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November 20

Designing my own simple computer language

Just how difficult would it be to design my own computer language? Is there a complier-compiler available that will churn out a compiler (or preferably an interpreter) if I give it a grammar in BNF for example? I would like to design a language that can do things with blocks of text, as described in questions above. Maths etc not needed. Would it be possible to find a freeware compiler for a simple version of BASIC written in Forth, for example, and modify it to my needs? Perhaps what I want to do is something like an old-fashioned macro-preprocessor. 92.27.154.180 (talk) 00:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

An interpreter is generally easier than a compiler (as you don't have to generate machine code or assembly language for a specific processor). Typically you need to parse the input program; it's common to use a parser generator to take some of the effort for that (they often take a BNF grammar and produce a parser for you). Which one you choose, and how you proceed from there, depends on what language you already know well). I doubt taking an existing interpreter would be the clearest path, but your mileage may vary. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at flex lexical analyser and GNU bison. (These are free alternatives to the original lex and yacc tools). Between these two tools, designing and implementing a new computer language is a fairly modest "textbook exercise." (In fact, I believe it is a textbook exercise in Patt & Patel, the best introductory computer systems textbook I ever used). There will be some ugly details, but if your language is well-defined (e.g. can be written in Backus–Naur Form), then the rest is just a matter of how much you want to polish the product. Nimur (talk) 03:09, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The other suggestions here are great - but just as an aside, I've developed my own languages a few times, (most recently as a teaching language), and using an interpreter is, indeed, much easier and very quick to throw together. A simple Turing-complete language, with dynamic typing and a fairly flexible syntax, isn't that hard to do. That said, I'd lean towards looking for a pre-existing language first, as the big problem will be in efficiency. It's fairly easy to throw together an interpreter, but it is relatively difficult to throw together an interpreter that runs well. :) Perhaps something like Perl will do what you want (when people mention blocks of text I think Perl, but maybe that's just me). - Bilby (talk) 12:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a Template processor or something related to it is what I am seeking. Chances are there is already a language out there that can do what I want, if I can find it. The essential thing is to be able to deal with blocks of text (such as paragraphs or even pages) rather than just lines. 78.151.128.59 (talk) 12:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

This looks like more of a representation problem. How would you represent pagination in normal text? Via markup or via a form-feed character? If your format is well-defined, any scripting language will do. I'm partial to Python, but AWK and Perl would serve just as well. If, on the other hand, when talking about "text" you mean a heavily formatted opaque format like MS-Word files, you are in for a lot of hurt - but that will not go away with your own language. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I prefer just simple plain text files. A paragraph has a blank line (ie two carriage-returns) above and below it. A page has a page-break character above and below it. Or the start or end of the file as appropriate. I did not think AWK could deal with blocks of text, only lines? Perhaps Perl etc could do what I want, but its hidden by a lot of other stuff that I don't want to use. 78.151.128.59 (talk) 13:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

For GAWK you can define what constitutes a "line" by assigning a proper regexp to RS (the "record separator"), e.g. gawk 'BEGIN{RS="\n\n"}{print "Para: " FNR "\n"; print $0 "\n"}' [your input file]. For Python, you can just read the whole text and split pages on one regexp for pages, and on another for paragraphs. Of course you need to decide what you want to do if a paragraph is on two pages... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

If you're just writing a compiler to educate yourself, then good for you. If you're really doing it because you think it will be less effort for doing the simple things you want to do than just learning any of the many general purpose languages that can do them, you're fooling yourself. Look at Stephan's last post there: it can do everything you've described, in a line or two of code. The source code to even the simplest compilers is not a line or two. --Sean 14:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I wrote a simple C-like scripting language interpreter (PSL - a part of my PLIB library) a while back - I just checked and the compiler/interpreter came out at 5,365 lines of C++ code. You can do an awful lot of fancy text processing with 5,300 lines of code in almost any language! So, yes - designing and implementing your own language is interesting and quite instructive - but it's hardly ever productive as a way to solve a problem.

As for "compiler-compilers" - there are syntax generators (eg yacc/bison) and parser generators (eg lex/flex) - which certainly handle the parsing of the source code - but don't help much with building parse trees, generating some sort of byte-code and then interpreting that code. I've used yacc and lex many times in the past - but for PSL, I wanted to simplify the build process - so I decided to write the parser in C++ code. The parser went together very smoothely - I believe my parser was easier to generate in C++ than in yacc/lex - and it's vastly simpler and faster than a yacc/lex-generated parser. Yacc and Lex are also a pain to deal with in large projects - it's difficult to build a project with more than one yacc/lex parser for example. I honestly believe that compiler/compilers are overrated. SteveBaker (talk) 20:35, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Google cache

Whenever Google updates it's cache of a website, does the previous version of the cache get overwritten? If not, how can a previous version of Google's cache be accessed? -- penubag  (talk) 01:08, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you can get old versions from Google cache. Try archive.org. --Tango (talk) 11:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Netbook performance

I'm really interested in this whole netbook thing, but am left with questions regarding their actual performance. Would most netbooks be able to handle running an XAMPP instance along with an IDE like PHPEdit or Netbeans and an open browser? Or would that max out the current average hardware setup available? 218.25.32.210 (talk) 02:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

My Lenovo IdeaPad S10e has a dual-core Intel Atom, and I have used it to run ("toy-problem"-size) parallel processing jobs, compile FORTRAN-90, operate a Java IDE (Eclipse (IDE)), as well as to compile and synthesize FPGA firmware, run 3D SolidWorks modeling, and operate a webserver. I have done some of these tasks simultaneously. The two things which seem to tax the processor are 3D rendering and Adobe Flash Player 10. The first, I accredit to the lack of much video RAM (I think up to 128MB, but shared video RAM and an Intel Mobile graphics accelerator); the latter, I attribute to Adobe Flash Player 10 being a truly horrible piece of software. Nimur (talk) 03:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Toolbar disappeared

Help. My toolbar (if thats the correct name for it) has suddenly vanished - the gray bar across the top of a window that says file, edit ... tools etc. Instead there's a dark blue bar across the top with an e in lighter blue with a gold ring on it which does nothing, then a gray bar with the address, refresh and google search stuff, then another gray bar with a star which does nothing and a W. How can I get back to normal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.64.88.193 (talk) 04:13, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Which operating system? Which program is missing its toolbar? You need to provide more details to get any kind of sensible answer. Astronaut (talk) 07:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft Windows XP, Media Center Edition, Version 2002, Service Pack 3. This information hasn't changed since I had my old top of the screen. The new dark blue and gray top is on all internet screens. Thanks for replying. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.64.88.193 (talk) 08:13, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

So Internet Explorer on Windows XP. Sounds like it has gone into full-screen mode, or some/all of the Internet Explorer toolbars have been hidden.

First try pressing F11 and see if it all comes back. If not try to right-click in the grey bar between the "star" and the "W" and see if a menu comes up with ticks next to things like "address bar" and "status bar". If that menu appears and there is no tick next to "menu bar", then click the "menu bar" option. Astronaut (talk) 09:13, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Astronaut. Thanks for writing. I tried F11 and the whole gray and blue top disappeared, so I had nothing. I tried right-clicking on each level and the only thing I got was a small box which said " Restore to smaller screen (in light gray, not useable) Move, Size, _ Minimize, X Close Alt + F4." By looking at my ADD and REMOVE PROGRAMS I saw that I have Windows Internet Explorer 8 with five updates and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 with 3 updates. I tried removing Explorer 8 and it gave me all kinds of warnings that many programs might not work properly if I did that. The first time I quit, but I get so much grief (for example Task Manager is terrible) that I went back and removed Explorer 8 and let the chips fall where they may. Well I got into a terrible loop as soon as I got back from restart which seemed to come from my registry so I was able to restore back to being stuck with Explorer 8. Besides, that might not even be the problem, since this blue top has only been around for a day or two and I got Explorer 8 in October. I tried removing two recent non-security updates but it didn't make any difference. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.77.181.227 (talk) 15:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Try pressing "Alt" and see if you get the menus and then follow Astronaut's instructions for checking Address bar and status bar.--TParis00ap (talk) 18:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I pressed Alt and nothing happened, no difference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.233.227.101 (talk) 20:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Try pressing F10, then clicking View, Toolbars, Menu Bar. --Bavi H (talk) 02:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

The bar across the top which normally says "File Edit View Favoirtes Tools Help" is missing. There is no "View" but thanks for replying. I pressed F10, and all the other Fs - nothing happens except with F11 I gain and lose what bars I have. On the right of the "W" bar is a blank gray square which, when I click on it gives me a new blank screen on top of what I doing, and a small square between the star and the "W" which has four even smaller boxes in it which, when I click on them enables me to switch from one window to the other. When I first got Explorer 8 I could get up to seven bars across the top and the toolbar was one of the bars which I could uncheck. Therefore I think this problem might have something to do with Explorer 8. ALSO it only happens when I'm on the internet, when I'm looking at something within my PC I get the normal toolbar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.77.193.59 (talk) 17:34, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, now I'm a little baffled. You seem to be describing the situation similar to this image, with the menu bar missing. If that is the case, pressing F10 should make it reappear temporarily so you can choose the "view" menu. Alternatively, you could try right-clicking on one of the areas I have highlighted in this annotated image to make a pop-up menu appear, and making sure there's a tick next to "menu bar". Unfortunately, I don't have a "W" bar and have no idea what that might be.

