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August 29

BSODs referencing nvidia display driver with new 260GTX

Resolved

 – Older drivers work. — neuro^(talk) 18:54, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I've just reformatted my PC and put all my games back on, the games seem to run fine generally, but I'm getting a weird STOP error which I haven't had before. It references nv4_disp, and I've took a look in WinDebug but apparently the x86 SP3 kernel symbols I have on my PC are wrong, so all I can really find out is 'something went wrong with the display driver'. I'm running a brand new 260GTX (stock) on the 190.62 forceware drivers. Overheating is not the issue, the temperatures are fine, and it crashes at various temperatures (but only in games). I've uploaded two minidumps generated from the crash, hopefully they should be able to help in diagnosing what exactly is causing this (but as I say, for some reason WinDbg won't work for me). Thanks a lot in advance. :) — neuro^(talk) 01:40, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Google suggests this might be an error with the newest drivers themselves. Going to roll back to an earlier version (186.18) and see what happens. — neuro^(talk) 01:48, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be working with 186.18. Marking as resolved for now, will do more rigorous testing tomorrow. — neuro^(talk) 03:08, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Did you just answer your own question?!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 17:46, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Slow night on the RD. THe employees have to keep themselves busy somehow. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems stable on 186.18. Going to stick with those until a new forceware driver comes up. :) — neuro^(talk) 18:54, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Firefox addons

What's the name of the Firefox extension that overrides the version check and allows you to use old addons on new Firefox? I used to have it but I can't remember the name. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.99 (talk) 16:42, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

"MR Tech Toolkit" or "Nightly Tester Tools", among others, I think. -- Codicorumus  « msg 17:30, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Nightly Tester Tools is the one! Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.99 (talk) 17:50, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Or use the about:config route e.g. [1]. Rjwilmsi 20:21, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Self-destructing data storage

Does wikipedia have an article on that or something related? --91.145.72.220 (talk) 16:59, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Not much: Self-destruct and there's in Deniable encryption a pointer to Vanish - a research prototype implementation of self-destructing data storage. I think that's your lot. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:04, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

yahoo mail problems

Is yahoo mail in the middle of some humungous problem with their system? For the past 3 weeks or so, whenever I use yahoo mail it completely nukes my browser. Sometimes only the mail page will be messed up - freezing, not responding to clicks, etc - but at least 50% of the time, as soon as i sign into yahoo mail it freezes all my other tabs and windows for at least 15 seconds, and maybe once every couple days it's so bad that i have to use the task manager to close all the windows. This happens on firefox and IE. I recently even got a brand new laptop, and the first time i logged into my yahoo mail, the exact same thing happened. So, I don't think it's me. Is yahoo having some kind of enormous software problem? Gohome00 (talk) 19:39, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I had a similar problem with AOL web-mail. In that case, they had all sorts of ads and crap that played automatically, including movie clips, that were just too much for my modest computer. StuRat (talk) 20:26, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to be the case, yahoo doesn't use much in the way of complex ads or video... Gohome00 (talk) 22:15, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I used to have a huge performance problem with Yahoo mail. However, that was back when I had an old computer (1997 vintage), Windows 95, and dial-up internet access. Performance did vary, but eventually the growth of Flash in banner ads crippled my browser, sometimes leaving me waiting 10 minutes or more to read a mail while it painfully displayed each frame of a particularly large flash banner ad. I temporarily fixed the problem by uninstalling all Flash plugins, disabling everything I could think of in the browser settings (but which would still let me use Yahoo mail -so I had to leave cookies and Java on). My much newer PC has no such problems. Astronaut (talk) 23:00, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

There are lots of things that could be holding you up, depending on your computer, your browser, and your connection. For example, my connection for some reason is really bad at loading the dozens of little scripts (used for loading ads, recording stats, etc.) that many pages now use, and so pages seem to take forever to load when really it is just trying in vain to load all of these little additional scripts. There are also some browsers (IE in particular) that are extremely bad at string manipulation in Javascript and so if they rewrite their code to include too much of that, it can grind things down. The specifics of your case would take some more complicated analysis to diagnose, to figure out what the limiting factor is. ---98.217.14.211 (talk) 23:48, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Yahoo! Mail has two modes: New Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Mail Classic. Try switching to the other mode if you have problems with one of them. --Spoon! (talk) 01:12, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Can't find supposedly newly-produced files

The website of the National Register of Historic Places (a US federal government program) allows users to download its entire database by going to this webpage. After reading the readme, I decided to run Detail.exe from that page, which is supposed to convert the program's dbf files into a more easily readable format for my HP Vista computer. However, after the program had downloaded and finished running, I couldn't find anything that it had done — it's not in My Documents, Recent Documents, My Pictures [my default location for downloads], or even the Downloaded Installations that I get by going from [my username] to AppData to Local to Downloaded Installations. I know that it ran, because when I told it to run again, it asked me if I wanted to overwrite an already created file. Any idea how I can find where these files went? I can't tell it to look for a specific format, because the Dos prompt that asks me if I want to overwrite says nothing about any non-dbf files, and the readme describes the result of running the program as only "a format most databases are able to recognize". Any ideas where I can go to look for this information? Nyttend (talk) 19:59, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Never mind; I discovered that saving the .exe and running it after saving put the extracted files into the same folder as the downloaded .exe. Nyttend (talk) 20:04, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Certificate authority classes

What is the difference between, say, "CAcert Class 1 CA" and "CAcert Class 3 CA"? All CAs I've seen have classes. --grawity 20:34, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

The class applies to the certificate rather than the authority, I think - Public key certificate#Classes — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 21:42, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

August 30

TI 89 random numbers

What is the method used to generate random numbers on the TI-89 Titanium? --72.197.202.36 (talk) 00:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

See http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=ti+89+random+number&meta=&aq=f&oq=

83.100.250.79 (talk) 11:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

sorry, my apology, I thought the request was a simple one83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the OP wants to know which pseudorandom number generator algorithm is used. Nimur (talk) 15:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a tough one. All I can find is information about PRNGs in other products using TI DSP chips (not the calculators). These guys say they use a IEEE P1363 Standard PRNG Function (which is very strong and suitable for cryptography), but that can be implemented in software or hardware (so I don't know if the same would be running on the TI-89). This introductory-level article, Generating random numbers, describes the basics for generating randoms on a small device (like a calculator). Nimur (talk) 15:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

If this http://www.ibiblio.org/technicalc/tiplist/en/files/pdf/tips/tip6_37.pdf is correct then I am the luckieest googler on the planet - there's a further paper to read

L'ecuyer, P. Efficient and Portable Combined Random Number Generators. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 31, Number 6 (June 1988), pp. 742-749, 774.

? 83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Efficient and portable combined random number generators, available from the ACM website (linked for your convenience). The recommendation is that since the TI89 is a 16 bit computer, it should use one of the mixed/combined PRNGs as described in section 2 of that paper. Nimur (talk) 01:06, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/rand seems to confirm it, and gives a little more.83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:44, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --72.197.202.36 (talk) 20:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Encoding non-standard resolution movie to MPEG-2

I'm trying to encode a 1280x1024 animation to MPEG-2 and running into trouble. Almost all encoders have presets for TV/HD resolutions. So they crop or scale my movie to fit within one of those presets. I've tried using VLC, but it's limited to 3Mbit/sec... which is pretty low for this resolution (and looks pretty terrible).

So can I tell VLC to encode at higher bitrates or is there a free/low-cost MPEG-2 encoder for Mac OS X that will let me encode to this non-standard resolution? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 04:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

ffmpeg?. --91.145.89.58 (talk) 10:44, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Handbrake would also work. Riffraffselbow (talk) 02:54, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe you should be, if the GUI doesn't allow to do it, just specify command line options. I've never used VLC om a Mac but you may find part of the command line options are shown when you set it up with the GUI so you can copy that and add what you need. In fact on Windows you can usually just modify the command line options within the GUI. Having said that, I don't appear to have a 3mbit/s limit on Windows so I'm not sure how different the Mac version is Nil Einne (talk) 14:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

How to compress thousands of files individually

I have thousands of files and want to compress each of them to zip format individually. For example, 123.txt → 123.zip, ABC.txt → ABC.zip, etc. The same filename is requested. Are there any softwares or methods which can help me finish this work efficiently? Supporting UNICODE is better. Thank you in advance. --百楽兎 (talk) 05:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd use a command line zip program and write a batch file. Take a directory listing into a file and then use an emacs keyboard macro to massage that into commands. Hmm... how do non-emacs people do stuff like that? If you know some programming language you could write a small program that generates the batch file from the directory listing. E.g. on Windows using 7-Zip:

7z a fee.zip fee.txt

7z a fie.zip fie.txt

7z a foe.zip foe.txt

etc. 62.78.198.48 (talk) 08:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

If you have find installed on your system, you can compress every file in your-dir and subdirs that doesn't already end with .zip with

find your-dir -name '*.zip' -o -type f -exec zip '{}.zip' '{}' \;

but I think that might break if you have weird file names. Emacs is the real and final solution, of course. --91.145.89.58 (talk) 10:31, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I will make a batch file. --百楽兎 (talk) 22:20, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume you're using Windows since you asked about Unicode support. In that case you can do what you want from cmd.exe with this command line:

for /r %i in (*) do 7z a "%~dpni.zip" "%i"

cmd.exe and 7z.exe are both Unicode applications. Windows builds of zip (Info-ZIP) and find usually don't support Unicode. If you want a full set of Unicode command-line tools then use UTF-8 Cygwin or use the Cygwin 1.7 beta and set a UTF-8 locale as described in the documentation (for example, I have LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8). Then the solution with zip and find will work. -- BenRG (talk) 11:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Handy trick when using command-line for-loops: insert echo after the do, until the resulting commands look like what you want; then back up one line and take the echo out for the "production run".

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:53, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

TCMP

Resolved

 – Nonrequest. — neuro^(talk) 17:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to implement TCMP. Where can I get the specification, and what hardware will I need? NeonMerlin 06:29, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm usually all for humour, but please don't do stuff like this at RD. This isn't the place. — neuro^(talk) 17:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Security of website

Say the permissions of a directory on a website are set to 777, in order to facilitate uploads from a php-based application. There are no direct links to the directory from any pages of the website. If the maintainer of the website gives the directory a long name, generated randomly, is it there any way that an intruder can find the directory, except by brute force generation of names? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 06:44, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

http://xkcd.com/538/ F (talk) 12:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

LOL! Excluding physical access to the server, physical abuse of the maintainer of the website, and cracking of passwords to the server. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:32, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

If the attacker is intercepting messages (e.g. packet sniffing), and those HTTP requests are sent in plain text, (which they usually are, unless you are using HTTPS), the attacker will know that directory exists without brute-force attack. However, this assumes the attacker has such a surveillance capability - usually meaning he must be sharing a non-switched network with you. Nimur (talk) 16:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:33, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

You can list directories if you're allowing ftp so it doesn't sound particularly hidden to me. If it can only be accessed by html then don't put the directory into a directory without an index.html file as your server may automatically construct a list of the contents to send back, so sticking the directory at the top level is probably best. Dmcq (talk) 17:39, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I can access the server both through ssh and ftp, but password protected, of course. No anonymous ftp. And there is an index.html file in the parent directory. The php-based applications live in other subdirectories. Should that be ok, as long as the passwords are strong (except for the packet sniffing attack that Nimur referred to)? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:04, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Napoleon: Total War

Resolved

 – The reference desk does not answer requests for predictions. — neuro^(talk) 17:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Will it be possible to play as Sweden in Napoleon: Total War? --81.227.67.5 (talk) 14:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

The reference desk does not speculate, please read the header. — neuro^(talk) 17:55, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Asking if the maker of the game has announced whether a feature will be supported is an entirely appropriate question. Also, the "resolved" tag is intended to be used to show that the original poster is fully satisfied with the answer, not that someone else thinks the question is unworthy for the Ref Desk. There are other tags for that purpose. StuRat (talk) 15:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Sound on MSN

Resolved

 – — neuro^(talk) 18:08, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to turn the annoying 'duh-duh-duh' sound off MSN, yet still be able to watch movies and listen to music with normal sound? It drives me crazy. It sometimes happens when I am away from the computer doing something else and I get a quick burst of these incredibly loud noises from people who like to send messages with only one word and smileys and all sorts of crap, sometimes ten in the space of 30 seconds. Can I turn it off? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 17:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I no longer run MSN (I run Digsby), but you can turn it off in the settings. Look for a section called 'sounds' or 'alerts' or something, I remember it being there. — neuro^(talk) 17:53, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

THANKS! You have saved me from a life of annoying sounds! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:06, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

No problem at all. :) — neuro^(talk) 18:08, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Advanced Delphi (Debugging)

I have written a rather complicated algorithm in Delphi. (In fact, it is so complicated that I cannot even describe it without stepping through the code.) It works perfectly in almost all cases, but it fails for some input parameters, resulting in an "access violation", "out of memory", or "invalid pointer operation" exception (different every time). The "out of memory" exception is not due to lack of RAM (not even close to it). However, in most cases the algorithm really does work with the problematic input parameters, when I input them a second time (that is, after the algorithm has already failed once). Is there a bell ringing in anyone reading this? Probably not.

