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August 12

Bulk listing of books for sale on Amazon

Are there any free third-party tools for listing books in bulk for sale on Amazon? NeonMerlin 00:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You mean other than the Amazon provided Book Loader tool? SunSw0rd (talk) 17:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, since I don't have enough items to justify becoming a Pro Merchant. I'm just trying to sell 45 books in preparation for a move. NeonMerlin 18:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Bluetooth screwups.

I have a cheap AT&T cellphone that's "paired" via bluetooth to my car's audio system.

At work (I'm a computer game programmer) I recently switched from a USB XBox360 controller (plugged into my PC) to a wireless controller.

I notice that when my cellphone is placed on the desk, the XBox controller will periodically flash all of it's lights...which I think means that it's lost radio contact...even though it's just 18" from the radio transmitter 'dongle'. This doesn't particularly surprise me, with the controller, the dongle and the phone so close together, interference is pretty likely.

However, since I switched controllers - on three separate occasions in 10 days, my cellphone refused to talk to my car until I turned it off and on again and went down into the BlueTooth menu and turned on the 'pairing' again.

Needless to say, I'm going back to using a cable-connected Xbox controller...but I'm curious. Is it my imagination - or is the Xbox360 controller somehow screwing up my phone's bluetooth interface? If so, what's the mechanism here?

SteveBaker (talk) 02:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

What frequency does the Xbox controller use? Have you had the same issues with the phone's Bluetooth disabled (or, if that's not possible, a phone without Bluetooth on the same cell network)? NeonMerlin 03:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Xbox uses 2.4 Mhz according to "Xbox 360 Wireless Headset" just like bluetooth#Air interface.--OMCV (talk) 03:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh - so it uses the bluetooth frequency - but not the bluetooth protocol?! I didn't know that. That's a typically microsoftian trick! Ohhh - look! There is a perfectly good standard here. Let's ignore it and invent something worse! <sigh> Well, I suppose that explains the interference. Is it reasonable to assume that the phone shuts down its bluetooth interface when there is too much random garbage on the frequency? SteveBaker (talk) 12:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This is not on your main point, but I assume you've ruled out the possibility that the controller was flashing its lights because it was low on battery. Anyway, I'm surprised you didn't switch back to a wired controller after day 1. How many times a day did you reach over for the wireless controller and have to hit the big (X) and then wait for 5 seconds while it powered up and established its connection with the dongle? Tempshill (talk) 04:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - swapping out the batteries was my first reaction - but it only gets into that state when the cellphone is nearby. Certainly the 'waiting to power up' thing is annoying - and you can be assured that I'm going back to a USB controller ASAP. This is more a matter of curiosity than practicality. SteveBaker (talk) 12:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised by this, too — you would think that Xbox players would possibly own a cell phone and that they might be carrying it around in their pocket within, say, 10cm of the controller. Tempshill (talk) 16:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Cellphones cause quite a bit of RF interference. For a low-tech solution, you could just wrap some tin foil around the phone, although that might interfere with your reception. Indeterminate (talk) 03:35, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Merging software

I was wondering how many programmer years it would take to merge the following pieces of software into a functional integrated system?

1. A program to process NMR spectra (Fourier transform and other manipulations): SpinWorks written in C# (GPL).
2. A program to draw molecule and possibly annotate NMR spectra: BKchem [1] written in Python (GPL).
3. A management system that can handle/synchronize distinct clusters of files as a single unit across most platforms through a simple to use webbrowser plug-in: Zotero [2] written with JavaScript + SQLite (ECL).

Furthermore if you have a prediction of the the required effort to get a basic system working, can you substantiate your answer with with a reference that could be used in academic article.--OMCV (talk) 02:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Can you clarify what you want the integrated system to do? Without further programming I can't see any connection between 1 and 2 (except that they are both scientific)

Similarily 2 only produces drawings, whereas 3 manages references.

Also program 2 only creates 2D diagrams - for nmr spectra three dimensional structures are practically a neccessity.

Basically, there doesn't seem to be any data that can be shared between the three programs - making integration meaningless. What functionality did you want the final product to have?83.100.250.79 (talk) 10:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

A plugin environment like (3) that allows the program to function on many machines with minimal user known how would be good, (3) is especially ideal since most NMR data sets start are a collection of files (similar to web pages). Once data is transferred to the plugin's storage environment a user could process the NMR data with (1) in the process producing at least one more file for (3) to manage. Once the NMR data is processed the user would be able to annotate the spectra with (2) probably producing another file. Once all this is done (3) would be able to synchronize and backup this data to an online achieve allowing access from all the user's computers (instrument computer, work desktop, home laptop, ect.) all the while retaining the ability to analysis and manipulate the data with (1) or alter adjust the annotation with (2). This is where it it gets a bit my hypothetical since I think (3) is still refining its full functionality, but ideally one user could share their data sets with select colleagues who are also use the plugin. The next step in the project would be to allow the publication of data sets to a data repository that can be searched by the public; but that step would be phase two of the project well after the successful merger and tweaking of the software described above.--OMCV (talk) 12:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Note:Synthetic chemist have very little use for 3D structures in their day to day activity of synthesis. In most cases stereo chemistry is more easily interpreted from a 2D projection than a 3D projection. In the 7 years I've conducted NMR based research I've only wanted a 3D model on a couple occasions and it both it was easier to produce a physical ball and stick model. Its true that software that can model molecules in 3D is a minimal requirement for computational chemistry such as modeling a molecules interactions with another molecule but those projects are usually conducted by an individual other than synthetic chemists.--OMCV (talk) 12:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Annoting nmr spectra with images should be fairly trivial, c# can do this, either as an overlay, or combining the images. Do you want the process to work entirely in a browser without installed programs, or is the download of an application acceptable?

So really you want it (1) to work in a browser, with online storage. The use of (3) still isn't totally clear - Do you need the citation finding aspects of zotero, or do you just need a browser based database system? Do you want zotero modified so that it automatically extracts nmr meta-data (samples,field strength etc) from a page for storage in a database?83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I should ask - do you want compatability with any of the NMR spectra databases mentioned in the linked article?83.100.250.79 (talk) 13:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Also out of curiosity from your stated other interests - does the name S.Ebbens mean anything to you?83.100.250.79 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC).

Right now the most common way to handle NMR data is to collect it at a central facility and then ftp to the facilities computers to move the NMR data folders onto a group or personal computer for further processing. In theory a plugin like (3) could have the ability to manage a personal database over several computers (no need for tedious FTP). A system like (3) would also be nice since it can handle clusters of files behind the scenes, right now: reference meta data, web pages, pdfs, notes, attachments. In the case of NMR data the date behind the scenes would include: FID (the actual raw data), acquisition log, two other files (in the case of Varian NMRs), once processed by (1) there would be another a file for processed data, once annotated by (2) there would be some sort of structure/annotation file, then there would be a need for a meta data file(s) useful to the personal and/or public database, attached notes useful for the chemist, probably things I haven't thought of each getting their own file but all presented to the user as a single cohesive data set through a user friendly interface analogues to (3). As I understand it all of this data handling couldn't be done through a webpage (since we don't give webpages direct access to our harddrives) so the final program would need to be a plug-in or stand alone program.

I wrote most of NMR spectra databases, and those databases are either proprietary and/or rather useless. The idea behind combining the three pieces of software is to develop a tool that is useful to synthetic chemists in its own right but can easily become the front end for a user-modified NMR database. As far as annotating with (1) or (2), I don't know much about 2D chemical structure files but I know that they are more than image files and contain connectivity data. Any spectra structure annotation would best connect the peak(s) or spectral range to one or more atoms based on the connectivity data. My ability to write code is nonexistent so I have no idea how what you said about using writing something with C# to annotate is reasonable or unreasonable.

Sorry I don't think I know Ebbins, I'm state side and have only visited England once.--OMCV (talk) 15:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

It's probably worth asking how much of a full 'database' you want - I assume there will be multiple copies of spectra eg by date, operator, batch, etc? Would you want to be able to say - search for spectra by operator/date acquired/machine used. If so I think it would be best to start by finding a 'cloud database provider' something with a structured query language - then attach the actual 'ping' data to that. (You could use a simple data storage provider, there are no issues with attaching a database program via the net - most online retailers do it).

If that's not needed then one folder per spectra containing all the data would do just as well.

Are all the spectra expected to be in the same format? or are different manufacturers machines used - giving different file ouputs?

As far as programming goes there's no real difference between storing the data locally, or on an external server.

Thinking about it the actual programming work to join up data, meta-data, store it somewhere, and create a simple interface for accessing.displaying it isn't that great. The bigger problem is accurately defining the types of data set, the variants (if any), future extensibility, and specifically what you want it to be able to do. The main issue that I can see is the format that the machines output their data - to get a reliable and accurate automated system for extracting that could be the most time consuming part - do the machines emit their meta data in a standard format (eg CSV, or other accessible by a spreadsheet or database)? - a programmer would really need a systematic description of the way the data is to be presented before being able to start. Particularily the format in which machine readable meta-data is output. (extracting it from human readable form would be problematic) eg [3]

Also was the spectra annotation to be done manually, or were you hoping that the machine would automatically assign peaks to molecular structure based on connectivity and atom type data?83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I wish I could comment on your database concerns and ideas but I really don't know enough about databases. The itunes type interface of (3) would be a really nice way to access NMR data, before an external database is considered.

I realize there is no difference between storing data locally or on an external server but for users to be comfortable with the system they will want to backup their data themselves. I wouldn't risk my data by storing it exclusively with a cloud service. The users would also want access to their data when their off line. I think syncing would in the long run take less bandwidth then uploading data to a server and than pulling data when ever its needed. Plus the less a user needs to do the better, no need to make them upload their data all the time if it syncs automatically.

The big advantage of working with or starting from (1) is that it contains translators for the spectra files of the major NMR producers. Thankfully NMR software technology evolves very slowly and formats don't change often. Independent handling formatting issues would be a major selling point for the system described above.

I would envision manually annotation since I wouldn't expect a computer to do a decent job. With that said I'm sure the user would want a system that allowed a great deal of control over the annotation and how annotations are displayed. A feature that I haven't mentioned is the ultimate desire to export an image for use in publications, posters, and presentation that contains a a) processed spectra, b) 2D molecular image, c) annotation, and sometimes d) a text box listing conditions. The user will want a huge amount of control over the formatting of this image: the text, aspects of the spectral scale, integrals styles, peak labeling/lists, line weights, molecule styles, positions of all the elements, annotation (a color coded system, table, arrows from atoms to peaks, ect.). Features that control some of these variables can be found in (1) and (2) but fine tuning the production of this image will involve a lot of original work.--OMCV (talk) 17:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

.rar files

Can someone suggest a one stop program that will seamlessly play .rar files? I downloaded a video in this format, couldn't open it with windows media player or real one or quicktime, so then I searched the web and found some free "splitting" program which would supposedly help in some way, downloaded that, had no luck with it. Running windows XP on a Dell. Thanks in advance.--68.160.243.210 (talk) 03:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The .rar file format is a lot like a .zip file: it's a file that contains one or many compressed files and folders. You need WinRAR to decompress it. WinRAR can save its .rar archive files while "splitting" them (for example, you might want five 4GB files instead of one 20GB one, so you can write the five 4GB files onto five DVD+R discs), but the splitting is optional. I don't know of any software that will "seamlessly play" a video or music file that's stored inside a .rar file; normally you would decompress the .rar file and then you can do whatever you want to the contents. Tempshill (talk) 04:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I just downloaded WinRaR but I'm not sure I understand what to do with it. Say I download a .rar document. So I use WinRaR to decompress it right? But then what format is the video in? I still have to use a program to run it right? So either WinRaR saves the video in a new format I can choose? or it has a play function? Or if it just decompresses, how do I ever know what file format the compressed file is in so I'll know if once decompressed it will be in a format compatible with one of my video playing programs?--68.160.243.210 (talk) 04:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have winrar then you can simply open the file and you'll see the file inside (unless it's split up). Then you right click the file and do "uncompress to XXXXXX". then you have the video file. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.184.21.210 (talk) 05:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

That's right. WinRAR doesn't know from video files. It doesn't convert video formats or have a play function. Its main purpose is to compress any kinds of files into a smaller archive file (the .rar file). Whoever created that .rar file of yours (let's call him Bob) originally started with a video file - maybe it's an .mpeg, or an .avi, or whatever - and they compressed it into that .rar file. After you decompress the .rar file, you'll have the same .mpeg or .avi or whatever sort of file Bob started with. Tempshill (talk) 06:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay I think I understand now. When a file is in .rar there's no way to tell what format the contents inside are in until you do the decompression. Anyway, I just tried to uncompress the file using WinRar and it got near the end of decompression and then told me I don't have sufficient "volume". I "only" have an 8 gb drive but this doesn't seem right.--68.160.243.210 (talk) 10:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

No, you can open the file with WinRar and view the file listing inside. I think you might possibly have missing volumes, such as .r01, .r02, etc. as your source might have been split into multiple rar files. Sandman30s (talk) 10:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

How much free space do you have, and how big is the compressed .rar file? What operating system do you use? (Win XP) --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 10:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

RAR volumes are often made up of multiple files. They might be named yourfile1.rar, yourfile2.rar, or they might be yourfile.rar, yourfile.r01, yourfile.r02, etc. You can't uncompress the files INSIDE the RAR volume unless you have all of the files in the volume. So if they say you are MISSING a volume, then you need to make sure you have ALL of the RAR files for that RAR volume (and keep them all in the same directory). (It sounds complicated, but once you get it working right, it'll make sense.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Sony CLIÉ PEG-TJ35

Hi wikimates! By any chance, do you know the maximum size of a Memory Stick a Sony CLIÉ PEG-TJ35 can read? Thank you in advance --Ulisse0 (talk) 12:41, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The manual, on Sony's website, talks about Memory Stick media on page 124 (as numbered on the manual pages). It is thick with Sony jargon and unnecessary repetition of stock phrases, and there is no simple table with this information; but it looks to me like you can use 1GB, 512MB, or 256MB Memory Stick Pros. It looks to me like you can also use Duo cards with an adapter but the manual is silent on the supported capacities (maybe it's the same). Tempshill (talk) 16:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Guess the dictator/sitcom character

I remember playing Guess the Dictator/Sit-Com Character when I was at university in around 1995. Just how long has it been online? --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 12:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The www.archive.org archive shows that the home page of the site you linked began linking to this unfunny and unfun game starting on March 9, 2001. It's possible you played it at some other website. Tempshill (talk) 05:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Bluetooth Marketing

what is meant by bluetooth marketing???where is it used???I would like some details about it please.thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gd iitm (talk • contribs) 16:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

See Proximity marketing. -- kainaw™ 16:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

larger checkbox on python pages

Can the checkbox be made to look larger using python scripts and clickable area expanded? Any online source for sripts for this purpose? Thank you. --Clericalmonk (talk) 17:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Which graphical toolkit are you using? Python supports several. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

tkinter--Clericalmonk (talk) 17:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

On p37 of the Tkinter 8.4 reference manual here there is a list of attributes for the Checkbutton widget that includes height (defaults to 1 line) and width (default determined by size of label). You can also use the font attribute to change the size of the label text. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:02, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Font identification?

