissapearing - sometimes it's there. sometimes it's not, sometimes it pops in, and pops out. I also had the problem above - has anyone else got this, or is my computer just screwed up (IE7)83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

IE 7 has done this to me before as well. To put it simply, IE is as buggy as hell. Try downloading IE8, or better yet, the new Firefox (both which are free)-- penubag  (talk) 06:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I've only ever had one problem on IE7 - the above, so does anyone know what it is about the ref desk header template that causes it to go wrong occasionally?83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

SImple MySql question

Is there another way to count the amount of rows in a table then using mysql_num_rows? When the rows get passed 5000+ and that query is ran it can cause slowness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivtv (talk • contribs) 23:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The SQL count() function is much more efficient, sometimes returning a result in constant time. From this discussion, the commands:

$row=mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("select count(*) as howmany from mytable"));

$number_of_rows=$row["howmany"];

is much more efficient than

$table=mysql_query("select * from mytable");

$number_of_rows=mysql_num_rows($table);

-- Tcncv (talk) 23:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I keep forgetting about count. Thank you for your example. Only thing I would change would be the wildcard because its terrible on a query especially if you are just trying to get one specific piece of data. Should just query your key in this example. You know this though, and you were just giving an example so I thank you. Works perfect

Ivtv (talk) 02:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

My understanding and experience is that the assertion that "count(1) is faster than count(*)" is a myth that has propagated far and wide in various discussion groups. The count(*) function means "count the rows" and is typically optimized to use table statistics or indexes. Count(1) means count a collection non-null ones. Any DBMS worth its salt will produce the same execution plan for each. In neither case is it necessary for the DBMS to actually retrieve column data. MySQL COUNT function documentation specifically states, "COUNT(*) is optimized to return very quickly if the SELECT retrieves from one table, no other columns are retrieved, and there is no WHERE clause." -- Tcncv (talk) 06:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Service Packs for Linux distros exist?

I was just wondering if there are any known linux distros that uses the concept of "Service Packs"?: something that can can be installed in a graphical and easy way, to update your system? (besides my own distro). Thanks __ Hacktolive (talk) 23:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the term Service Pack a word more associated with Windows that Linux? With Linux being much more modular and everything being in packages I was under the understanding that all the recent distributions came with their own form of update system (like in Fedora you'd simply run yum update). ZX81 ^talk 00:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and that is nice, but what about for users without internet? that update system (and also APT) just doesn't work properly and out-of-the-box. Hacktolive (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:39, 8 July 2009 (UTC).

For debian based distributions the install cd tends to be a big package repository. So for every new version you just point apt there and do a dist-upgrade. It doesn't need Internet but I don't know if it's "service pack like". --194.197.235.36 (talk) 01:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

SuSe Enterprise Linux has service packs. --Sean 16:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Even in Windows, if you have absolutely no access to anything on the Internet in any way whatsoever, you cannot install a service pack. Someone, be it a friend or Microsoft, must download the service pack and burn it to a CD for you. With Linux, there is the same limitation. For example, if you use Fedora, the packages are in RPM format. You can use yum as a command-line updater or one of the graphical RPM management tools. With RPM, Yum, or one of the GUIs, you can update using packages burned to a CD. So, if you can get a friend or Redhat to give you a CD with the new packages on it, it is trivial to do an update.

Now, the concept of "service packs" is a bit different than just "updates". Microsoft gathers up a bunch of bug fixes and eventually puts them all out as a service pack. While updates come out every Tuesday (if I remember correctly), service packs come out every few months or even every few years. The same concept, applied to Linux, would be nothing more than making a CD of all the latest packages at some point in time and calling it a "service pack". When to release the service pack is arbitrary. -- kainaw™ 16:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

At least for Windows XP Service Pack 2, you could order CDs with just the service pack (and I believe it's a general option available at times, but SP2 was a really big deal). I believe you could do that in an offline manner, as well (phone, mail). Also, Patch Tuesday

July 8

Troubleshooting Mac OS networking

I'm having an intermittent problem with Mac Mini communicating with the rest of the network computers. From what I can tell, there should be a logging option that I can enable in order to at least get an idea on where to look, but even when it's enabled, it doesn't seem to produce anything. The one I found was for firewalls, located in System Preferences and Sharing. Even though Firewall Logging is enabled, the log file next to it is blank when the problem occurs.

I know the following:

• The Mac's internet access continues without problem.
• DNS lookups for all computers work as expected.
• It generally returns to normal within a minute of poking around the network settings. As such, I can't tell which procedure is actually fixing the problem (whether it's opening an external website, or trying to renew the DHCP lease.)
• The DNS setting is also wierd, as it only worked in DHCP mode.

It's a rather obscure problem, and multiple attempts to search for the problem don't give anything. The connection loss is simply no packet flow between the mac and other computers on the network; Internet access is not affected. It would be much easier if there was a log around. --Sigma 7 (talk) 01:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Two computers behind NAT talking to same sever

Lets say there are two computers on a network, both running firefox and both connect to the same website on the same port. How does the NAT router know which incoming packet to translate to which computer? There does not seem to be any way it can do it at the internet layer nor at the transport layer.--155.144.40.31 (talk) 01:17, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Check out the Network Address Translation and Stateful firewall articles. Basically, the NAT router keeps track of the connections so it knows what internal system to route traffic to. Also, while both systems are connecting to the same endpoint port, their source port most likely differs. This is why two applications on the same machine can establish connections to the same remote port without being confused. -- JSBillings 01:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I have read both of those articles already. They only mentions states defined by IP and Port. I am aware that IP and Port can be used, but I know in reality that NAT devices somehow differentiate even when the server IP and the ports of both PC's behind the NAT (and at the server) are the same. Even now a router is listing two sessions to different devices behind the NAT to the same server on the same port (both server and client ports identical for these sessions). How exactally can it differentiate and at what layer? --155.144.40.31 (talk) 02:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The NAT server actually remaps the original source ports of the LAN clients to random ports in its available range. What you're looking at is probably the destination port (let's say 80, for http). That doesn't change. But the client computers pick a source/outgoing port to use, usually in the dynamic port range. If you want to see the ones you're currently using, on windows open a command prompt and type netstat -nap tcp. Anyway, let's say your client's outgoing port is 55526. The NAT server will change that to a unique source port on itself, one that doesn't map to any other ip+port client connection.

Example: the client, IP 10.0.0.5, wants to connect to port 80 on 208.80.152.2. It opens up port 55574, and sends a packet with source 10.0.0.5:55574 and destination 208.80.152.2:80. That packet gets intercepted by the NAT server (external IP 74.125.67.100). It sends out its own packet, with source 74.125.67.100:54885 and destination 208.80.152.2:80. When the web server gets the packet, its reply packet will have source 208.80.152.2:80 and destination 74.125.67.100:54885. When the NAT receives this, it remembers the IP/Port combination for port 54885, modifies the packet destination to be 10.0.0.5:55574, which sends it to the original client.

In order to see the external ports the router (ie, NAT server) is using, you'd have to run netstat (or something similar) on the router, or connect to an external computer whose logs you have access to, using two different NATed computers. But from the web server's perspective, the connections come from two different source ports on the same IP address. Does that make sense? Indeterminate (talk) 03:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's the same answer as Indeterminate's that I wrote up:

On your local network, the outgoing messages from the two different computers have different source IP addresses (for example, something like 192.168.1.x, with different numbers for x), even if the source port, destination IP address, and destination port are the same.

When your router does its network address translation on the outgoing messages, it changes the source IP addresses so they're the same (the WAN IP address the router is getting from your ISP), but changes the source ports so they're unique.