Can produce a screenshot (press alt-print screen and paste into your favourite image editing program) of what you have now in IE8. It would be really useful to upload it to somewhere like imageshack or photobucket, and put a link here so we can all see what's up.

Failing that, you could always try repairing your Windows XP installation. To do that you will need to boot the PC from the XP installation disk (you probably got one when you bought the PC), and choose the Repair option. Astronaut (talk) 18:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah! This image is what I mean by the pop-up menu that lets you put a tick next to "menu bar". To get this I simply right-clicked where the top left of the menu is. Astronaut (talk) 19:00, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

WOW Thanks for telling me about imageshack, it's really interesting and useful. I took a printscreen of this page as I see it and saved it by paint>edit>paste>save and here it is: this image I hope you can see it. As you can see I don't have the pink areas and all the other things which you have, and no F key makes any difference except F11 makes the whole top disappear and clicking on the square gray box gives me another, blank screen and a little box between the star and the W which I can use to switch from one of my screens to the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.77.193.59 (talk) 20:40, 21 November 2009 (UTC) Here I used the other window to switch from here to imageshack, took a printscreen and uploaded it so you could see it here. This is about all I can do now - I can't print, save, create an icon, save in favorites, have any tools etc. Here's the second page

Ummm, do you really not get the pop-up menu if you right-click in the areas I have shaded pink in this image? The missing text is also worrying - the title bar (ie. the "blue bar") should have text that is created by the website, probably something like "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing"; the gold star should be followed by the word "Favorites"; and the "W bar" (actually called a "tab", with the "W" icon from Wikipedia) should have the same text as the title. However, the missing text could be a feature of your choice to use the "classic windows theme" in XP. I would probably try the repair installation next. Astronaut (talk) 15:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

1)My Default Internet Browser is Version 810.6001.18702 What's yours? 2)I tried changing the themes to all others and the appearance to all others, the effects from all checked to all blank and the advanced within appearance from desktop to active title bar. All changes made no difference at all. 3)My operating system CD says "Only use this DVD to reinstall the operating system on a Dell PC", nothing about having an option for repairing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.233.41.226 (talk) 21:59, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you try to get the pop-up menu to appear?

My IE8 is 8.0.6001.18828. 810.... seems a litle suspicious to me but I do have several updates pending. The Install disk does have an option to repair, certainly on Dells - only the other week I fixed my sister's Dell Dimension and saw the repair option (her problem was much more serious and I has to reinstall XP). Here is a page from Microsoft about doing a repair install, or you can read this page with its pretty pictures showing you what to expect. read the instructions carefully - it is easy to get this wrong and have it wipe all your documents, photos, music, emails, etc. Astronaut (talk) 00:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The only pop-ups I get are "Move, Size, Minimize, Maximize, X Close Alt+F4" when I right click on the top blue bar and "Cut, Copy, Delete, Open IME" when I right click on the address bar. That 810 should have read 8.0 (sorry - typo) but I'm more interested in the 18702 vs. 18828. I'm really curious - when you go to that About.com>Computer Problems Solved what place do you see Besser Computer comming from? I don't think I see the same place as you do. And I really don't think it's a matter of repairing Windows XP, that seems to be an extreemly drastic and risky measure for such a small problem. I did a registry scan recently and of course it found a zillion errors in my registry, which for free it would clean about five and for $$$$ it would clean the rest. I didn't even clean the five and deleted it but it keeps coming back. It's called Advanced Registry Optimizer. Do you know anything about it, and could it have anything to do with this? I think this is a bug in Explorer 8.

Sometimes you have to take drastic measures to fix a problem. Really, at this stage the repair installation option is probably your best bet. As a safety measure, it is a good idea to back up all your documents, photos, music, emails, etc.

While it seems to be a simple case of a missing menu bar, if you can't get the menu to appear through the methods described above then I'm out of ideas. You can poke around in the registry if you wish, but you have a much greater risk of making your PC refuse to work at all, than fixing this specific problem.

As for About.com, I very rarely use that site and cannot find the thing you mention. However, this Google search shows Besser Computer to be a computer repairers in Boca Raton, FL. I've never heard of them and they are about 4,500 miles from me. If your browser is directing you elsewhere, that is a usual sign of a malware infection.

I've never heard of it, but Advanced Registry Optimizer seems like a genuine program. Remember that the authors would prefer you buy their program, so it is in their interest to have it find lots of "problems" and then only fix a few for free. That said, I would be suspicious of anything that finds zillions of registry errors without explaining the impact of each. More so that when you decide to delete it, it keeps coming back with nagging sales messages and tenaciously hangs on in your PC despite attepmts to uninstall. Astronaut (talk) 02:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

C download

Hi,

I got new computer and I want to install C/C++ on it, where can I download it for free (if possible at all).--Gilisa (talk) 09:16, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Free C/C++ Compilers and Interpreter

GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection

Your favourite search engine will probably find more. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:36, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure you want to be programming in C or C++? Please don't take offense at this assumption I'm making, but the word usage in your post makes it sound like you're relatively new to programming. C and C++ are not at all for beginners. They're meant for interacting with the system at its deepest level. They're not easy languages to learn, and there's also a lot of other things you have to learn about before you can successfully write programs with them. If you just want to be able to dive into programming -- for example, to write a program and then run it -- a higher-level language such as Python may be a better choice.

Now, if you do plan to write C/C++ programs, you haven't said the most important thing, which is what operating system your new computer is running. I'll start with the easy one: if it's a Mac, you should get out the "Developer" CD that came with the computer and install Xcode. If it's Linux -- well, it's probably not Linux, but if it were, you'd have most of what you need set up already. If it's Windows, you can learn to use Cygwin so that you can write and compile C code using gcc and other free software, or you can use whatever Microsoft's free version of Visual C++ is. Just keep in mind that they'll probably be trying to gouge you for money later when you want to do something more complex. rspεεr (talk) 09:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Under windows, there's Microsoft's own Visual Studio Express editons. Astronaut (talk) 09:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

rspεεr, you made a hell of assumptions based on the wording I choosed (but with good and appreciated intention). I know the difference between the two, anyway, each of both is good for my needs (which are not big and anyway, everything can be done with C can be also done with C++...). As you guessed, it's not linux -it's Windows XP and I already found what I need. Thanks to all who helped.--Gilisa (talk) 10:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Technically, C and C++ are not for "interacting with the system at its deepest level". Most modern operating systems are written in C and C++, and the APIs they provide are in C and/or C++, but a fair amount of the principal core of the operating system is often written in assembly language, or in assembly language embedded in C or C++. And other than that, the dialects of C and C++ the operating system provides as an API usually has a heavy amount of system-specific extensions. Standard C and C++ abstract away a fair deal of stuff, and newcomers to the languages are usually surprised how far away from the physical machine the languages are - they tend to think that if their own personal operating system includes a C API to do something, then that feature is part of C itself. Nevertheless, out of modern production languages, C and C++ are usually as close to the physical machine as you need to go, unless you're actually developing your own operating system or your own device drivers. Programming directly in assembly language might bypass some of the code already written in the operating system or device drivers, and if that code is actually better written than your own, it might hinder the performance instead of helping it. JIP | Talk 20:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

OCR software that supports Japanese

Is there software (preferably free) than can take an existing image, scan it and extract the text on it - even if that text is in other languages including Japanese (it doesn't have to something fancy like translate the text into English). Astronaut (talk) 09:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

And your OS is . . . ? -- Hoary (talk) 10:16, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot. Windows Vista and various shades of Linux. Astronaut (talk) 10:20, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

It would seem to me Optical character recognition#OCR software combined with Optical character recognition#OCR software language support would provide a decent answer to your question. Is there any reason it did not? Nil Einne (talk) 10:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Note that OCR for kanji, which has a symbol for each word, is unlikely to work well, as the probability of being able to recognize the correct symbol out of 50,000-100,000 is very low. On the other hand, recognizing katakana, where there's a symbol for each syllable, is far easier, as it reduces the list of possible symbols to around 51. StuRat (talk) 17:03, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Bandwidth of Video