Can anyone identify either of the two fonts on this logo for me? Thanks :) ╟─TreasuryTag►voice vote─╢ 17:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

That server is not set up right and clicking on the logo tries to download it. Here is the page with the logo: [4]. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The font is very similar to Tahoma and Frutiger, but the serifs are a little more jaunty, like ITC Officina Sans. Hmm. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Try these sites:

• http://www.identifont.com/
• http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

...though it'll almost certainly be a waste of time. Those sites are seriously lousy at identifying fonts. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

They get you something close most of the time. They don't always get the exact font, especially if it's a copycat font. Gigs (talk) 18:45, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Create a transcript from an audio/video file

I recently recorded my grandfather as he told me about his life from childhood and the about the wars he served in. It would be great to have a transcript of this recording, as it is somewhere around 3 hours long! What is the best software available (free or other) to do this? Can it distinguish between voices? Jared (t)  17:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You're probably best off just transcribing it by hand. It'll be far more accurate and save you a lot of time cleaning it up. It doesn't take as long as you'd think it would; maybe 6 hours total for all of that, spread out over a few days, it isn't so much. You'll spend more time trying to find software for it than that, and spend even more time fiddling with it and fixing it up. This is the kind of thing that a human does infinitely better than the software does, at the moment. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that doing it yourself may be the most practical thing for a one-off like this. Other options include using a transcription service, which charge US$1-2 per minute. Running the recordings through speech compression first might save you some money. --Sean 15:30, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have windows 7 or dragon naturally speaking - listen to the tape in one ear and repeat.. I use that method for my transcripts and it's much quicker than typing. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

List of speech recognition software may be of interest. 78.144.246.133 (talk) 13:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Repainting on different threads in Java

Hello! I'm working on a Java program that needs to be able to handle multiple repaint() calls on high-quality images as quickly as possible, so I'm thinking about running the repaint() calls in a thread pool, but I'm concerned (with my incomplete knowledge of the Swing repaint() mechanism) that this simple strategy won't do any good because I think calling repaint() fires a PaintEvent that ultimately ends back on the event-dispatch thread. So, my question is what additional steps do I need to take to make sure the painting takes place entirely on its designated thread? Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 18:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi again el Aprel - hopefully you have read the documentation on the Swing paint process? It seems like it will depend whether you are using heavyweight or Java lightweight (Swing) components. You can also apparently override the default RepaintManager with your own implementation. This is not something I've done; usually I use one of the javax.media advanced 2D drawing packages... Nimur (talk) 20:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe what you want is to implement the

paintImmediately()

function and use it appropriately. See Synchronous Painting in the same document I linked above - and notice the important caveat about overlapping requests. Your thread pool scheduler will need to handle those intelligently (since you are overriding the default scheduler used by the standard

paint()

function, with its event dispatch model). You might also want to read Threading and Swing - your threadpool threads should be Swing Worker Threads, and obey the conventions for interacting with the on-screen GUI elements. Nimur (talk) 20:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Nimur! Your advice and linked documents were very helpful.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 18:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Math AutoCorrect Shortcuts

Hello. How can I print a full list of Math AutoCorrect shortcuts from Word 2007 equation editor? For example, typing \div in equation editor produces the division sign, ÷. I found this PDF on the Web: http://bakins-bits.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/word-2007-equations-and-mathematical-symbols-math-autocorrect-symbols.pdf. My printer could not print some of the symbols. I unsuccessfully tried searching Microsoft's website. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 23:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

August 13

Compositing doesn't work when using dual monitors

I'm using Linux-x86 with an NVIDIA driver 180.44- I don't know particularly much about drivers but compositing worked perfectly back when I had one monitor. Then when I dual-monitor (with something called Xinerama it seems) all of a sudden I can't use desktop effects. What gives? It isn't possible to have desktop effects on two screens with a NVIDIA card? --BiT (talk) 04:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

excel calculations

how can I place preceeding zeros before 1-99 in an excel sheet to look alike with 100-999? thank you```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.43.40.114 (talk) 04:23, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

In Excel 2007, select the cells you want to format in this way, make sure the "Home" tab is chosen, then from the popup menu in the "Number" area choose "Custom", then there's a field under the word "Type:". In that field, type "000" and then click OK. I don't have a previous version of Excel handy but would expect it would be in the Format menu under "Number" or something similar. Tempshill (talk) 04:57, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

In Excel 97: Format, Cells, Number, Custom. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that if you put an apostrophe ' at the start of the cell it will display whaever you input into it (e.g '0800800800 will display as 0800800800 rather 800800800 without changing the formatting). This is particularly useful if you want to 'show' a formula e.g. '=sum(A3:A6) would usually display in the cell the sum value of A3:a6, but with the apostrophe it would show =sum(A3:A6) 194.221.133.226 (talk) 13:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

It should be further noted that using the apostrophe makes the cell a text item, so it can not be used in calculations (unless you use the VALUE function). --LarryMac | Talk 17:30, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there software available that shows how a person looks when they wear different spectacle frames?

It looks to be such an obvious application. The person who needs glasses tries on the frames but having vision difficulties cannot see themselves properly. So you get a digital photo of the person’s face, and then the software adds different spectacle frames to that image, for the consideration of the customer. OPSM is Australia’s largest supplier of spectacle frames but there is no mention of any such application on their website. If such a computer program does not yet exist, I would like some feedback from those who eventually write it. By “feedback” I mean 5% for the first 10 years. Myles325a (talk) 05:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

There is a cheesy little Flash app where you can do this on goggles4u.com (lower left, "virtual try-on"). It doesn't work very well, in part because it's hard to actually match up the size. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:13, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Linear-time Fibonacci generator?

Heya,

After reading dynamic programming, I am wondering why the algorithm on that page for calculating terms of the Fibonacci sequence is O(n). The algorithm:

   function fib(n)
       var previousFib := 0, currentFib := 1
       if n = 0 
           return 0
       else if n = 1 
           return 1
       repeat n − 1 times
           var newFib := previousFib + currentFib
           previousFib := currentFib
           currentFib  := newFib
       return currentFib

Isn't that pseudopolynomial time? Linear in the value of the input (n) but exponential in the size? I don't understand the difference between this example and those given in pseudo-polynomial time. Can anyone explain this?

Thanks a lot, --Aseld ^talk 10:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I would say, in this example we aren't really concerned about the number of bits (since in practice, finding the 2^1000000'th Fibonacci number with this algorithm would take forever anyway; we only ever give it inputs with not much more than 30 bits). So we call the algorithm O(n) if it's linear in n. This is widespread practice. You could imagine a (physically impossible) computer that takes a constant amount of time to process any integer, and then this algorithm runs in linear time. 193.40.5.245 (talk) 11:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. That use of big-O is standard then? --Aseld ^talk 15:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

In computer science it is standard. In mathematics, it is something completely different. So, since this is computer science, you base big O on the worst case scenario. If the input is n and n is not zero or one, there will be n-1 calculations. So, it is O(n-1). However, when n is huge (say a trillion or so), who cares about that "-1" on it. So, we just say O(n). -- kainaw™ 19:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

It is O(n) but not linear-time. On that page it does not say "linear-time." n is understood to be the n that is the input to the function from the pseudocode given. n does not mean the size of the input. --Spoon! (talk) 18:58, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

There's always some ambiguity. It's linear time if the input is encoded in unary, which is reasonable enough in this case since that is effectively how it's consumed. It's O(n²) if the output is an arbitrary-precision integer as opposed to a machine "integer" (integer mod 2^k). It's O(1) if the input is a machine integer, since there's an upper bound on the run time in that case. -- BenRG (talk) 19:24, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Fantastic, got it now. Thanks Spoon! - for some reason I thought the two were synonymous. In retrospect, as so often happens, my mistake seems obvious. Thanks for the responses everyone. :) --Aseld ^talk 16:34, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Making videos

How can I make videos like this which has no moving image, but only a series of photographs with an added background music? Is there any software for making videos like this? And if I compose a video consisted only of photographs, will there be any problem on the copyright of the photographs? Can I use copyrighted photos in a video? Please help. --InternetTraveller (talk) 11:40, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Although I can't access YouTube, Photo slideshow software lists some software which can make videos such as you describe. There would almost certainly be copyright issues if you use the work of other people. --LarryMac | Talk 11:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

x86 CPUID instruction in Delphi

I tried to obtain the "GenuineIntel" string from my Intel processor using Delphi asm:

var
  Form1: TForm1;
  c1, c2, c3: cardinal;
  S: string;

...

procedure TForm1.FormShow(Sender: TObject);
begin
  asm
    mov eax, 0
    cpuid
    mov c1, ebx
    mov c2, ecx
    mov c3, edx
  end;

  S := chr(c1 and $FF) + chr((c1 shr 8) and $FF) + chr((c1 shr 16) and $FF) + chr((c1 shr 24) and $FF) +
       chr(c3 and $FF) + chr((c3 shr 8) and $FF) + chr((c3 shr 16) and $FF) + chr((c3 shr 24) and $FF) +
       chr(c2 and $FF) + chr((c2 shr 8) and $FF) + chr((c2 shr 16) and $FF) + chr((c2 shr 24) and $FF);

  Caption := S;
end;

It do not work, for I get an access violation exception. However, if I move Caption := S to another procedure (e.g. the Form1.OnClick event procedure), it works perfectly. (I do also get the exception if I write the entire code above in OnClick. Apparently, there is some problem with updating the GUI (Form1.Caption) immediately after the asm code.) What is the problem, and how do I avoid it? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know Delphi, but in GCC's inline assembler feature you have to tell the compiler which registers you wrote into. CPUID writes into eax, ebx, ecx, and edx. Perhaps there's a similar "clobbered register list" feature (assuming the Delphi compiler doesn't actually know Intel assembler)? --Sean 16:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I found the problem. I am not allowed to alter the EBX register, so I have to push and pop the value of it. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Java applets

Is it possible to include Java applets in Blogger or Wordpress pages? If yes, how? 202.124.190.37 (talk) 11:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

If you are self-hosting wordpress then you can [5]. If you are using the Wordpress.com hosted site then I don't think you will be able to. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Automatically opening programs slowing down reboot

When I reboot certainly programs open automatically and I have to wait for all of them to finish loading before I can do anything. Some I guess I need to do this, such as the horrible all around speed bump that is Norton, but others I don't see any need for, such as Quicktime, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Ares and so on. If I want to access these I can open them as needed. So my question is, is there a way to set these programs to not automatically load?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:30, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Many can either be individually configured (in their own config screens) not to start up automatically, or their shortcuts can be removed from the "Startup" menu. But some things don't play nice - for them, Microsoft's AutoRuns program is the big stick. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:36, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I recommend a program called Startup Control Panel, which I've always found a reliable method of knocking startup crud on the head. In many years using it, I've not spotted any problems with it. (That said, I was not aware of Autoruns for Windows v9.53, so what do I know - it sounds good too.) --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Running msconfig usually works for me, but that can seriously screw up your computer, so the others would probably work better. It's only advantage is that you don't need to install it. To use it, just open up the run window, and type msconfig. Thanks, gENIUS101 14:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all. I will attempt some mix of these when I get home later today (and ultimately report back here, probably long after you guys have moved on). Cheers!--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Quicktime X vs Quicktime 7

I'm a little confused about what exactly is Quicktime X. Reports say that under Snow Leopard, Quicktime 7 will be an optional install. So what is the difference? Does QT 7 contain all the legacy codecs (animation, cinepak, video, etc)? Is Quicktime X h.264 only? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:33, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The Quicktime article states that Quicktime X is the next version, which will be shipped with Mac OS X v10.6 aka Snow Leopard, and lists a few new features. I wouldn't expect it to have any fewer features that QT7. From what I can pick up around the web, QT7 will be available because there may be some programs/media that require it, due to QTX's new design/architecture. --LarryMac | Talk 21:05, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

US and UK English versions of HTML in same file

Is it possible in the same HTML document to provide different translations of a word or phrase and have the browser choose among them according to user language settings? I'd be thinking of something like this:

<p>Under-inflated <span alt-lang="en-UK" alt-text="tyres">tires</span> waste
<span alt-lang="en-UK" alt-text="petrol">gas</span>.</p>

NeonMerlin 17:22, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Usually the web page itself defines the language it's in..

However you can use javascript to detect the language the user is using eg see [6] and [7]

Unfortunately that just doesn't work on some browsers. I'm totally out of date. Maybe someone else knows a method that works?83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

This works better (lifted off some forum, can't remember where - hope they don't mind..)