What I would need is an android like Lt. Cmdr. Data, who can scan the entire code in a few seconds, and then tell what's wrong, and even fix it for me. If that is not possible, I wonder if there are any advanced books about Delphi development? I am a rather advanced Delphi developer, and most books I have looked in contains nothing that I already doesn't know. It would be great with a really advanced book that discusses all technical details regarding e.g. the use of pointers. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:00, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

What you describe sounds like a classic, large-scale, memory corruption problem. I'd guess either you're writing with an invalid pointer, writing vastly off the end of an allocated region, or copying memory or variables that haven't been initialised (and probably either using them as pointers or array indices). My experience of debugging such stuff is mostly in C (and, a long time ago, in Pascal), but I think I that practical pascal/delphi implementations have compile time options to enable and disable things like array-bounds-checking, which you might have disabled for performance reasons. I'd certainly enable these. I'd also make sure the code was 100% free of warnings, and run whatever additional static analysis tools are available on it (for C, things like lint - there seem to be several lint-like programs for Delphi). Static analysis certainly won't catch all errors, but it's silly to embark on debugging with a program you don't really know has even compiled properly. Next I'd want to run a memory bounds checker, like Rational Purify or Valgrind - the later is free, but is only for *nix systems; you might find your Delphi code will compile with Free Pascal which would allow you to use Valgrind. Beyond that, debugging memory corruption is a tedious process, that mostly involves drilling down when exactly the corruption occurs, and then drilling down to the responsible period. You're already off to a good start in that you can predictably induce the circumstance of failure. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:04, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Yes, it probably is something like that. Unfortunately, all known problematic input parameters are quite complex, and although I have stepped through the entire algorithm using these parameters (and using a lot of watches etc.), I have not found the problem (before the exception, the watches even contradict eachother, which also confirms the hypothesis of severe memory corruption). I will try to see if there are any debugging tools that I can use. Otherwise, it would seem that I have a lot of hard work in front of me... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 07:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm also a Delphi developer amongst other things, and sometimes I also wish there were a Lt. Data around to fix annoying problems (I'm a Trekkie too)! Invalid pointer/access violation problems can be very difficult to debug. Recently I had those errors with the onclose event of modal forms and could NOT find the error; even the debugger would jump to a random line and throw out access violation. Eventually I gave up and rewrote that form with manual handling of onclose eg. what happens if each button is pressed. With pointers it can be a lot more difficult. Normally what I would do is match each pointer operation with its destroy method (or whatever it is, I can't remember as I've used pointers a long time ago). If you are using recursion make sure you have a well-defined exit method for all scenarios as recursion can cause memory leaks. If all else fails, sometimes it's best just to write that subroutine from scratch, without looking at the original source. It's amazing in how many ways you can write complicated code. Sandman30s (talk) 12:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a Delphi programmer, but if nothing else works and you end up going to a tedious manual debugging method, this is how I would do it:

1) Make a copy of the source code so you can leave the original alone as you do debugging on the copy.

2) Locate the first line where the problem ever manifests itself. If your errors and debugger won't help in this regard, add print statements until you find the last line before the error. Run many times to be sure you find the last line that always prints correctly before the error.

3) Now you know that the memory problem occurs before this line in the code. Start commenting out earlier code (and the declaration of the variables needed in that code), and hard-coding the values, instead. So, if you pass in some variable to the program, which then does some complex calculation and passes on some values to the code that gets the error, just hard-code those values instead of calculating them. If this fixes the problem, you know it was somewhere in those variable declarations or calculations, so now start uncommenting parts until the problem recurs. You should eventually be able to find the line at fault in this manner.

4) Examine that bad line in fine detail. Are the parameters to all calls and functions of the proper type ? Is every variable used in that line properly initialized ?

5) One complication is if there are multiple mistakes. Then, after fixing one, you need to repeat the entire process to find the next.

6) After you've fixed all problems in the debugging copy of the code (and carefully marked each fix), then you can move those fixes to the original code. StuRat (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Use the debugging tools stepping through procedures where the errors appear to originate.

One fairly obvious thing is to check that no array exceeds its scope. For example, if you have var Big[1..1000] of String and then refer to Big[J] where J has reached 1015 then the strings assigned to J[1001] onwards overwrite other variables causing endless damage to the contents of memory. Sussexonian (talk) 23:05, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for all input. Unfortunately, however, I have already tried most of the tips. I will soon begin to scrutinize the algorithm (from the very first line) on paper, and try to identify all possible problems. Also, everytime I see a procedure that can be done in another, completely equivalent way, I will change to that way. Then, perhaps the problem will be removed even though I never identify it. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:58, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

(Well, as resolved it can get, I suppose. I simply have to go through the algorithm in more detail. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:58, 2 September 2009 (UTC))

Adding bluetooth services to phone

I have a SE g502. I wish to direct my pc's audio to the phone via bluetooth. But my phone does not have an audio gateway service. Is it possible via flashing or seem editing or something like that to add that functionality ?

Question about research

I wanted to ask a question about some research I want to do. I want to search approximately 20 different terms in google and find out where the Wikipedia page for each term ranks compared to other online resources. Specifically, I would be looking at terms for dermatologic conditions. So, for example, with the following search [2] on my results screen Wikipedia is the first entry, followed by medscape. Can I use google trends/"Google Insights for Search" to accomplish this? Or is there some other way I can compare google results? ---kilbad (talk) 21:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

If I were doing this project, I'd just type in the URLs manually into an Excel spreadsheet, since it's only 20 terms you are searching for. One thing to keep in mind is that there are many Wikipedia mirrors on the Web, some of which are up-front about this and others which are not, and these sites will also show up in your search results, so you will need to consider how to treat the situation where a mirror outranks the real Wikipedia page. Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Abc is the start of a really large list of these mirrors. Tempshill (talk) 02:36, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

C++ Builder Help

Hi,

Whenever I click somewhere in the code editor in RAD Studio's C++ Builder, it automatically indents the cursor to that point. I don't like that. How can I disable this automatic indentation?

Thanks,

S1kjreng (talk) 23:15, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

You can disable the "cursor after end of line" feature in the code editor's preferences. However, I do not have the RAD studio installed on my laptop (which I currently use), so I cannot give you the exact location of the option, but it is probably not too hard to find in the settings dialog. Personally, I like this feature, and if I want to go to the end of the line, I simply press "End" on the keyboard after having set the cursor on the line. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 07:09, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I found a picture of the Options dialog at EDN: [3]. (Stupid image file format...) The option you seek should be in "Editor Options". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 07:30, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts. I unchecked every box in Editor Options and it still persists. I wonder if it's a bug? I tried messing with the insert mode, preserve line ends, auto-complete text to find, code folding, and overwrite blocks boxes, among others, to no avail. It's still better than Visual Studio, but such stray insertion points do not mix well with manic-obsessive people such as myself. I have an obsession with cleaning up white space.--S1kjreng (talk) 08:21, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

open office - data sources into calc

I'm following instructions, and trying to get a field from a database into a cell in a spreadsheet...

I open the spreadsheet, open 'data sources' and select a database, then I select a field in a table in the database, and drag the field over to the spreadsheet (using left click and drag)... Everything works - the field goes accross and I can cycle through the table entrys as expected.

But the entry in the database doesn't look right, it looks more like an 'object' eg such as an inserted graphic image or something - ie it has resize, and drag buttons. More importantly it doesn't seem to actually be attatched to any cell.

How can I get the <field entry> attatched to a cell? and is this a bug or a feature?83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't fully understand what you're doing, but for me there is no dragging involved. Sounds like that is where the issue is occuring, certainly sounds like something that could cause that sort of thing. — neuro^(talk) 07:57, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I click on the field and drag it to the spreadsheet. What do you do? (It's the same method as used when placing a field into a text document (writer) - eg as used for a mail merge.)83.100.250.79 (talk) 11:15, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I might have misread the instructions - it doesn't actually say the data will go in a cell - but that's what I expected.83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:06, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

August 31

Vista problems

It seems that my Vista computer activated some type of 'group policy' on itself. All of a sudden, I can't change the background, screen saver, or some of the settings that I know the Windows XP group policy editor used to allow me to block. I am using an administrative account, so I know that's not the problem. I don't remember using any other programs to block this. This is a Windows Vista Home Premium, SP1. Thanks for the help. —Mr. E. Sánchez (that's me!)^{What I Do} / _{What I Say} 01:10, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Converting a pdf to pdb for Pocket PC

Hello, I have iPAQ Pocket PC h2215 with BibleReader from Olive Tree Bible software on it and I was wondering how to convert a pdf bible to pdb so I can use it on my Pocket PC; The pdf Bible if formatted on pdf in the two column way that printed Bibles usually are (while the BibleReader on iPAQ is not), and it has links that can be clicked to go to different parts of the document (like the table of contents for example). Ideally I would like to be able to use it with the commentaries/notes and other tools from Olive Tree that their Bibles work with, but the Bible I would like is only available on pdf and not through Olive Tree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.174.132.143 (talk) 07:15, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Which of the following one is likely to succeed?

The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions or predictions about future events. Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead.

I saw two different sites which help people make extra money online. One kind of sites are those free lottery-s and the other kind is asking people to read an advertisement and paying them for that. Sites that pay members for reading advertisements usually pay 2 to 5 cents for reading emails and clicking them while sites of the free lottery kind give prizes upto million dollars but usually 100 dollars regularly to many users. But sites those pay for reading emails provide a definite income while lottery doesn't. So, please tell me which of these two ideas are likely to succeed given the advantages and disadvantages of both said. Please give your opinion on both and say whether both are useless or one is usefull or both are usefull.

Where you get money from?F (talk) 12:55, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

They both sound useless to me. If you make a nickel a minute (or so), that's $3 an hour. That's "steady", all right, but not very good. "Ah," you're saying, "I could just scroll quickly through it and click, and then I'm making a nickel every 10 seconds, and I'm making $18 an hour!" Except, even then, that's not great money (better than minimum wage, though), and, chances are, they have some kind of loophole to keep you from making that much (maybe there is a time lag between ads, maybe there is a maximum per day, whatever). Even if they didn't, it's a lousy way to spend your day—as boring as you can imagine, and every time you get distracted, take a break, actually read the ad, whatever, your income drops by a factor of four or something along those lines.

"Free lottery"—a little bit oxymoronic sounding. Where is their seed money from the lottery coming from? Probably more ads. Great. But let's just say, you are unlikely to win anything. Certainly unlikely to win anything that will be the worth the time spent trying to win. It will be nothing but a huge waste of time.