For example, the outgoing messages on your local network

From: 192.168.1.10:2696, To: en.wikipedia.org:80
From: 192.168.1.11:2696, To: en.wikipedia.org:80

Might get translated to something like this on the internet

From: 155.144.40.31:2696, To: en.wikipedia.org:80
From: 155.144.40.31:2697, To: en.wikipedia.org:80

The responses from the internet

From: en.wikipedia.org:80, To: 155.144.40.31:2696
From: en.wikipedia.org:80, To: 155.144.40.31:2697

Get translated back to your local network

From: en.wikipedia.org:80, To: 192.168.1.10:2696 
From: en.wikipedia.org:80, To: 192.168.1.11:2696

--Bavi H (talk) 04:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Windows Vista question

How do I delete old search results from address bar? Is there any way for me to be sure that people using computer after me cant see which sites I visited (and no,its not for porn believe me). Cause no matter how many times I delete it from history,it still remains in address bar. How can I remove it?

Thanks a lot and please answer as soon as possible.

87.116.161.170 (talk) 03:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

What browser are you using? Algebraist 03:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Internet Explorer 7 87.116.161.170 (talk) 03:33, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Tools/Delete browsing history should do it. Algebraist 03:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Tools/Internet Options/Delete History

if that does not work

Tools/Internet Options/Advanced tab/RESET (button on the lower right) poof* Issue resolved. Ps stay off the porn :) haha j/k Ivtv (talk) 03:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot,it worked. And hahaha its really not porn,I wouldnt care if anyone sees porn links,but its just that I visited quite a lot of Nazi sites today,but not cause Im Nazi,just cause its interesting. But I wouldnt like my non-white mates to see it or anyone else who might use my computer,they might get the wrong impression.

Thanks once again!

87.116.161.170 (talk) 03:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh,I suppose it cleans your google-search right up as well? 87.116.161.170 (talk) 03:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

resetting your browser will reset everything except your favorites. Even your home page. Hey, at least it is not Nazi Porn. But now that you know how to delete history.....ENJOY Ivtv (talk) 03:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

external hard drive stopped spinning.

How can I bring my external hard drive back to life and rescue all the info? It simply stopped working with no previous notice or funny sound, it just stopped. Looks like an electrical problem. How can I solve this? Manologarriga (talk) 04:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

sadly, if the head or the actual electical motor that drives the head failed the only way to get the documentation off is to send the harddrive to a data recovery team so they can take the platters out in a clean room and put it into a temp drive, copy your data and mail it back. Average cost of that is 100$. Try to use a different USB cord if applicable. If not the above is your only option. Do not try to take the drive apart yourself. Any dust that gets on the discs will make it unreadable. I had this happen myself with an external drive and I was super pissed. But I got the data off 170$ CAD later. Ivtv (talk) 04:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, if it's an entirely self-contained external hard drive, it might be possible for you to take it apart and try hooking it up to a different external hard drive adapter. You can get external adapters pretty cheap (~$15) online. Try searching online for your hard drive's model name + "disassembly" or "take apart" or something. There might be some guides out there. Indeterminate (talk) 05:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the power cable came loose? Astronaut (talk) 01:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Using Psiphon to access Facebook

So I'm vacationing in China right now and Facebook is blocked. So are many of the online proxies that I find on Google. Would Psiphon allow me access to Facebook? If not, what other ways can I access it? Acceptable (talk) 04:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You can use proxies to get around this issue. However, you better look into local laws about using internet. Stuff like this is logged and you do not want to have the government at your doorstep. But google JAP. Ivtv (talk) 04:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if it'll work, but you can try Tor (anonymity network) - [5]. It's a bit slow, because it routes all your traffic through other peers, but for some people it works well. They have a portable version that's easy to try out. Indeterminate (talk) 05:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Windows 7 and applications dependent on browser control

Microsoft has recently announced that European versions of Windows 7 will not ship with Internet Explorer. I hope it only means that the OS will not ship with IE "application", but WebBrowser Control will be still there, so that applications that use browser control will still continue to work on Windows 7 without IE. Is this correct? manya (talk) 06:33, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

We don't know for sure, but surely you're correct; there are too many things that depend on Trident (see Trident (layout engine)#Trident-based applications). I suppose they could ship a stub for it instead, and when you installed something like Steam that needs it, the stub could download Trident for you (but, I assume, not the IE8 app). 87.113.26.43 (talk) 09:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

But what about .chm help files? In Windows, and Windows applications, the browser control is used almost everywhere, so I really hope that it is included in Windows... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure .chm is heavily deprecated. Microsoft really doesn't want you using them anymore, last I heard. Washii (talk) 18:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have to disagree there. It's the .hlp files that now depreciated and by default Windows Vista won't even open those files. The chm files are still very much in use. ZX81 ^talk 20:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

They're talking about no web browser - not a GUI less version of windows - so yes don't panic.!83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

site

are there ANY other sites like totse i remember one that started with rotten i cant find it thou it started with roten i think but was NOT rotten com helppp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.65.3.30 (talk) 07:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Presumably not but, www.rottentomatoes.com ? ny156uk (talk) 07:26, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

encyclopedia dramatica suggested rotteneggs.com. Indeterminate (talk) 09:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

mySQL flat files

So I have this php script that needs to work with a mySQL database. Is there any way, short of re writing the script, to make it use flat files to store it's database? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.90.6 (talk) 12:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

It is not trivial, but you can change the mysql_query and mysql_fetch_object commands to something like flat_file_query and flat_file_fetch_object. Then, write those functions to access whatever kind of flat file you are going to use. -- kainaw™ 13:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

But it'll take a lot of work, right? I'm a complete noob with scripting stuff, so I guess it's not going to be easy. Thanks though, it's good to know it can be done in theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.90.6 (talk) 14:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

if you use a program like Jedit, you can edit anything and replace it with something else with one click. So say you have a var called $var1 and you needed it changed globally to $var2. Just CTRL F in the program, click query directory and put in what you want to search for in box 1 and what you want to replace it with in box 2. then click 'find and replace all'. close the app to save changes and POOF you are done. Ivtv (talk) 21:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

yeah you could do that in notepad too, but that just changes words it doesn't re write the script to use flat files. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 08:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

^^ Naw. Notepad is different unless you are using notepad++. Jedit and other programming software tools can change and edit numerous strings and data on the fly where notepad you can only do it one at a time by manually searching for each string and manually changing them. Jedit will allow you to find 100 instances of $var1 across 300 pages and instantly change it to $var2 in one click. thats 100 changes, in 300 pages done in 3 seconds. so for the OP, he/she can change Every instance of mysql_query (wether there was 5 or 5000) to flat_file_query in 1 click. where using notepad you would need to change each one manually. hope that helps you. Ivtv (talk) 02:37, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

That misses the point. Changing the function names is not a problem. Writing new functions is the problem. No editor is going to instamagically write an SQL parser and file processor function for you with a few button clicks. Even vi and emacs cannot do that. -- kainaw™ 03:26, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

How much work it would really take really depends on how the script was written. If it was written with the idea that you might switch the database in mind, it could be quite trivial (e.g. if the data is just passed to a function that handles all the MySQL specifics, that means just rewriting one function). If not, it could be a huge pain in the neck -- going through a lot of code and rewriting it from the top down. PHP has pretty good CSV functions which make using a flat file not too hard but it's a different data paradigm than MySQL to be sure, and depending on the script in question could mean a lot of careful rewriting. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:32, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Stolen laptop

My laptop, containing many confidential files that I would not wish to become public, has been stolen. It is password protected, but I have heard that it is easy for knowledgeable folk to get into the computer despite this. If they do, will they have access to the confidential files, or have they in effect logged on as a different user, without access to my files? In other words, will they gain access only to the laptop's computing power, or will they also gain access to my files? And what is the position with certain particularly sensitive files that I deleted just a few days ago? Can they somehow restore those as well? Thanks in advance for any help you can give. Maid Marion (talk) 12:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately yes, unless you have taken special measures, all your files are easily accessible. There's a high probability that the recently deleted ones may be recovered as well. Regards, decltype (talk) 12:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