<html>
<body>
<script language="JavaScript">
   var m = ((navigator.browserLanguage) ? navigator.browserLanguage : (navigator.language) ? navigator.language : navigator.userLanguage);
   alert("The language of your browser is "+'"'+m+'"')
</script>
</body>
</html>

Covers other browsers.. Can you take it from there with the javascript? 83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC) (These two pages contain enough info hopefully [8] - how to 'print' with javascript , and [9] making decisions. Also consider the switch statement. It's even possible to scan and convert a whole body of text for US/UK english and convert - but that comes in lesson 2..83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:26, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually I've noticed that the above may give "en-US" when "en-UK" is set - I think it's the "navigator.browserLanguage" property - that returns the default language, rather than the set language. In practice it could get fiddly.83.100.250.79 (talk) 13:19, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Scanning over and converting has got to be more trouble than it is worth. (There is nothing so deceptively simple looking as automatic text conversion.) If you really wanted to do this, you could definitely use your SPAN method above, and then have the Javascript just go through and adjust as needed. I think it's kind of unnecessarily, personally. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:38, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

iGoogle contacts

How do I remove a contact from my list oif contacts in iGoogle Talk? 91.106.55.230 (talk) 17:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Float vs. int performance

How much faster is integer arithmetic than floating-point on modern processors? NeonMerlin 18:50, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

It depends strongly on your processor. The range can be anywhere from "slightly slower" to around 50-100 times slower; and if you do not have a FPU (as many embedded processors lack this hardware), a good rule of thumb is 5000 - 10,000x slower (using integer operations to software emulate the FPU). My i920 Nehalem (a new Intel processor) can execute floating point operations faster than integer operations, depending on cache conditions. It's safe to say that a mid- to high-end cpu will probably be on the order of 4x faster at integer calculations in general. Nimur (talk) 19:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

This all assumes that you do some heavy number crunching on a small set of data that fits entirely in the cache. Fetching a non-cached memory location takes much longer than a floating point operation.195.128.250.174 (talk) 20:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

A software library for floating point would probably only slow it by a factor of 50 perhaps compared to hardware. Using interrupts to do the business instead of subroutine calls might slow it by another factor of two or three. Dmcq (talk) 21:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I must have been thinking of some floating-point sqrt() or log(), which is not one floating-point operation! Woops... my numbers were pretty off, my memory failed me...Nimur (talk) 23:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that you mean using integers for integer calculations, and not for emulating floating-point operations (in which case it's orders of magnitude slower): it depends on the processor, but floating-point performance is generally superior. The baseline operations are addition and multiplication. On most modern processors, a floating-point addition and multiplication both take 1 cycle; an integer addition takes 1 cycle, while an integer multiplication takes perhaps 2-4 cycles. However, the answer is more complex because processors are able to execute more than one instruction in parallel. For example, the Software Optimization Guide for AMD Family 10h Processors says "The processor is capable of performing three independent 64-bit additions each clock cycle and a 64-bit multiplication every other clock cycle." and "The AMD Family 10h floating-point unit can sustain up to two floating-point operations (one in the add unit and one in the multiply unit) per clock cycle." The actual performance depends strongly on whether the code has been optimized to take advantage of the pipelining capabilities of the given processor. Fredrik Johansson 21:15, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Here are some latency and throughput numbers from Intel's optimization manual:

                           Nehalem  Enh.Core  Core
        SSE/x87 float add   3, 1     3, 1     3, 1
        SSE float mult.     4, 1     4, 1     4, 1
        x87 float mult.     5, 2     5, 2     5, 2

        MMX int add         1, 1/2   1, 1/3   1, 1
        SSE int add         1, 1/2   1, 1/2   1, 1/3
        x86 int add         1, 1/3   1, 1/3   1, 1/3
        MMX/SSE int mult.   3, 1     3, 1     3, 1
        x86 int mult.       3, 1     3, 1     3, 1/2

I don't know why they're so complicated and I suspect there are some typos, but at any rate integer math is substantially faster. However the fastest way to do math is to issue integer and floating point operations in parallel, since they run on different execution units. -- BenRG (talk) 00:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Windows Live Mail Auto spellcheck

Does anyone know how to turn off the auto spellcheck when composing new e-mails on windows live mail, that is the red squiggly lines under the words. It is infuriating & I can't find any setting to turn it off. The help function is no help either. Thanks AllanHainey (talk) 18:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

(Tools) , options , select spelling tab , unselect everything - see if it works.83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

or (ALT + M key) , options , select spelling tab , etc .83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. AllanHainey (talk) 19:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Multiple Related iTunes/Bluetooth/Laptop-Phone Questions.

1. Why, when I create and buy a ring-tone from the iTune's store, will the ringtone not Blue-tooth from my HP G60t to my Motorola ROCKR Z6 using a WINCOMM Bluetooth Software Adapter, when other songs will?

2. Is there any free music editing software where I can cut clips from my iTunes songs to make ring-tones that would be compatible with the above setup?

3. Also, when all of my other songs (whether iTunes Store Downloaded or from an outside source) will transfer via the previously listed setup, for some songs I can select them as a designated ring-tone (they are listed as "Apply: Yes"). However for others, I can use the music player on the phone to access the song, but it us listed as "Apply: No." What can I do to resolve this?

So, in summary, I need:

1. Knowledge on how to transfer purchased iTunes ring-tones to my ROCKR

2. Free music-editing software to create ringtones that will be able to be transferred and be applicable.

3. Knowledge on what is causing some songs to be applicable and others to not; as well as how to change the songs to a format that will make them applicable.

Hubydane (talk) 20:12, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Help, please? Hubydane (talk) 00:41, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes an answer can take more than a few hours to be posted, as it says on the top of the page, so be patient.

1. The ringtones that are sold by the iTunes store are designed for the iPhone. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't think they are compatible with other brands of cell phone, which would explain why it won't show up on your MotoROKR. The regular songs aren't restricted in this way.
2. Check out the website MyxerTones for creating your own ringtones. You can upload .mp3s, select a clip, and it sends it to your phone in a pix message. I don't think it works with Verizon right now, but there is a simple manual way to do it yourself. Download Audacity, which is a free audio-editing software. Edit the desired song into a 20 or 30-second segment, and save it as an .mp3. Then, you can email that file to your phone in a pix message. Simply attach the file, and send it to <your ten-digit phone number>@vzwpix.com (this is the address for Verizon, I'm pretty sure other phone companies have a variation on this, where you can send an email to a cell phone as a pix message). Then, save the sound attached to the pix message as a ringtone, and there you go.
3. Check the file format of the songs that are 'applicable'. Then, just make sure that the files that you want are in the same format (you can convert them using iTunes). Hope this helps —Akrabbim^talk 14:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

After I re-read your question, the whole MyxterTones/e-mailing the files to your phone doesn't apply to you, since you are able to do the BlueTooth thing. Editing the clips in Audacity is probably all you'll need to do to get your perfect ringtone. Sorry if there is confusion. —Akrabbim^talk 15:00, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, the Audacity thing worked brilliantly! Hubydane (talk) 21:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Optimize Computer Performance

I have recently purchased a HP G60t series laptop with 4GB RAM and 320GB Hard Drive. I want to know what I could do to optimize performance and totally lock down my computer from viruses/spyware/adware/etc.

So far I have installed for protection: Norton Internet Security (60 day trial w/ laptop) CCleaner Ad-Aware (Free Version) Spybot Search and Destroy

...for optimization: WINCOMM Bluetooth Software

Suggestions (Please include what suggestion will do)?

Hubydane (talk) 20:23, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Skip Norton, get AVG. The rest are fine. If you want to really avoid the viruses and spyware and etc., keep your security patches updated, and don't use Internet Explorer. To really optimize, turn off all the shiny bells and whistles in Windows. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

What shiny bells and whistles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hubydane (talk • contribs) 21:38, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The most important thing you can do is to practice "safe computing": Don't download and run any executable files from a website you do not trust; and never from an e-mail. In order to minimize the damage in the case that you do, you should create two accounts on the computer: one account with administrator access, used only for installing software that came from a trusted source; and a "user" account with no administrator access. Use the "user" account always. If you "accidentally" run an executable file, it won't be able to infect or damage your system as badly (though of course a Trojan horse executable could always just delete all the files accessible to the "user" account, upload them all to Bulgaria, or whatever.) Tempshill (talk) 21:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Any other suggestions? Such as Firefox/Opera for safe browsing? (I use Firefox now) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hubydane (talk • contribs) 22:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Most people would agree that Firefox is generally safer than internet explorer, and it won't bother your system resources at all. There are also plugins available (for example one comes with AVG) that help you steer away from notorious websites in google searches, etc. I don't know much about Opera, you could read here about it, it looks like it contains a lot of extra features that if you won't be using them would just be extraneous.

The shiny bells and whistles that 98 mentioned are things like Windows Aero, which are both optional and pretty, but can use up processor and/or video memory resources. —Akrabbim^talk 14:41, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

One thing with AVG Free vers is that it doesn't have real time protection. So if you download a virus it won't tell you 'till you run a virus scan. Personally I use Avira Anti-Vir Free which has free real time. Also an user-friendly firewall is Comodo Firewall. If you use Comodo disable Windows Firewall, and when Comodo asks you about a program don't randomly accept/block it. As for an on-demand scanner I'd use Malware Bytes-Anti Malware instead of Spybot. But most important is common sense prolly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.202.209 (talk) 06:45, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

BEGIN...END in prepared MySQL statement

Does MySQL support BEGIN...END in prepared statements? If so, is an unusual syntax required? If not, how do I prepare several statements as one? NeonMerlin 21:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

A simple Googling of "MySQL BEGIN" seems to indicate they support them, and gives the syntax. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Learn to Program

I want to learn how to write programs. Nothing complicated, but is there a free how-to or something out there that can get me started? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hubydane (talk • contribs) 21:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

You might find some useful tutorials in this Google search. Theleftorium 22:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

First, you need to decide what you want your program to do. There are thousands of programming languages you could possibly learn. Of those, about 10 are considered easy and mainstream enough for a beginner. Without knowing what you want to do, it is very difficult to choose which language best suits your needs. Therefore, I suggest learning C++. There are many many many books in every library and bookstore that I've been to that teach C++ for beginners. If you begin with C++, all other common languages will appear to be C++-lite. If you begin with something like Java or Pascal, programming that requires C++ will seem very difficult and complex. -- kainaw™ 22:02, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Personally I would recommend starting with a 'teaching language' like Pascal (programming language). I believe it is much easier to program (and learn to program) in almost any language once you have learnt 'how' programs and programming work. Once you've got a good grasp of what you're expecting to do (and how you're expecting a program to be setup) then a lot of the learning a new languge is a case of learning the syntax and structure that are unique to that programming language. ny156uk (talk) 22:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

We have a WikiBook, C Programming, which is a good trainer. You need to decide what language is suitable for the tasks you want to do; I have found that Java is a very suitable tool for most applications tasks, while C is much better suited to certain problems. As a beginner, I strongly recommend Java for the following reason: the standard compiler from Sun spits out very friendly and informative error messages when things break (whereas C or C++ will simply tell you "segfault"). The importance of this will become apparent as you start programming. Kainaw accurately points out that transitioning to the more systems-oriented languages will be difficult; but I think it's easier to learn those concepts after you understand the basic structured-thinking approach of programming. Nimur (talk) 23:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of being pelted with eggs, for a total beginner I'm tempted to recommend learning javascript - it can be edited in a text editor, and run in a browser, you'd also have to learn simple html - the site http://www.w3schools.com/ has a good step by step introduction to both, that is really simple to follow. I'd worry about starting with C/java/C++ since they require a lot of input that just wont make much sense to someone starting out. If you're already familar with variables, for/next loops, if/then statements etc then ignore this advice.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it's better for a beginner than C or C++ (I just received a 20,000-line error message from g++!), but I think Javascript is horrible for development. The runtime environment is poorly documented with massive dark corners on every platform, there's no freaking #include/import directive, variables default to global, and even when declared with "var" their non-block scope is idiotic, they screwed the pooch with for/in iteration, and it does all this vigorous sucking at a snail's pace. --Sean 20:54, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It's worth noting that Java (programming language) and Javascript are very different languages - their common name is a historical artifact but they are otherwise entirely separate entities. I would not recommend JavaScript, because of its limited capacity for application development outside of web development. Java, on the other hand, is suitable for a wide range of systems- and applications- programming (including web development). Nimur (talk) 22:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Educational programming language might be a good article to read. Tempshill (talk) 16:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I have just started learning Java and I have found [10] to be excellent. It is free, well written, easy to read, includes programming exercises with full solutions and even a custom Java class (programming class, not school class) with subroutines to make text I/O simpler for a beginner. 131.111.146.85 (talk) 11:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

August 14

GSM and UMTS required bandwidth

How many 200 khz gsm channel pair (DL/UL) and how many umts channel pair do you need to have -all- the channel required to make a single phone call? (and if possible a breakdown of all channel required a minima for making a -single- phone call). I know the list of all the channel type but I wondered what would be the minimal requirement to pass one single phone call (I'm not sure it's the "right" section, but I think cellular is networking related isnt it?) - Esurnir (talk) 00:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

One GSM channel can carry 8 phone calls, UMTS uses cdma and because of that (and greater bandwidth (it was 5MHz, if i remember correctly)) can carry more, although i do not know how much exactly. -Yyy (talk) 15:36, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I know it can carry up to eight user channel but then you also need a certain number of control channel access channel and broadcast channel just to setup one call. I'm wondering how many in total are needed. What is the minimum infrastucture and how many per call. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.234.36 (talk) 17:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Use of standalone Google Maps utility

When I try to use the standalone Google Maps utility I just downloaded, it is unable to connect to the server. I have tried the test diagnostics it suggests and it comes up with:

Google Earth Server Test

kh.google.com UNSUCCESSFUL

maps.google.com SUCCESSFUL

auth.keyhole.com SUCCESSFUL

I have AVG on my computer but I can't see an option for allowing access to Port:80 (which has been indicated as being the problem). Other than that, just the Windows firewall itself (again, can't see any pertinent options). Regards -- Alexandr Dmitri (Александр Дмитрий) (talk) 03:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

AVG just updated itself and now Google Earth (not Google Maps as I incorrectly stated) now works -- Alexandr Dmitri (Александр Дмитрий) (talk) 15:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Filtered websites

Could people from the UK test whether they can connect to 4chan.org for me, or if it gives a Network Timeout error. I have a horrible feeling the UK is filtering websites again, much like they did to that wikipedia article. Thanks

It works fine for me here in Norwich Zzubnik (talk) 09:35, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

hmmm, any idea what might be causing my problem? I could access it three hours ago and now all I get is a network timeout error. I've tested using a proxy and I can access that way (very slow) so I guess it must be me. I've tried a dns flush and that hasn't helped. —Preceding unsigned comment added by W.Butt ACKACK (talk • contribs) 09:55, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Has the UK filtered Wikipedia articles? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 12:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe the OP is referring to the incident mentioned in this article. --LarryMac | Talk 12:29, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

TrueCrypt, encrypting entire drive on dual boot PC

According to the TrueCrypt article, The version for Windows Vista or XP can encrypt the boot partition or entire boot drive.... If I encrypt the entire boot drive of a dual boot laptop (Xp and Xubuntu), what will the boot sequence be? Will I first get a prompt for the TrueCrypt password, and then get the grub startup menu, or vice versa? Has anyone here tried such a setup? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 09:03, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Encrypting the entire drive won't work since TrueCrypt's boot-time decryption only works in Windows, as far as I know. But you can encrypt the Windows and Linux partitions independently using the TrueCrypt bootloader for Windows and a small unencrypted boot partition for Linux. I recommend searching the TrueCrypt forum for the phrase "dual boot". It looks like one setup has TrueCrypt loading GRUB and another has GRUB loading TrueCrypt. -- BenRG (talk) 17:03, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

That was helpful. I hadn't specifically searched the TrueCrypt forums, and the links that turned up on a general google search were quite confusing. The ideal solution, from a user point of view, would IMO be to first say hello to TrueCrypt, and then select the OS to boot with Grub. But after a bit of thought, I realize that the TrueCrypt bootloader would then have to somehow communicate the decryption algorithm to the OS. There is no layer between the hardware and the OS where TrueCrypt could reside and do its thing, in order to permit OS-independent encryption. Pretty obvious now, but it wasn't, to me, when I posted the question. Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

There is such a layer early in the boot process: the BIOS disk functions. I'm not certain that TrueCrypt's bootloader hooks them or that that would be enough to support GRUB, but it's not inherently impossible. Ask at the TrueCrypt forum—someone must have tried it before. -- BenRG (talk) 11:02, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:32, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Weird spam

Just in the past couple weeks I have been receiving increasing amounts of a certain kind of spam, which I am having trouble understanding. It isn't a big deal, since my spam filter for the most part is working pretty well, but they are kind of intriguing. For one, my email address is never mentioned in the 'To:' field. It is always 'sent' to something untrue like 'info[at]mail[dot]com' or 'nothingmuch[at]woobling[dot]org'. Another thing is that these emails don't even have any links in them, so I can't possibly conceive what kind of benefit they are providing the sender, except he's sending me, maybe she's sending me just to see me get irate. Here are some screenies: [11] [12]. Any thoughts? —Akrabbim^talk 12:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, they might want you to respond—they might be phishing attempts of some sort. Or they might just be Bayesian poisoning. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The email message may also be an effort to identify whether you are a human or a machine - by opening the mail, you may be loading (transparent) images from a web-server, which can uniquely identify your email address as a valid (and therefore, to-be-targeted) address. Our spam article has a brief mention about this tactic. Nimur (talk) 16:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, but that isn't true in this case. Gmail tells you if there are images from an address that you have not received from before. At this point I'm more interested in how they are even getting to me if I am not in the 'To:' or 'CC:' fields. —Akrabbim^talk 16:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

On the last point: that is because they are putting your address in the Bcc field, or rather doing the equivalent thing in their spam-generating software. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I thought that was fairly clear. You can send messages quite easily without the address of all the recipients being displayed. Bcc is quite useful for things like mailing lists -- that same message probably went to a hundred addresses, and if someone mistakenly hits "reply all" to say, "Hey, is this spam?" then you're getting EVEN MORE lousy, useless mail. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:04, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think reply all works with bcc. 195.35.160.133 (talk) 11:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC) Martin.

javascript - browser dependent

Is there a reason why this http://www.w3schools.com/js/tryit.asp?filename=tryjs_confirm doesn't work in google chrome? is it valid to use document.write from a popup box anyway?83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't work in Safari, either, for that matter. I'm not sure what you're takling about regarding the popup box -- the fact that it uses the result of a confirm() to determine what to write is not a big deal at all. It's definitely something about document.write, though -- if you change it to document.body.innerHTML = whatever, then it works fine. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

""popup"" meant subroutine called via dialog box .. not very clear..

For some reason, if you don't put a <html></html> around the response text, it displays as blank in Safari. Which is weird and probably wrong. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Both are from webkit - but is webkit wrong? or just not doing undefined behaviour?83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

using .innerHTML makes sense to me. What I don't get is the use of document.write - I'd expect it to append the document, not overwrite - which is what it does when the <html></html> tags are used (ie it overwrites).

It's not clear to me that document.write is actually defined in this context - ie write to where? But the example is from an offshoot of the W3C standards body - I'd expect it to be right.

Does anyone have a clear idea of what document.write should have done in the above example?

If you call document.write after the document object is written (e.g. the whole page has loaded), it essentially rewrites the entire document—all elements. It's only useful in situations where you are generating an entirely new page from scratch with Javascript (mostly used for outputting new windows and things like that). .write doesn't append unless you call it while the body is still loading (e.g. if you slip in a document.write("hello!") in script tags in the body of your HTML, it will do so); if you want to append text, you have to be more specific than editing the entire document object, generally speaking. What's weird about the webkit approach is that it gives a blank page when it just has a text string -- it should render the text string in the default font (like Firefox), or, at least I imagine it should. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:26, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense - I was thinking that the .write method continues to append the web page even when loaded (and therefor somewhow infers the current 'caret' of text insertion ie looking for a close </script> and popping back along the call tree until it finds a point where plain text is the context .. clearly fraught with problems)...

I don't understand what webkit is doing either. If I save a text string as .html and open it with the browser it does manage to display it.83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:17, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It looks like webkit does an initial error checking pass when opening a web page - eg the textfile "Hello" seems to be automatically encased in html and body tags. (it also seems to add closing tags were they are 'optional' and forgotten.)

I'd assume that it doesn't go through this process when re-writing the page after it's been opened - hence the new file "you pressed ok" results in blank since the display mechanism never finds the first html..83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, that sounds plausible. Weird. I imagine this sort of thing just doesn't come up that much in the real world, because you're rarely rewriting entire pages with Javascript after they have loaded (if you are.... you've made some bad developer decisions!). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 04:36, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes :) 83.100.250.79 (talk) 10:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Lost in PHP

Hi All,

I'm getting frustrated! Can't figure out this simple line fails with Fatal error: Function name must be a string ?

$txt = $_GET['find'];
$txt = $str_replace(" ","%",$txt); // <-- this line
echo 'Looking for : '.$txt;

the url being passed is test.php?find=abc+def

Note: when I have it just echo 'Looking for : '.$txt; it shows the '+' replaced by space, so I assume in the text to replace I should be looking for spaces.

Someone please enlighten me :( PrinzPH (talk) 18:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

You shouldn't have the $ in front of str_replace. See the examples here --LarryMac | Talk 18:15, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

O.. M.. G.. and to think that was the where I got the syntax from in the first place ^_^" sigh... as Danny Elfman sang: "THE LITTLE THINGS!"... THANKS A HEAP LarryMac! PrinzPH (talk) 18:57, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Facebook Loading Error

When I open Firefox (all software on my computer is up to date) and I log in to Facebook, my home page shows up just fine. But, whenever I click a link (be it through Notifications, or some other Facebook related link) it loads the generic Facebook page (with the Home, Profile, Friends & Inbox bar on top, with the notification and chat bar on the bottom) but then loads nothing else. I have no issue loading any other website, and I can link to Facebook from an external site and load the page just fine.

Why is this?

Hubydane (talk) 19:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Try making sure your cache is emptying, first off. (Clear your history and caches out.) See if that fixes it.

If not... I've noticed that for me, at least, many, many, many sites, Facebook included, are really, really, really poor at rendering. I used a debugger to see what the holdup was -- it was in every case scripts being loaded from other sources that were holding it up (e.g. Google Analytics, or advertisements, and things like that). The browser would render maybe half the elements and then wait for these scripts, which often would time-out anyway (god knows why). So I installed NoScript for Firefox and was able to tweak the settings so that ONLY local scripts would be processed. I found that it SIGNIFICANTLY improved rendering time on most pages, though of course it broke some pages as well (though it is easy enough to set NoScript to ignore those pages). Anyway, that might be worth trying, just to see if it helps out. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you running an ad blocker? Sometimes Adblock Plus causes load problems like that. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 15:34, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Merging audio channels

I want to create surround audio simply by selecting different audio clips for each speaker. Is there any application that lets me do this simple task? --81.227.70.94 (talk) 21:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)81.227.70.94 (talk) 19:54, 14 August 2009 (UTC) Try Audacity 88.108.14.227 (talk) 17:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

copying from cd

some times i want to copy some simple video from video cd ,i got message ,"invalid Ms dos function -------" how can i overcome this and by which techinique i can copy these videos. Also how can i create cd of videos having this property. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.20.223 (talk) 20:23, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Video CDs use a strange disc format that's different from the usual data CD format. You need a Video CD ripping program. I don't know what to recommend, but I'm sure you can find something with a web search. The video data once extracted is just MPEG-1, which practically any movie player can handle. For making Video CDs you likewise need software with special Video CD support, but I think most CD burning software does support it. There's probably not much use making Video CDs these days because MPEG-4/"DivX" AVI files are much better and most set-top players now support them. -- BenRG (talk) 21:26, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

HID DATA Has Stopped Working

HP G60t or something like that, brand new. Bought a Windcomm bluetooth thing (little USB plug that let's me bluetooth) and installed it (had to uninstall then re-install because my i forgot my phone's ID), now every time i start up i get this error message "HID DATA has stopped working."

I'm running Windows Vista x64. Bluetooth and everything seems to work fine, I just want the message gone. o_O —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hubydane (talk • contribs) 21:57, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Gravit On Mac OS X

Does anyone know where I can get a pre-compiled Gravit for Mac OS X? --Melab±1 ☎ 22:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the Gravit developer is planning to release one "soon." I tried to compile this just now, only to learn once again why I hate Mac OSX - it's a confusing mess. It seems that by default, OSX has a system library, a Framework, and an X11 version of the libGL OpenGL. All of these are conflicting with each other; and they conflict with the actual SDL library desired by Gravit. (In short - it's nontrivial to make this program compile on a Mac, though it appears possible). Nimur (talk) 23:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I haven't really tried to compile on Mac OS X and haven't got into its structure, so I can't say anything about it being a mess. All I know is that I like Windows better because I don't have to use complicated button pressing and dragging to copy or move a file in Windows Explorer, I have access to Visual Studio, there's a lot more available software, and a hole bunch of other reasons. --Melab±1 ☎ 03:27, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

nvidia file permission reseting after boot

basically i need to set the user on /dev/nvidia* (two files) to user "boinc" (to get boinc to register my CUDA graphics card) and i do that via chown but i found that the permissions reset after each boot. running "ls -l | grep nvidia" inside /dev shows that both files reload with "crw-rw-rw-. 1 root root..." (so i cant add boinc to the group "video") i edited /etc/security/console.perms.d/50-defaults.perms and removed the line starting with <dri>, and rebooted but still no look, i also have SeLinux disabled and running fedora 11, any help?--90.197.244.113 (talk) 22:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I had a similar problem; Fedora doesn't seem to allow init scripts to chown files in /dev/. I think our workaround was to manually initialize the NVIDIA card with a script, something to the effect of

# Create /dev nodes for nvidia devices
function createnodes() {
   # Count the number of NVIDIA controllers found.
   N3D=`/sbin/lspci | grep -i NVIDIA | grep "3D controller" | wc -l`
   NVGA=`/sbin/lspci | grep -i NVIDIA | grep "VGA compatible controller" | wc -l`

   N=`expr $N3D + $NVGA - 1`
   for i in `seq 0 $N`; do
       mknod -m 666 /dev/nvidia$i c 195 $i
       RETVAL=$?
       [ "$RETVAL" = 0 ] || exit $RETVAL
   done

   mknod -m 666 /dev/nvidiactl c 195 255
   RETVAL=$?
   [ "$RETVAL" = 0 ] || exit $RETVAL
}

This handled our CUDA and non-CUDA cards, automounted them, and set the permissions on them. But we have to manually run this (with superuser permission "sudo"), after booting. Nimur (talk) 23:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

(EC) I was going to suggest just adding "chown boinc /dev/nvdia*" to the end of /etc/rc.local, but Nimur says Fedora has the bizarre behavior of not letting you do that in an init script. I personally would give it a shot anyway and try to debug that "feature". --Sean 23:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

By all means, I agree with Sean's suggestion in principle - except that it didn't work! If you figure out how to make it work, please post an update, and let us know (it'll streamline our reboot process!) Nimur (talk) 00:08, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Aren't you supposed to set the /dev/nvidia* files to be owned by root, but with a group of "video" and permissions crw-rc----, then all users that need to access those devices are set up to be members of the "video" group (via /etc/group). That's the right thing for accessing the card as a mere user with OpenGL or whatever...I have no clue about CUDA though. SteveBaker (talk) 03:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