1. What is the bandwidth of the video signal from computer to the monitor? My monitor is a CRT with the connector to CPU having typical blue colour and three pin rows. I did something like (1024*768(Pixels)) * (3(RGB) * 8(bit)) * 60(fps) and got a really crazy number 1Ghz!
2. What is the name of that cable (standard used)? 59.93.13.187 (talk) 15:36, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The cable is a VGA cable if it has three rows of pins, and the connector is a DE15. If it has a T-shape on one side, then it's a DVI cable. Bandwidth would be measured in bits/second in DVI, and is around 4Gb/s. VGA connections don't have a measured bandwidth since they are analog, but your monitor would be measured as 1024x768@60Hz. Assuming 8 bit color, the digital version of your resolution is 360Mb/s. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 17:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

It sounded like they said 24 bit color, in which case it would indeed be right around 1080Mb/s (or approximately 1Ghz). So, his numbers were right on the money. StuRat (talk) 18:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I missed the 3*RGB that I forgot to factor into my calculations. In that case, it would be correct to say 1GHz 206.131.39.6 (talk) 18:36, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Was doing a problem in information theory just after microwave and radar examination and when I saw such numbers, (rigid) waveguides came to my mind and so I thought I might ask here just to clarify. My processor is working at just 1.7GHz so how can it keep rendering at such high frame rates even with graphics card since it has to generate the data to send to the graphics card? 59.93.11.91 (talk) 15:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It only sends very simplified data to the graphics processor, like "draw a white line from (x1,y1) to (x2,y2) and keep it there". The graphics processor then calculates the pixels to send in each frame, and that's where the heavy work lies. StuRat (talk) 16:48, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

EULAs

Hello, I was just wondering whether or not EULAs (End User License Agreements) are legally binding. I was having an argument about it the other day, and would like to get an answer. Thanks! Rootusercyclone (talk) 15:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I just looked at Software license agreement, from which it seems that it depends upon the court jurisdiction, upon how the license is presented, and upon whether a customer needs to accept the license in some way before installing the software. Software license agreement#Shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses includes examples of specific court cases. Tckma (talk) 16:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that EULAs and such are stupendously recent inventions (compared to the rest of contract law, which dates back to, you know, the Roman Empire), and exactly what is allowed to be put in there, what legal binding they have, and so on has yet to be properly hashed out. It's going to take courts years (maybe even decades) to properly get a grip the legal foundations of those dastardly things. Belisarius (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Is this the long version of don't worry 'bout 'em? --Ouro (blah blah) 12:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Here is an article on a recent court case involving Apple and a Hackintosh maker. --Joe^Talk_Work 00:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I just read the decision. It's extremely frustrating in that it seems to assume (on pages 11–12) that Apple's EULA is valid without making that assumption explicit anywhere; it's like the judge isn't even aware of the controversy surrounding EULAs. The legal principle behind EULAs is essentially that first-sale rights don't apply to software. That would be a major expansion of the power of copyright, and there's nothing in the legal code to support it, so it's not the kind of thing that you just assume without comment. Very strange. I hope this decision will be ignored (as precedent). -- BenRG (talk) 01:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Dreamweb

I am sorry for the double post but I am really desperate here, There is a game called Dreamweb that is from the mid 90's, I am desperate to play it again, I can download it, and I can install it but I canmt get it to run, there is no .exe file. Please, if any one can help me in anyway with this I would be eternally greatful Zionist —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.59.90 (talk) 16:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

If it is from the mid-90s, it could be a DOS or Windows 3.2 file which could be .BAT or .COM file. I am not sure it'll run in later operating systems though.--TParis00ap (talk) 18:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article, Dreamweb, may be useful. Also take a look at DosBox. Nimur (talk) 08:48, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Tying special key on laptop to a script for closing programs

There is a button on my ASUS 5738Z which does something with the graphics card such that it uses less power. Is there some way that I can maintain this functionality while triggering some script to close programs that aren't necessary? I'm running Windows Vista. I downloaded this scancode program: http://www.brothersoft.com/scancode-download-199761.html but it does not respond to the special keys (e.g. this energy-saver key, the bluetooth-disable key etc) on my keyboard. Also, how would I write such a script in Windows (what would be the simplest way)? ----Seans Potato Business 18:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I use AutoHotkey for scripting. F (talk) 04:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

How would you decide which programs "aren't necessary"? Astronaut (talk) 19:04, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I will just use my own judgement: e.g. Logitech Webcam utility = not necessary. ----Seans Potato Business 16:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

You can manage power settings from the command prompt using the powercfg command. You'd type this code into a file in Notepad, save it with a .bat extension, copy it, right-click on the start menu, choose Explore All Users, then right-click in the Start Menu folder and choose Paste Shortcut. Then, you'd right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties, and then select a short-cut key combination. I do this to create all kinds of short cuts, like opening Internet Explorer or Outlook. Here's the code:

@echo off
powercfg /setactive "Max Battery"

As for shutting down programs, you could create another batch file. If I wanted to shut down spoolsv.exe, for example, I would type this into a file:

@echo off
taskkill /f /im spoolsv.exe

It think the taskkill command is only available in Windows Vista Business and Ultimate, though. If you're using another version, then we can use VBScript or JavaScript to automate the shutdown.--Drknkn (talk) 19:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi; thanks for your response. I'm using Vista Home Premium. Is there a command less heavy-handed than taskkill? I would like programs to have the time needed to save data etc before closing, even if they have to prompt me to save/discard/cancel. Do VBScript/JavaScript allow such "gentle"--Seans Potato Business 16:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC) closing of programs?

Not a problem. If you remove the /f from taskkill it will ask you to save any unsaved documents, first. If you don't have that command, you can download it here: [1]. You'd then save the file into your Windows directory. You can also use VBScript, like this, but it'd be an abrupt shutdown:

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

Set colProcessList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = 'Notepad.exe'")

For Each objProcess in colProcessList
    objProcess.Terminate()
Next

To use the VBScript, you'd save the code into a file with a .vbs extension and then double-click on the file. You can replace the Notepad.exe text above with the file name for any other file you want to terminate.--Drknkn (talk) 16:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

With gray rectangles, the arrow keys don't work

Most library computers I use now have blue rectangles at the bottom of the screen and a green start button. Today, I was using a computer with Firefox that had gray rectangles at the bottom of the screen and a gray start button. Whenever I would use the actual down arrow, it would go right to the bottom of the page. The up arrow would return me to the top. To go anywhere on the page, I had to use the mouse and the up or down arrow on the screen, which I find annoying.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

There are a variety of reasons why a library or public computer might override the default user interface. Take a look at our article on kiosk software. Sometimes, the intended goal is not realized very well (it sounds like the keyboard interface in your example has been tweaked with unintuitive results). Your best bet may be to contact the technical support or the computer/IT librarian directly - they have a better chance of knowing what customized interface they are using; and you might be providing helpful feedback to them about ease of use. Remember that they have many users besides you, so your convenience isn't the only consideration for them; but if your feedback is worded diplomatically, it might have an impact when they roll out the next software version. Nimur (talk) 08:16, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Also look into using the PageUp and PageDown keys. Other users may have customized the various function keys into a manner which others (including yourself) find annoying, but PgUp and PgDn usually keep their intended function. --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Keeping more digits in Excel

If you expand a cell in MS Excel and type in a really long number like 1234567890987654321, Excel will automatically round it to 1234567890987650000. That's if you're left enough space, of course; it gives it to you in scientific notation if you don't. Is there a setting to change to force Excel to keep more digits? Failing that, is there another spreadsheet-style program that would? I'm using Excel 2002 in Xp and Excel 2007 in Windows Server 2003.

The numbers are handled internally in scientific notation, and the rounding that you see is because the computer floating-point hardware has a limited number of digits of precision (see IEEE 754-2008). Arbitrary-precision arithmetic software exists, but it is slower. --Jc3s5h (talk) 21:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Having to cope with Zimbabwean dollars are you? I don't know of any spreadsheet program that does what you want and I doubt there is any. There are simple calculator programs around though that will work with more digits if you just want to do something small. Perhaps if you describe the problem a little more someone might have a better solution. Dmcq (talk) 10:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I was just playing around with the patterns you get when you multiply increasing larger numbers with themselves; nothing serious. I made a series of numbers in the A column that went 2, 22, 222, 2222, and so on for something like 15 iterations. Then I created a series of formulae in the B column, so that I was multiplying 2x2, 22x22, 222x222, etc. They make for an interesting pattern (no the one given) until you get far enough and the rounding comes into play. I was hoping there was a spreadsheet-style program that would allow me to go further as I wanted to see how the pattern developed (calculator programs generally only give you one answer at a time :-). When I noticed the rounding, I started just entering large numbers to see if it was an arithmetical shortcoming or just a limitation on the number of digits - obviously the latter. As I say, it was just idle curiosity. If there was a setting to change somewhere, I would do it, but there's not, so I'll move on with my life somehow :). Matt Deres (talk) 13:39, 21 November 2009 (UTC) (OP, who apparently didn't sign his question)

This is when it's nice to have a proper programming language or (even better) a real Computer algebra system around. This is a conversation I just had with my Python interpreter:

2,22,222,2222,...