It is trivial to access files on a computer. It is very rare that someone encrypts the actual drive. I am certain that you never went through the process of encrypting your drive (if you don't know what that means, you didn't do it). So, all that is required is to pop in a Linux CD, mount the hard drive, and easily view all the files. Then, it is trivial to change the passwords on the drive to make it even easier to login and view the files. It doesn't require "knowledge" of computer systems. It only requires the ability to use Google to find a website that explains what to do. -- kainaw™ 12:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh well, that will teach me to be more careful! Thank you for your prompt and helpful responses. One further question Kainaw, if you don't mind: when you say it is trivial to access files, does that include the deleted files as well, or just the current ones? Maid Marion (talk) 13:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Anything that's still in the computers's recycle-bin/wastebasket has really just been moved to a special place, so that's totally visible. For stuff that's been deleted there are many undelete programs which can retrieve stuff; which stuff is recoverable depends on a multitude of technical circumstances, and for your purpose we can just call it "unpredictable". Probably your one saving grace is that the immediate laptop thief will resell it quickly to a fence, who will in turn sell it to a dodgy computer bloke. Bar poking around for porn, it's mostly in his interest to get the machine cleaned as quickly as possible, removing identifying stuff and returning the machine to a neutral, untraceable state; only then can he sell it on to someone and say it's just a regular used machine. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 13:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again, that's slightly reassuring. Maid Marion (talk) 13:32, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I personally would cancel any credit cards used to make purchases via that machine, and generally be on the lookout for identity theft. --Sean 16:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

For future laptops/computers/USB sticks you get, I recommend encrypting the data. Truecrypt is an excellent, easy to use piece of software. This way, even if you were to lose the computer, anyone who gets their hands on it cannot read the data. - Akamad (talk) 22:26, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

If it is at all reassuring, most stolen laptops do not serve for identity theft; they are more often quickly sold for cash (e.g. at a second-hand shop), where they are typically reinstalled (for example, see this FBI news release). This reinstallation process "permanently destroys" the personal data, with some technical caveats that might allow a very motivated expert data snooper to still recover some information. Most identity-theft does not occur via information from stolen computers. However, there is no way to know what this particular thief intends to scan your stolen computer for identity-theft-style crime; as mentioned by earlier editors, it is possible, and much data is trivially recovered if the thief is motivated to look for it. Nimur (talk) 06:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh no, this all sounds terrible. But thank you all anyway. Wikipedia is just incredible! Maid Marion (talk) 07:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

gnuplot 2-d

Hello,i'm having some problems in plotting with gnuplot and i was hoping that someone could help me. I want to plot 10 dat files with two coloumns in every file all together in one 2-d plot(x,y)with only one y number to correspond in every x number.One of these files would be for example like this:

0 , 2
0 , 2.5
1 , 3.5
2 , 5
2 , 5.5
3 , 7
4 , 7.5
4 , 8
5 , 8.5
6 , 9
6 , 9.5
7 , 10

etc. So by plotting all the 10 files i want to have 10 different lines in one plot. THAKS FOR YOUR EFFORT —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzzmith (talk • contribs) 13:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I answered your question above. --Sean 16:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for tiring you but i;ve already done that and my dat files also don't have commasbut the problem is that for x=0 there are to y points (2 and 2.5).The problem is that the line(or better curve) must have only one y number for every x.And my teacher asked me not to erase the other points but to findfrom where the line must pass in order to take into account every point —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzzmith (talk • contribs) 16:32, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You have stated that:

1. y=2 where x=0
2. y=2.5 where x=0
3. there must be a single y value for each x

There is no gnuplot command that can help you with this contradiction. You must understand what your data means before you can plot it. --Sean 18:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

internet issues

My computer has a problem where the internet quits every few minutes for 1-2 minutes and then comes back without any action from me except refreshing the page. This is not an ISP problem since the other computer on the network maintains regular connectivity during these events. Any ideas what the problem might be and more importantly, how to remedy the problem? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 13:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Is the problem computer a wired or wireless connection to the network? Poor network-signal or a busy channel could be a potential cause. Also have you checked the PC for any spyware/viruses. It's not beyond possibility that they could do this (viruses often do things that are more annoying than anything). Are there any programs/tasks that are running on 1 PC but not the other? I would try to identify all the varient differences between what is occuring on the working PC and that which is on the failing-one, then try test each of them until you find the culprit. I'd start with network-connections - a faulty cable (if wired), a poor or interfered signal (wireless) could all cause something like this. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 15:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

probably a browser issue. try other browsers to pinpoint the issue. Ivtv (talk) 21:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

MySQL: sproc each row of a select

In MySQL, how do I run a stored procedure on each row output by a SELECT, separately? NeonMerlin 16:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You can write another procedure to take the query and perform a special function on each row of the result. -- kainaw™ 17:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

This can be done with a cursor. I don't use MySQL, but apparently it does support cursors. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Compatability between WYSIWIG HTML editors

If a website is created in a WYSIWYG editor such as Dreamweaver, can it be easily opened and edited later in a different WYSIWYG editor? ----Seans Potato Business 19:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

It can be edited with any WYSIWYG editor, but you should expect a hell of a lot of junk to be produced. For example, if one editor uses <b> for bold and another uses <strong> for bold, you will see <b><strong> produced. Then, both editors may very well get confused (as well as humans trying to read the code) and be unable to turn off the bold. So, you have to delete the bold text and retype it. Then, buried in your code is an absolutely useless <b><strong></strong></b>. Before long, your page that should only be a dozen or so lines of text becomes thousands of lines of garbage. -- kainaw™ 21:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Any point in updating chipset drivers before converting from Win2K to Linux Ubuntu?

Someone gave me an old computer which is about eight years old. I do not think the chipset drivers have been updated at all. I am going to install Ubuntu in place of its Win2K. Is there any point in updating the drivers beforehand? Or will they be overwritten (and everything else on the disk) when the Ubuntu is installed? It would be easier for me to update the drivers in Windows than in Linux, since I am more familiar with Windows. The old computer has no internet access, only my Windows computer has internet access. Thanks 89.240.106.124 (talk) 20:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

No. Linux uses its own drivers, not windows' ones. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 20:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Drivers are software. when you format you lose software. no point Ivtv (talk) 21:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Generally, Linux will install all of the drivers you need - it's only fairly obscure things or very new things that it doesn't get right 'out of the box'...and Windows drivers simply don't work with Linux anyway. When you install Ubuntu, you'll probably want to do a complete 'brain wipe' and just erase everything that was there before - drivers, the works. On a machine with a reasonably large hard drive, you could set up to dual-boot both Windows and Linux - but I'm betting you'll be tight on disk space with just Ubuntu installed so that's probably not viable advice. You can probably get the beast onto the Internet fairly easily - and you probably should because it's a LOT easier to get updates and stuff if you do. You can pick up old ethernet cards for $10 or less at swapmeets and places like Craigslist and eBay. With an internet connection, OpenOffice, FireFox and Thunderbird, you should be able to surf the web, do email and write using the machine with little problem. Doing all of your web surfing and email on your little Ubuntu box will do wonders for keeping malware off of your Windows machine! There are even a good number of old-school games that ought to run on it pretty well. If you have some kind of 3D graphics card in there - it might even run my old TuxKart game! SteveBaker (talk) 21:38, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I have been wondering about internet access. I have an old ethernet card I can install in the old computer, removing its dial-up modem card. Currently my Windows computer is connected to internet broadband by an ethernet socket, a short ethernet cable, and an external modem. I've been wondering if I should try temporarily unplugging the Windows computer, and then plugging in the now-Ubuntu computer. Will it mangle the modem settings so that it won't work when I plug the Windows computer back in again? 78.147.135.194 (talk) 23:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

And another point concerns an old nVidia graphics card I have that comes with a windows (I think) instalation CD. After I have installed Ubuntu, will it be enough to simply slot in the nVidia card, start the computer, and let Ubuntu do the rest? Thanks again. 78.147.135.194 (talk) 23:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Plugging in your older computer into the ethernet socket instead of the new one won't mess up any settings. You can even pick up a fairly cheap ethernet hub (I've seen them new here for $16 - you can probably find a used one for half that) - plug that into your ethernet socket - then connect both computers to the hub. This provides a means for both computers to use the Internet at the same time - and also for the two computers to do stuff like sharing files (which you'll soon find to be indispensible).