Here's a general thought: these services don't exist to enrich you. They don't exist to make your life easier. They exist solely to make money for those who offer them. They do so at your expense. They prey on your sense of "easy money" and hope that you'll be foolish enough to sign up. That way they can get more money from their advertisers, because you are now something that generates resources for them. They both see you in the dimmest possible light: someone who can watch advertisements. That's it. They don't see you as someone with any skills, any future, any talents. They don't see you as possibly getting good at something or rising in its ranks. They are not offering you employment, and you will not win at their little game. Even the most soul-sucking, lousy, drudge-work job gets your more than this sort of "service". --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:30, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Wait, are you asking which site is most likely to give you the most money for your time? (ShortAnswer:Doesn't matter, they will both be pathetic.) or are you asking which site is more likely to make money for its creators. (ShortAnswer:I don't know, but I hope they are both horrible failures.) APL (talk) 16:17, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that asking for a comparison of which of two computer site business models is more successful is a straightforward research question, entirely appropriate for this Ref Desk. If someone can get some stats on which of those two models has been most profitable for the web site owners, that would be a good answer. Also, whoever marked this question as inappropriate should sign their name. StuRat (talk) 15:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Slowing down a mouse scrollwheel?

I've got a nice new mouse, finally retiring my Logitech iFeel after... geez, something like 10 or 12 years?

Anyway, I like it, except for one feature - the scroll wheel moves too easily. Often when I go to middle-click and open a link in a new tab it'll slip ever so fractionally at the last second and I'll miss the link I wanted and sometimes even land on another altogether.

Has anyone had this problem? Have you a good way to literally slow down the wheel's physical scrolling? I'm looking for more tactile resistance to the turning, not adjustment of the software settings. My old iFeel had a firm but not oppressive scroll wheel resistance level, this one spins and spins and spins...

Thanks, 61.189.63.152 (talk) 11:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I think only fiddly DIY techniques can fix this - mostly involving friction - why not return it for another type? In general mice don't unscrew very well.83.100.250.79 (talk) 11:59, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

As an alternative, could you define another mouse button to "open the selected link in a new tab", and use pressing the mouse wheel for some function which isn't dependent on the mouse position ? Perhaps it could be the "return to the desktop" button, for example (the same thing as Windows Key-M). StuRat (talk) 14:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Wait 3 months (or maybe 10-12 years) and it will get so gunged up that it will have that resistance :). Seriously, you could try to dismantle the mouse I imagine (just a couple of screws on the bottom usually) and remove the small PCB to get access to the wheel, and then just put little elastic bands or rubber grommits (perhaps some adhesive tape- duck tape?) or something like that on the axle to add the resistance. Personally I got a new trakball a little while ago and it felt very odd at first but I very quickly got used to it, so I would maybe just give it a chance. SimonTrew (talk) 01:24, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

No picture on screen

I've got a PC that's a couple of years old. The other day, my LCD monitor was just blank. I didn't see what happened; I came upstairs and noticed the problem (I usually leave my PC on through the day). Tapping the power button on the monitor would briefly bring up the "no signal" message. I tried the obvious stuff (checking connections, rebooting system, etc.), then turned off the computer, unplugged the monitor from my ATI graphics card port and plugged it into the graphics port of the motherboard. Still blank, so I figured the problem was likely with the monitor, but brought it to work just in case. Connected to my work PC, it comes on just fine. My guess at this point is that my mobo has tanked somehow. The monitor works fine here and if it was the card, the monitor would work okay through the mobo graphics port, right? Am I missing anything obvious I should try? Matt Deres (talk) 12:35, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Try another monitor on your PC. And no, the integrated graphics on the motherboard usually doesn't work if a graphics card is installed.F (talk) 12:54, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Would physically removing the card be enough (Win XP, SP3, if that matters)? Since I now know the monitor works fine, I'm not sure how trying another monitor would help. If I yank the ATI card, plug the monitor into the mobo monitor port, and still get no picture, am I looking at a bad mobo or will more be involved? I don't have another graphics card sitting around to do a swap. Matt Deres (talk) 16:24, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

A cautious yes. When I installed a new video card after having used the integrated graphics for a long while, it worked first time on the card. I would assume the same would be true if I was to remove the video card and use the integrated graphics again.

Without being able to see what you are doing, makes it pretty difficult to find out what is wrong. First step would be to pull the video card and see if you get the POST/BIOS screen through the builtin graphics. Enter the BIOS screen and see if there's anything to change with no video card present. Of course, if it's still all blank then suspect the motherboard. Astronaut (talk) 22:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm still getting nothing; the screen simply remains blank. Perhaps more importantly for diagnostics, I can tell that the system startup is not working correctly either. As it booted up, I was listening for the usual pops and clicks my box makes at startup and it just didn't sound right at all. I can't see exactly where it's falling down, but the startup function is obviously not loading correctly. Matt Deres (talk) 12:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The good news is that it sounds like you've eliminated the monitor, which is often the most expensive component of a computer these days. Next, I suggest physically inspecting the graphics card and motherboard for any signs of physical damage. Go over them very carefully, with a magnifying glass, as the signs, if visible at all, can be quite subtle, just a little dark spot by a connection, say. Also, did you smell anything burning when you first noticed the problem ? StuRat (talk) 14:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

No, but that doesn't mean anything. My tower is under my desk and whatever happened, happened while I was out of the room for ~ an hour. I'll give the graphics card a going over tonight, just to be on the safe side, but the fact the monitor still didn't work when I tried the integrated video and that the startup sounds are different/missing, I'm not optimistic. For the hassle of replacing a mobo, I might as well get a new tower and, as appropriate, scavenging my old 'puter for its various bits n' pieces (to use the technical term). Matt Deres (talk) 16:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Snow Leopard Java

What version of java does Snow Leopard runs?

Open a terminal and type "java -version" 122.107.207.98 (talk) 13:33, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

That only answers the question if the OP is actually running Snow Leopard... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

see http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10085235

83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

http://developer.apple.com/java/javaleopard.html

Says you can run different version 1.4,1.5 etc if you want.83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Syncing 2 Computers

I'm a college student, and I have noticed that while my "normal sized" laptop is perfect for my dorm desk, it is a little bulky when it comes to classroom desks and carrying it around. I came across a very good deal on a mini-laptop, and thought it would be nice to have my normal laptop to take home, view videos, and work on projects on; but the mini would make note taking a breeze without compromising space. The only down side is keeping my computers synced. For instance, if I take notes and save them on the mini, be able to access them on my normal laptop when I get back to my dorm.

So, is there a way to sync these two computers without a constant hassle?Hubydane (talk) 14:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

always save to a 4GB USB thumbdrive? 61.189.63.152 (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

There are about a million programs and different ways to synch netbooks and other computers. There are a lot where you can designate a given directory as something to be common across both, and upon reconnecting them (probably over a network) they will sort out which one is the most up-to-date. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Possibly the easiest approach is to use a thin client methodology. Save no files on your netbook - only use it as a terminal to remotely access the main host. VNC, Terminal Services Client, and a variety of other free utilities allow you to set up your laptop as a server and your netbook as a client. You should take care reading about proper setup to make sure that you don't have any uninvited users on your network. In general, though, this is a suitable solution and scales nicely (you can use N computers to connect to the server and access all your stuff, if you're ever at a friend's house without your netbook, etc.) Nimur (talk) 15:19, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

This technique makes you absolutely dependent on your host computer. If you lose internet access, or something bad happens to the host, your laptop becomes virtually worthless to you. APL (talk) 16:07, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Valid complaint; on the other hand, if something happens to your laptop, your host is perfectly fine (data is intact and security is uncompromised). Call it an "engineering trade-off" that needs situation-specific consideration based on your actual usage pattern. A hybrid approach may be best, with certain critical applications and documents available on both server and client. Nimur (talk) 17:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it running windows? If it's just for study stuff, I'd install Live Mesh on both machines, it's fantastic, no fuss no user intervention after the set-up, it just works (5gb limit which should be fine for studying) and you also then access your notes and other stuff wherever you are via the web. Moreover, if you are working on a paper, you never have to worry about losing it because a copy will be stored online. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:43, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I'm liking how the thin client sounds. Tell me more? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hubydane (talk • contribs) 01:15, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

See our article Remote Desktop Services, for Windows. This is built into the operating system; you don't need to download or install anything, you simply need to configure it. Here is Microsoft's tutorial for setting up the utility on the server and host. There are alternative softwares by third-party developers, such as VNC, if you choose not to use the Microsoft tool (or if your version of Windows is an academic or "home" license - which disable the remote connection server). If that is the case, you can either upgrade your software, or attempt to circumvent this limitation and manually enable the server (there are some tutorials on the web which show how to do this). Nimur (talk) 18:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

How do I know if my version of Windows is compatible?Hubydane (talk) 22:57, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Component price behavior

I'm doing some research on how mainstream desktop component prices behave in the months after a product is introduced, and the timeline for product updates. My main focus is ordinary hard drives but the same might apply to memory and some other components (eg optical drives) as well.

I'm looking for data or indications on this. Ideally some site that I can look up components (specific models of hard drives for example) and see how their sale price dropped over time.

Most pricing sites seem to only show current or latest price not historic pricing information though I'm sure I have seem a couple somewhere online.

Any ideas if such a site exists? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 17:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

If you want specific models of products, you might have to track that data yourself. General trends are available for historic products, usually categorized over a particular relevant spec - this site catalogs price per byte for hard disks with a few data points stretching as far back as 1956. Nimur (talk) 17:22, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

It stops long ago; I'm after street price data on recent and current products too (late 2008/Q2 2009). Ideally a price site that when you select a product, displays its current street price info but also a mini graph of its historic street price over time. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I've seen price graphs on various review sites (for graphics cards at least) - I'm now trying to remember where I saw them. I'll have a look...83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing I've seen [4] - see top/right - I've seen similar graphs on other websites - seems to be automatically generated. There's a better known site that uses them - but unfortunately I can't remember what it is..83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:03, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I suggest contacting a major retailer like Newegg.com, and simply explaining your project. You may find them willing to help if you make it clear that their contribution will be adequately thanked in the intro/citations of your final report. It would be trivially easy for them to give you a dbase dump of their retail prices for the past X months. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The best (old) PDA for me?

I'm considering getting a PDA to play or tinker with during long journeys. I do not want any mobile/cell phone capabilities, so I expect this means getting an older PDA second-hand from eBay, particularly as I do not want to pay much money for what will be basically a toy. I would like to have a simple basic-like language I could program, I'd like to be able to read Gutenberg texts, and I'd like to be able to play freeware games on it. I hate rechargable batteries, so I want one that runs off normal replaceable batteries. I'd prefer an operating system that is common enough and flexible enough to have lots of freeware available for the PDA. Does anyone know what brand or model of PDA I should buy please? Thanks. 92.27.79.62 (talk) 20:46, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Your last point, the "common enough" thing is the clincher (it's the best criterion - it means you get something that exceeds its designers modest goals for it). An old Palm should cost very little on eBay, and even the black and white ones are good. Many (all?) Gutenberg books are available in Plucker format for Palm, and it has a number of programming languages, from basic to a free C compiler toolchain. Some Palms have rechargeable batteries, some have AAAs. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:30, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I have a Palm Tungsten T5, and I'm very pleased with it - despite its rechargeable battery. Previously, I had a Palm III, AAA batteries (a very long battery life) and B&W screen but still pretty good, thought TBH I think you might find its 2MB of memory and increasingly difficult-to-find accessories quite limiting. Astronaut (talk) 22:02, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Blue Screen of death

Resolved

 – — neuro^(talk) 17:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I recently denied a reistry change accidently and now I cant run normal mode, everytime it reloads normal mode i get the blue screen of death. I dont have any restore points to do a system restore and i've scanned with spybot, I was told to right click the spybot icon in the bottom right to select an option about registry changes blocked but on safe mode with network this isnt available. Any ideas? Many thanks.--92.8.219.62 (talk) 21:33, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

A little more info would be useful. So, which registry change did you deny, which OS, what were you trying to do at the time you denied the change, which software gave you the chance to deny a registry change in the first place? 21:57, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

This is what it says in problem reports

Files that help describe the problem (some files may no longer be available)