CUDA uses the graphics accelerator for non-video computation, so the "video" group is not suitable - user processes also need access. Nimur (talk) 04:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

several hours of google latter i've found how to reset the permissions, add to /etc/modprobe.conf,

options nvidia NVreg_DeviceFileUID=0
options nvidia NVreg_DeviceFileGID=91
options nvidia NVreg_DeviceFileMode=0660
and i added boinc to the video group and use the video group GID in modprobe, but boinc doesnt want to play ball--90.197.244.113 (talk) 11:10, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

it appears now, i can set boinc as either owner or group/in a group, for the /dev/nvidia* via modprobe.conf,then after rebotting the pc boinc will only recognise the cuda card if i then restart the boinc service, any ideas either to fix this bit now or on how to automate restarting the service?--90.197.244.113 (talk) 16:43, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

claiming a domain name

When my church acquired a domain name it was registered to an individual, the owner of the small company which was providing the Internet connection. The company went out of business and he could not be found to transfer ownership of the domain name. The registration expired a few days ago. Web hosting companies such as Go Daddy offer to back order the domain name; this actually means that when the name becomes available the company would enter a bid on the customer's behalf. How long would it likely be before the name is released? --Halcatalyst (talk) 23:00, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It could be on the order of years; top level domain names can be purchased for at least 2 years. It's much easier if you can track down whoever originally registered it and transfer it directly, rather than waiting for the name to expire and "back-ordering." Nimur (talk) 23:26, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

As I mentioned, the registration is now expired. The question is, how long will it take before the name is made available again? Thanks. --Halcatalyst (talk) 23:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

If the registration has expired, isn't the DNS name available now? Are you sure you don't mean that the hosting has expired? A DNS name can point to a non-operating server for a very long time. Nimur (talk) 23:38, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It looks like ICANN allows a maximum of one transfer of ownership within 60 days. If the domain has just expired, there is a 45-day grace-period to allow it to be renewed by the original owner; and then it can be transferred on the open market. Sorry for my earlier comment; the domain is not available immediately. Nimur (talk) 23:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's the information I needed. One more thing: are the rules any different for .org as opposed to the others? --Halcatalyst (talk) 00:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I've been through exactly this situation recently. http://sjbaker.com became available (I've had http://sjbaker.org for years) - I had to wait 45 days after it expired before I could purchase it. Then I had to wait 60 days before I could transfer it from the domain registrar who sold it to me to my regular registrar. Now, if only the owner of http://stevebaker.com (who has a pretty crappy site) would give it up! SteveBaker (talk) 02:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

No telephone provider for the web?

Do you need a telephone provider to have the internet? Once the telephone line is connected to your computer do you need a provider (e.g. AT&T) to have the web in additional to your ISP? • S • C • A • R • C • E • 23:30, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

You can connect to the internet in a variety of ways. A telephone-line based modem is usually called an ISDN or dial-up access connection, and is rapidly becoming obsolete in most parts of the world. There are other technologies, generally called broadband internet. For historical reasons, many broad-band internet providers evolved out of telephone companies; but they also came from cable television conglomerates, as well as other "data-only" network provider companies.

If you choose to use a telephone line for dial-up access, you still need a service provider (usually this involves an hourly- or monthly-fee in addition to the charges for making the phone calls). It is certainly possible to have a separate ISP company providing the dial-up service, and a different company providing the telephone service; but more often, your telephone company will also sell internet service (for your convenience). If you don't have telephone service, then connecting the wire to your computer will not allow you access; conversely, if you don't have an ISP providing a computer on the other end of the phone-line, the computer can be connected to the telephone network but will not be on the internet. Nimur (talk) 23:45, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It depends on what services are locally available. I use cable internet and have no telephone provider whatsoever—all of my internet comes through my cable television connection. (And before you ask—in my particular situation, I could definitely have gotten internet without television, though the wiring for both is identical and would have had to been installed had it not already been, as is of course quite common in the U.S. at least. As it stands, I get a discount on the television for getting the internet, so it doesn't add up to a whole lot more to add that on.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 04:23, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Like 98.217.14.211 I had cable television with Numéricable and the Internet connection was an add on when I lived in Paris. Here in Morocco, Wana offers wireless connection using a receptor connected to a USB port (in French). Reception varies according to location and connection speeds according to the time of day. I'd be surprised if this didn't exist in other countries. -- Alexandr Dmitri (Александр Дмитрий) (talk) 11:19, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

There is definitely celluar wireless internet in the US but it is rather expensive and pretty slow. (You'd be surprised, I believe, at how backwards US cellular infrastructure is compared to Europe...) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 00:50, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

August 15

command prompt

Using windows XP, I have managed to get the command line interface to go totally full screen, unfortunately I can't work out how to get it back to normal.. Please help.83.100.250.79 (talk) 02:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You can toggle between fullscreen and windowed by pressing Alt+Enter at the same time. ZX81 ^talk 03:37, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks (sigh)83.100.250.79 (talk) 10:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

how do you check whether

email headers are forged? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.57.133 (talk) 06:54, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

If you want to check if a header is legitimate, look a the Received: header. The originating server and IP address (along with other information such as HELO) show the originating source. Later Received headers may be forged, and should only be trusted if you are familiar with the originating mail server. Example. --Sigma 7 (talk) 21:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

LCD monitor's optimum resolution is too high for my eyes

I'm looking at buying a new computer and monitor, and it seems that only LCD monitors are available now - CRTs are not. The problem is that I have fairly poor eyesight and typically run my monitor at a relatively low resolution. However it appears that LCD monitors work best at their "optimum" - ie highest - resolution, but that higher resolution causes me significant eye strain. If I switch to a lower resolution, the images is poor, almost as if out of focus. I presume that this is because the computer image pixels no longer match one-to-one with the monitor pixels. I have tried changing the DPI settings to compensate, but it never gives as good an image on anything other than the default values, and it doesn't appear to work correctly with all software. Aside from getting strong glasses, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to resolve this problem. Are there any alternatives to LCD monitors (besides trying to get a second hand CRT)? Are there any LCD monitors that have particularly large pixels? Mitch Ames (talk) 08:26, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

What resolution and size are you on now? The lowest resolution common is X by 768 (X=1024 or higher depending on aspect) These are getting rare, but are still common in many hi-def tv displays - if 768 lines vertical sounds like it might be an improvement then I'd suggest to start looking at some hi-def TV's.

I can't find a software solution that actually works - most leave tiny icons etc.83.100.250.79 (talk) 10:54, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm currently using 1024x768 with a viewable width of 320mm (12.6"), giving me pixels of 0.31mm. I would actually prefer more pixels - just on a bigger screen. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You might as well try a CRT because people are giving them away for free or almost free to anyone who will lug them away. I have a very nice (for a CRT) 19" secondary display sitting on my desk that I got for nothing. I doubt you'd find it less fuzzy than a high-res LCD, though. CRTs also have pixels, they just never align 1:1 with the video card's pixels. It's the same as the LCD situation except that there's no optimum resolution. The same goes for any other display technology. -- BenRG (talk) 11:17, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

High-resolution really only makes the image sharper; it is not necessarily true that objects have to become smaller. You can increase the text DPI (dots per inch) in Windows, so that the text becomes as large as you wish, and the higher the resolution is, the sharper the text will become. Also, you can increase the size of visual elements in Windows, and web browsers and word processors can zoom their documents to (virtually) any size. The only effect of the screen resolution, is that everything becomes sharper (less "pixelpasta", as we say in Sweden). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, check out the accessibility options in the control panel. There are ways to increase the overall font size, the DPI, the icon and pointer size, etc., in ways that are comparatively seamless. If that doesn't work, then you probably want CRT (which you can get for just about free on Craigslist these days, because there are so many of them and they are being more or less phased out). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:34, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree on the advice people give to simply increase text size and Web browser zoom settings, but if you want larger pixels, consider getting a monitor that is twice the size of some accepted resolution each way - in theory, that should mean that one display adapter pixel maps neatly to a 2x2 square of screen pixels. Don't know if it works in practice though, you should ask to test that in the store before you buy (assuming you can still get reasonably priced hardware in "offline" locations). Jørgen (talk) 18:46, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Bigger monitors have bigger pixels, currently rarely being above 768/1024/1200 vertical lines - a large screen tv with vga or hdmi/dvi input might be cheaper than the equivalent sized monitor (mass production) and have just as good image. eg try a 32" lcd tv.83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:14, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Key sticking

On my laptop my 'r' key seems to stick quite frequently, so I'll have to press the key several times before it works. If that were it, I'd assume the key was dirty underneath or damaged, but for some strange reason the computer seems to register the key presses and stores them, so that when I occasionally press the 'r' key, previous presses will show up at once so I'll end up with a long string of 'r's like 'rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr'. I don't understand why the computer would seem to store this presses but not display them. To make things worse, I'm not sure why sometimes the key seems to work perfectly, but at others is really temperamental. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas as to what is causing this? As it does get quite frustrating. Thanks. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  11:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You may have a process running at 100% CPU from time to time. Try getting process explorer or some other program that keeps track of process activity as well. Also, the application you are running may also get snagged on its background tasks as well, causing the keystrokes to come all at once; an easy way to fix this is to restart or reinstall the application. --Sigma 7 (talk) 21:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Probably some combination of the 'r' key getting physically stuck and the above-mentioned software problem (causing the computer to store the presses but not display them). 69.251.180.224 (talk) 02:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

missing deleted e-mail

I use microsoft office outlook for my e-mail. While writing several e-mails at the same time, I accidentally deleted one of them. I thought it was an e-mail I hadd received. In fact, it was an e-mail Ihad received, clicked the "reply" button, and had written a long reply. Nevertheless, I hit the red x button and it disappeared. Is there any way to retreive, recover or restore it?

I looked in my Outlook "deleted" bin but it includes only files that were in othe folders (inbox, sent mail) that I deleted. Once I hit "reply," apparently my e-mail is no longer in a file, so when I delete it, it does not go to the "deleted" file.

I looked in my desktop recycle bin and it is not there either.

I have noticed this with Yahoo e-mail too - if i delete an e-mail I received, it goes into a "trash" bin and is therefore easy to recover. But if I delete a response I have ween writing, it just disappears. At least, i have neve been aBle to find it.

The issue is unsent, deleted replies. It seems that everything else ggests saved somewhere ... but not these?

When I delete an e-mail letter that I have been in the middle of writing, where does it go? is there any way to undelete it? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 14:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I suspect it is on a "file" paradigm where it is not something to be deleted until it is saved. Previous to being saved in some form (as a draft, for example), it just exists in memory and is not committed to a file. So clicking the X then is akin to "canceling," which doesn't delete, because it was never saved in the first place. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:37, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

And therefore, iretreivable? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Presumably -- if it was just saved in memory, it would be dumped at the first opportunity. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:09, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Some email programs - including Outlook - can be configured to auto-save draft emails. Here is a Microsoft help page for Outlook 2007; you can do a similar search for your particular needs. Nimur (talk) 21:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! Slrubenstein | Talk 08:18, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Photoshop CS3 -> MS problem

Not a problem as such, more a feature that I don't have memory for. Most of the time, I make small images in PS, before using them in documents, etc. etc. The problem comes when copying out of PS. In MS Word, for example, it produces a special object, which unfortunately my laptop can't feasibly support. The workaround I've been using for years is to paste into MS Paint and then copy it into the document, which "rasterises" (for want of a better word) it into a usual image. However, recently I've been working to create lots of images, and it's starting to annoy me slightly. Is there a way to turn off? - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 14:27, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason you can't just save it as a file (e.g. PNG) and import it into Word? Word is usually find with importing a variety of file formats, and you will have a lot more control that way than putting it on the clipboard and hoping Word knows what to do with the clipboard object. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:32, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to cut out the time. I've tried it, works very similarly - a little better on image sizing, but requires batching for efficiency. Word usually works out everything fine. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 14:36, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, Word is pretty notoriously bad at image handling (after all, who uses images in documents?)... I'm not sure there is a better answer here. I assume you've tried to "Paste special" which gives you a few more pasting options? --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't, although it is rather obvious. Changing the setting works, although does involve some more time. Is there a way to get Word to not use Adobe Photoshop Image Object by default? Removing or turning off the ability to handle it, forcing a downgrade? - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 15:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, unfortunately. Word's pasting abilities leave much to be desired (says someone who often has to a lot of "paste as unformatted text" because Word can't ever seem to bother keeping formatting consistent). This is, incidentally, high on my personal list of "things a Word processor would do if it was actually set up to be useful." --98.217.14.211 (talk) 16:52, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you are pasting as a "Photoshop Object", when you actually want to paste as a picture. Try using "Paste Special" from the word and using one of the picture formats, like "bitmap" or "picture (metafile). This will probably also make your document smaller. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:43, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Big TVs and a strange recurring zoom

Forgive me if I sound like a dunce several times within this question, but things like HDTVs confuse me. I'm really only a step ahead of the helplessly confused consumers at retail stores who ask, "1080p? Is that the same as HDTV?"

Keeping that in mind, I've seen a recurring problem with the two widescreen televisions in our house, and often with widescreens I see set up elsewhere. The picture is zoomed in for some reason, and I can't seem to zoom it out. Now, I've read about how widescreen sets with a regular SDTV connection has the black bars on the side, and people zoom in to get rid of them, yadda-e-yadda. However, it's not the case here. Let's take the big TV downstairs for example, displaying the The Weather Channel.

• The logo in the bottom right corner is cut off, displaying only "The Weather." This is typical with many other channels because of this problem.
• I can't see the news ticker-type bar at the bottom, you know, which reports on conditions in your area. The most I can see is the top of the word "now" at the bottom right corner, and the top of the digits for time and temperature in the lower right corner.
• Vital information is hardly ever displayed at the top, left, or right, so I can't really ascertain the effects on those sides.