If you get THAT working - then you can install this on both computers and share a single keyboard and mouse (a tremendous desktop space saver!) and do things like cut-and-paste between the two machines! Put the two monitors side-by-side and you'll be able to slide the mouse off one side of the Windows machines' screen and onto the Linux machines' display! It's super-cool.

An old nVidia card should work just fine with Ubuntu. It'll be easier to install if you plug it and hook the monitor up to it before you install the operating system so it gets auto-detected and set up along with everything else. You can do it later - but it's much more of a pain. Get both the ethernet card and the graphics card plugged in (the ethernet hub can wait) - THEN install Ubuntu.

SteveBaker (talk) 01:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

MySQL Custom LDML Collations

I've come across a number of people with this same problem, but haven't managed to find a solution.

I've created a custom collation for MySQL 5.1 using LDML based off of utf8. When I run a "show collations" query, I can clearly see that MySQL is aware of the new collation. However, if I actually try to apply it to anything, I get an "Unknown Collation" error. What's going on? Macnas (talk) 20:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Wolfram 1D CA

I'm researching Wolfram 1D CA, rule 106. Does anybody know any good, freely-available web resources I can use? --128.12.77.73 (talk) 21:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

How deep does the MyIsam Database hole go?

Alice in wonderland reference is win. Curious on the amount of rows per table you are allowed for MyIsam? also does InnoDB offer more? Which one would you consider better? as an opinion? I have also read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InnoDB. Thanks Ivtv (talk) 21:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

SATA Adapters

I own a Dell Dimension 4100 Desktop that I got in January 2001. I recently purchased an HP 1170i DVD writer. (My old Sony CD burner broke. Ugh.) When I went to install the new burner, I found that my data cable and power cable did not fit the new drive. The new drive has SATA connections. I ordered a power adapter, but, unfortunately, the adapter still has an SATA data interface. Is there any adapter that I can purchase to adapt my old data cable leading to the motherboard to the new SATA data port on my DVD burner? --Think Fast (talk) 22:33, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe you can get an IDE to SATA. But the speed will run IDE. that would be like getting a PS2 adapter to USB. Ivtv (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You need a SATA controller card, probably PCI. A web search for "PCI SATA" generates a number of products. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:47, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually there are many options. You can get a USB to SATA converter, a PATA ('IDE') to SATA converter, a Firewire to SATA converter or whatever works for you. The PATA to SATA converter will probably be the cheapest, you can get such things for under $15 including shipping from eBay IIRC, although the PCI card likely won't cost that much either. The PATA to SATA converter should plug in to your motherboards IDE port. Note that you probably won't be able to share the channel anymore. I've never tried this before (only the reverse, connecting a PATA drive to a SATA port). The speed issue is irrelevant. The DVD drive would very likely be SATA-150 in which case this is only about ~13% faster then UDMA-133 the maximum for PATA. More significantly, the DVD will almost definitely not need that speed. Even UDMA-66 is fast enough (many older PATA drives were this), heck even 33 should be fine. Of course since the computer is rather old it may not have UDMA-133 anyway. As an aside, even for magnetic HDDs a single drive is unlikely to really be limited by UDMA-133. PS2 to USB is not comparable since PS2 is a completely different standard from USB (whereas SATA is quite similar to PATA, the primary difference is it's designed as a serial interface rather then a parallel one) Nil Einne (talk) 16:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

July 9

Certified Ethical Hacker

I want to know about the Certification in Ethical Hacking?? what are its scope and limitations and from where it should be done so as to get the maximum result.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.159.213.24 (talk) 04:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

If you are talking about this, I have to tell you, it looks kind of silly. I have never heard of this certification before, nor have I heard of the organization which offers this certification (though they list some credentials on their website). Why don't you just consider one of the technical skill certifications, like a Cisco Network Security Professional? I would place more stock in a reputable network security course (or better yet, a degree from an accredited college in computer or network engineering) than any sort of "ethical hacker certification." Ethics certification seems silly - it's more about your reputation, your professional conduct, and experience. As far as the technical knowledge, you would really do better to pursue a standard course in network engineering. Cisco's courses are very rigorous and (consequently) widely respected. Nimur (talk) 06:49, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

We have an article, Certified Ethical Hacker, for more information. Nimur (talk) 06:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The ones that know don't tell, the ones that tell don't know. Ivtv (talk) 21:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Expansion of information on the internet

How fast is the internet growth? Is the growth accelerating?--Quest09 (talk) 10:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Google is your friend: yes and maybe. See internet statistics, internet growth charts. — QuantumEleven 10:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

connecting to my server

I have Uniform Server running with a small website, which I can access by typing "localhost" in to my browser. I would like for it to be accessible to a few friends too, but I don't know what to do. I've tried giving them my ip address to enter in their browsers but it hasn't worked. Anything else I can do? I am very new to computing so I would really appreciate if someone could explain in laymans terms. Thanks very much for your help.

Assuming that you have a residential connection through your ISP, you are likely behind a router/firewall. This will block users outside of your network from sending requests to your computer. Look into port forwarding and find the IP address of your computer by using Start->Run->command.com and using the ipconfig command. In your router's browser-based configuration, you should forward port 80 (TCP and maybe even UDP) to your server's IP internal IP address. Good luck! Freedomlinux (talk) 13:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, but I'll still quite clueless as to what to do. When I type "ipconfig" into the run menu a black box flashes up on the screen for a fraction of a second then disappears. Have gone into my routers settings page and there is no option to forward ports. Is there any other way to do this, maybe a program I could download that would make this simple for me to do? Again, that you for the help

What you need to do is type "cmd" (without the quotes) into the Run box, and type ipconfig into that. That'll give you your IP address. Thanks, gENIUS101 16:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I did that and it lists a load of ips, gateways and subnet mask. What now?

Find your gateway address and type it into your browser in a format like http://172.153.30.1 . This should open your router/other device configuration page. Every router works differently, so I would look up the method at [6] which is specific to your router. Be warned, however, that your ISP might prohibit you from running a public server and might even block common ports. So, you might have to have your users enter an address like http://your.external.ip.address:nonstandardport and have the port forwarding direct it to your.server.ip.address:80 . Freedomlinux (talk) 01:24, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

DVD subtitles

I just got The Man From Earth DVD. It doesn't have a subtitles, but there is closed-captioning. I can't get my DVD software to show it, although the DVD player connected to the TV can. 65.88.88.75 (talk) 16:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

if you are talking about computer software then you are missing the codec to display the subtitles. Google VLC player. It is free and will play it. Ivtv (talk) 21:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

"Router", "network switch", "ethernet hub"

What is the difference between these from the home users point of view please? When or why would I need a router and not a network switch or vice versa? 78.146.251.48 (talk) 17:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The articles router, network switch and ethernet hub will reveal all. The brief and imprecise version is that a router sends traffic to the right place, a switch is a kind of router hub with some performance and security advantages, and a hub is just a dumb device that forwards all traffic it gets on any line to all the other lines. --Sean 17:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

"What's the difference between a hub and a switch" is a classic job interview question at Cisco. Radia Perlman's answer is "a switch costs more". She's joking, but increasingly she's right. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 17:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

More seriouisly, a switch and a hub are level2 (ethernet) devices, and route traffic based on ethernet addresses. A router is a level3(ip) device, and routes traffic based on ip addresses. A switch is "smart", a hub "dumb", but even the cheapest hubs now do a lot of the things that only switches used to do. But saying a "switch is a kind of router" is entirely wrong. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 18:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

In your context, a router probably means a "residential gateway"; its primary use is the NAT capability: the ability to create a local network with multiple devices behind it but appear as one device to the outside network; this is necessary if, for example, your ISP only gives you only one IP at a time. A switch and a hub have very similar functionality -- they are both used to connect devices together on the same network (not separating networks as a router does); the difference is that a hub is dumb and when it receives a packet on one connection it broadcasts it along all the other connections; whereas a switch is smart and remembers where each device is, and only broadcasts it on the right connection; so when there are a large number of devices, a hub will be a lot slower than a switch because of collisions. Also, most routers you can buy today will have a switch built-in on the local side, so you will typically multiple local ports. --Spoon! (talk) 17:51, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Windows explorer icon