Mini083109-06.dmp

sysdata.xml

Version.txt

I have an inspiron 530, windows vista home basic Service Pack one. Intel(R) Core(TM)2 quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33ghz 2.33ghz, 3GB RAM and 32 bit. I think it was mcafee that blocked it but i cant be quite sure since i didnt actually mean to confirm blocking it. One of the blue screen errors is 0x (then a few 0's not sure how many)8e and the other one is the same but with 50 on the end. At the time i wasnt doing anything on my computer it was just running msn and itunes, probably firefox too. The last thing i remember doing was unzipping a compressed zip file with winzip if this help.--92.8.219.62 (talk) 22:10, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Can you get any clues from Mini083109-06.dmp, sysdata.xml, Version.txt? Googling for these specific errors provides lots of ideas. Astronaut (talk) 22:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Upload the minidump somewhere (it will be in %SystemRoot%\Minidumps) and I'm sure someone will take a look at it. I don't have Vista symbols installed, mind. — neuro^(talk) 06:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey Guys, I managed to sort out the problem with my computer. Not after lots of problems though. All works fine now, no thanks to the guy who didn't set it up properly :) I'm not sure how to close this query, any takers? Thanks for all the help :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.49.180.146 (talk) 08:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Hacking a computer, but it's my computer

The title sounds strange, but it'll make sense in a moment. My stepfather recently passed away, and his computer is just collecting dust downstairs. Neither my mother nor I know the password to his account, which is the only one. Now, my stepfather was a simplistic computer user, so I doubt the password was anything too complicated. However, I've tried the easy guesses like his name or birthday or combinations thereof. Playing the guessing game probably isn't going to work here, so how do I render his computer usable again? Would I have to install a new operating system? Or perhaps there's some legal way of cracking the password?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 22:14, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

You could try Ophcrack. It's quite complicated, but it gets the job done. Dendodge _T\^C 22:35, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

It would help if you told us what os the computer has. Many (all?) windows variants have weak password encryption so there exist linux live-cds dedicated to cracking windows passwords. Windows also tends to have a default admin account with no password you can access by hitting F5 or whatever during boot. Google knows. Also, unless you find your stepfather's private files or some propietary software he had installed interesting, making a new install is the safe+simple solution. --91.145.89.58 (talk) 22:35, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

If it's an Windows NT/2k/XP/Vista operating system, try this. You'll need to burn the ISO image to a cd on another computer, then put the disk into the computer at start up and follow the on screen instructions —Preceding unsigned comment added by I7085 (talk • contribs) 22:39, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the NT Password Editor is the easiest way to clear out the old administrator password and get access to the computer again. It's faster than reformatting, faster than any other Linux boot CD, more effective than Ophcrack. It's all text-based, but it's the best solution for getting access to a Windows computer that you don't have the password for. Everyone who posted after this, you should give this disk a try. Indeterminate (talk) 06:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Assuming it's running Windows, when the login window comes up, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and type in a username of "administrator" with a blank password. It's quite possible he never changed the default admin password (so many people will leave it blank) and then you can either change his password or just access the files that way. Failing that, it's not possible to find out what the password is (unless he actually turned reversible encryption on and that's extremely unlikely), but you can easily reset it using many tools (Google "Windows password reset"), my personal favourite being here. Another option is to simply open the computer up and plug the hard drive into another computer (either via a USB adapter or direct to the motherboard) and then just read the files off. Hope this helps and sorry to hear of your loss. ZX81 ^talk 22:39, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

The original question does not make it clear whether you want to preserve the old data or not. If you simply want to get the computer operational again, and permanently remove all its old data, you can easily reformat and reinstall the operating system. If you hope to recover the data, you can probably just boot a Linux Live CD (like one from Ubuntu). This can boot the PC into a "read-only" mode and access the hard disk. It is not likely that the disk or its files are encrypted, so you should have access immediately; the files can be copied somewhere safe and accessible without ever knowing the user login password. This is the easiest procedure, and can take as little as a few minutes (if you already have a Live CD disc). If the PC's hard-disk does have encryption or user-account file permissions,; or if you intend to restore the computer "as-is", with all its currently-installed programs and settings, then you will need to restore the original operating system and its login authorization, as mentioned above. Nimur (talk) 23:47, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Booting a Linux 'live' CD is certainly the easiest way - that lets you read the Windows data off the hard drive and put it someplace safe - then you can reformat the drive, reinstall Windows and be good to go. However, not everyone knows enough Linux to be able to do that without a ton of help - so failing that - you need a second Windows computer. Pull the hard drive from your stepfather's PC and mount it as the second hard-drive on your other PC. Assuming you can log into that second computer with admin privilages, you can copy off all of the files you need to keep - then put the drive back into the original machine and reformat/reinstall Windows. All of these things are VASTLY simpler than trying to 'hack' the account or guess the password. SteveBaker (talk) 05:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Why is everyone skipping over I7085's post mentioning ntpasswd? It is much simpler than booting from a Linux livecd and messing around with what is likely an unfamiliar OS for the OP. — neuro^(talk) 06:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

As soon as I said that, in came Indeterminate. :) — neuro^(talk) 06:26, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I would feel uncomfortable using such a tool on my own system; I would not recommend it to a novice user. A modern live-CD is very easy to use, and will give access to the hard-disk, which is all the OP seems to want. Cracking passwords is a fun trick, but mucking around with registries and binary files using unvetted third-party software sounds like a surefire invitation to malware, corrupt data, and trouble. The Live CD approach has the benefit of reliable sources - Ubuntu is widely used and tested, and general consensus is that its live CD is free of malware. Nimur (talk) 06:37, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Er, just about every single piece of software that comes with an installer nowadays installs registry entries, and I doubt that three people would be here singing its praises if it were prone to malware and corrupt data. I have not heard personally of the latter happening, but I would say that it would be a good deal less confusing to a novice user than a linux livecd.

That said, I just realised the OP only wants to render the computer usable, not retrieve the data. It would most likely be quickest to just format and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows. — neuro^(talk) 06:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks for the overwhelming amount of answers (and thanks for your condolences, ZX81). Busybodyness has prevented me from trying any of these numerous methods out, but I'm sure the task is plenty doable with the info I have now. It was the computer I was trying to restore, keeping the data a side-goal; when I leave for college in about a year, I'll be taking my laptop, so that'll leave a computer in the house. Thanks again everyone!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 15:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Driver problems

I am using an Olympus digital voice recorder, which comes with its own proprietary software to upload the .wav files onto a computer. I have been using it with Windows XP, but we are getting rid of our 8-year-old desktop, and the computer that we are replacing it with has Vista instead. On XP, to get the device to work all I needed to do was install the software from the disk, and then when I plugged the device in all the drivers installed just fine from the CD. However, the drivers on the disk aren't compatible for Vista, so they released a software patch for Vista-32. Now, instead of installing the drivers correctly when I plug in the device, I get an error:

"Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it.

VN Series Device

The required line was not found in the INF."

What is going wrong? I don't know what an INF is or anything, so I'm at a complete loss. Thanks —Akrabbim^talk 22:16, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I have such a recorder, and my advice to you is the same as to everyone proposing to install the proprietary software that came with their gadget - don't. Mostly (overwhelmingly these days) devices like mp3 players and cameras and voice recorders work as USB mass storage devices, for which windows, linux, and macos all have perfectly good drivers. If I just plug my olympus recorder in, it just appears as a disk. If you're seeing that error, it may be a botched half-install (with the incompatible drivers); so uninstall them fully (if they show up in the list). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:37, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

It is an older recorder, so it doesn't have simple drive capabilities, unfortunately. I have always had to use the software to get the files off of it, even when I had it working. I will try with the un-half-install-reinstall method. —Akrabbim^talk 02:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

An inf is a file which basically fills in the gaps by essentially telling the operating system how to operate the device. I would suggest redownloading, it sounds like your INF is kaput. If the INF was simply wrong, it would more than likely install anyway (but I'm not too sure on Vista, my main experience is with XP), but that line... it suggests something more complex. Or more simple, or something. Without seeing the INF, however, this is all mere speculation. That said, don't post it here (not that I think you would) due to the nature of presumptive copyright. I suppose you could probably copyright an inf. — neuro^(talk) 06:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

September 1

Browsers loading blank pages

I am on Windows XP. My internet has started acting up- no matter what browser I use (firefox, IE, opera), it will start loading blank pages, with no error message at all. I can switch from an ethernet cable to a school computer network, and that will fix the problem for some period of time, but eventually the pages will come up blank again and I'll have to switch how I am connected. What could be causing this? 149.169.58.200 (talk) 04:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Could be caused by a bazillion things. Try a different network cable. Try a different network outlet. Use a LiveCD to boot into Ubuntu and see if the problem exists there. Try a system restore, if the issue is recent. Try a full Antivirus scan with a decent product. And above all else, if there is tech support availible to you on-site, use it. To diagnose it in this way might be very difficult...--inks^T 04:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Fine, fine, there are plenty of people who I can take it to. 149.169.58.200 (talk) 04:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I would want to find out if I'm actually connected to the internet. If the problem occurs, open a Command window (Start, Run, cmd) and see if you can ping Google (type "ping www.google.com" into the command window). If it responds with something like "Reply from 209.85.227.147: bytes=32 time=38ms TTL=240" you're connected and something else is the problem. If it doesn't respond that way, you need to find out if you have a proper IP address. Type "ipconfig" into the command window and see what IPv4 address it say you have. If it starts 169. you probably have a problem, otherwise you're OK. Let us know how you go with these. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Try a DNS flush. From the command prompt type "ipconfig /flushdns" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 12:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Capturing music.

I'm not a Windows kinda guy - I have a buddy who is a musician who wants to know if it's possible to capture the audio passing out through the sound card and save it to disk (preferably as an MP3 - but raw audio would be OK too). He's using various interactive performance tools and wants to capture his performance digitally.

I kinda suspect that this would drive a hole through DRM - so I suspect it's been made impossible in Windows...but maybe not.

SteveBaker (talk) 05:05, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it entirely possible through Windows, and ability to circumvent DRM is nothing illegal or fishy in itself. To get the output, you need to go change your input device to 'Stereo Mix', 'What U Hear', or something else (varies between cards, every one I've had has been Stereo Mix). — neuro^(talk) 06:15, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

(after EC) - Yes, it is easy enough. A variety of WinAMP plugins can do this, including a disk-writer that is installed by default with WinAMP and its variants; I believe a few Audacity plugins can do this. Are you hoping to intercept audio data provided by an external program? Depending on your soundcard, the Stereo Out Mix is available as an input to record (it acts just like a microphone or line-in - except that it's the output from the system's software mixer). However, your audio driver must support that feature (it's hardware/driver specific). If this is not available on your system, possibly the easiest workaround is to use a short 3.5mm patch cable, and actually pipe the line out back into the line-in and record that way (true analog - and potentially introducing non-negligible quantization and EMI noise, depending on your needs for exact signal reconstruction and fidelity). Your musician friend will probably soon learn that Windows' audio drivers are horribly laggy compared to Linux ALSA or JACK. The standard latency can be upwards of 0.5 seconds (if he's looking for a delay line effect, he's got one for free!) This is generally unsuitable for professional-grade audio performance. If your friend is particularly technically savvy, the ASIO4ALL driver has been ported to Windows; it should allow low-level snatching of the audio buffer as you hope (and in a linux-familiar way); but I've had minimal luck with it, and its claims of exact bit reproduction are exaggerated at least - it creates terrible artifacts on my laptop's audio system. Nimur (talk) 06:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

@Nimur, if A4A is artifacting, have you tried increasing the audio buffer length? — neuro^(talk) 06:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I played with it for almost a week before giving up. I may give it another shot at some point; but I've concluded that JACK and ALSA are the preferred system for real-time audio on a personal computer. These run seamlessly on Linux. Nimur (talk) 06:40, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding "it's been made impossible in Windows" - that's true, and not true, depending on OS and media. ME and XP feaure "secure audio path", which allows an infrastructure of known media players and signed audio drivers to interact, which prevents recording the stereo mix of such apps, and allows the apps to verify that the audio device really is signed (otherwise one can just write a trival audio device driver and have it record the raw samplestream to a file). This could still be circumvented, with some effort, because ME and XP allow unsigned code to run in kernel space, so someone could still interfere with that secure path. Vista replaced that with Protected Media Path; it tries to do yet cleverer things, and kills DRM media altogether when untrusted kernelspace code is running. This all only applies if the app playing the code requests a secure channel using the windows media API - if it just plays regular audio down a regular audio device, then it should still be capturable (but then I don't have a Vista or Windows7 machine to hand, so I don't know that's true in practice). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

If you're thinking "ah, I could still subvert that mechanism by intercepting the basic platform loader while the OS loads, and patch it to allow unsigned code (or report unsigned code as signed)", then you're right - you're essentially rootkit-ing your own machine. It's for this very reason that media owners really would like the OS to be verified by Trusted Platform Module, which would prevent anyone (even if you have root access, and full physical access to the system) from successfully patching and running a Windows 7 install. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

How to turn off automatic numbering of lists of paragraphs in Open Office Writer

When I'm writing a letter or report and I want to number some points, this automatic numbering causes great problems with crazy formating and weird numbering and takes a long time fiddling with it to try and make the letter look neat and sane again. How can I turn it off, preferably pernamently please? 78.144.246.12 (talk) 14:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

You can select the whole document, and then select default formatting - either from the formatting toolbar, or from the formatting toolbox (F11 to open it) - If you are numbering things and want to change back to normal - just select "default" from the lists in these things at the point in the text you want the numbering to stop. If this doesn't cover it read the rest below:

Right click on anywhere in the text you are getting numbering, from the list select "Edit Paragraph Style" - a box appears.. Select the "Outline and Numbering tab" - then in the section "Numbering/Numbering style" select "None" from the drop down list.