>>> rows = 15
>>> a = [int("2" * n) for n in range(1,rows+1)]
>>> b = [n * n for n in a]
>>> for i in range(len(a)):
...     print a[i], b[i]
...
2 4
22 484
222 49284
2222 4937284
22222 493817284
222222 49382617284
2222222 4938270617284
22222222 493827150617284
222222222 49382715950617284
2222222222 4938271603950617284
22222222222 493827160483950617284
222222222222 49382716049283950617284
2222222222222 4938271604937283950617284
22222222222222 493827160493817283950617284
222222222222222 49382716049382617283950617284

As Jc3s5h alluded to, the issue here is that internally, computers represent large numbers in a floating point format, roughly analogous to our human scientific notation. By necessity, this means that when the numbers lose some precision and become a little fuzzy around the edges when they are very large (if you're interested in the nitty-gritty of how the numbers are stored, I recommend the article Single precision floating-point format, which has a very nice diagram and some examples). And as Jc3s5h correctly stated, if you absolutely positively need the exact number, Arbitrary-precision arithmetic is the way to go, but you either need to learn a computer language to do that, or install a Computer Algebra System (Maxima is free and does the job very nicely). Though moving on with your life sounds like a better alternative :) Belisarius (talk) 16:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

As a stop-gap, if you try dividing your number by say, 2, 3 and 7, and then saving both factors - for example 21*123456787654321. Then, replace uses of say A1 with A1*B1. That way, you might keep the accuracy (I'm not sure). - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 10:28, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I can thoroughly recommend Python if you're doing things like this on an occasional basis. It is good for a lot of other tasks you might think of besides as well. Dmcq (talk) 18:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

The specific example our OP gives has 16 digits of precision - and that is (essentially) the upper limit for double-precision floating point arithmetic. That's the most precision that the computer can perform operations on using it's built-in hardware logic. To make a human analogy - doing more precision than 16 digits that requires it to do something akin to "long multiplication" and "long division" - numbers under 16 digits is something the computer can do using "mental arithmetic" alone. It's certainly possible to write software to handle much more precision (the 'bc' calculator program under Linux/UNIX can do that, for example) - but it's very slow compared to 16 'double precision' floating point. Since there are very VERY few situations in the real world that demand more than 16 digits, it's not worth slowing down the performance of a spreadsheet program to accommodate the needs of so few users. Almost all programming languages and almost all application programs have the same inherent limitations - simply because it matches the precision of the computer hardware. If you need arbitary precision arithmetic - you could install the "Cygwin" package for windows and use the cygwin command line tool to run the 'bc' calculator program:

     steve@gnosis:~> bc
     bc 1.06
     Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
     For details type `warranty'.

     1234567890987654321 + 1
     1234567890987654322

Tadaaaa! SteveBaker (talk) 19:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Help deleting this folder

I have a folder on my desktop called "Perforce" and I can't delete it. Every time I try it gives the message "Could not find this item. This is no longer located in C:\Users\Jeska\Desktop. Verify the items location and try again". I've restated the computer three times now, and no programs are using this folder. How can I delete it? Windows 7 btw

Help Transferring Files

I have a hard drive that was removed from a computer and I want to put the files on it onto my new computer. Does anyone know if any big electronics stores like Best Buy, would do it. Thanks in advance!

Americanfreedom (talk) 23:40, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

If you are referring to the files and only the files, there is no reason they won't. It is very trivial. Plug in the extra drive. Turn on the computer. Drag/drop the files. Turn off the computer. Remove the extra drive. However, if you want them to reinstall all the programs you had installed on the old drive, that isn't going to happen. You have to reinstall from the install disks. -- kainaw™ 23:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I tried that at home but it wouldn't plug into my computer or his. Do you know how much asking Best Buy to transfer files would run me?

Americanfreedom (talk) 17:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the exact price, but it'll be somewhere between 10-20 times as expensive as it's worth. Most people know a kid/nephew/niece who's opened a computer before and installed parts. It's not that hard to do and I'm sure giving someone $50 would be a great deal for most people, but probably 1/4 the price of best buy. Short version: Best buy is WAY to expensive for something this simple, look for a more local option. Chris M. (talk) 19:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

You can buy an external drive case quite cheaply that has a USB socket. Unfortunately the one I have in front of me does not have any brand-name on it. 92.24.40.108 (talk) 11:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

November 21

Media player can play .iso images directly?

I've transferred some old VHS tapes to DVD. I'm then backing up these DVD to .ISO files onto a hard drive. Are there any Mac video players or HD media boxes that can play back .iso images directly? (without mounting) --68.103.143.23 (talk) 03:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

There certainly is, VLC Media Player can play back ISOs of DVDs (seriously, is there nothing that video player can't do? it's like magic!) Belisarius (talk) 12:09, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, mine seems to not understand when I've downloaded new codecs or filters despite WMP being able to figure it out. It also has some very bizarre behaviour when there's an existing window and you try to start up a new file from WE. Don't get me wrong, I have it and I like it, but it sure ain't no magic program! Matt Deres (talk) 14:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

...not to mention its well-known propensity for crashing. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Windows Mobile software compatibility issues

I just bought a dirt cheap 2nd-hand HP iPAQ 6365 smartphone running Windows Mobile 2003 SE (TI OMAP1510). It is very frustrate for me to see many software already are incompatible with this old model. I downloaded many software and noticed that my PDA fails to run the installer. Is there a way to check the compatibility of downloaded Pocket PC software so I don't need to waste my time trying?

By the way, I tried to install Skype on this underpowered model. It seems like there once was a version specially built for the 6365. However, I could not locate it on Skype's official site. Never mind, I tried to download software updates from HP and their ftp site seems to drop support for this model. -- Toytoy (talk) 09:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

In additional to Skype problems, I find Windows Media Player on the PDA sucks. The interface takes most of the space. When you play a movie full screen, if you click the touch screen by accident, it returns to the interface mode and rotates the movie 90 degrees back. It is nearly impossible to watch any educational video using it. You cannot go back a little bit when you don't fully understand. -- Toytoy (talk) 12:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Best way to calculate an ETA...

I'm making a program where something needs to be processed for a while and it gives a little timer estimating how long it will be until it's finished. You know, like how when you're downloading something from the internet it says "5 minutes, 24 seconds remaining", and it bases that on the how fast your download speed is. I'm wondering what the best way to make an estimation like that is. Are there any guidelines?

The first thing I did (just because I was lazy) was to simply take how much time had passed since the last update, divided that with how much data I had processed and multiplied it by how much data was left. Obviously, this is not a very good method, since it is vulnerable to small temporary changes in speed and the number was all over the place. What I have now is a simple moving average of the speed from the last 60 updates (since it updates about twice a second, that would be about the average of the last 30 seconds). Is there a better way? Belisarius (talk) 12:03, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

That system is still vulnerable to wild variations right at the beginning if the processing speed changes. A few suggestions:

1) Don't give an estimate until several steps have passed. This can be annoying, though, if they start it going and want a time estimate right away.

2) Store the historic average speed and use that initially. This can result in a jump (either up or down) when you switch from that to the current average. To minimize that jump, you might want to slowly change the weighting on the weighted average between the historic speed and current speed. You could start out at 100% the historic speed, then go to 90% historic and 10% current after the first step, etc. The simplest way to store the "historic average" is just to overwrite it with the average time for the last run, after it completes. A more complex way is to do a recency weighted average of the last few runs.

3) List steps completed instead. So, rather than give a time estimate, say something like "10:38 elapsed, and 19 of 38 steps completed". This completely eliminates the problem of time estimates jumping all over the place, as there aren't any. The user can come up with one based on the info provided, if he wants, but can't blame the program for giving bad estimates. This method has the advantage of being the simplest to code and provides valuable debugging info: "why does it always stall on step 19 ?". (It's also quicker for the user to detect when a stall occurs, as the steps stop going up, rather than just having an increasing time estimate, or, worse yet, a time estimate that never changes.) Note that ideally each step should be of equal length, but they don't necessarily have to be. You can also weight the steps: "This step takes about ten times as long as each of the others, so I'll count it as ten steps".

The third option is my personal favorite, and I always use that. StuRat (talk) 12:34, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Another scheme that seems to be used a lot is show second-by-second updates knocking 1% off until you get to 40%, then do a final update at completion. The progress bar trundles along to around 40%, pauses for some time, then jumps to 100%. In my experience that is how it works in Windows Update :-) Astronaut (talk) 15:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I have found this blog post useful in thinking about the psychological effects of different updating systems, if you care about that. Most users just want to see that some progress is happening from the very beginning, and care more about that than accurate estimates. They care about apparent smoothness of process, and like things that speed up towards the end. They do NOT like waiting 10 seconds for an estimate. All of this is independent of how much time it actually takes. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:12, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

:-h emoticon

Can anyone explain what this emoticon means: ":-h" ? There is no information in the article for it. thanks --helohe (talk) 13:16, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

"lmao 10x ur so funny".