I am on Windows XP Professional, and I want to set the "homepage" for Windows Explorer. I go to the shortcut properties, and right now the "Start in:" field reads "%SystemRoot%". I want it to open to My Computer, but I don't know what to type in that field. I'm sure someone here should be able to help me. Thanks, —Akrabbim^talk 19:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

You mean you want to change your desktop background picture? Ivtv (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

No, he's got a shortcut to Windows Explorer, and he wants it to open in My Computer, not c:\

I'm not at all sure that this is possible; creating a shortcut to "my computer" doesn't seem to be possible, and the fake-shortcut "My computer" in the XP menu system can't be copied. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 21:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I am still confused on what the end user is requesting. If he is looking for a shortcut to the my computer icon, that is possible but im 100% certain that is not the issue. Windows explorer is a process, not an icon. whenever you browse your computer you are using windows explorer. What I think you want to do is change the shortcut to "my computer" to open something else besides listing your drives. That is possible. Ivtv (talk) 21:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Change "Start in" to explorer.exe /e, ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I've discovered a work around. After some google searching, and sorting through solutions for Vista, etc., I found a solution. You can set the default mode for opening a folder to be "exploring". Run regedit, go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\ and double click '(Default)'. In the 'Value data' type 'explore' (no quotes). —Akrabbim^talk 12:26, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Freeview (UK) - software updates?

Does Freeview transmit software updates for TVs? I know it sounds unlikely, but I swear my TV (which has an integrated freeview receiver) announced a couple of days ago that a software update was available & did I want to install it. So. Unlikely as it sounds, does Freeview transmit software updates for TVs? --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:06, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, software updates are transmitted over the engineering channel. Updates for certain boxes are transmitted for a specified time period, normally a day or 2. See [7] for more information. Clover345 (talk) 23:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks. Who'd have thought? --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Freeview NZ does the same thing. I can even see the channel with my DVB-T card. Of course subscription based satellite services have been doing the same thing for a long while (and I presume cable in those countries that have it). It makes sense of course, it's an advantage to be able to update the device, e.g. for new channels, changes in the MHEG-5 format etc and telling consumes the device needs a network or telephone connection is not going to be endearing. And the channels are digital data, there's no reason you can't use them to send updates. Nil Einne (talk) 16:35, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

GetTextExtentPoint32

I am trying to use Win32 API's GetTextExtentPoint32 to determine the extent (in pixels) of a on-screen string. It appears to be working as it should, but it includes some (normal) space above and belove the "normal" characters (see extent.png @ privat.rejbrand.se). For my application, I would need to determine the exact height of the written (capital) characters (in my *.png image, it would be the height of the letters "H" and "E"), without any additional spacing. How can I get this information (without first drawing the text, and then manually examining the resulting bitmap...)? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 23:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I have found the following method to work:

 GetTextMetrics(DC, m);
 y0 := m.tmInternalLeading;
 y1 := m.tmHeight - m.tmDescent - m.tmExternalLeading;

If you use TextOut from the point (x, y), the text occupies the vertical region [y + y0, y + y1]; thus, the height is y1 - y0. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 23:56, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

July 10

How to evaluate social networking sites

I had long dismissed Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. as being overrated time-wasters and meant for people with Neurotypical Syndrome. However, I recently read that companies are posting job openings on Twitter and LinkedIn to avoid the high costs of posting at Monster and Workopolis. While I was still skeptical, a reputable business magazine confirmed the story. I'd been searching for a summer job for two months and had just given up. Now I feel like a dinosaur.

What's the best way to evaluate whether social networking sites, and any other Web 2.x or 3.x phenomena that don't seem interesting on the surface, are worth my time, and how to make the best use of them? NeonMerlin 00:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Try some; see what happens. Ask trusted acquaintances who have experience of them. Keep reading about them. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

You should probably get a Linkedin.com account - that is only just barely a social networking site - but it's a busy place for the jobs market. Very professional. It allows you to answer the question: Does anyone that I know have connections with someone else at such-and-such company? If you see that company advertising a job you're interested in - you can say "Hey Joe - could you recommend me to your buddy Jane who works at XYZ-Corp?" - that's usually enough to make sure your resume is at least carefully considered. Six degrees of separation says that you can reach anyone on the planet through a sequence of six carefully chosen connections - but even with just a couple of connections, you can get to a surprisingly large number. SteveBaker (talk) 03:43, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't "six degrees of separation" inherently devalue a recommendation acquired through a social network website? If by the logic that "anyone" can have a friend of a friend who works at a company, then what's the point of the "connection"? (It seems like an implicit letter-of-recommendation for anyone on the planet - so it's a devalued recommendation). Whether your true social network is electronified with XML and AJAX, or if it still resides in a paper book, the merit of the social network is independent of the means you use to represent it. Consider actual networking events - like company mixers, university-level short-courses, and conferences - as a better way to actually develop a network. Nimur (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah.com site

How come sometimes when I type in a Wikipedia URL, it takes me to a yeah.com error page? It says "The page you were looking for doesn't exist. You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved." And I'm quite sure it's not that I'm mistyping it or that the article doesn't exist. Not an urgent question, because it doesn't happen to me very often; just curious. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 06:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

In fact you did mistype part of the URL, and some loser company is paying for that domain name, knowing they will get a certain number of misspelled-URL hits per month and will be able to serve a certain number of ads and get paid. This is related to cybersquatting. Trying "www.wkipedia.com" (no link because let's not help them) sends you to a similar site, for example, claiming it is "Your Online Encyclopedia Source!". Like many of these "typo-only" URLs, the site itself only contains a bunch of links to various legitimate encyclopedia sites, claiming they are "related searches", which I believe is done in order to be able to demonstrate that it's a valid site, if ownership of the URL is contested. Or to fool the unwary into clicking them, I guess. Tempshill (talk) 07:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Some other possible situations may arise, if you are sure you are not typing the address incorrectly. First, and most worrisome, is the possibility that malware or some proxy server is intercepting your browser traffic and selectively redirecting you to this alternative website. Next possibility is the numerous (and very irritating) auto-completion features that many browsers have integrated into their URL bar (now more properly called a "browser input text field" because it is not exclusively used for URLs). Firefox, for example, will automatically prepend domain prefixes (like www.) and append domain suffixes (like .com, .net or .org) depending on your preferences (and if you hit ctrl-enter, for example). This is very troublesome if you have local namespaces (e.g. my local news server, http://news, should never be interpreted as http://www.news.com - two totally different namespaces, and defeating the purpose of hierarchical DNS lookup! It demonstrates to me that modern browser software architects do not respect the DNS system, and so they assume that every DNS entry should redirect me to a top-level site). Similarly, the browsers often default to search-from-address-bar, which I think is a terribly confusing feature (are you entering a search query, or are you entering an address - how do you know the difference - especially if your correct address is a short keyword like "news" ?) You can disable these browser annoyances, if they are the cause of your unwanted redirection. Nimur (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the other sites that prey on Wikipedia typos, but this yeah.com thing seems to be different. Sometimes I'll repeatedly type in the proper URL and it will keep going to yeah.com; last night I typed in the URL once, and it took me to yeah.com, then I typed it in again, and it took me to Wikipedia, then I opened a new window, and the same sequence happened again. It's happened to me on computers at home and at my college. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 19:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah.com is a known dangerous site that may distribute or have distributed CoolWebSearch. (Often called "CWS"; An infamous adware/spyware toolbar) If you are being redirected there often, it is possible you are infected with some form of adware. I'd suggest running scans with both Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware. What is your current security set-up? (That is, what applications are you currently using to protect your computer from the dangers of malware?)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 20:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Computer won't start - only beeps, no video

Yesterday my old XP computer was working fine. This morning I decided to replace the old PCI video card with an old AGP one, as I wanted to use the PCI one in another old computer. When I turned the computer on, soon afterwards I heard what sounded like a long beep follow immediately by three short ones. The CD-rom drive and floppy drive were busy for a while (probably the normal start-up sequence), then the HDD seemed to start up for a second but then stop. Unfortunately when I replaced the previous graphics card the same thing happened. I have a ECS P6BAT-A+ motherboard. I am using a public computer to write this. Does anyone know what the beeps mean please? Perhaps the first beep was the POST beep. The HDD was monitored by the computer - I forget the name of that - and had no problems. Thanks 81.144.199.142 (talk) 10:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