If you have different paragraph styles which you are using, and they are all doing this - the way to fix is press F11 to make the "Styles and Formatting box" appear, in this box select "Paragraph styles" (at the top the icon like a backwards P" - then you should see a list of all the different styles. (Selecting "Hierarchical" from the drop down box at the bottom may be a good idea) - you can then right click and select "modify" on each sytle - and fix as above.

Here it's worth noting that modifying a style affects all the styles nested beneath it ie the styles that appear under the + button - as found in a directory listing in a disk system - so edit to top styles - ie default , heading etc and all sub-styles should fall into line..

I should ask that you check that the style you have currently selected is "default" and you haven't selected a queer list style by accident.. ie "view","toolbars","formatting toolbar" - make sure it is visible - then in the right box - you should see the current style - change this to default if it isn't already. (This is really the first thing to check)

Ask if you get stuck - I'm assuming that something hasn't gone wrong with it.83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

It is possible to do numbering in open office - though first it's best to format a numbering style fully to get it the way you want it - also helpful to remember is TAB to add a sub number eg 1 change to 1.1 , and shift-TAB to go back. If you get a number and you don't want it (ie after newline) just press delete and it's gone - (to get a second un-numbered paragraph within a numbered section)

Unfortunately I don't know of a good tutorial for this topic - there are some out there (search "open office numbered list tutorial") - it took me a while (day) to get the hang of formatting. I can't help thinking it could be made easier...83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:36, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

GUI Design

How can I create a Graphics User Interface in C ? One way i know is by using the graphics.h header present in turbo c/c++ (old version) which is not available in newer C compilers...please suggest some way to do this... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piyushbehera25 (talk • contribs) 17:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The Windows API itself (the underlying C API) has extensive calls for GUI programming (you get them, at first instance, from windows.h). A lot of people use Microsoft Foundation Class Library, the main C++ wrapper for those calls. These both give you access to Windows' own GUI system, which means you get programs that compile and run only on Windows. Alternatively, you could choose to use a cross platform toolkit (e.g. GTK+, Qt, wxWidgets, or Tk) - these will allow your code to work on a variety of platforms beyond windows, but you lose some of the nitty-gritty access to lower-level windows features. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:19, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Glade + gtk is a relatively easy and portable way. --91.145.73.98 (talk) 19:05, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks...can you also suggest some books or online resources which provide good coverage of the above stated api's..

gtk tutorial. If you decide to go with gtk, you likely want to install devhelp with gtk documentation. --91.145.73.98 (talk) 19:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

What is the current gold-standard text for Windows C programming?

In answering the #GUI Design question, just above, I was going to recommend Charles Petzold's classic Programming Windows, but I see that it's still on its 11-year-old fifth edition, and is two or three major Windows revisions out of date. wikibooks:Windows Programming#Further Reading doesn't cite anything that much newer. Is there a well-regarded book that has taken the space occupied by Petzold, or is the space left to those horrid books that charge you £40 for a printed out copy of the library docs? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest going straight to the source: Technical Resources for .NET from Microsoft. They also provide a free version of their Visual Studio .NET compiler and integrated development environment, which has a C, C++, and C# compiler (among others); and supports their newest CLR/.NET framework (and, if you prefer to use outdated technology, also supports raw Win32 api and MFC code, too). The Tech Resources on their website include tutorials, sample-code, and API documentation. This tool has a huge amount of in-program documentation as well. .NET Framework Conceptual Overview may be the best first-place-to-start, as it lays out the newest suite of technologies and how they interplay on a modern Windows operating system. (Oh the days when you simply "compiled" C code! Not anymore! Even a "compiled language" is often really an interpreted, virtualized, managed application technology suite on pretty much all of the major distributions of all the major operating systems!) These tutorials might bring the "newbies" up to speed and the "old-fogeys" might want to brush up on which of their assumptions have become invalidated by modern software engineering architectures. Nimur (talk) 18:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

If modern technology is so great, why are you recommending object-oriented imperative programming languages? C and C++ are both a lot older than Win32, and C#, while it's a newer design in the narrowest sense, doesn't have any ideas in it that are less than 40 years old. At least recommend F#—though I suppose its history is just as long. And were you planning to display any windows, or create any files, or open any TCP sockets to send any SQL queries to any relational database servers in your modern .NET application? Anyway, I'm pretty sure Finlay McWalter meant Win32 specifically. To which the answer is... I don't know. I would probably go with Petzold, the online MSDN documentation, and whatever other online resources you can find with a web search. -- BenRG (talk) 00:52, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not endorsing anything in particular, and I wasn't intending any descriptions in my earlier post in a pejorative way. I'm just proposing that modern C++ is dramatically technologically different from C++ in 1990; the best resource(s) for learning it are directly reading the documentation provided by the compiler and operating system vendors. The OP wanted information about "Windows programming", and the Windows API is presently defined in terms of the Common Language Infrastructure, which will probably persist beyond any specific compiler technology or GUI API. I expect that the win32 API will also soon be deprecated; we're now more than 15 years past "Windows NT" (which was intended to be the Win32 replacement). Continuing to program in that paradigm is a surefire way to keep your code non-portable and rapidly-deprecated. The conceptual ideas for modern architectures do have histories dating back as far as you want to chase them; but it's only in this decade that dynamic thread scheduling, multi-core systems, kernel virtualization, file-system-in-user-space, driver management frameworks, and JIT runtime environments have become available on mainstream consumer devices. Every single one of these technologies, which are now a crucial part of the Windows platform (and Linux and Mac OSX and others) have historical precedents dating back at least as far as the System 360; but now that they operate on every computer, the best way to learn to program these architectures is to use one of the more modern incarnations of the languages you mentioned, like CLR, .NET, or Java. All of these technologies are well-documented online via their official distributors. It has been my experience that no textbook has been able to keep up, editorially, with the online documentation. Nimur (talk) 03:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Flash player on IE

When I use IE 8 to go to youtube, it tells me that the latest version of Adobe Flash isn't running, or else I have Java turned off. As far as I can tell by looking at my internet tools security levels, everything looks fine. It runs fine on Firefox. Any help? I had some malware installed yesterday (fast browser search, DO NOT install it!!!) and went through a lot of hoops to remove it, lots and lots of steps, I can't even remember all of the things I did to get rid of it, it's persistant. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it enabled? Tools >>> Internet Options >>> Program Tab >>> Manage add-on options button >>> Filters >>> Add-ons that run without requiring permission >>> Select Shockwave Object >>> Enable button at bottom. -- Mentifisto 21:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a Filters. I have "InPrivate Filtering", which has nothing in it. I also have "Toolbars and Extensions", which had "Adobe PDF Reader Link Helper" disabled, but that's the only Adobe application there. I can't find the Select Shockwave Object anywhere. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, wait. There was a drop down box which had "Run without permission" as one of the selections. That brought up several add-ons, one of which was Shockwave Flash Object, and that was disabled. I've enabled. Thanks, let's see if that helps. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Setting background picture in Windows

Hello, I have noticed that setting a picture as my background in Windows does not work very well. I am guessing the reason is pictures have much bigger file sizes now. Does this make sense? What I am saying is, whether I choose Center, Tile, or Stretch, it looks weird. For a picture I am working with right now, Center and Tile show just a small portion of the picture (though different portions) and Stretch fits it to the screen but then it is not proportioned correctly. None of these are helpful. So, is there some way to fix this that isn't too complicated? Thanks! (Oops, it might be important to note I have had this problem in XP and Vista.) StatisticsMan (talk) 21:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Stretch is usually the best thing, but you need to have the image be the same aspect ratio as your screen - otherwise the stretch has to dilate it more in one dimension than the other, which produces the unwelcome distortion you're seeing. So either you should crop the image down to the same aspect ratio as your screen (using a graphics program like Paint.NET, Gimp, or Photoshop) or change to a different picture that does have the same aspect ratio. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

For example, Wikimedia Commons has two categories for featured pictures that might be suitable for use as a desktop background - commons:Category:Commons featured desktop backgrounds for 4:3 aspect ratio screens (most CRT montors, and some LCDs) and commons:Category:Commons featured widescreen desktop backgrounds for widescreen monitors (which are much more common now that a few years ago). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay thanks. But, the picture I am trying right now is a vertical picture so it is pretty much impossible to resize the picture so that Stretch is the best option. So, I would need to do Center probably to have it in the middle and a border on the left and right. StatisticsMan (talk) 21:55, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep. Although you may wish to do that yourself (again in one of those graphics programs I mentioned above) by making a new image the size of the screen, and then pasting in your vertical image. That'll allow you more control than the "center" option (you could have it off centre, or have a gradient background in the large side margins, or montage in some other appropriate images). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Mobile Phone Security

How secure are digital mobile phones? I use Verizon, if that matters. Specifically, if I have to give someone my social security number and whatever else over the phone, is it possible that someone could be listening in? I looked into this a few months ago and found out there is some sort of encryption but I never found anything about how good it is. Thanks. StatisticsMan (talk) 21:51, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe one can get off-the-shelf monitoring equipment (the way one could with analog phones) that will monitor digital phones. The underlying cryptosystems that "secure" mobile telephony (generally either A5/1 or CMEA, depending on your phone system) are embarrassingly poor. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The most likely form of surveillance is in the form of an legitimate agency (or illicit rogue technician) who has access to the mobile telephone provider's data network. However, it's not possible to categorically exclude wireless surveillance by totally unconnected third-parties. As Finlay mentioned, the encryption on a commercial telephone system is pretty weak. Nimur (talk) 23:49, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I always use a land-line for any sensitive data, like credit card numbers. Not that it's any more difficult to decrypt, but the eavesdroppers need to have physical access to the wires to tap a land-line, and that will dissuade almost all would-be-thieves. StuRat (talk) 13:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Visual C++ Runtime Library Error

I installed a study CD from a textbook--Studyware to accompany Human Diseases secondary edition v. 2.0.0--and every time I try to run it I get this error through the path C:\program files (x86)\StudyWare - Human Diseases\Neighbors.exe and "Couldn't find Library MSVCR80.dll (require by C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\GrooveUtil.DLL)

Help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hubydane (talk • contribs) 23:12, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks like your system is missing the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library. You can download it from Microsoft here (it's perfectly legal - it's the redistributable bit of Visual C++ for people who have 3rd party programs that depend on it). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

September 2

Question (Hacking, legality, private_website)

Is it against the law to ask someone to hack a privite website somebody made?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 01:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I changed the title, as "question" is not indicative of the specific question posed, but feel free to change it to something else. I hope you don't mind. Bus stop (talk) 01:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia cannot give legal advice or opinions. But please use common sense. If it helps, think of the website as someone's house. Would you ask your friend to break in to the house? Xenon54 / talk / 01:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Not legal advice, but I believe that IT security consultants are sometimes hired to do Penetration tests. I imagine that their contracts are drawn up very carefully. APL (talk) 02:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I was famous for those in high school.