Now, let's see what messing with the image settings does.

• Set by Program - Not sure, but it looks just like 16:9, which is what I keep it on.
• 4:3 - We get the black bars on the left and right sides, as expected. However, there's still the same amount of material cut off at the bottom and (presumably) top. I'd say things look too skinny and tall here, but sometimes they don't. My visual judgment is terrible, I guess. Have years of online video compression given me a huge tolerance for not-quite-right picture?
• 16:9 - The setting I keep it on, and the basis of my description above.
• Zoom1 and Zoom2 - Yeah, right. That will solve the problem. :-P Things are, of course, more zoomed in. In case you hadn't figured.
• Just Scan - I don't know what this really does, but the problem is actually a little alleviated here; almost all of The Weather Channel logo is visible, the only thing cut off being the actual temperatures and data in the ticker (that is, 3 Day, Air Quality, UV Index, etc. is visible at the bottom, but not the data to go along).

As far as I know, everything is properly connected: the TV is connected with an HDMI cable to a silver cable box provided by Time Warner Cable; we got it for free, upgrading from our SDTV cable box. The box is connected to the wall by a coaxial cable. My mom's TV upstairs, which suffers the same problems, is only connected by a coaxial cable.

One last thing: this problem is only limited to the cable. That is to say, the Wii and DVD player (both connected by humble RCA connectors, by the way) in no way suffer from this zoom-in problem.

So with this mammoth block of information, can someone help this poor HDTV noob?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 16:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like your cable box is doing the zooming in too and there is no way your TV can recover what it doesn't see. Can you change the settings on your cable box? Try tinkering the screen-fitting mechanisms there or turn it off altogether and let your TV do the zooming instead. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I knew that there was a simple solution that could be expressed in a mere three sentences or less! Thank you greatly!--The Ninth Bright Shiner

Fax number

Dear Wikipedians:

If someone lives in Hong Kong and has the following fax number:

12345678

and I'm trying to reach her from another country (say the States), what would be the full number that I would use? I know it starts with 011, but am not sure what follows.

Thanks,

70.31.159.125 (talk) 16:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

First thing I'd do is go to some Hong Kong sites, click for "contact us"--they usually have an address, phone, and fax number.

If the numbers are 8 digits, then I'd try the 011-(8 digit number)74.15.87.114 (talk) 16:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

(International calling code, often written as "+") - (852) - (the number). Our article Telephone numbers in Hong Kong says that numbers are eight digits, and that landlines start with 2 or 3 - hence I'd expect a fax number to start with 2 or 3 as well. From the US you dial 01185212345678. Sometimes you have to dial another number to get an outside line first. Jørgen (talk) 18:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Jørgen, that's exactly what I was looking for. Sorry the telephone number is not a real one, I did it to protect the confidentiality of the original number. The original number does start with a 2. But at least I got the 8 digits right ;-) 70.31.154.245 (talk) 14:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Good to hear - I did get the point about 12345678 being an example, just thought you could verify that it was a fax number if it started with 2 or 3 (which it did). Good luck faxing :-) Jørgen (talk) 17:20, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again Jørgen, I think the main problem for me will be trying to fax over a pre-paid calling card, which could get tricky. If it was straight-dial using my regular phone company's lines then I have nothing to worry about. Fingers crossed... ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.25.184 (talk) 20:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

I’ve never created a website—how much does it cost (time effort)?

Should I even bother if there are better alternatives?

Okay, I’ve had accounts on other sites, and I know a little hmtl, and thus maybe, xml.

(1) I want about 100 pages—mostly text, and maybe the ability to create more.

(2) Could I cheaply store lots of pics, audio, and video—like 1 000 files each?

(3) I’ll likely do most of the art and design—i.e. what it would look like.

(4) Can I alter the site it at a distance—via other computers?

(5) Can I be anonymous—or have it in another’s name—consenting, though maybe a bit of a patsy? No I’m not going to use it to say, traffic drugs, send messages to the sleepers, post hardcore sick kinky internet porn, or violate copyright laws—at least not so obviously (“Click here for your favorite Beatles, Rolling Stones, Metallica, Gene Simmons, Dr. Dre, and Disney tunes!”)—I mostly likes my privacy—and maybe post counter-revolutionary essays.

(6) how about forums like this “phpbb” forum?

(7) how about wikis—Media Wiki wikis? No, I’m not going to use it to yammer on about “liberal bias” or anonymous edits = edits with no credibility—I still love ya’s Wikipedia and will continue to contribute—perhaps even monetarily, if I can find a way to do so anonymously.  :-)

Thank you all for comments and help, and reading my question.
:-)
.74.15.87.114 (talk) 16:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Cost: if you want to have control over your site, host lots of pictures, have total control over the content, you'll probably want to purchase some dedicated hosting. That's not very expensive—$9 a month or so (Google dreamhost or bluehost, for example). You also need to register a domain name--that's around $10 a year. So total straight-up cost you're talking about $120 a year. Which is pretty cheap, as far as things go. This is assuming that you don't become WILDLY popular, in which case bandwidth becomes an issue and prices can go up.

That's just straight money. The rest is time and opportunity costs. Here things go up a LOT if you don't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing. Think about how long you think it would take to put up your 100 pages, now multiple that by, say, ten. That's probably how long it will take. It takes a long time, unless you are just throwing things up like one of those Geocities nutjobs, with no care to whether it makes sense, looks sane, etc. I sometimes get paid to make very small sites for people -- maybe 7 or 8 pages total. Getting the design right takes me maybe a week or two; once I have a fixed design, it just takes a few hours or so to drop in all the text and make sure it is working right. But I have been using HTML, CSS, and Javascript pretty continuously for the last, I don't know, six years. All of these things have a learning curve, especially if you are designing new things from scratch. It is an entirely different exercise than just editing something else that has already been constructed, and a lot harder, usually.

You can be anonymous to a degree. That is, you don't have to put your name on the site anywhere, and you have your domain name registered "privately" so that all anyone sees is the name of your domain registrar. Your host will, however, reveal your name to authorities if forced to, so it isn't truly anonymous. But it's good enough if you are not doing anything illegal and just want to be discreet.

Forums, MediaWiki, etc. -- these things range from "easy to set up in an hour or so" to "you are going to spend a week trying to get this working right." MediaWiki is on the "hard" end of the scale unless you are already familiar with setting up MySQL databases, PHP, and server configurations. How long anything will take, how easy it will be, this all depends on your own knowledge and familiarity with the software, and whether your host provides the necessary tools (like a MySQL database, which is needed for MediaWiki). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:08, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Untraceable cell phones, external drives, and that “wii” laptop

Okay, lets say I was in Iran or Red China. I’m on a cell phone and/or laptopping on the internet and/or using an external drive on a desk top, miles from my home. The content of my conversation and/or internet posts are so un-Islamic and/or counter-revolutionary, it’d make Khomeini and Mao—maybe even Deng—spin in their graves.

or maybe the CIA and NSA are after me,

or maybe I’m a paranoia who has lined the walls of my house with aluminum foil as a means to deflect the mind control rays,

or maybe I’m the type that Interpol would be interested in, and perhaps should be monitored,

or maybe, just maybe, I’m a not-too-abnormal person, living in a not-too-abnormal country, with a not-too-abnormal government, but if there were simple ways to insure a degree of privacy and anonymity in an age where we are losing a fair amount of it, I think I should avail of it.

Should I take the batteries out? What if there was an internal one, and/or one of these “transducers”? Should I perhaps wrap it in aluminum foil—I did so with my AM-FM radio, and I still got reception. What about this “faraday” cage? Would I have to make a box of lead, lead glass, or brick, and lug around a +50 weight?

Will it not matter as when put the external drive, or even CD-ROM or floppy disk, into my computer at home—the one not on the internet—some program will tell my computer to send out rays of its own—gosh am I paranoid or what?
:-D

Again, comments are appreciated.
:-)
74.15.87.114 (talk) 16:54, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Your computer already sends out detectable rays of its own... see Van Eck phreaking. But, um, yeah. It's hard to be really, really private. If you were seriously serious about total paranoid security, you need a lot of physical apparatus, a lot of understanding of security principles, some familiarity with cryptological software, and so forth. There are books and books written on this kind of thing. You can't just wrap an antennae in tin-foil and expect that to do anything useful. Security is not about one little technical trick (which change at a ferocious rate anyway); it is an entire state of mind, a philosophy of interacting with the world. Instead of reading a bunch of security books, read the rather entertaining Cryptonomicon, which plays with these questions in a very fun way. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You can get more or less good security and privacy by installing stable Debian, encrypting your whole hard-drive, using Tor for all your Internet and maybe something like privoxy to ensure your browser doesn't leak anything unnecessary. TrueCrypt might also be interesting. As per above there are obviously many other things to consider and you can never know too much. -194.197.235.43 (talk) 17:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Such good answers in under an hour! Keep 'em coming.
Gotta go soon, though.
(((((Wikipedia))))74.15.87.114 (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

See Faraday Cage as per your idea of lugging it around. Luckily for you they aren't huge cages made of lead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.202.209 (talk) 20:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

See also TEMPEST. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

None of this will protect you from an agent (or private eye) with a camera. (In fact, a heavily modified notebook will make you easier to pick out in a crowd of notebook users.) No need to use a TEMPEST attack when a telephoto lens would work as well. APL (talk) 18:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's [13] a nice little essay on the security mindset, if you haven't got it naturally you'll have to work hard at it. It is people like these who you have to contend with if you have some reason behind your paranoia. Dmcq (talk) 13:12, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

That's a fun essay. I think I'll give his book a spin.... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

disconnecting servers during Power Mac G5 bootup

I acquired a Power Mac G5 when a company went out of business. When it boots, it looks for two servers which are not now available. How can I turn off the search for the servers? Also, when I attempt Software Update, it tells me it can't find the update server and that I should connect to the Internet. I am connected to the Internet through an Ethernet port. What can I do? Thanks for your help. --Halcatalyst (talk) 20:26, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

What are the 2 servers it is attempting to access, and how do you know it is accessing them (for example, does some message pop up on the screen)? Also, what version of Mac OS is running on it? What happens if you boot with the "shift" key held down? 69.251.180.224 (talk) 02:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparently there is only one server, called BDXserve. This was undoubtedly a server at the company where the computer came from. The OS is Mac OS X 10.4.9. When I hold down the shift key while booting, a safe boot menu comes up. It requires a password to continue; I may be able to get the password from the last user (my wife worked at the company, which went out of business, and she may know the person). The first message is "Connection failed: The server may not exist or is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and try again. [OK]" I click OK, and soon after, another message appears: "AFP connection status: looking up "BDXserve. [Cancel]" If I don't cancel, after a while the "Connection failed" messages comes up again. The system reties one more time, and that's it. --Halcatalyst (talk) 21:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Text from PDF to Word

Using Adobe Acrobat Professional, I've converted a significant number of Word files from .doc to .pdf, always deleting the .doc file after the conversion is completed. I just discovered that I'd like to add a Word-style comment to one of these converted documents. On a Windows-based computer, is there any way to open the text in Word? I've tried rightclicking-"Open With"-Microsoft Word, but that yields nothing but gibberish. I can copy/paste the words, but this just yields the words themselves; as I have this file as part of a personal archive, I don't want it to deviate from the original, and I don't want to redo every little formatting detail if I don't have to. Nyttend (talk) 20:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Short answer: not really.

Long answer: if you Google around you can find lots of bits of software that purpose to convert PDFs to Word files. Most of them work by just stripping out the text (as you did when you copied and pasted it). If formatting is important, then there is almost surely not anything that lets you do that. PDF is primarily a "write once" format.

Hopeful answer: Acrobat has rather extensive commenting features of its own, which I presume you know about. Perhaps one of these could substitute? There are also features that let you add text to PDFs. You might look into the Advanced Commenting menu and see if there is a substitute. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I just realised something that I'd not explained — I'd like to open this file in a format that Word can produce, either .doc or something else. I'm not talking about trying to edit the PDF. Nyttend (talk) 22:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You have just realized one of the intents of PDF: to be able to distribute documents that can't readily be changed. See Gizmo's Freeware for some tools that might help. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I never realised that that was part of the goal of a PDF: I knew that it wasn't supposed to be easily changeable, but I didn't know that it was supposed to be difficult to copy. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have asked; thanks for explaining! Nyttend (talk) 00:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

If you Google "convert pdf to word" you will find lots of programs whose main purpose is doing what you ask. I don't think they will exactly recreate your text (for example, any styles that you had will be lost and they may not handle headers/footers to well) but I have used a fore-runner of these with considerable success. And at least you've learnt that disk space is so cheap it's not worth deleting things :-) --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:37, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it's not that big of a deal: I keep documents that might be extremely important; these are papers from when I was in college. I've always kept all my college papers, and I've added with Word's "Comment" feature the professors' comments on the hard copies; the thing is that I forgot to note the comments from a couple of papers. As the IP suggested, I simply used the Acrobat commenting feature. Nyttend (talk) 21:35, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Blender texture problem

I am using Blender 3d and I have a problem with Blender Game Engine. When I start the game the textures are not visible. Nodes doesn´t work either. Does anyone know how to fix it? --81.227.70.94 (talk) 21:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

August 16

The power of IP addresses

Out of curiosity, what is the most someone can do with your computer's IP address? (assuming that someone is incredibly good with computers) I'd both like to hear technological answers (i.e. how that person could 'hack'/'crack' your computer using only a computer) and also social engineering answers (i.e. 'hacking'/'cracking' your computer by maybe locating your Internet service provider, calling the company and asking for the owner of that IP address... something like that). I keep hearing that there isn't much one can do with an IP address so I thought I'd ask here --BiT (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a guess — if you have a dynamic IP, perhaps nothing? And if you don't: I seriously doubt that you could get any information by calling the company, as privacy laws would likely prevent them from telling that kind of thing even if they wanted to tell it to you. Nyttend (talk) 01:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The whole point of social engineering is acquiring information you shouldn't be able to. But the best hacker in the world couldn't do anything to you or your computer if you're not using a static IP? What if you are using a static IP? By what means would the hacker do this? --BiT (talk) 02:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

You could probe the address, which might get you something. Windows, for example, has a lot of random open ports that it uses for various Windows-y things (and are in most cases not used at all). Assuming the "victim" has an old, buggy, never-updated Windows install, and doesn't use a firewall, there are various tools one could use to totally compromise the machine, execute arbitrary code, etc. If they have a firewall, if they are patched up... not so much, unless you happen to know about unpatched Windows exploits (which are probably out there). (This is how the Blaster worm was able to spread through networks very quickly.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 04:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The things you can do with an IP address pretty much divide into two categories: sending network traffic to that address, and looking the address up in various sorts of lists.