First, ensure you didn't unplug anything accidentally (it is very easy to partially unplug a drive cable). Second, reset the BIOS. There is a jumper on the motherboard that you connect to reset the BIOS. See the manual for the motherboard (you can download it online) for the exact location of that particular jumper. Third, if this is a Pheonix BIOS, which I believe it is, the 1-3 combinations are "Motherboard is dead" warnings. -- kainaw™ 13:59, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Make sure your video card doesn't require a separate power connection. Forgetting that is a common cause of this sort of error. (For me at least.) APL (talk) 19:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've got internet access through another computer, but a lot of my precious stuff is on the broken computer. I wil try the BIOS reset. I'm wondering if the video card has damaged the computer - I got given it with some other computer parts and I had not tried it before. If its a Killer Video Card I'm worried about trying it on anything else. Do you have any specific webpage that says that long short short short means a dead mobo please, as I could not find that when I searched? For what its worth I tried a Linux boot CD, no different. 78.146.20.248 (talk) 19:46, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't reset the BIOS just yet, that may be premature. The sequence of beeps you describe may specifically identify the problem. For example, for an AMI BIOS, one long and three short beeps indicates a memory problem, possibly a loose memory card. Try reseating the memory and reboot. If that doesn't work, try to identify the BIOS maker by scanning the motherboard for a chip labeled Award, Phoenix, or AMI. Then search the web for something like "xxx power on self test code", where xxx is the BIOS manufacturer. Somewhere in the results you may find a document showing what the error code means. For some BIOS manufacturers, such as award, many different versions exist and you may need to search by motherboard manufacturer. See Power-on self-test or [8] for some common codes. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

There are/were a lot of different beep codes, depending on the BIOS etc. Beeping instead of starting up is a common lack-of-video problem. You would have needed to set the BIOS setup to account for using the AGP slot. Depending on the model you might get it going without a video card, if it had on-board video, which I think those boards did. The AGP might be a bit too new for it; that board is about 4 years old. If it starts at all, check and change the BIOS settings to suit the card you propose to put in, then save the setting, turn it off, change the card, and it should pick up the setting on re-boot. Clean out the PCI slot before reinserting that card; optimally it should be the closest slot to the power supply. Cross fingers. - KoolerStill (talk) 03:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I found out that the beeps mean that there is a problem with the graphics card or with graphics memory. The BIOS is Award. I got this from BiosCentral which is now regrettably defunct, but accessable through the Waybackwhen Machine. (I hope someone harvests all the data from Bioscentral and makes it more obviously available somewhere). I think the problem might be something to do with the different AGP standards being incompatible, see external links at the end of Accelerated Graphics Port but I'm not sure. The mobo manual just says "AGP" so it must be AGP1.0. The graphics cards I tried are more recent. I may have damaged both the mobo and the graphics cards. The mobo does not seem to have any direct video output, unless it uses a non-standard plug with pins sticking out rather than in. The manual is rather ambivalent on this. The mobo is more than four years old - more like twice that. I think I may have to accept that the mobo is damaged, unless anyone has any other ideas. I may try mounting the old HD in a USB "cradle" which I understand are quite cheap. 84.13.50.242 (talk) 17:25, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

AGP cards are notorious for being difficult to seat properly. You really do have to press hard to get them into the slot - it will probably feel like you might break the card. Look to see how well the card is seated in the slot, and try pushing it in harder. Disclaimer - push at your own risk. I and Wikipedia cannot be responsible for you breaking your graphics card or motherboard. -- 128.104.112.84 (talk) 22:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Computer problems

File:BSOD.jpg

BSOD

Also can you help with a computer problem?

When I insert a quicktime disc I received the following BSOD

I have tried everything, reflashing the DVD and reintalling quicktime but no avail. PLease help asap!

--Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions) 12:04, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Question 2: OS? Seems to happen on Windoze 2003 Server and Vista. Xenon54 (talk) 12:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

My operating system is Windows xp pro sp3. Is this a common problem and how to fix it? --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions) 13:38, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Please ask questions in separate threads. I've taken the liberty of moving your website virus problem into a separate thread below. On the BSOD, this is the search page for "bad_pool_header" at support.microsoft.com — do any of those look relevant? You might add "xp" to the search. Tempshill (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

reinstall your dvd drivers, run ccleaner Ivtv (talk) 21:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC) I already did that.--Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions) 10:40, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Zamzar

Is the website http://www.zamzar.com is virus free? Btw Norton sitesadvisor has flagged Zamzar as a red flag cause it senses two strains of viruses on the site.

Question 1: Yes. Philadelphia's KYW radio (article) did a story about it. SiteAdvisor rates it yellow for popups.

This sort of question is impossible for anyone to answer in a way that will be satisfactory to you — you may be asking us to claim that no file anywhere on the website has a virus on it, which of course none of us can do. Even the supposedly safe and virus-free website download.com has hosted at least one file that had a virus infection. Your best bet is of course to practice safe computing by running an account on your computer that has no admin rights (except when you have to install some software), use an antivirus program, don't run .exe files you don't trust, and so forth. Tempshill (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Tor vs other proxies

Aside from not being web-based, what are the differences between Tor and web-based proxies? Acceptable (talk) 13:33, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Tor is just "several" proxies linked together as peers. At any given time, some proxies are available and some are not. Tor dynamically keeps track of which ones are available. Any given traffic is routed through one or more proxies. I believe that individual packets are may be split among different proxies, to make tracking more difficult. Also note that while you are using Tor, you are also hosting a proxy, which you might not have intended to do. Nimur (talk) 16:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Wrong, you only host a proxy if you choose to do so in the settings menu. It doesn't automatically make you a host —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 16:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure you end up as an intermediate hop, though. You do have to choose to be an end-point, though. Washii (talk) 19:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Stolen laptop (again)

After reading your advice in answer to my earlier question, it occurred to me that I should protect my Windows Live email account with a different password. I had in mind that the thief might access my emails by gaining knowledge of my password after opening up the files on my stolen machine. So I changed the password yesterday and accessed the account several times without any problem. Today, when I try to access my email account, my password is not recognised. Does this suggest that the thief has somehow hacked into my email account and changed the password, or am I being too paranoid? I also find that I can no longer access networking sites that I am a member of, again because my password is not recognised? Does this suggest the thief has hacked into these sites so as to read my private information?Maid Marion (talk) 14:18, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I think this is the old thread. Bus stop (talk) 14:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Before jumping to conclusions, are you sure that it is specifically your password that is not being recognized? Perhaps -- just a consideration -- your "user name" was stored on your old computer -- and now you have to retype in your "user name." Bus stop (talk) 14:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for trying, but I was able to access all of these things yesterday, typing in both username and password on another machine and having no problems. I'm wondering whether today the thief has been playing around and has accessed the sites, changing the new password in order to do so (because the new password of course would not be found on the old machine).Maid Marion (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems more likely that you have not typed the correct new password (Caps-Lock?). It should not be possible to use the old password to access the site and change the new password (if the thief even has the old password). Can you contact the Microsoft Live support? Nimur (talk) 16:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Nimur's right. How could he access your account if you've changed the password since the computer was stolen? Tempshill (talk) 17:51, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all. In that case, I just can't explain what has happened. I was aware of the caps lock possibility, Nimur, and it is not that that has caused this - I guess we just don't know. Anyway, I'm away on holiday in a few minutes, so I'll thank you all again and see you soon. Maid Marion (talk) 05:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

IP info

If someone knows your ip address, like for example my ip address (i'm sure sinebot will be along to post it shortly), what info can they find out about you? What stuff could they do, gain access to the computer, hack, DDOS me etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 16:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