Mothers, hide your daughters! <rimshot>218.25.32.210 (talk) 03:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a good question, and can be answered without violating the legal opinions requirement of the Refdesk; but it depends on where you live. You would have to look up the hacking law where you live, where he lives, and possibly in all the jurisdictions in between (!) and see if there is an exception for invited "guests". Tempshill (talk) 05:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

In that case: the applicable (federal) law in the US is probably 18 USC 1030. Xenon54 / talk / 14:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not entirely clear to me whether you're asking someone to hack your website, or someone else's website without permission. In the later case I would expect it would usually be against the law, if hacking is against the law Nil Einne (talk) 14:36, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Annoying browser issue

Hi. There's something that's been bugging me for years, and I wonder if there's anything I can do about it.

There are lots of webpages that, when they load, direct the cursor to some particular text box. What happens to me is this: I log out of my email account, and I'm redirected to some page, say the MSN homepage. As the page begins to load, I already know where I want to go next, so I start typing the next URL in the URL bar at the top of the browser. Then when the MSN webpage finishes loading, it snaps the cursor to the MSN search bar, often breaking into what I was typing, and if I'm going quickly, I hit [enter] end up with a page of search results for some clipped URL, e.g. "ipedia.org".

Is there anything I can do to override this "feature". I like to control where my typing cursor is, but I find that I can't. Any ideas? -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:33, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

In most cases, I believe, webmasters implement this "feature" (which often is very helpful, especially for login forms) using JavaScript and the (page) onLoad event. You can disable it by disabling JavaScript, but at a great cost, of course. No JavaScript will work. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 10:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a higher price than I'm willing to pay. When I remember, I click the "home" button on my browser when leaving certain websites, because that (the Wikipedia front page) doesn't hijack my cursor. When I forget, though... it's kind of annoying. Thanks anyway. -GTBacchus^(talk) 10:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Firefox has an option to disable the setFocus() javascript method, described here. That description says it's a per-site setting. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

This is what I've been looking for. Thank you very much. Like one of the posters in that thread, I'd like to disable setFocus() so it never works on any website I ever visit. If programmers are so sloppy with this method that they don't first check to see if a user is already typing somewhere else, then they should have it taken away from them. However helpful it may be in some contexts, interrupting the user's typing for any reason is terrible. It can cause us to type passwords in fields where they're visible, for example - that's not cool. Thanks again! -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Do webkit browsers do something different ? - I too used to be immensely annoyed by this when on IE7, but haven't noticed recently (using a different browser) - it would certainly be possible to prevent focus change once typing has been registered as begun.. I'm unable to confirm this though. Well it seems to, try webkit based browser perhaps?83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:57, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Cheapest cell-phone/PDA with keyboard, mp3 player, UMTS and wi-fi

Which one is it?--Quest09 (talk) 11:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Depends on what country —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.99 (talk) 13:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, if you know the answer for US and Europe...--Quest09 (talk) 16:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Europe is a country now? Prices vary widely between countries inside Europe, and will also vary depending on whether you already have a mobile subscription or want a phone that includes a subscription. Also, your current provider may also have some interesting deals, possibly depending on whether you are already free to switch contracts (ie, you've finished the minimum contract period) Unilynx (talk) 17:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Quest09, I'm afraid you won't get an unambiguous answer, as it depends on a whole host of factors, not limited to whether you're buying used or new, with or without a mobile phone contract, what country - not to mention that prices change daily. Your best bet is to visit several mobile phone shops in your area and ask for the cheapest phone they have with the capabilities you're after. You can also do some research on the internet, but the sheer number of possibilities will make this a long task. — QuantumEleven 12:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

At least, you could have named a cheap one (perhaps not the cheapest) without contract. First I thought I would go with a Palm, but then I discovered that it had not wi-fi. Now I am clueless.--Quest09 (talk) 10:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Changing video resolution under programmatic control (C/C++) via Windows API

How can I change the video resolution, colour depth and refresh rate on Windows XP under programmatic control? I can change it manually from the control panel, but that involves multiple clicks, and everytime I change one (eg resolution) Windows keeps changing the others (eg from my preferred 16-bit colour to Microsoft's preferred 32-bit) unless I explicitly set them all. I'd like to write a small program (in C or C++, with MSVC 6) to make appropriate calls to the Windows API to set a specific combination. What API functions would I use for this? Mitch Ames (talk) 12:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Call EnumDisplaySettings to list those that are available, then ChangeDisplaySettings to make the change. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:04, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:46, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

mobilephonebased learning

I have been asked to be partof a team of lecturers to develop training material for woodwork subjects,for use via mobile phones in the form of SMS and MMS . Iam due to make a presatation and participate in the first planning workshop for the project in one weeks` time .

iwould like to know information related to this concept of mobile phone based learning and if you can also relate this to web based education of the internet —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.210.184.136 (talk) 13:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The first step is learning to spell. Any training material should be free of spells. --Quest09 (talk) 10:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I would guess the first step would be to get lecturers who understand the pedagogical demands of teaching using mobile technologies. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

using cassettes for data?

How can I set up a Win XP/Vista computer to load and save audio files onto a cassette recorder/player? I want to relive the way I used to store data in the 1980s on a contemporary computer? Save some of my modern documents on a cassette like the good ole days.--Sonjaaa (talk) 17:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

A modern PC doesn't have the built-in (ROM) software to read and write files on a cassette tape recorder, like an early '80s microcomputer did. It could be done by writing software to encode the file as audio (for instance using the Kansas City standard, which was what the early micros used) and play it to the sound card. Using the original 300 baud encoding, you could store about 128kB of binary data on a 60-minute cassette tape. The harder part would be to decode the data again when the cassette is played ... --FOo (talk) 08:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I would have thought plugging the mic and headphone jacks from the cassette recorder into the sound card would be just fine, and sampling more than adequate i.e. sample the data. Most formats include timing marks of some kind, so sampling should not be any greater problem now than it was then. Probably harder to get hold of the blank cassette tapes! SimonTrew (talk) 01:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

If I click on the X in the upper right corner can I get my work back?

Sometimes I click on the X not realizing that when I thought I switched to a new page (with multiple rectangles at the bottom of the screen) I didn't, or when I didn't intend to switch to a new page the computer did it for me. For example, if I am calling up a web page at one particular library (Explorer), that page might be slow but when it does come up, that page replaces what I was looking at. Again, there are multiple rectangles at the bottom of the screen.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Not always (well not easily) - some applications will allow you to reopen a closed windows as they were last closed without saving as an option - though it's not a standard feature. Was it a particular application you were using?83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Just email, or perhaps a Wikipedia edit box.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes reloading the edit page with browser off-line or connection closed, restores from cache even the data you typed in edit-areas. -- Codicorumus  « msg 18:53, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I usually find that the edit area appears as it did before I did anything.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, browser offline. That could work.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Some browsers are capable of reopening accidentally closed pages - even with the edit box contents still intact - if you are willing to change. Or if you are using IE (as I suspect) as I used to have the same problem - and don't want to change it might be an idea to request this feature.. As I understand it Windows 7 is complete- the MS programmers would probably appreciate something to do, as would their managers :)

83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

How to determine a website's service provider

Resolved

 – Answered to my satisfaction

I was taking a look at Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter. It brought a question into my head: How would one determine what service provider a website was with? Say I wanted to send a DMCA takedown, how'd I find out where to send it? In VERY ^{(sorry to shout)} plain English please. Imagine explaining to your Granny. I'm not that bad, but technical stuff will go over my head without a good explanation. Thanks, Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:53, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Use dnsstuff.com to perform a whois lookup, which should give you the owner of the domain (or occasionally a proxy, who can accept or forward legal documents). Or you can use alexa.com. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

That only produces domain contact details, which are fairly easy to get, normally. At the bottom end of the WP page I linked it gves a letter to send to the service provider if the domain owner is nonresponsive or doesn't co-operate. How would one identify which service provider that might be? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:09, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a bit harder, because "service provider" can mean one of three things. For a small website it's the hosting company. For a medium sized website it's the colo facility. And for a large company (a real whopper like Yahoo) its the trunk network supplier. For the first ones, put the domain into dnsstuff's traceroute window, then look and see what the last reply is - it'll often identify as a machine at a hosting company like Serverconfig, Rackspace, or Dreamhost. For the second kind, you need to backtrack a bit in that whois listing, although often only one or two machines. For example, if we traceroute sfgate.com (the San Francisco Chronicle) the second last machine is identified as belonging to savvis.net, which turns out to be Savvis Inc., the Chronicle's hosting provider. You'd probably see something like that (but having to backtrack a bit more, perhaps) for an bigger company. For the biggest (google, yahoo, microsoft) the traffic will jump straight from a trunk telecoms provider like level3 or at&t straight to the final company network. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, that's very helpful. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Finlay's answer seems totally correct to me. It might help to understand the term "peering", which is the internet engineering technical term for connecting two "equally large" networks. Neither network is the "host" or "client", rather they are "peers", and they connect using Border Gateway Protocol. Since neither is the "host" in such an internet connection, it is not possible to call either the "internet service provider" - rather, by virtue of both being large networks, and connected, they are forming part of the internet. Nimur (talk) 05:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

USB over ethernet, or other soultion that will work as a window service.

I would like to be able to do the following: I would like to run the server-end of a particular software application that we use on a virtual machine inside VMware ESXi server, but I have a problem. The licensing for the software uses a dongle attached to the USB. While VMware Workstation has support for USB devices passing through from the host machine to a guest OS this is not possible on ESXi or (as far as I know) any of the other server VMware products. A solution to this problem was suggested to me which was to purchase an Ethernet attached USB hub. The server VM could then connect to the USB dongle over the local network. I purchased a hub (unknown Chinese brand) for this purpose and attached it to the network and I was able to connect to it remotely (although that was from a VMware Workstation guest OS and not within ESXi server, as I have not yet set that up), but another problem remains. The client software for the hub, which attaches to the USB device over Ethernet, runs as an interactive application that minimizes to a tray application. This means that a user must log-in and activate the connection on the server. I was wondering whether anybody knows whether a similar device exists (I know that Belkin and Digi make similar products) which allows the Ethernet connections to be made by running a Windows service and so does not require an interactive login. I also understand that there are also several software products which allow the USB remote connections over Ethernet, by forwarding a USB device from one machine to another, and thus require software installation on two computers; but I would like to know whether any of these software solutions run the client end of the software as a Windows service.

So to summarise, how can I connect to a USB device from within an ESXi guest using a method which does not require a user-login? I have already left a similar message to this on the VMware forums, but if anyone has any ideas as to a better (perhaps USB device related) discussion board upon which this question could could be placed I would be more than grateful. Thanks. 87.194.131.188 (talk) 22:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Manipulating the console in Python...

There's a bunch of programs on UNIX-platforms that don't just use the console as a means for displaying stuff printed out to the standard output or standard error, but actually do really nice things on it, like showing progress-bars and updating numbers on it without necessarily printing a whole new line (like how wget shows a nice little progress-bar, for instance).

How do you do that in Python? I know about ncurses, but that's more for if you want to create like a whole pseudo-gui in the terminal, isn't it? That's not what I want, I just want the ability to small dynamic little updates to the last line of the console. Any help would be appriciated. 90.233.149.220 (talk) 23:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Curses is built on termcap/terminfo, and the python curses implementation allows access to that (which just lets you do basic stuff like cursor movements and colours in a terminal independent way). This example may be helpful. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, that little recipe seems to do exactly what I want. Thanks! 90.233.133.166 (talk) 01:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you just want to update the last line then you don't need curses. ASCII code 13 ('\r') will send the cursor back to the beginning of the current line and ASCII code 8 ('\b') will send it back one character position. This will work even in environments where curses isn't available, like the Windows console. The only tricky part is that you may need to flush the standard output buffer because some C libraries only flush it when they see '\n'. -- BenRG (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

September 3

iPod launching iTunes

When I plug in my iPod, iTunes is automatically launched. Does anyone know how I could change that, and have it launch a .bat file or something instead? Thanks —Akrabbim^talk 02:12, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You could get it to launch a batch file by modifying the autoexec... Tweak UI comes to mind. If you don't want the iPod to launch iTunes, remove 'ipodhelper' from your startup items. — neuro^(talk) 06:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, OK, I had never known what ituneshelper did. That seems like the most reasonable solution. Thanks —Akrabbim^talk 11:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a setting in iTunes itself. iTunesHelper will reinstate itself the next time you start up iTunes. Plug your iPod in, go to the page with the Sync settings, and uncheck the "Open iTunes when this iPod is plugged in" box.  Buffered Input Output 15:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't send these emails.