All forms of "probing" or "scanning" fall into the first category: they involve sending traffic to the IP address and analyzing what comes back. This can include pinging to see if a computer responds, or scanning for open ports to attack them or just to determine what operating system is running. Of course, accessing a Web site or other network resource also involves your computer sending traffic to the IP address of the server or other resource. Another thing that can be done is to traceroute the IP address, which will discover the addresses of Internet routers between you and that address.

The second category, looking the IP address up in a list, includes a lot of different kinds of lists. The WHOIS system is a global directory that includes information on who owns IP addresses (and domains), and can be used to find out what ISP or company controls an IP address. This sometimes also gives you the geographical area. There are both public and private geotargeting databases which can give you the geographical area of an IP address. There are also lists such as DNSBLs which contain IP addresses reported to be involved in spam or other bad activity. --FOo (talk) 06:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Skype lowers the volume on other programs

Whenever I receive a call on Skype, the volume of every other programs (in the Windows 7 Volume Mixer) goes down to almost nothing. How do I stop it? It's annoying. Digger3000 (talk) 02:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Help modifying AutoIt v3 sample script?

Resolved

Using a mobile phone / cell phone as a pocket computer only

I have never had a mobile phone / cell phone. I do not like them, do not want one. But there are lots of old mobile phones knocking around. If I removed the SIM card, would it be possible to use any of them as a pocket computer? Is removing the SIM card enough to make incoming or outgoing calls impossible? Is it just the newest mobile phones that could be used as a pocket computer, or would some older ones that could be obtained free or cheap do this? Functions I would like to use would be using a simple basic-like programming language, reading Project Gutenberg texts, playing puzzle or board games against the computer. Thanks. 78.144.207.41 (talk) 17:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have no mobile-telephone service subscription, you will not be able to receive calls (except that in some locations, 9-1-1 emergency service calls are available without a subscription). Your phone may also provide a hardware or software "mode" switch to turn off all its radios (many new phones call this "airplane mode"). You should consider what operating system you want to run on the mobile device - some will be more suitable for operation when not connected to the mobile-phone data network; some devices will also have Bluetooth or 802.11 capability for networking independently from the cellular tower network. Also, have you looked at Netbooks? Some of these new devices are nearly as small (and cheap) as a "telephone" device. Nimur (talk) 18:27, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I think there's a mismatch between the OP's "lots of old mobile phones knocking about" and Nimur's "Netbooks . . . these new devices": my interpretation was that the OP wishes to cheaply repurpose an essentially free resource, not spend serious money on a new gadget. Actually, as someone who has also eschewed mobile phones, I'm intrigued by the OP's idea and will be interested in the answers. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 23:27, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I only mentioned netbooks because they are very cheap - new units can be below $200. A quick web search seems to indicate that even a refurbished/used smartphone will start at around $50 if you want something with a QWERTY keyboard (this puts the two classes of devices into overlapping price ranges). Nimur (talk) 00:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like you should be buying a used PDA. PDA's have somewhat gone out of fashion with fancy modern phones - but they are actually pretty well suited to your needs. SteveBaker (talk) 00:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. the PDA article says that the first mobile phone / PDA hybrid was in 1996, and that now most PDAs sold are mobile phones, called "Smartphones". I am looking to get something at very little cost, really just as a toy to play with during long journeys. 78.144.246.133 (talk) 13:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes - exactly. Hence, look for a used PDA on eBay. It should be cheap (because they aren't trendy anymore and everyone (except you!) wants a smartphone) - and it should still be able to do all the things it did when it was new. So long as the screen is intact, it should give you years more service. Looking on eBay right now - you could (for example) pick up a used/refurbished HP Ipaq for $40 (the new ones are still $450!). It has Windows Mobile, a bunch of apps, MP3 player, etc. Used Blackberries are on sale for $10 to $25. SteveBaker (talk) 02:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

My Windows XP computer makes very quiet creaking or birdsong-like noises

I only use headphones with the computer. When I scroll an Internet Explorer page up and down using the side bar I get a very quiet creaking noise. When nothing is happening I can hear what may be very quiet tropical birdsong noises. What is this and how can I stop it please? 78.144.207.41 (talk) 17:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I have noticed the same sort of behavior. I believe it is EMI (electromagnetic interference) leaking to the input of the audio card's amplifier. The probable source of the signal is bus transactions (data moving from the processor to other components on the motherboard, particular the graphics card). I don't think there is much you can do to prevent this; it's an unfortunate side-effect of the closely spaced components and the complicated intermodulation distortion resulting in audio-frequency signals leaking across wires. Hopefully the next generation of computer design standards will require more stringent RFI and EMI attenuation and testing. The real trouble is, your audio card has a powerful amplifier designed to take weak digital signals and put out enough energy to drive speakers or headphones - so even very very small interference sources get amplified up to audible levels. Nimur (talk) 18:20, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Potential solutions include

• Higher impedance headphones (I think) - may totally fail to solve the problem.
• Use wireless (eg bluetooth) headphones - the separation of the analogue stage from the computer should eliminate it completely. (not wireless headphones connected via a base station to the audio out)83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:47, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have wireless headphones then there may not be much you can do - but if you have wired speakers or headphones then wrapping the cable through a ferrite bead should fix the problem. You can probably buy those in Radio Shack or your local equivalent. SteveBaker (talk) 00:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I doubt that would work - unless the actual downmixing is happening at the headphone speaker, which I think is unlikely. I'm pretty sure the interfering signal's already been mixed down to baseband by the time it hits the audio card's amplifier, so you'd need a giant ferrite bead to stop the ~kHz signal - and it'd also cut out a lot of desired audio as well. Still worth a shot, though... 83.100's idea about bypassing the soundcard altogether with a 100% digital bluetooth headset seems like a more suitable workaround, albeit more expensive. Of course, this is largely speculative - it's also possible the OP's interference noise is totally unrelated to my original hunch. Nimur (talk) 00:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I too have experiences such issues friends...But my case is different. I use my Memory card reader to transfer data to my SD-Micro card(8GB). recently it's started making sounds like this when ever I copy some data from or to device. And the frequency seems to be in KHz range like a bird chirping. But that sound is generated only when there is any access. It stops as soon the writing\reading is over.Also I have heard the same sound when using blueetooth USB Dongle too.Whenever I connect,speaker starts sounding like this..So this is all due to this EMI?....The thing is I have external video card too...Does this make any issues to my PC life?.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 10:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly EMI - the important question is - Is the noise quite and you have just started noticing it, or is it a new noise that didn't exist before.

I've had devices that did similar things, though I didn't actually notice the noise until I had had them for 6months - they continued to work for years after.. However there is a possibility that something has malfunctioned - but I suspect it is small.83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The noise from using bluetooth was right from the first day of it's use. I thought it might be RF interference. But this noise arising from using USB-Memory card readers started recently and it's of different frequency than the noise from bluetooth one.Interference is interference,but why different freqs?....Is it EMI and RFI?...If's it's EMI,then it should be 60Hz freq buzz,but what we hear is aroud Khz...What's this issue?... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 04:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Strange behavior in Firefox

I'm using Firefox 3.5.2 on Windows XP. When I click on a tab, then quickly click on the "web page" area of the browser, that tab opens in a new window. I have disabled all of my add-ons, and this still happens. Is there some sort of "mouse gesture" setting that I have inadvertently activated? How do I disable this behavior? - SigmaEpsilon → ΣΕ 19:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Firefox 3.5 allows you to 'rip off' tabs (drag them between windows, or drag one off the tab bar to create a new window). If you're moving quickly away from the tab bar you may be inadvertently dragging the tab and creating a new window. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 20:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

This add-on [14] should allow you to disable this "detach tab" behaviour. 84.12.138.49 (talk) 22:28, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Handwritten font

Are there any programs that allow you to input your own characters into a scanner to create a font that is your own handwriting? In other words, you basically input every character into a scanner using a stylus or something, and then the computer scans your stroke and uses that as the character. And in order to make it more natural, it can ask for multiple inputs of the same letter, and then when you are typing something, it randomly chooses a glyph assigned to that letter and uses it, so it looks more natural in that you don't have the exact same glyph every time you type the letter "e" (just like in actual handwriting). Has this been done?--12.48.220.130 (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

There are lots and lots of programs, services, websites, etc. that do this. I think I even saw this advertised in SkyMall once. Google it up, you should be able to find all sorts of things like that. (Here's one site, for example.) I just want to note that while this sounds like a good idea, in practice, handwriting fonts sort of suck, and custom ones, well, you can guess what I think about them. It's unclear to me what situation they would ever really be appropriate in. But hey, it's your money! --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:51, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

They are appropriate for lettering a comic book and other situations where hand lettering is expected. (Certain types of engineering drawings are still done in specialized handwriting fonts, too.) APL (talk) 18:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Even then, I would say, go with a professionally-done handwriting font, like the kind Blambot provides. Those are waaaaay better than most people's handwriting. I'm just saying. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Blambot has great fonts, but for all we know the original questioner might be a professional letterer. APL (talk) 23:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Lifehacker covered this awhile back. — QuantumEleven 12:51, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The lifehackers article is out of date. Yourfonts.com is no longer free. Strangely, YourFonts.com and FontBay appear to be using the same templates, offering the exact same service, and charging exactly the same amount. APL (talk) 18:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen software that will randomly vary glyphs. The closest I've seen are comic-book style All-Caps fonts where the upper case and the lower case are subtly different versions of the same glyph. I suppose you could randomly pound on the shift key. But fonts like that are rare. APL (talk) 18:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Theoretically, a font that provided a lot of ligatures and character variations (see Zapfino for examples) could do this really well. But I don't know of anyone who's done this, and it would be a buttload of work. --FOo (talk) 01:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

August 17

Does using Memory Card ruggedly as compared with Pendrives reduce it's life?

Hello friends!, I've been using my Micro-SD (8GB) Transcend memory card for all purpose data copying or for backups instead of pen drive Mass Storage device...But some of my friends keep telling me that using memory card as a substitute of Pen drive is not advisable. They say it will worn out soon,because it's not meant for such rugged data storage. But what I believe is that we use MEMORY CARD READER to read\write data to memory cards.Then how does that reduce the life of the card. Is this true?.Does anybody know if this is true or not?.Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 10:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

All Flash memory technology has a limited life, measured in the number of times that a given page is written. It doesn't matter much whether it's in the form of a USB stick "pen drive" or an SD card. Probably a bigger issue is whether you will lose it, drop it in the sink, etc. --FOo (talk) 16:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The amount of erase-write cycles before it becomes an issue is generally quite high (usually around 100,000+); you're more likely to physically break it first. HalfShadow 23:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

No...The issue is,for small form factor memory cards,the read\write cycles could be considerably less!...That led to this question...Because Pen-drives are rugged because of it's size and safety form factor... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.62.13 (talk) 04:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Windows Vista Explorer

Is there any alternatives to the Windows Explorer shell in Vista? Windows Explorer keeps crapping out on me, not responding and being generally slow. It's just Windows Explorer that's got this problem, everything else works perfectly. I remember years ago being able to use the Windows 95 shell on 98 and ME, but Vista doesn't work with that. Any free alternatives? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.97 (talk) 12:16, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

When you say "free alternatives" Linux springs to mind, but I don't think you quite meant that... Kotiwalo (talk) 18:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It's probable that you are talking about Windows Aero (and not Windows Explorer, properly). Windows Aero requires a fast computer with good 3D video acceleration; if your computer is old (or not top-of-the-line) it is common to have trouble running Aeoro smoothly. There are many tutorials on disabling Aero and using the "Classic" Windows theme - the process is very easy. Here are some tutorials: How-To-Geek - Disable Aero, and Microsoft Help Troubleshooting Aero. Nimur (talk) 20:11, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I have everything set to the absolute minimal, including disabling all fancy look and feel features. This is actually explorer.exe in the C:/windows directory which is causing me trouble. I often have to end task it from task manager and start a new instance, which fixes the problem for a few hours. I'm looking for a shell replacement —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.97 (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I remember looking for an Explorer replacement in WinXP a couple years ago and stumbling upon this list. Perhaps one of the programs listed there would work for you (none worked for me, so I stayed with my beloved FAR Manager).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:52, August 17, 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I think your options are then fairly limited. Most likely, you have accidentally (or intentionally) installed some shell extensions (which I have found to be consistently the most common source of trouble in Windows, period). Windows does not let you replace Explorer; it's really embedded into the entire graphic user experience. You can use other programs for file-browsing; but it's not recommended to run without explorer.exe (although it is certainly possible - by killing the process manually and not restarting it. If you're willing to deal with the consequential compatibility problems this can cause, then you might be okay). Norton Commander and similar software may be suitable for replacing your file-browsing needs. Nimur (talk) 20:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

There are actually quite a few Explorer replacements for XP, and some of them work for Vista as well. Check out this list & review of 10 Windows Explorer replacements. Out of the ones listed on there, Cubic Explorer, Free Commander, and File Matrix look the most promising for you.

edit - looks like Ëzhiki already posted that link. Well, whatever. Indeterminate (talk) 02:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Disable Windows Media Player video conversion

Windows Media Player keeps trying to convert videos when synchronising, despite me knowing that the videos work at their current state (I can manually copy them to device and they play fine). I wanted to use WMP's auto-playlist function for Syncing videos, and all help pages on the net indicate how to turn it off, but it doesn't look like the option is there for my device. By the way, I am trying to sync to a Creative Zen X-Fi 16gb player. Jwoodger (talk) 14:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Digital Electronics

This question has been cross-posted on the Science Desk. You can read responses there. Nimur (talk) 20:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Nokia E63 caller id Display

Hello everyone,

This is regarding my phone I brought from Asia to use in the United States, if some caller is calling me my phone displays for example : +12346789023, how do i make it to display it like +1(234)-678-9023 or even 234-678-9023 there has to be some way, frankly i have been digging into it for quite sometime now, and finally decided to hand it over to you guys! Its really annoying to be using the number in that way, frankly i loose track of them! Hope to receive help!