If you google "ip lookup" you'll find websites that tell us where you're apparently at (the UK) and what your host apparently is (Virgin Media). Your city or town can be localized pretty well, too. There are some services like this which also purport to show where you are on Google Maps, though I doubt these are more accurate than the city or town level. A person who knows your IP address could actually find out who you are by telling your ISP the address and the time and date of the computer use of that address, and asking them who you are — depending on local laws, this may require a court order, or may not. As far as hacking into your computer, yes, it's possible for an individual person or a zombie PC or a botnet to take that IP address and try to use known exploits in popular operating systems to hack into your system, or simply do a DDOS attack, as you say — but an individual PC user is not a very interesting target for zombie PCs and the people who run them. There are many millions of IP addresses that are visible; why would they pick yours out for an attack? To be safe, of course, you should have a router between your computer and your cable modem or DSL modem; and you should always practice safe computing by not running untrusted .exe files, utilizing an account on your computer without administrator access as much as possible while surfing, keeping your OS up to date with the regular security patches that come out, running antivirus software, etc. Tempshill (talk) 17:08, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Nitpick - to be safe, you should have a firewall between yourself and the untrusted internet - but most home "routers" are actually gateway/router/NAT/firewall combination systems. The fact that the box is also a router serves little or no additional security benefit. Tempshill is correct - it is best practice to put this box between you and the rest of the world -[ without it, you are relying on your operating system to protect you, which is (debatably) a bad strategy. Nimur (talk) 22:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I know this isn't your actual question, but just to try and help, if you want to avoid having your IP posted then just create a free Wikipedia login with a username which in turn will hide your IP as long as you are logged in. Also, if you sign your posts with ~~~~ then SineBot won't come along either. To answer your actual question, in your case (and because anyone can do a whois I don't think there's a problem with me posting this) we can tell that you are using Blueyonder (Virgin Media) as your Internet Provider and because of how Blueyonders DNS works it says you're located somewhere in/around the Croydon/South London area. It doesn't identify you more any more than though, however different IP addresses will give away more/less information and in many regards could be completely wrong, for example an AOL address will often appear to come from the United States even if they're located in the UK. Trying to answering the "what can they do" is pretty hard though. If you've got a firewall/router in place between you and the Internet then as long as you haven't configured it really badly gaining access to your computer/network is extremely unlikely. However, if you have software on your computer (like trojan horse), possibly combined with a router that support UPNP then it's possible for an infected computer to allow someone from the Internet to access it. Finally, regarding DDoS's, it quite possible yes (as an IP address is a fixed point on the Internet), although that seems rather extreme for someone to do that on a dynamic residential address because in the event of a problem like that your IP isn't specifically assigned to you and Virgin Media could just give you another one just as easily (although they'd probably want to know why you're getting DDoS'd). Although it sounds slightly paranoid, ideally you don't want to give out your IP address if possible, just in case. Hope this is of some help? ZX81 ^talk 17:23, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Surely, if the IP address is dynamically assigned, it will only tell you where the ISP is located and not where that particular ISP customer is located. Your IP address says your ISP is Virgin Media but the only physical addresses given are for Telewest Broadband in Woking and Bradford (Telewest were taken over by Virgin in 2007). Since Virgin has customers all over the country, there's about a 1% chance that you live in either town. I really doubt the ISP updates their registration details at nominet each time one of their IP address is assigned to a different customer. Astronaut (talk) 04:00, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

For any other ISP I would agree completely, my own IP address being "located" a few hundred miles from where I actually am because of my ISPs location, but with Blueyonder all their reverse DNS on the IPs contains the region of the customer. For example in this case the IP reverses to 82-43-91-128.cable.ubr08.croy.blueyonder.co.uk and as you can see the full chart of their areas here that means the user is in the Croydon area of South London. ZX81 ^talk 05:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Help!

I've got a gforce 4 videod card ruunning the latest version of XP. Ths screen goes blank all the time and I have to reboot and I have to run in 640x480 to minimize this problem. It acts like and Electrical problem but I changed the monitor and cable and it did't do anything. So is it my video card broken or is it a driver problem?

The easiest way to test the driver problem is to simply install/reinstall the latest version of the driver. The latest driver for the GeForce 4 series was 93.71 and can be downloaded from NVIDIA here. However, personally, it sounds like more of a hardware issue and the card is possibly even overheating, but these are just guesses you'd ideally need to try another card to fully rule out if it's the card or not. ZX81 ^talk 18:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

It's worth noting that some newer versions of the Nvidia driver are claimed to be back-compatible, but I have found that 91.47 was the most stable for my old GeForce. I would definitely avoid getting the absolute latest driver (186.18), which is explicitly not intended for your card. Nimur (talk) 22:19, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Archiving old e-mails on Microsoft Outlook

So I've got a lot of old emails sitting in my inbox and I'd like to archive them. What I want to do is to be able to put my old emails on my external hard disk drive (which is always connected to my computer) so they don't eat up space on my C:\ drive and also put them on a flash drive/CD and transfer them to another computer. How would I go about doing that? Can I open Outlook mails in other email clients? Thanks in advance. 116.71.66.144 (talk) 21:16, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you mean Outlook (and not Outlook Express, which is an entirely different program, and not the cut-down version that the name might lead you to believe). I don't have one to hand, but you can export a folder, or an whole account, to a .PST file. You can then re-import that PST into outlook. Converting that PST so that other mail programs (Thunderbird, Eudora, Evolution, or even Outlook Express) turns out to be unpleasantly hard. I've used Aid4mail to do this; I've never found a free/OS equivalent that adequately handles Outlook's vexing formats. 87.115.94.112 (talk) 22:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

A possibly useful tip: After you create the new .pst file and create a new folder within it, when you go back to your Inbox to view the e-mails, sort the view of e-mails "by type". If your inbox is anything like mine, most of the items will be e-mails which will sort to the top, and some will be Calendar items that will sort to the bottom. Delete the Calendar items, then hit ctrl-A to Select All and then drag all the e-mails to that folder inside the new .pst file. When I archive my e-mails off in this manner, I usually forget to delete the Calendar items first, and then I get an irrelevant and undecipherable error dialog when I try archiving them all off. Tempshill (talk) 04:08, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Programming contests

I'd like to know useful resources for preparing a programming contest, especially lots of problems with judges. Thanks! --62.57.11.200 (talk) 21:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

This depends entirely on the programming contest. Which contest are you attempting to compete in? -- kainaw™ 22:06, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Nothing beats a good algorithms textbook. If you are a novice programmer, an intermediate programmer, these books are helpful. Practice coding up theory examples from textbooks, and become familiar with your favorite language's standard library kits (programming competitions often have a time-limit, so you don't want to burn hours redesigning a network stack or a linked-list collection). Nimur (talk) 22:30, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure, yet, kainaw. Maybe Google's? --62.57.11.200 (talk) 09:17, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Is my computer good enough to run a game?

Hi all I want to get a game called team fortress 2 for my PC. Here are the requirements: Minimum: 1.7 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM, DirectX® 8 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

Recommended: Pentium 4 processor (3.0GHz, or better), 1GB RAM, DirectX® 9 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

I have a 2GHZ processor, 2GB RAM, I use windows vista, I do have an internet connection and my graphics card is a nvidia Ge Force 8400M GS. Is this good enough for the game to run properly? Thanks RichYPE (talk) 21:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but the CPU is rather weak so you may not be able to play the game to the full potential (i.e. you may have to leave graphics/performance settings a bit short). Xenon54 (talk) 21:48, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

How can you know if the CPU is weak? All he says is that it is 2 GHz. It could be a Intel Nehalem (microarchitecture) (which would blow a 3 GHz Pentium Dual-Core out of the water). We need more specific details on your CPU to judge it - do you know the model and series number? Nimur (talk) 22:19, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I think one needs to take into consideration the fact that it's a laptop. The graphics card may turn out to be the bottleneck. decltype (talk) 01:38, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi guys thanks for the contributions. My processor is a Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5750. Thanks RichYPE (talk) 09:22, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Decltype. CPU and RAM is probably not a problem (at all). Advanced games, however, really require expensive GPU's to run in high-quality modes (high-resolution, high texture quality, a lot of animations, perhaps anti-aliasing etc.). But often you can play them at moderate quality (low-res, low texture quality) even with cheaper (yet relatively new) GPU's. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:53, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the best way to be sure before buying the game is to test the trial version? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