I just got twenty-three delivery status notifications for failed emails.

Everyone on my contact list also got an email from me.

I sent no emails.

Does this mean someone's actually gained control of my email account? What steps should I take? 90.195.179.183 (talk) 12:54, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I also just noticed I've been logged out of Wikipedia... 90.195.179.183 (talk) 12:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

There are two possibilities. The first is simply that someone (a spammer) has forged your email address on their spam (making it look as if you've send a bunch of email about viagra or whatever) - but that mostly means you'll get mail-errors from people you've never heard of, often in foreign countries and foreign languages. But a spammer doesn't know who your friends are, so if, as you say, people who know you got the spam, them that looks like a virus that is running on your computer, and has raided your address book and used it to send emails that appear to come from you (often to propagate itself). That's much more effective for the virus, as people who know you are much more likely to open emails that appear to come from you. But it's bad for you, because it strongly suggests your machine is badly infected. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe some malware does forge the from address, so it's possible one of your contacts who also know all has all your contacts is the culprit. Analysing one of those failed delivery notifications or one of those emails received by your contacts should help you determine where the email originated from Nil Einne (talk) 14:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

XFX Nvidia Geforce or XFX ATI Radeon

Hello there, I am confused with XFX Brand. Are Nvidia Geforce and ATI Radeon under the same company? Is there any only Nvidia Geforce cards available out there?--119.30.36.53 (talk) 15:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit confusing, so I hope the following will help. Nvidia is a company that makes a range of chips, including fancy graphics chips (geForce). ATI also makes a range of chips; their graphics chips are called Radeon. ATI is now owned by AMD. ATI/AMD is a different company to nVidia. None of these guys actually make graphics cards - they sell their chips (and designs, and software) to companies that put them onto graphics cards (with memory and other bits from other suppliers). XFX is such a company. XFX makes a range of graphics cards - most have nVidia GeForce chips on them, but one has an ATI Radeon instead. XFX is a different company from both ATI and nVidia; it's not owned by either. Lots of other companies also make graphics cards with either nVidia or ATI chips on them, although XFX is rather rare in using chips from both. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:36, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Testing something on IE6

I'm trying to do some javascript debugging, and apparently something is not working correctly on IE6, but works fine on IE8 (which I have). What's the easiest way for me to get a copy of IE6 up and running, assuming I already have IE8 on my system and am not that interested in totally rolling back? Running a virtual OS seems possible though a huge hassle for something as simple as thing. Is there a better way? Note that the issue is with some Javascript—it's not just displaying the page, so those services that let you see how a page in rendered on different browsers don't really help me. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 16:02, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe paid subscribers to MSDN can get Virtual PC images of older OSes with a range of stuff installed, including various browsers. I don't believe this is available for free, unfortunately. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

This site claims to allow you to run IE6, along with a number of other browsers, directly from the web. I've not tested it, and you need to "install spoon" before it will work, but it seems like a good option to try. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 17:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

IETester might also be worth checking out

They're available free here - they're timebombed, though, so you can't run them after a certain date. They release new images around the expiry date of the old ones. IETester is usually the easiest and best option. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 19:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You could uninstall IE8 inside of a Sandboxie sandbox. -- BenRG (talk) 19:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Languages of the Internet

Is there something like this [5] but that isn't so incredibly outdated? Thanks. --Belchman (talk) 17:50, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Try these: [6] (2009), Global Internet usage (Wikipedia article), [7] (2008). ƒ(Δ)² 18:02, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, mate. But I'd like to know the % of web pages (not users) in each language. --Belchman (talk) 18:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Freeware to manually sort a large group of photos

I have a large number of photos in one folder. I'm looking for something like this: the software shows a photo on screen. I click the appropriate button to move it to my "Holidays" folder, or another button to move it to my "Office Party" folder, or other choices of button I have pre-established, including a button to delete it and a button to do nothing. Ideally just one button to click: I do not have to confirm things. The software then shows me the next photo, and so on. Does anyone know of any freeware or otherwise free software that can do this please? Thanks 78.146.3.82 (talk) 20:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you not use windows explorer to show thumbnails of the images, and then drag them into directories, including one named "bin", which you can later delete? --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

It takes far too long, particularly if you have a large number of photos, and the thumbnails are too small to see clearly. 78.146.3.82 (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

mirage let's you set custom actions on keys. I've used it for mass deletion of bad images and moving should be as easy. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 20:46, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It does not seem to mention that in the documentation - how would you do it please? The commands do not seem to include moving a photo to a folder. 78.146.3.82 (talk) 21:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

On my Linux machine I would move the image to my-dir and change to next image with 'mkdir -p my-dir; mv %F my-dir; [NEXT]' and delete the image with 'rm %F; [NEXT]'. So you basically give mirage a shell ("command prompt") command with extras. On windows the corresponding should be 'mkdir my-dir; mv %F my-dir; [NEXT]' and 'del %F; [NEXT]' but I'm not sure. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 22:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

IrfanView has single-key commands to move (F7) or copy (F8), to a set of up to 10 predetermined destinations. All you need to do is set destination 1 to be your "holidays" folder, destination 2 to be your "office party" folder, etc. It then takes only two keystrokes to move or delete a photo, and a right-arrow (or Page Down) to view the next photo. It also works in thumbnail view (key shortcut: T), where you can adjust the thumbnail size if you wish. — QuantumEleven 08:53, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

3g mobile dongle top up...hidden costs in uk?

I am thinking of getting a 3g mobile dongle to but feel that there may be hidden costs not outlined.

Is there a 30 day time limit on top up purchases?

Can you just buy a £10 top up that will last until you use it up?

The websites just seem to give no detailed info.its more like..."hey lets be friends and just buy it"..!

any websites with proper info or horror stories appreciated.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.41.154.137 (talk) 21:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but we're going to need more information. What network is this on and/or can you give a link to the tariff/purchase page so we'll know what you're talking about? ZX81 ^talk 22:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you do pay-as-you-go from Three, they give you a free SIM anyway. Yeah, it only lasts 30 days for each £10 top-up. Personally I have a Three SIM card that is embedded in the notebook; before that the dongle cost me about £60 but that included three months and three gigs not 30 days expiry. Maplins and Argos have them from about £30, of course prices for this kind of thing change so quickly, so that is just a ballpark figure.

See Argos latest catalogue p1291 £19.99 for just the dongle + £10 min top up, or dongle and up to 3 months at 3Gb at £39.99, 12Gb for up to 12 months at £99.99. They do expire but you can always top up more, and at those prices it seems not a lot in it: I would recommend start small and see how much you really use. Cat. nos. are respectively 549/0433, 549/0440, 549/0457. Full disclosure: I have no financial interest in Argos but do find them a good guide to prices (not always the cheapest). PC World and Maplin will also have them. Check Three for coverage though, I believe they are the only UK 3G network. SimonTrew (talk) 01:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Just a suggestion but you might want to consider using your mobile phone as a modem instead of purchasing a separate dongle - most recent mobile phone support tethering, either through USB cable, Bluetooth, or even Wifi. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

As a former 3-mobile pay-as-you-go broadband users my advice is...don't. No matter where I used it I got slow speeds (in a city that was highlights as 'good coverage' by their site). It constantly hung, it had the ridiculous problem that once my credit ran out and I went on their site to buy more it wouldn't let me (because to pay it required me to navigate off to a bank-specific verification site). I used it for about a year (last year for info) while I was in short-term renting and it was poor. That said i've heard others have good times so it could've just been me.194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I have the 12Gb, which is valid for up to 1 year. Works well for me; I didn't want any kind of contract. It's not lightning fast, and it occasionally fails, but for 100 quid, if you're not downloading movies or streaming things, then it's a v cheap option. Their customer support does seem poor, but as I will never use it, it's not an issue. After the 12Gb ran out (8 months for me), I just bought another.  Chzz  ►  16:44, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Slow loading websites

My friend is testing a program, and needs some websites that load really slow.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 22:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Possibly the best way to do this is to set up and configure a proxy server or other controlled source to emulate the behavior you want in a controlled way. You can set up a Squid proxy to intentionally delay or limit the bandwidth available. Nimur (talk) 22:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) One problem: a website that is slow for me might not be slow for you. Besides the obvious connection speed differences, distance is also a factor. http://news.bbc.co.uk/ loads relatively quickly for me (Washington area), but if you lived in, say, Anchorage, it would probably take longer. In residential areas, traffic can often be slowed if many people are online at once, during afternoon "peak hours". So I'm afraid that this might be a query that cannot be answered. Xenon54 / talk / 22:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I know. But this is not an application to test from a proxy, but from the USER's network connection.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 22:23, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

4chan is shit slow most of the time cause they're under constant DDOS attack

Google maps, maps.google.com, usually loads pretty slow on my DSL connection due to the large about of data needed for the maps. Dismas|^(talk) 00:24, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The point of the proxy is that it can be used to simulate any network conditions. Put it on a fast local network, and the proxy server can be slowed down to deliver at any desired latency and throughput rate. Nimur (talk) 01:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Define 'load really slow'... do you mean that they exceed most timeout caps? — neuro^(talk) 09:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

You could route all traffic through Tor which is often very slow loading normal pages. If your application does not have proxy settings or support proxy servers nativity, you can make it use Tor with sockscap —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 09:48, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

OP has already said they do not wish to proxy or route. — neuro^(talk) 10:25, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I know. But I thought it possible that the OPs application might not have proxy settings, which might be the reason he was reluctant to use a proxy. This is why I suggested sockscap —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 11:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Since this is a test-suite, it seems like a bad idea to "trust" some other website to be slow. Software tests should take place in a controlled way - which means simulating the desired failure case (slow loading websites) - as opposed to just loading a slow-ish website and hoping it's slow. That's why I suggest using a proxy (or a locally configured web server) - as a simulation of a connection to an actual slow website - and not as a conventional proxy. There's no way to guarantee performance, or lack of performance, if you are testing against an external website - so your test will be full of uncontrolled variables. Nimur (talk) 16:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

September 4

Alpha on Mac OS X keyboard

I'm trying to find a way to put the alpha symbol (lower case, I think. It's the one that looks like infinity but with the right side chopped off) into NeoOffice on a Mac. I found ∆ just fine but can't find alpha. Any help? I'd rather not copy and paste from somewhere. For one, I just want to know how to do it. And for two, I'd rather not have any unexpected formatting show up. Dismas|^(talk) 00:23, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

You might not be able to—the hotkeys for Greek characters are pretty limited (and appear to be somewhat arbitrary). You can always get them in Finder, though: Go to Edit > Special Characters. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! That got it. I still hate that they took away the Key Caps application... Dismas|^(talk) 02:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

RTMP streams and VLC

I'm trying to open a RTMP stream with VLC, and it's not going too well. There is an RTMP option in the "Open Network Stream" box. Given a URL, everything seems to go smoothly. I go into the Messages window, and again everything seems okay - no warnings or errors. But it doesn't play - it just sits there. No buffering, no video, no audio. I have to kill VLC with the system monitor of the OS I'm using at the time. Does anyone know of a way to open such streams with VLC or if there is another (preferably Linux- or wine-friendly) media player that will open them? I really don't want to install XBMC (and even then RTMP support there seems to be rather new and not fully implemented), but if that's what I have to do, so be it. Xenon54 / talk / 01:58, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

RTMP is a proprietary format and can support encryption. Attempting to open it with a 3rd-party client is unfortunately not possible unless the server allows it. Nimur (talk) 02:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Debian Kernel Help

Hi. The installer is asking me which kernel I want to install:

linux-image-2.6-486
linux-image-2.6-686
linux-image-2.6.26-2-486
linux-image-2.6.26-2-686

Obviously, I should get a 686 one, but I don't know how the ...26-2 one is different. Is the 2.6-686 the first 2.6 kernel release? Thanks.--S1kjreng (talk) 10:03, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The "2.6" package is "the latest 2.6". If you install it, it will actually get the 2.6.26-2 for you, so there's no difference right now. The difference is in the future. If you have the generic "2.6" package installed, future upgrades might automatically select something newer than 2.6.26. If you just install the 2.6.26-2 then future upgrades will only update the 2.6.26-2 with bug fixes if necessary, no newer versions. Not a big difference since you can easily change your mind later. 69.245.227.37 (talk) 09:36, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

how to make the best of out of USB stick?