Thanks everyone! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.252.229.186 (talk) 20:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, you cannot influence the format the caller's number is displayed in. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply!! Agreed but is it possible to have add ons or other third party software that can influence it to do that, I've been so restless ever since i have got this phone, only on this matter, otherwise the phone is doing great! Please let me know if there is any software or add ons for this matter. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.252.230.93 (talk) 10:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Hard disk problem: Hitch, hitch, hitch

I have a PC which until 2 days ago had one SATA hard disk and one SATA DVD-RW drive. I've now installed a second SATA hard disk that's nearly identical to the first SATA hard disk. The BIOS reports that they are, respectively, the master on bus 1, the master on bus 5, and the master on bus 0. Upon starting up the computer, I noticed that upon displaying the Windows desktop for the first time, Vista would "hitch" continuously for about ten seconds, by which I mean that the mouse cursor and all other screen updates would lock in place; then about 1 second later the mouse cursor's position would update, then another 1-second hitch where everything's locked up, then another mouse cursor position update, then another 1-second hitch, etc. After around 10 seconds the system returned to operating completely smoothly. I then formatted the new hard disk and have mounted it as the E: drive. I get this hitching behavior for 10 or 20 seconds every time the system seems to survey what devices are connected: as in, when I double-click "My Computer", or use Vista's backup utility and it looks for target hard disks. I have not yet tried disconnecting any devices or swapping the cables around to different buses; I wanted to ask first whether this is known behavior of a bad hard disk, and if I should return the new drive. I seem to be able to write to it OK, and I ran the "Check Disk" function from the "Properties" window and it didn't report errors. Tempshill (talk) 20:31, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you have the same file system type on both drives? (e.g. NTFS)? I've had trouble when mixing file system types. Nimur (talk) 21:31, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, both NTFS — my assumption has been that the file system could not be the issue, as the hitching was also seen to occur while the drive was installed but unformatted. Tempshill (talk) 21:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

AutoItv3 Script Adjustment

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a script i am trying to write in AutoItv3. It involves moving a GUI with WM_NCHITTEST. My script is here:

http://pastebin.com/m8c4afe7

Basically the script works and all, but i need it to update the variables $x and $y when the user drags the window. any ideas? Thank you for your time!

4.252.131.153 (talk) 21:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

strange packet delays

I have a program split across two linux (Ubuntu 8.10, I think) servers in the same rack, communicating by http via 1Gb ethernet through a switch in the rack. The http server end has to do some database operations and usually responds within 1-3 seconds but occasionally the response time is 12+ seconds. It is rarely higher than 3 seconds without being higher than 12 seconds, i.e. something is occasionally inserting a delay of 10 seconds or so. Any idea what this could be? I'm wondering if there is (for example) some tcp retransmission timeout in that range, i.e. the delay could be caused by some kind of tcp congestion within the rack. Grepping through the linux kernel constants doesn't find that (just the 3 second default RTO). I haven't yet found out whether there are congestion stats available from the switch (have to ask the ops guys about that). Does this sound like anything familiar to any of you? Thanks for any advice. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 21:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure it's the network latency, and not (for example) swapping to disk or some other algorithmic slowdown that creates such a quantized jump? Nimur (talk) 21:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Not sure at all. It could be anything. I'm casting around for ideas. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 21:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

You should consider instrumenting the server code with some profiling tools - at the very least, printing out timestamps and function calls to a log file for analysis. You can use a variety of free software performance analysis tools like gprof to generate graphical representations and find out which program elements are taking up the time. Nimur (talk) 23:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

TCP retransmission timeouts last milliseconds - not seconds. That's not it. More likely, you have an incipient hard drive failure and some disk activity is retrying over and over again. That's the only thing I could imagine that would cause random delays of that magnitude. Are there any disk retries in your kernel log? SteveBaker (talk) 01:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You can detect TCP retransmits within your application with the getsockopt(2) system call -- see tcp(7) in the manual for details -- though this may be tricky if your app is not written in C. But yeah, profiling is more likely the right approach. If you're in C/C++, you might also look at using a linked-in profiler such as this one. --FOo (talk) 01:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I may try a profiler, but I don't think this is cpu activity (it happens randomly including with what should be lightweight queries). Steve's suspicion of the hard drive matches up with mine. I don't see any disk errors in the syslog, but we're using Seagate disks notorious for freeze-ups. I will look into upgrading the disk firmware. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 02:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Need more info on what your doing. By database operations are you doing SQL insertions or queries etc? 1-3 seconds response seems rather terrible... you might have some underlying problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.144.40.31 (talk) 02:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

They are mostly SQL read queries but the server is heavily loaded and disk bound, so the 1-3 second response is par for the course. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 03:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Run your program with "strace -o log.txt -T myapp" on both sides. It will output lines like:

08:53:28.483783 read(3, ""..., 1024)    = 0 <0.000011>
08:53:28.483844 close(3)                = 0 <0.000013>
08:53:28.483900 munmap(0xb7f88000, 4096) = 0 <0.000019>
08:53:28.484019 ioctl(1, SNDCTL_TMR_TIMEBASE or TCGETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo ...}) = 0 <0.000013>

where the bracketed numbers are the time spent in each system call. If it's a network issue, you should see a write() or send() that takes a long time and you can run ethereal/wireshark at the same time and correlate timestamps to see what the holdup is. If it's not a network issue, you can run strace with "-r" to get delta times on each successive call. If you see a large gap in the same place every time, either move on to ltrace, a debugger or your source code to understand what's going on there. If the gap happens at different places every time, suspect an external issue like a bad disk, system load, gremlins, etc. --Sean 13:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Transmit video signal 10m

I need to transmit a video signal (1024x786) from a PC to a projector over a distance of 10m. I can use either a VGA cable or a DVI (technically, a DVI cable with a DVI -> HDMI adapter at one end) cable. Would either of these work, and what would be better? How do meetings rooms and suchlike run the cabling to projectors (often mounted in celings, which can be quite a distance)? Thank you in advance! — QuantumEleven 22:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen a 10 meter vga cable but maybe they exist. There are certainly hdmi cables that long from the usual vendors. Similarly for cable routing, there's all the usual conduits, cable ties, and such gizmos. See cable management. Another approach is to put a small computer (e.g. Mac Mini) close to the projector and run the projector from it. You'd communicate with the small computer by wifi. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 22:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I haven't ever used a VGA cable that long, either. There are powered VGA amplifiers that can boost the signal for long stretches. I don't know if there's such a thing as a DVI amplifier. Tempshill (talk) 22:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I have personally used VGA cables and DVI cables of 50 foot length (about 15 meters). The DVI shows zero signal degradation; the VGA shows virtually no signal degradation. The DVI cables were about $50 or $60 on the web. Nimur (talk) 22:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

DVI-D - being digital - is an all-or-nothing thing. Either it works and you get perfect picture quality - or it doesn't and it fails utterly...or at least is disasterously intermittant. Both DVI-A and VGA are analog systems - and they are a much poorer choice - the longer the cable, the worse the picture quality - period. SteveBaker (talk) 01:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

August 18

How to implement password based security in Windows LAN Network ?

I use windows XP and as I click on fellow computer in Network Neighborhood it ask for a username and password !

Where to change these settings about the password on LAN access ??

Plz.... reply........!!

Yugal Jindle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.173.254.52 (talk) 02:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Either goto the shared folder on the computer and right click and choose properties and you set a password their, or goto start->control panel->users and add a new username and password that you can use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.144.40.31 (talk) 02:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

HDD Led indicator glowing all time

I use two HDDs.One 160GB Sata and one 40GB IDE type(Master). I use IDE HDD for data Storage only. All OS are in SATA HDD. After a long time use with SATA being the primary boot device,I once removed my IDE HDD out without updating or logging into BIOS. I thought my PC will automatically detect and change the BIOS settings or whatever. But right from that boot, my HDD indicator LED keeps glowing all time. And it never turned off except at standby and power off situations. I didn't know why,but just left it. Now yesterday I again added my IDE Hdd back,And now the LED works fine.Why is this case?.Thanks for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.62.13 (talk) 05:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the BIOS if it will completely detect the hard drives or if you need to manually turn them on/off and although I've never heard of this exact problem (usually it refuses to detect any drives if one of them is misconfigured, but this can vary), going into the BIOS and disabling the drive is probably your best answer and it's the only way to see if it fixes it. ZX81 ^talk 14:00, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

How to block youtube ads?

I have been noticing that some youtube videos have google text ads on the bottom of the video. Is there a plug-in for Firefox that automatically gets rid of these ads. They are extremely irritating. :3) 70.171.24.164 (talk) 07:01, 18 August 2009 (UTC)UberKewlHaxor007

Try AdBlock Plus with the Element Hiding Helper. Once it's installed use Ctrl + Shift + K when on the offending page, highlight the part you want to disappear and press Enter. Be sure to preview the page first just in case it makes other page elements also disappear that you may not want. Zunaid 08:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe the OP is referring to text ads within the Flash video, which I don't think AdBlock Plus handles. --Sean 13:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

If they are actually within the SWF file that plays the video, then no, you won't be able to block them. (Oh well. The price of a gigantic, free website might just be that you have to click off the ad each time.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Demise of online file storage services

Over the past few years, many online file storage sites/ services were Launched and all of them which were launched had failed since all of them have turned themselves into Paid services. What I want to know is - is there any interest in these online storage services from common public? I am asking this because I want to launch my own service like that. If the real reason the existing services shut down was lack of consumer interest, I would not start a service. But if consumers die for such services and ready to give their kingdom for it, I should work out a business plan that somehow will work and start such a service. So please tell me whether consumers are not interested in such services or is it they are interested but not viable. If you say they are not viable, it is my challenge to make them viable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.137.139 (talk) 13:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yours friendly.

The problem was never interest, or use to be made from them, but in figuring out how to pay the bills and make money (where bandwidth is the major cost). Much of the story of the web is the gulf between things that people want and things that people will pay for. Plus there's the problem of micropayments - if someone only wants to host a few files, for which you'd like to charge them only a few cents, you can't economically charge them that, and the bother of setting up an account with payment info is too much for them. So for your service to make money, you need to figure out what people will pay for, and how to collect those payments in a way that's economical both for you and for the customer. Some companies in the space of remote backup, storage for web services (like Amazon S3), and network-smart content delivery (like Akamai) will make money, but they offer a more high-level service - it seems just storing stuff for people is becoming a bulk utility where only big players with low margins will prosper. As a small, agile startup you need a novel idea that solves a real but unmet need; retreading someone else's failed ad-supported file storage idea will just bankrupt you as it mostly has them. -- 87.113.69.234 (talk) 13:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that I can't directly answer your question about demand, but companies like Microsoft and their product of Windows Live SkyDrive are still very much in existance and offer 25Gb for free to anyone that simply gets a Windows Live ID so unfortunately adding to what the above person wrote, you would need something very good to actually make any money since they're giving it away for free already. ZX81 ^talk 13:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

For the home user, a number of ISPs now offer 5gb of storage for their own users as part of their contracts and upto 50gb for a small monthly fee, so I would imagine there is still a demand for this type of thing. Nanonic (talk) 14:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The trick is the business plan. How will you make money from it? The problem with the 'net is everyone wants stuff for free (or very cheap), but once you start scaling up these services, they cost quite a bit. Ads by themselves are usually not enough for a full business model. So how will you make money? You need to really have that ironed out if you don't want your thing to go belly up in a month. It is not uncommon for a small startup of any type to cost a couple million in the first year (for people, for machines, for advertisements, etc.). How are you going to make that back? If you can answer that question, then you're fine. If it's a "we'll just try it and then figure out how to make money off it," you're basically gambling. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Why do checkout card readers ask me to confirm my signature before I've provided it?

At supermarkets and other retailers self-service gizmos have me slide my credit card through and then take my signature, to be provided by me with the gizmo's stylus. It also asks me to confirm my signature. What's really strange is that the confirmation field invariably appears *above* the signature field. Why?

A secondary question is why I'm asked at all to confirm my own signature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Odin Johnson (talk • contribs) 15:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

First question: In what country do you live? Systems differ. Second question: By the "confirmation field", do you mean an on-screen button that you tap? If so, in my experience the on-screen button is usually below the signature field. As for the reason for the button's existence, I am not in this industry, but I imagine that the guy who wrote the software would far prefer to have the user tell the program "I am done signing" than write a lot of logic in order to have the software attempt to discern whether the user is done signing. I think that is a more likely reason than any legal or liability requirement. Tempshill (talk) 15:41, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(Windows) Task Manager not displaying correctly

When I open up Task Manager by pressing ctrl+alt+del, for some reason I get [this], with only the Applications list and no tabs displayed, instead of [this]. I'm not sure how it ended up like this. Is there anything I can do to restore it? 69.224.113.202 (talk) 16:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)