No trial version of TF2. APL (talk) 18:24, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking for a paper

I'm looking for “A Ray Tracing Algorithm for Progressive Radiosity” (J.R. Wallace, K.A. Elmquist, E.A. Haines) from the proceedings of SIGGRAPH 1989. Does anyone know where I can find it? I don't have an ACM membership, and I'm a little loath to sign up for a student one since I suspect I'll have access to ACM materials in a couple months. 94.168.184.16 (talk) 21:51, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Created another user account, but it does not have MSWord

I have a second-hand XP computer. To get rid of the large amount of clutter from the previous owner, I have created a new user account with admin privelidges, so that I can delete the user profiles and user accounts of the previous owner. When I logged on as the new user, Windows seemed to load up various MS programs for me, but not Word. When I forced it to load Word, it asked me for the installation CD, which I do not have, even though Word is still on the computer. How do I make Word available to all user accounts please? 89.242.157.3 (talk) 23:53, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you can do that, but you can find excellent Word programs on the internet to download free, also, have you considered taking the computer to a specialist? Sometimes they will totally wipe out the computer for free. ---Scarce |||| Talk -Contrib.--- 01:14, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I assume that you already have tried to run "winword.exe". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:49, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

July 11

DVD drives

If you have a DVD drive, do you have to have some sort of software or hardware to go with it? Is there anyway you can use it without these? ---Scarce |||| Talk -Contrib.--- 01:05, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

You'll need a computer to plug it into (unless it's the kind that plugs straight into a TV), and you'll need driver software so the computer knows what to do with it. Algebraist 01:10, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

If you're using Windows, you'll need driver software, which will probably auto-install for you once you hook up the drive and power the computer on. If you want to view movie DVDs, you will also need DVD playback software, like WinDVD or similar. This sort of software is often bundled along with the drive if you purchase a "retail version" instead of an "OEM version"; check the package before you buy. Tempshill (talk) 01:39, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course, you do not need any third-party DVD player software, for you can use Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

On XP, WMP/WMC doesn't ship with a DVD decoder, and depends on a third party install (so if you install WinDVD it installs the appropriate dlls, allowing WMP to also play DVDs); if no DVD player is installed, WMP can't do it itself. I don't know about Vista or Win7. 87.115.94.112 (talk) 12:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I know, but I do not think that this is the case in Vista and Windows 7. At least, on several different Windows Vista systems, I have always been able to use WMP and WMC to play DVD's, without having any third-party DVD player (GUI application) installed. But I do not know if the decoder really is included in Vista, or if the computer manufacturers have included any third-party decoders, although I do not think that that "sounds" right. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:12, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why people care about WMC when there are far superior players like BSplayer out there, or even the free Media Player Classic. Both of these handle DVD's just fine. Sandman30s (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Decorative 1 line ASCII art

On message boards, I've seen users doing creative things like

.ılılıll|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|llılılı. Boombox

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.· hello!

,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-(_SURPRISE!_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸

What is this called? And where can I find some more examples? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 01:21, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

You named it in the section header: ASCII art. Tempshill (talk) 01:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Ironically, many of those in the examples above are not ASCII characters and rely on a larger character set (such as UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1. Some of the characters appear to be Turkish or Cyrillic Dotted and dotless I, while others are glyphs. Nimur (talk) 02:32, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

How to find web pages that contain a given phrase and link to some other given page?

I'm trying to better understand the Kasey Chambers/Shane Nicholson song "Monkey on a Wire", which I heard for the first time today. So I googled "monkey on a wire" (with quotes). One of the results was our article on the psychologist Harry Harlow, which does not actually contain that phrase, though he did do some experiments involving surrogate-mother monkeys made of wire. So I clicked on Google's cached-page link, where the header informed me that "Monkey on a Wire" appears only in pages linking to our article. Naturally, I want to see the page that both contains the phrase "monkey on a wire" and links to Harry Harlow. Google obviously has this information; how do I coax it out? Thanks! --Allen (talk) 04:48, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

The Google cache says "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: 'monkey on a wire' " which means the terms (monkey, on, a, wire) are only in LINKS to the page, not the page itself (meaning links as in their own search results). This makes sense, as those were the search terms that first brought up our page. Near-identical results come up for the phrase without quotes, a rather nasty Google habit of considering shorter words insignificant. (Although you can see how a search for "on a" could bring up 98% of English pages on the World Wide Web, so be useless). Close inspection of the article shows all four search term words DO appear in it, albeit never as the single phrase you'd expect after having put it into quotes. Monkey wire and monkey+wire bring similar but not identical results, the Harlow article being in the top 15 items each time. - KoolerStill (talk) 16:07, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah. So there may not actually be a page that both contains my exact phrase and links to the Harlow article. (How weird that Google, upon my explicitly searching for an exact phrase, would give me a page that has no relation to the exact phrase.) Thanks for the help, KoolerStill. --Allen (talk) 19:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Cut up an MP3 stream

Hi I "record" an MP3 stream off the internet with mplayer (on ubuntu linux). As things stand at the moment I get a big and ever growing MP3 and to keep the size of individual files down (and so I can delete bits I've listened to or don't want to listen to) I kill and restart the streaming process regularly.

To make things easier I want to chop chunks of the file off every few hours, or otherwise end up with mp3s each covering a few hours is there a way of doing that automatically? --203.22.236.14 (talk) 06:27, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're doing something like mplayer -somelongoptions > foo.mpg ? The standard shell way of splitting things into chunks is split, but you can't split mp3s so easily (because all the subsequent chunks won't have valid mp3 headers). You should, however, be able to have mplayer emit raw streams (just samples), split those, and have another process compress those into mp3s. So the main command line would be mplayer -somelongoptions -optiontoemitraw | split, and your encoder would run (say on a cronjob) that periodically found each file in output directory (but check that they're all old, otherwise you'll be encoding the one that's still being written), rename them (say to the date and time and channel they were recorded), mencoder them to mp3, and move them off somewhere else. If you tell us exactly what mplayer options you're passing, I'll have a go at actually doing this myself. 87.115.94.112 (talk) 09:25, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

If it would work for you to just record a giant mp3 and then split it up later, there are tools that can do that without re-encoding the mp3. That would be good because decoding and re-encoding degrades the audio quality. I haven't used any of these programs, but googling "split mp3s without recompressing" turns up several links. There might be one that runs on linux natively, but if not, I've heard that mp3DirectCut works with Wine. --Allen (talk) 14:34, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all, 87.115.94.112's suggestion looks like what I want. I'm using the following:

   mkfifo pipeline
   split -b 500M -a10 < pipeline & 
   mplayer -ao pcm:nowaveheader:fast:file=pipeline -vo null -vc null -playlist http://site.net/stream.m3u

--203.22.236.14 (talk) 14:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

google code

how do i download from google code, like this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 12:44, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Install Subversion (software), then run that command svn checkout http://drydock.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ drydock-read-only that they describe. 87.115.94.112 (talk) 12:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

text fitting boxes with html

I know that if I use wikimark-up tables eg.
{|
|
|} and I have text in the braces, the table will automatically fix to the text.
Is it possible to get this auto fit to text affect when using <tr> and <td>'s? If so, could I have an example? The reason I'm asking is because I'm trying to format this page and am having trouble making the tables auto fit the text. Thanks-- penubag  (talk) 18:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

My computer won't restart!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!!

I put my computer in hibernation mode yesterday, and now when I try to restart it, I get a message that says "The system could not be restarted from its previous location due to a read failure. Delete restoration data and proceed to system boot menu." I don't have a boot CD, so I don't want to proceed and lose everything! I'm panicking right now and I don't know what to do! This is the first time this has happened to me. I'm using Windows XP. Please, can someone explain this to me without using fancy computer slang? HELP!!!!!!!!!!!! 69.122.188.52 (talk) 22:10, 11 July 2009 (UTC)