I browsed about this topic a little bit and found that there are ceratin OSs that can be booted from an USB stick but its not of big use to me since public computers don't allow that. Portable apps seem to be good idea. Do you have other suggestions pls?. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 10:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Most public terminals (in the true sense) will actively block foreign executables. — neuro^(talk) 10:24, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

For portable apps I suggest Portable Firefox as a must have, it's awesome. Also Portable Tor to allow you to view restricted sites at the public computer. I also suggest Process Explorer which can be used to override some restrictions on public computers, like timed forced shutdown if a program running on the public computer is responsible for it (select the program, right click and choose "kill process") . For OSs that run from USB, take a look at the Live USB article. SLAX is a nice, easy to use LiveOS with lots of features. Remember, flash drives only have a certain number of write cycles, so read/write intensive use of them will greatly shorten their lifespan. It might be better to use a portable external hard drive rather than a flash drive —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 11:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

With the ever decreasing cost for flash drives though, that may not be much of a problem for even heavy users. --antilived^{T | C | G} 14:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

True, but it's still an issue if the drive fails when it's got important stuff on it. Regular backups are a good idea —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 14:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Graphics card choice

I am looking for a card which has better performance but produce Less temperature. Which one I should choose? I am not worried about price. Actually my room is quite hot and worried about system overheating.

XFX Geforce 9800 GT 600M 512 MB

or

XFX Geforce 9600 GT 650MHz 512 MB

--119.30.36.54 (talk) 13:46, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

(added title) The 9800GT is a much better card than the 9600, so if all you want is performance then get that. In terms of heat the 9800 will definitely output more heat but as long as your case is adequately ventilated and you don't mind a bit of noise you should be fine. If you can though, try get a 9800GTX+ (which all comes with dual-slot coolers AFAIK) or a 9800GT with a dual-slot cooler so that the hot air from the graphics card gets vented out instead of recirculated inside your case, which will help your temps. --14:00, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for reply. I had previously overheating issue with ATI Card (4890 1 GB) which caused system to freeze in 61 to 63 Celsius (GPU Temp) and even in low temp 47 to 49 Celsius (GPU Temp. If I attached XFX Geforce 9800 GT or XFX Geforce 9800 GTX+ will it improve heat issue then the ATI ? My pc case is Full Tower Thermaltake Xaser VI. Thank you--119.30.36.53 (talk) 18:10, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Post-fuse insertion?

What does post-fuse mean in the term "post-fuse insertion"? What kind of fuse is it talking about? It's something related to printers. Thanks to whomever can help. Leptictidium (mt) 13:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, it means that it is inserted after the toner. — neuro^(talk) 14:06, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The fuser melts the toner to the paper. In a cheap color laser printer, you will place all your color toner on the paper at the same time, then fuse them all. This causes a problem with bleeding and ghost images. For most people, it is not visible and no problem at all. On the high end, each color is placed on the paper and fused, one at a time. This eliminates the bleeding and ghost images. If you see the two side-by-side, you will recognize the one with separated toner insertion to be of superior quality. -- kainaw™ 16:03, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Static discharge and electronic devices

As you probably know if you wear synthetic fabrics and remove one layer over the other it generates a lot of staic electricity.. Does this present a danger to electronic devices (eg phones ipod etc) - under any conditions - what if the device in the pocket of one of the clothes items, and what if the first act after removing one of the items is to pick up an electronic device? More specifically has anyone ever bust their stuff doing this? Does anyone know what sort of quantities of static electricity is produced (charge).?83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

You would have to encounter incredible extremes of static electricity to damage phones and .mp3 players. For the most part, the metal parts in the casing for these devices would shield the electronics from any static damage. This is a normal concern that I'm sure most designs address. I have never heard of someone's stuff getting damaged by normal static buildup. If you took apart the phone to expose the electronics, it would be a good idea to ground yourself, as a person with their clothes can build up thousands of volts of static electricity. It is not dangerous to humans, as there is little energy to create current, but you can burn out diodes with it. —Akrabbim^talk 17:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

(Aren't most things plastic?) I was wondering about a worst case scenario - say for instance I picked up an usb stick, or memory card - touching the metal contacts?83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:39, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Minesweeper

Hello. Why is there speculation that Minesweeper in Windows Vista generates its board before the first click as mentioned in Minesweeper (Windows)? Would generating the board after the first click make more sense since, if Minesweeper randomly lays a mine at the first-clicked square, it can randomly assign the mine another location, knowing where the first click was and where not to place the mine again? I programmed the algorithm in Java as shown below.

for (byte b = 0 ; b < 99 ; b++)
{
    boolean bool = true;
    while (bool)
    {
        bool = false;
        mine [b] = (int) (Math.random () * 480);
        for (byte j = 0 ; j < b ; j++)
            if (mine [b] == mine [j] || mine [b] == i) //i = location of first click
            {
                bool = true;
                break;
            }
    }
}

Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 18:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Either approach you mention is reasonable. I think the better approach is to make sure the first click is not a mine, but there are reasonable arguments on both sides of the debate. The sentence in the article is not cited, so I don't know whether it is speculation or fact, or a sort of abstraction to help teach the concept of the game rather than analyze the (unimportant to the article) exact sequence of events in the code. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I fact-tagged that line in the article, FWIW. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Minesweeper's first-click behaviour is dissected at the following: [8], [9], and [10]. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

This only applies to pre-Vista versions, the original Microsoft-written ones. The Vista version may have been rewritten from scratch so the these dissections maybe no longer apply. --FvdP (talk) 19:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

On the original version you could use the XYZZY code to see where all the mines were before you clicked. If you didn't click on a mine, they would be in the position as you saw. If you deliberately picked a mine for your first click, it suddenly wouldn't be a mine. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

AT&T ad

There is a library where I go and get on a computer where this [11] comes up every time someone goes to the Internet. The page says Firefox needs updating, so I don't know if that's the problem.

A number of web sites I go to there but not at home (where I limit the sites I go to so as not to cause problems) have an AT&T ad for high-speed Internet. My guess is they put something in it to slow the Internet down so you would think yours was slow and get theirs.

Actually, it doesn't happen every time, but when the computer does freeze, there is an AT&T ad on the screen. If I try to do anything, I just get the word "Stopped" in the lower left corner. I don't know how long it takes to go to the next page. It seems to work better when I put something where the URL goes and press "Enter". At least a blank screen is progress.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Converting Win98 program to Windows Vista 64-bit compatibility

Hello, I have a few old Win98-compatible programs that are incompatible with Windows Vista 64-bit. Vista's "compatibility" function does not work in these cases (I've tried). Is there a decompiler/recompiler that makes programs compatible with Windows Vista? I suspect the programs are made in Visual Basic, Visual C or Visual C++. Thanks, -- Guroadrunner (talk) 21:35, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Graphics card on motherboard

Hello there, I want to add new Graphics card (PCI 2.0) on my mobo. This is my first time. So if I attach the card in mobo with cable do I need to change anything in BIOS?--119.30.36.38 (talk) 22:43, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the BIOS. Some bioses are smart and will automatically disable the onboard graphics adapter if they detect an external graphics cards. With other BIOSes you'll have to go into the BIOS "onboard peripherals" screen and disable the video. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

September 5

E-mail

Why do students with a school e-mail address often create another address for the purpose of joining sites like Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, Gamefaqs, etc? Jc iindyysgvxc (talk) 00:37, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

There are lots of possible reasons, if the above is actually true.

1. School addresses necessarily expire. Unless you are a graduate student, of course, in which case you can have the same one for a decade. Yay!
2. School addresses are seen as rather "official," being explicitly joined to a real, physical identity. Not everybody wants these places like Youtube, Facebook, etc., to have access to their real-world identity. They might want a little more anonymity.
3. School addresses may have specific terms of service that make them undesirable for wider use.
4. School addresses may require POP3/IMAP enabled mail readers to access them, where webmail is sometimes more convenient. Similarly, one might want to diversify one's incoming e-mail—to keep the school things on the school address, and everything else on the webmail address. This is advantageous also in terms of spam.
5. Lastly, there is no worse place in the world for reliable IT services than a school. Academics always underfund their IT departments drastically, and this leads to all sorts of mayhem on a regular basis. Every university I've attended has had major IT problems—stolen data, overheated servers, ridiculously small inbox quotas, you name it. If you want reliable e-mail, your local university is probably the last place you'd want to go.

The above is just speculation. I'm not sure there is a definite trend, nor am I sure the causality is right here. (In my experience, students often already have gmail addresses when they arrive at school, and then have the school mail just forward to that, for what they are used to.) It also probably differs depending what level of "school" you are talking about (high school? undergraduate at college? graduate school?). Again, this might not even be true—is there any evidence that this is a major trend? --98.217.14.211 (talk) 00:50, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Importing bookmarks from Firefox into Opera

Can somebody tell me where to find my Firefox bookmarks? I am trying to import them to Opera and, unlike Chrome, it makes me look for them rather than just doing it automatically (actually, I never managed it with Chrome - it just went on for ages before I gave up - both times). --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 02:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Transmute will fit your needs nicely. It transferred my Chrome bookmarks to Firefox almost by itself.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 03:12, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Excel 2007 being absolutely dense

Sometimes it baffles me how freeware can outdo a bazillion-dollar office suite.

Let's take this hypothetical situation here:

      Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3
Row A   106    |          |    99
Row B          |    90    |

Very simple, no? I want to start a line graph and add on to it as new values arise. However, the fact that there's a gap between the 106 and 99 is just far too troublesome for Excel, so it doesn't connect the values. I'm left with three standalone points when I really should have one standalone and two connected.

OpenOffice.org Calc, hilariously, does not do this. Meaning you can have oodles of columns between one value and the next, and two values will still connect. Now while I love Calc, I'm trying to transition back to Office ever since I re-obtained it. I'd rather have the correct graph on Excel if possible. Is there any way to make Excel connect those points?

And yes, I realize I could put "102.5" in Row A, Column 2, but I feel like I would be winning the battle only to lose the war, know what I mean?

The problem is that you have introduced 3 'y' co-ordinates and provided only 2 values. The problem is with using a Line Chart. If Excel draws a line directly from 106-99 then anybody reading that chart will think that the value for Column 2 must be something between 106-99. Because Excel does not have a value in the field it assumes it is a missing data point so does not connect the data to it. It could assume the null-value is equal to 0 (in which case yourl line-chart would go from 106-0-99 and look like a 'v') but that wouldn't be a very good assumption as it's rare that someone has a 3 point chart, but pieces of missing data in 100-data-point Y axis is easily handled and looks sensible (the data shows a line, it breaks, then resumes - showing a data-point missing an entry.

I would suggest that OpenOffice is incorrect because it fails to note that there is no entry in column 2 for Row A and by connecting the dots leaves the reader (anybody other than the creator) to assume that Column 2's row A value must be something between 106 and 99. ny156uk (talk) 09:32, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Importing sound files to Scratch

What kind of file types does scratch (MIT) accept when I import sound files?--Mikespedia (talk) 05:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Windows Problems

On every Windows XP or Vista computer I've ever used - my own, public computers, etc - after leaving the computer on for more than a day or so it starts to act up, goes extremely slow and makes hard drive rumbling sounds even when all programs are closed and the computer is supposedly idol. More mysterious, in task manager there are no processes making read / writes, yet the hard drive rumbles away like it's been formatted or something. Why is this? Why does restarting the computer fix this problem for the next 24 hours, then it comes back?