I don't know if this is a reputable source, but one site says it means "wave hello/goodbye"[2]. It doesn't seem very common though, and may have other meanings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.19.20 (talk) 17:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

agree with 19.20. Specifically as used on Yahoo Messenger smileys PrinzPH (talk) 17:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Google email

Is there a email address of Google, so that it can be reached through email?--Mikespedia (talk) 13:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Google is a huge company, of course, so there's no single email address for the whole company. They have their ["Contact Us" page that has a variety of ways of getting in touch with them depending on who you want to contact, and why. APL (talk) 21:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Dump password hashes on Mac

Is there a way to dump the password hashes under Mac OS X? Preferably in a way that results in a unix-style passwd file. Horselover Frost (talk) 16:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Some googling turns up this little page which shows you how to do it (up to Tiger). They are apparently shadowed and stored in /var/db/shadow/hash/ and can easily be dumped. (and btw, awesome nick) Belisarius (talk) 00:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Java Scanner

Is there a way to use the Scanner function in Java which means when a user is inputting some text under the scanner on the command line, the text isnt shown. I am thinking of something like in unix when typing in a password, nothing is shown on the screen to show the user is typing someting in. Is this possible in Java? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.56.241 (talk) 20:56, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

No, you can't do that with Scanner, and it's very difficult to do it at all in Java. The functionality is not in the standard library , so if you really want to use it, you would have to use a custom JNI solution that uses the C function getpass(). So either you have to install some 3rd party library that implements it or make it yourself (and either way will kill portability). I strongly suggest you just ignore that little UNIX-convention. If you are worried that you are being a terrible programmer and making horribly unsafe and dangerous software, don't worry, Bruce Schneier's got your back (well, not completely, but he does say it's not a cardinal sin to have unmasked passwords). Feel free to ask the user to enter it in cleartext. Or, you know, switch programming languages. It's trivial to do in Python Belisarius (talk) 23:55, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Not scanner but the Java tutorial has [3] about password fields Dmcq (talk) 00:20, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Java 6's Console class gives you more control over the behavior of the terminal, including a readPassword() method that is specially designed for reading passwords. --Spoon! (talk) 09:34, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

producing DVD's that will play on television

I am trying to produce DVD's with my pictures that will play on my TV. I have Windows Vista. I have tried DVD-RW, DVE+RW and DVD-R, and when I try to play them my DVD player says "bad disc". What must I do to correct this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.223.225.133 (talk) 21:01, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

For best compatibility, use a DVD-R disc, and make a video DVD of it. It is (of course) not enough simply to burn a set of video files to it (indeed, which format should you use? AVI, MPEG, WMV, MOV, QT, ... ?), but you need to use an application that really creates a standard video DVD. Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, and Windows DVD Recorder can be used. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

But now it seems like you do not have video files, but only pictures. Then the app also needs to create a video from these pictures. I am not sure, but perhaps e.g. Windows DVD Recorder can do this. Otherwise, you can always use Windows (Live) Movie Maker. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Note that if you want to use DL discs, DVD+R DL booktyped to DVD-ROM DL is better then DVD-R DL [4]. BTW if you have a DVD player with JPEG support bear in mind these players often are limited in what they support but provided limited info on what is supported. You should at least check out your user manual and see what it says. And when burning I recommend you make sure you include ISO level 1 file system. I've also heard that sometimes they don't work with DVDs but only CDs. Nil Einne (talk) 21:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Window Movie Maker can make a movie from still images and adjust the time each image is on screen (I did just such a thing to help my neice make a short plasticine animation). You might also be able to add audio, though I haven't tried this.

I haven't tried putting the result onto a DVD, the the answers above seem reasonable. Astronaut (talk) 15:36, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

The trouble is that it depends on the DVD player. My Magnavox player will play all combinations of DVD +,-,R,RW plus VCD and it's cousins. However, my son's Sony player refuses to play RW's and +R's although it'll happily play -R's. So you really need to check the player you're intending to use. SteveBaker (talk) 01:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

How to extract from .tar files on Vista 64-bit

Resolved

Hello! I need to extract from .tar files on my Windows Vista 64-bit laptop, but when I download tar from the GNU project website and try to run it, I get an error message that says it is incompatible with my 64-bit environment. Is there any alternative for those of us with 64-bit systems? Almost all of the GNU software requires tar to extract it.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 23:04, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Tugzip and 7zip should both extract tars. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 23:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

cracking fable

hey, so my friend gave me this disk with a fable crack, i installed alright but then i get to a point where it says something like "cannot find library", i have no idea what this means and my friend can't remember. i'm not sure if its just individual to the game or if it happens with all cracked games, but in anycase i need help.

anyone out there who can? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Masheeofthefunk (talk • contribs) 23:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Please don't ask us questions about pirate software; we're not interested in helping you steal. 87.115.143.163 (talk) 23:39, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

That's correct, this isn't a place to ask such questions. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there's a policy against it. Regardless, it's not really answerable. All of these cracks are different, made by different people. There's no way we could diagnose the problem without being familiar with that particular crack. Since essentially no tech support is offered for those cracks if you can't make it work on your own, you're pretty much out of luck. APL (talk) 05:42, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Technically if we're talking about a game crack there may be instances where no piracy is involved, e.g. if the OP simply doesn't want to have to take the DVD/CD around with them. However the OP's question suggestions this is unlikely and in any case I don't think anyone will find much help here. To be blunt, I've always wanted to say this when these sort of questions come up (especially the P2P ones) and this seems a good opportunity, regardless of the motives of the person involved, if they thinks it's a good idea to ask here, I wouldn't recommend they do anything of the sort since it seems unlikely they have sufficient knowledge or common sense to avoid doing anything stupid like getting malware. (There are places where you may be able to get some help from users and you can of course try to find any other reports of similar problems but again, anyone who needs to be told that shouldn't be trying such stuff.) Nil Einne (talk) 10:33, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I find it helps the pirates to know someone who is personally effected by this. I write computer games for a living (I do the pretty graphics bits using lots of ikky math and tons of clever software). I earn a bonus as a part of my income that directly relates to the number of sales of games that I worked on (that's a common thing in the industry). So when you pirate a game that I worked on - you are a thief. You are quite literally stealing money from me and all of my friends at work - just as surely as if you'd picked my pocket or burglarized my home. Don't expect me to feel charitably towards that kind of behavior. What's worse is that the better I do at my job - the harder I work to make games that you'll like - the greater the chance that you'll steal it. Gee - thanks! But worse (far worse) is that the amount of money piracy costs is enough to cause publishers (not developers like me) to start instituting crazy - and frankly, bloody annoying - copy protection and DRM schemes that upset everyone. If piracy went away tomorrow and publishers could trust people to do the right thing - then the world would be a vastly better and simpler place. SteveBaker (talk) 17:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Have software (games) companies worked out what would happen if they were to make games a third of the current price? Would they get three times more the sales? This would be one way to reduce piracy a great deal... makes games far cheaper. I think the prices of some games are exorbitant and out of the range of younger/poorer people. Sandman30s (talk) 13:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Can't do it. In my experience, and in round numbers, it takes about 100 engineers earning between 30 and 50 bucks an hour three solid years to write a AAA title - that's twenty million dollars in salary alone - plus the cost of computers, software, building rental, electricity, outsourced art, music licensing, voice actors, MoCap studio fees, QA department, HR, IT, etc. Then you have middleware licensing fees, the publishers, console manufacturers and the high-street stores take a gigantic slice and advertising another huge chunk. Only one game in 35 turns a profit - so the risks are spectacular. Even at $60 a copy - you've gotta sell a couple of million games at full price to break even - but because most games make a loss, the ones that do make it wind up paying for all of the flops. A large fraction of games are rented (not much profit there) and second hand sales dramatically eat into income. After not many weeks in the top 100 slot, the price of the game drops spectacularly - and then it's all over. I don't see where this "third of current price" thing can come from - there is really no chance to triple the size of the market overnight. But in any case, your theory that cutting prices cuts piracy doesn't work. iPhone games cost peanuts - yet the piracy rates on iPhone games are about the same as premium $40+ games. SteveBaker (talk) 04:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You make some good points there and I really don't know what the solution is. You can't compare to the movie industry, because despite there being piracy of DVDs, people can pay $2-$10 to watch a movie in a theatre. This box office take accounts for a great deal of the initial profit for blockbusters, and if really good they continue to make money for years thereafter. Now with games, one can rent it from your video store for a week, but that doesn't help your case much. If games were a third of their price, I would have a much larger personal collection rather than relying on rental and swap clubs. Now I wonder how many people are in the same boat? I would love to see an experiment where someone takes the plunge and drastically reduces the price of an AAA title like you call it. Also, I didn't know that 1/35 games make a profit - surprising considering all the hype surrounding the huge profits made by COD4 MW2 and other titles this year. Sandman30s (talk) 07:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - that's the thing though. When a game does well, it does SPECTACULARLY well. The programmers who worked on GTA IV (for example) got $100,000+ bonusses - people can get very rich when a game does make it. I don't doubt that the authors of COD4 MW2 are also very happy people right now. But those are in the tiny, tiny minority. You can count the number of those blockbusters that happen each year on the fingers of one hand...yet hundreds of games are made each year. That tiny minority is what keeps the industry going - but it's far from the norm. Generally, you consider yourself to be doing well if you turn a profit at all...and when you do, that profit has to pay for all of the previous flops and all of the flops that are yet to come! If not - then your studio goes out of business. Many games (such as the last one I worked on at Midway: "Career Criminal") are cancelled without ever seeing the light of day. In our case, that happened after a year of initial investigation with Tony Scott as a consultant and maybe 30 people - and a second year of full-on development with upwards of 100 staff. (screenshots) Career Criminal was running on PC, Xbox360 and PS3 (I had two PC's, two Xboxes and two PS3's on my desk while debugging graphics for dense crowd scenes and vehicle damage) - the graphics looked great - it ran without crashing - we had one major bank heist-with-a-twist mission fully working and a couple of others under development when it was basically realized that the thing was missing a "fun" factor - that's a tough problem to crack. How do you engineer "fun"? But with Midway's other woes, spending another half million dollars a month to pursue the idea was simply not tenable - so the project was flushed - and maybe 10 million dollars went down the drain with it. SteveBaker (talk) 06:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a source for the iPhone stat? Not that I misstrust you. I'd just be interested in reading that. APL (talk) 21:18, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[5] says that "Just over 60% of paid apps using Pinch have been pirated."...and goes on to explain that this is a low estimate. SteveBaker (talk) 06:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Generally, I agree with you, but can I play Devil's Advocate for a second? In this case we're probably talking about a five year old game that you can buy used for $6. If the OP's choice wasn't to (a) buy new or (b) pirate, but (a) buy used or (b) pirate, what's the difference? The developer doesn't get royalties either way, do they? But just to clarify, I also think the OP would be better off just buying the game. Indeterminate (talk) 07:08, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Minor nitpick, Fable: The Lost Chapters which was the PC version was released in September 2005 so really only just over 4 years Nil Einne (talk) 02:19, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, there is a difference. If the used market is depressed because of piracy then people who buy a lot of new games are less able to sell their old games - and therefore have less disposable income to buy new games. So piracy does have an impact - even in the case of older games. SteveBaker (talk) 04:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

November 22

Merge Sort Question

One of my homework questions reads as follows: "Consider the following alternate implementation of Merge Sort that recursively sorts the array table from index a to b, where a ≤ b:

public static <T extends Comparable<T>> void sort(T[] table, int a, int b) {
     if (b - a > 0) {
         sort(table, a, (a+b)/2);
          sort(table, (a+b)/2 + 1, b);
         merge(table, a, b);
     }
}

The merge method copies the elements of table from indices a to b (inclusive) into a new array and then merges the two halves of the new array back into table.

Modify the method above so that it calls the merge method only if the array is not sorted after the two recursive calls. You should be able to determine this in constant time."

I've got no clue how to check if a list is sorted... in constant time. The best way I can think of would take linear time.

Thanks for the help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.2.100.212 (talk) 02:43, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

After each recursive sort call, you have the array sorted in two halves. Lets make m=(a+b)/2 to make this easy to explain. The left half from a to m is sorted. The right half from m+1 to b is sorted. So, index m is the highest value in the left half. Index m+1 is the lowest value in the right half. What can you figure out about the two halves by comparing index m to index m+1? -- kainaw™ 02:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Regions?

When I try to change the region of my DVD drive, it tells me there is only a limited number of times I can change it. Why is it? THX in advance ---Jake —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.228.196.191 (talk) 03:35, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

The short story is that it's because the movie companies are real meanies. Big bullies, is what they are!

The slightly longer story is this: DVDs are encrypted using something called the Content Scramble System, which means that in order for a manufacturer to be able to produce a DVD, he has to license decryption keys from the DVD Copy Control Association, an organization made up of big Hollywood studios. If they don't license the keys to you, you can't make a DVD-player, which means that the movie studios can completely dictate how the DVD player should be working, and they've told your DVD-player manufacturer that you can only change the region coding so many times, and that's it. There's no technical reason why you couldn't just change them how many times you want, or even remove the region-coding requirement all together, it's just that Hollywood won't let you.

Now, you can in fact play a DVD even if you haven't licensed the keys for it, because CSS was broken by an enterprising 16-year-old Norwegian kid named DVD Jon in 1999 (that's not his birth name, but it is how he will be forever known), so now pretty much anybody that wants to can make a DVD-player or DVD-playing software. However, that is not legal in the United States because of a law called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (yes, also backed by Hollywood), which has a provision that states that it is illegal to circumvent copy protection of any kind. So it's not like Panasonic is going to go do that.

Bottom line: movie studios are mean! Belisarius (talk) 08:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

In a number of countries (e.g. New Zealand and parts of Asia), region free players are the norm because of consumers demands and the like, region free stand alone players are the norm. In a few like Australia (although I'm pretty sure it was like NZ before the authorities pointed out they were likely illegal anyway), region limited players may even be illegal. This is mentioned somewhat in regional lockout and DVD region code. However nearly all computer DVD drives are still region limited specifically RPC-2. However there are various sites you can find hacked firmware for drives to make them RPC-1 or appear RPC-2 but auto-resetting (if a drive is RPC-1, Windows will limit region changes internally although it's fairly easy to break this). These could be illegal in some countries like the US. Nil Einne (talk) 10:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

So why don't computer DVD manufacturers make region locked players for the US market, where the DMCA is enforcable, and make region free equipment for the rest or the world? Astronaut (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

A lot of computer hardware companies are based in the US, so they would still be subject to US law regardless of where the computers are being sold. Also, there is less demand for unlocked drives for computers because they are much easier to bypass the locking on. --Tango (talk) 15:53, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, imagine if (say) Panasonic were to make a region-free DVD player to be sold in some non-US country without the permission of the DVD Copy Control Association, the studios would be so royally pissed off that they'd never again license the keys again for use in the US market (that's the very least they'd do, they'd probably do far worse). It's basically unthinkable for a manufacturer to do that.

And it's absolutely true, if there is enough consumer pressure (like in New Zealand), the studios might relent and allow region-free players, because while the studio's don't like region-free players, they're absolutely terrified of piracy, which many would turn to as an alternative. They're assholes, but they're not complete morons. Belisarius (talk) 16:18, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Your history isn't very accurate. The original cracking of CSS, i.e. the cryptanalysis and discovery of attacks, was done by Frank Stevenson. He based his analysis on C code posted to the Livid mailing list. This code appeared to have been hand-decompiled from machine code in a software player by someone with no understanding of the algorithm it implemented, making it most likely a copyright violation (since it included implementation details). This source code only included cryptographic functions; it was not a runnable program. Separately from this, two Windows executables for DVD ripping were released, one by DoD and the other by MoRE. Not only were these not open source, they were packed with executable packers to discourage disassembly. This is typical in the pirate community; they're no friends of open source. The DoD and MoRE decrypters most likely contained code copied verbatim from a software player in violation of copyright. Jon Johansen was just a co-author of the MoRE ripper. The media made a mess of the story, as they always do, conflating the MoRE ripper (decss.exe) with the source code posted to the mailing list, wrongly identifying Johansen as the sole author of decss.exe and/or as the one who had found the decryption code, and largely ignoring the DoD ripper for some reason. There's some more information here. Johansen didn't do anything to deserve anyone's praise. Frank Stevenson is the one who opened the CSS algorithm. -- BenRG (talk) 23:49, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Bash alias

I want to construct the command

wikipedia [STRING]

as an alias of the command

firefox en.wikipedia.org/wiki/[STRING]

Furthermore, I want a lack of [STRING] to be interpreted as Main_page. I.e., I want

wikipedia

to be an alias of

firefox en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_page

How should I construct this alias? --Lucas Brown 03:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, instead of making an alias, how about we make it a teeny-tiny little script. I think that's better, because if there any funny characters in the url, it will convert them to a url-friendly format. For instance, if you look at the article for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? you'll see that there isn't a question mark at the end of the URL, only %3F, which is url-speak for question-mark. This little thing I cooked up in Python (wow, I'm doing a lot python logrolling lately...) will take care of that:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys, subprocess, urllib

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if len(sys.argv) == 1:
        p = subprocess.Popen(['firefox', 'http://en.wikipedia.org/'])
    else:
        url = 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/' + urllib.quote("_".join(sys.argv[1:]))
        p = subprocess.Popen(['firefox', url])

Save that as "wikipedia" in your path and make it executable, and it should go like gangbusters. Two things to note: this is actually a rather unorthodox little script, since it will join all your arguments into one string, without you needing to use quotes (I personally think it's kind-of a bad idea, but I think that's what you wanted). Also, I'm on a Windows-machine right now, so I haven't been able to test it except on Cygwin (where it works great), so caveat emptor. But I see no reason why it shouldn't work Belisarius (talk) 07:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Alright, it's saved and executable... now how do I put it in my path? --Lucas Brown 18:35, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Place the script in a directory (for example, you might use /home/your_username/bin/ or some other convenient location; or /usr/bin/ to make it accessible to everybody). Then, edit your .bashrc file and add

PATH=${PATH}:/home/your_username/bin/
export PATH

This will add that directory to your path. You might want to read Path (computing) or the GNU Bash Reference to learn more about what all this means. Nimur (talk) 19:42, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --Lucas Brown 04:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas Brown 42 (talk • contribs)

Use a bash function rather than a bash alias, like this:

function wikipedia { firefox "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$@"; }

This doesn't escape the "?" to "%3a", but it's not really needed (firefox copes with this ok). Who's afaid of Virginia Woolf? is a difficult one because you'd need to escape the apostrophe when running from a bash shell. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

That's no problem: just use double-quotes:

wikipedia "Who's afraid of Virginia's Wolf?"

I don't have my list of Wikipedia articles handy, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple with both types of quotes, but this will work most of the time. --Sean 21:43, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems there are a couple hundred such articles, including:

1. "Paul is Dead" clues from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. Ain't Nothin' But a "G" Thang
3. Book Named "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" v. Attorney General of Mass.
4. She said, "Don't make others suffer for your personal hatred."
5. William Shatner's version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

--Sean 14:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Shell quoting is smart enough that quotes in something expanded from a variable don't confuse it. These characters just won't be a problem. --Anonymous, 23:26 UTC, November 24, 2009.

Mousepad Opens Start Menu

When I touch the mousepad on my laptop on its left-hand side, the start menu comes up. While this may be useful in times of emergency or when one cannot remember how to do it normally it is actually annoying to have the start menu suddenly appear when I've touched it by accident, plus it very often crashes full-screen applications. Is there some way of switching this feature off? Another reason it's annoying is because in one game I have I need the left hand side of the mousepad to toggle the camera and whenever I try it's basically a toss up between what's going to happen - the camera getting toggled or the start menu appearing and crashing the game. I can change the in-game controls, but I won't need to if I can switch off this helpful mousepad feature. Can anyone help? I'm using Vista Home Premium on a HP G60 laptop. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 15:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you almost certainly can turn it off. You'll have some touchpad settings somewhere, try Control Panel (there might also be an icon in the system tray (next to the clock)). Every one is different, but somewhere in there will be the options for what different sides and corners of the touchpad do. You need to find the left-hand side option and set it to "None" or similar. --Tango (talk) 15:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, Tango, thanks! Sorted! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 17:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Net access

I'm asking this again because for some reason my previous question disappeared.

How can I prevent a single application from gaining internet access, without actually unplugging the computer from the internet and disrupting everything else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.114 (talk) 13:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Several firewall programs allow you to do this. I remember Symantec used to do allow this, but I think all firewalls do so. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Your question was inadvertedly removed by another respondend [6]. I added it back and the first reply may be helpful Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 November 18#Net access. Cheers Nil Einne (talk) 13:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah that's where it went! Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.114 (talk) 19:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Two XP computers, one product key

I would like to run a spare XP computer in addition to the one I'm currently using, in case of a breakdown. Is it permissable to use the same product key for XP on these two computers, and would this cause any problems with Windows Update? 92.29.150.5 (talk) 19:30, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you can have a read here might fill you in with a bit more info on activation. BigDunc 19:35, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but legally each computer would need it's own licence/key and the one you have is for one computer only. The only keys that are valid for multiple computers are volume licence keys which are only issued to businesses. Because you can't buy a copy of XP anymore, you would need to purchase a copy of either Vista Ultimate or Windows 7 Ultimate as these versions allow downgrade rights to use Windows XP Professional (you would need to contact Microsoft to get a product key/media kit). The Home and Home Premium versions of Vista/Windows 7 *don't* allow any downgrade rights. Hope this helps! ZX81 ^talk 20:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

You can still buy XP OEM...RxS (talk) 20:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake, you are correct and XP OEM is indeed still available. ZX81 ^talk 17:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to Ubuntu I go. Rather mean of Bill not to allow users with two computers to use one licence. 92.29.150.5 (talk) 20:11, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

It isn't mean, it's just business. Nimur (talk) 17:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I remember mention that a Windows 7 or perhaps Vista installation pack comes with three licences - is that the case, and is it different with XP? 84.13.162.136 (talk) 10:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

You can buy the Windows 7 family pack which upgrades 3 computers to Windows 7 (although it goes in the face of what I said earlier, you get the same product key, but you get 3 different activations from it), but each of these would need to have their own copy of Windows already otherwise it's not valid for an upgrade (it would probably still work without having Windows already and from Microsofts point of view wouldn't look any different, but "legally" it wouldn't be a valid copy). ZX81 ^talk 17:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm using an old second-hand computer, and as far as I remember, when I downloaded the XP service pack, during the verification part I got told that the product licence number I had (which I had discovered from the HD using some software rather than a COA label) had too many users, and I had to ring up somewhere and automatically got given a very long number to type into my computer. No payment involved. What was that all about? Just out of curiousity, if you got a second-hand computer that had someone elses product license number on it, would both of you get blacklisted? 84.13.162.136 (talk) 21:00, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

USB mouse for laptop

I have a USB mouse that works fine on one Vista Gateway laptop, but does not work on two others (Acer XP, Lenovo XP) that have functional rubber dot and touchpad cursors. The mouse came with no driver software and worked fine on two other laptops without installing anything special. I tried to find a generic mouse driver on the internet with no success. I tried to change the Control Panel settings under Mouse. I suspect the answer is simple but I am baffled. Any suggestions appreciated. alteripse (talk) 20:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Does the computer see the mouse when you plug it into the USB port? The usual behavior under Vista is that a little text box appears in the lower right of the screen, telling you that a new device has been found. Alternatively, take a look in Device Manager, a minute after you plug it in. (In Vista, right-click "Computer", choose "Properties", then click "Device Manager", then unroll "Mice and other pointing devices".) This will at least tell you whether the computer even sees the mouse. Try other USB ports on the computer, too, if it's unseen and you haven't tried this already. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Stop software from reinstalling

Resolved

Hello, I am trying to uninstall a VPN client I downloaded and installed from my college's website, but now every time I turn on my computer, the software tries to reinstall. How can I fix this? Is there a simple solution using Windows Registry (Vista 64-bit)? Thanks!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Revo Uninstaller conducts a more thorough uninstall than to the uninstallers created by many installer/uninstaller packages. You may also want to check your start menu, and maybe purge Autoruns with the Microsoft / Sysinternals Autoruns program, as somehow the installer may have been accidentally tagged as an autorun program. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:08, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again, Finlay McWalter. All fixed!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 23:33, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Correct adaptor for old printer to new computer; totally stumped

I just got a new computer, a HP Pavilion Slimline, and the connection from my old printer (which still works great) doesn't fit into the back of the computer at all. The printer is an HP Laserjet 3200 and the connector it has is a double row of pins; one row has 12 pins and the other has 13 and I believe this was the standard printer connection thingamagig for many years. The new computer doesn't have any even similar place for a pronged connection. The only open connections are

• 4 small holes for TV in; Ant In; S video in; Audio
• HDMI (??)--This is next to where I plugged the pronged outlet for my monitor (it came with the adaptor) which is marked LCD
• Six audio plug ins (I think) marked c/sub, in, rear, out side and mic
• An ethernet where I plug my DSL in and next to that two smaller unmarked rectangular holes, and above those, two more holes identical to those below, marked with this weird symbol where a pocket drive will hook up.
• At the very top are two plastic protectors over places I'm guessing you can install further ?ports? which are marked on the plastic "DO NOT REMOVE" (what are these?) and finally above that there is a hole for "digital audio out" which looks just like the connector my cable box hooks into in my wall.

So, can anyone tell me what I need to buy to hook up my printer and which hole it goes into? This description may have been overkill, but I didn't want to leave anything out that would make it impossible to answer for lack of information on my end.--70.19.21.16 (talk) 22:10, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

For many years printers were usually connected to the LPT parallel port, but today such ports are very uncommon. Instead, printers use USB to connect to computers. Probably there are interfaces (adaptors, converters) that can solve your problem. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

12 + 13 =25 pins— is this on the printer or the PC side? If it was on the PC side, then the printer has IEEE 1284 parallel; see the link for photos. You can find USB to parallel adapters online or at most big box stores. The parallel interface is disappearing, but it is going to hang on for a while. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's a link to example USB/parallel adapters. You should be able to get one for less than US$10. The covered-up ports on the back of your PC, BTW, are probably for an onboard sound card. OEMs do this when the computer has both an onboard sound card and a physical expansion sound card (eg, SoundBlaster), to make sure the end-user only uses the ports from the higher-quality add-on card. Indeterminate (talk) 06:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Your printer might be usable with a "usual" USB cable as well - check the printer thoroughly to see if there is an USB port on it (marked with the "weird symbol" you mention). If so, you can just buy a regular USB cable. Jørgen (talk) 08:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The only way to tell is if the OP gives us the printer model. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Um the OP did say they have a HP Laserjet 3200. From [7] & (the manuals there appear to be for the 3200m but I presume they're similar enough & that's why the manual is the same) it does have a USB port. Note that a 'usual' USB cable in this case will be a USB B male to USB A male cable and alook at the manual confirms this is likely to be the case. Nil Einne (talk) 13:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Windows ReadyBoost

When I plug in my Flashdrive it gives me as one of the options: Speed up my system using Windows ReadyBoost. Is this something desirable and will I notice any difference? What is that basically about? 64.138.237.101 (talk) 23:13, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

See the ReadyBoost article. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 01:18, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

November 23

Regarding Sortware testing standards...

Is there any standard for software testing? If yes what are they? Can any software testing professional suggest?

Well, there are professional standards (so standards for testers, rather than testing), administered in the UK by the British Computer Society/Information Systems Examination Board - details here. I'd imagine similar bodies in other countries will have comparable qualifications. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

This is going to be very domain-specific. It depends on your software purpose, market/audience, language/implementation details, and budget. If you have some more specifics, we can point you toward particular methodologies or tools. You can also read software testing. Nimur (talk) 17:02, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Bot for adding category to Settlements listed in Domesday.

There are 13,418 English places listed in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Not all of these are still settlements today, but a very large number of them have Wikipedia articles, which highlight the fact of their inclusion in the Domesday Book, and have a link back to the Domesday Book article.

The category Places listed in the Domesday Book is an attempt to link and organise these pages - but the task of manually adding this category to every appropriate article is daunting.

My question is, is there an existing bot which could be adapted to automate this task?

Josephus (talk) 10:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

user:Rambot created a vast number of US articles from US Census information (and added basic info for them, again from the census). But really lots of the bots that use the pywikibot framework should be able to do this; they all require a bit of reprogramming for each task, but your task doesn't sound like it'd be hard. I'd ask at Wikipedia:Bot requests. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

String vs. Pattern for Scanner Delimiter in Java

I can't figure why I'd use one over the other for setting the delimiter. Is there any advantage to using a pattern instead of a string? As far as I can see they'd come out the same. I want my delimiter to be a string "TOSS-UP" so I can't figure that using a pattern would help in my case. Thanks! 76.95.117.123 (talk) 12:38, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The documentation for the String one says, "an invocation of this method of the form useDelimiter(pattern) behaves in exactly the same way as the invocation useDelimiter(Pattern.compile(pattern))". In other words, it's just a convenience method for you to be able to pass in a String when you don't need the Pattern for anything else. If you have to create the Pattern yourself (for example, to use its two-argument constructor), then they let you pass that Pattern in, too. Short answer: String when you can, Pattern when you must. --Sean 14:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

If you have a complicated reg-exp, then Pattern.compile may take a long time to execute. So, you would want to store the resulting Pattern object for re-use, instead of recomputing the pattern each time. If this is inside a loop with many iterations, consider benchmarking the two methods against each other, to see which has a faster run-time. Nimur (talk) 17:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Perl Projects

Hello, I am relatively new to the programming world but I've written some simple VBA programs and would like to start learning Perl. However I'm not really sure where to start. When I learned VBA I found books to be rather useless except as a reference. Project based learning, however, was very effective.

Therefore, I was wondering if anyone could suggest some simple programming projects or tasks which would be useful in learning Perl? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 15:34, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Project euler if you are obsessed with primes, otherwise you could just search "programming contest" and do some of the tasks. Picking a tutorial for some library eg this gtk tutorial and working through it is a choice. http://perldoc.perl.org/ and perldoc are off-topic but relevant. -194.197.235.240 (talk) 15:58, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The best task to learn on is by writing a program you need (that way it's not an academic exercise and you get something valuable at the end). However, since one major use of Perl is in web programming (Common Gateway Interface), producing a web page or web site might be a good project, perhaps integrating with a database (assuming you have some way of hosting a web page - otherwise it might be less interesting as a project). Since Perl is also commonly used for text processing, there might be something in that area you could look at - do you need any files converted to different formats, or text analysed or formatted, or maybe even an interpreter or compiler? --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 13:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I should also note that "Learning Perl" is possibly the only language tutorial textbook I've ever used that was actually helpful. It introduces techniques in a logical order, with useful exercises. Since it doesn't go into the object oriented elements in great detail (which are largely horrible additions in any event) older editions remain surprisingly useful. I'd recommend finding a used copy of 3rd edition and trying it out. I think I learned off a copy of 2nd edition (which covered up through something like Perl 5.01), and 99% of what I learned was directly transferable. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 15:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Replacing grub

I can't fix this over the phone. Anyone know of an idiot-safe method to completely replace grub? Situation: User wanted to install Windows 7 to VMWare. He was in Fedora 11, ran VMWare, popped in the Windows 7 disk, and started the install. It said it wanted to the root drive. He said no, took out the disk, and decided to try the next day. Turned on his computer and it just said "GRUB_". I walked him through making a USB live disk (because his computer doesn't have a CD/DVD drive or floppy). He can boot into Fedora 12 live. If he runs Anaconda (to try and upgrade), he gets two choices: Replace existing Linux install or Install to free space. I got him to rescue mode where the local media is under /mnt/sysimage, but /mnt/sysimage/boot is completely empty. From there, I can't help anymore. -- kainaw™ 16:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

testdisk is worth a try, though I'm not %100 sure it can fix your specific problem. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 16:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

By booting into a Ubuntu LiveCD, it is possible to access a GUI grub configuration - StartUp-Manager. This is not "idiot-safe" - I don't think anything that mucks with the bootloader could be. But, it may be easier than other alternatives. Be sure to instruct the user to boot Ubuntu as a "try-without-modifying-your-computer" mode (or else it will begin installing over the other partitions). Once booted into the live-CD mode, you can actually modify the grub configuration file (either conventionally with a text-editor, or with the Startup Manager GUI). Nimur (talk) 16:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

You want to reinstall grub, right, not replace it with something else? Is so, here's what I have done a couple of times (using knoppix, but it should be the same when booting from a usb stick):

1. Create a mount point for the linux partition which countains the grub directory

(Assuming /dev/hda1 is the "lost" linux partition, replace if necessary)

• Boot knoppix
• open Konsole

# su
# cd /mnt
# mkdir root

2. Mount it

# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1  /mnt/root

3. Make /proc and /dev accessible

# mount -t proc none /mnt/root/proc
# mount -o bind /dev /mnt/root/dev

4. Do chroot

# chroot /mnt/root /bin/bash

5. Reinstall grub

# cd /boot/grub

You might want to examine menu.lst at this point:

# vi ./menu.lst
# grub-install /dev/hda

WARNING: please observe that there is no number after hda!

If you get the error message "/dev/hda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive", try

# grub-install --recheck /dev/hda

• Sorry if I've misunderstood and am answering a different question than the one you've asked. I don't understand every step of the process, I found this howto somewhere on the net a long time ago, and I've used it a couple of times, successfully.

• Possibly the super grub disk has an easier way of dealing with this (it has a usb version, apparently). Hope this helps.

edit: Thinking a bit more about the super grub disk: it should allow you to boot into the os you've lost touch with. Then you can skip all the chroot stuff, and go straight to step 5. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:55, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Strange codes in text, e.g. +ADs- or +ACoAKg-

i got a dataset that uses a strange encoding for non-printables / diacritics. i'm getting hte impression that it's an artifact of some mail system. or maybe it's excel or something? anyway, the stuff i get looks like this:

+ADs-, +AGA-, or +ACoAKg- and +ACEAIQ-

there's more.... any idea what that this and where it comes from? google shows me stuff from mailing lists etc - but theys just look like mangeled mail, nothing discussing the codes themselve.

Interestingly, Excel seems to know what to do with them. Might be something like quoted printable... just different :) any idea? -- Duesentrieb-formerly-Gearloose (?!) 16:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

It could be a Base64 encoding; it could be a lot of things. If it is Base64, we can decode it into binary values (with a tool like this one), but interpreting those numeric values will be context-specific. If it is attached to mails, is it part of a GNU Privacy Guard key? If it's only the special-characters, your process flow will be a bit complicated - you will need to get the binary-value and then determine which character encoding it belongs to, and then put that into a text editor or application which can use that character-coding. Nimur (talk) 16:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not Base64. Bryan found it for me: it's UTF-7. Thanks all :) -- Duesentrieb-formerly-Gearloose (?!) 17:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, UTF-7 is a particular markup and interpretation of Base64 data. Our article explains this. Nimur (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Detecting photoshopping/cloning in images

Hi all,

I've heard of programs that can detect photoshopping, most typically programs that detect the use of the clone tool, but I can't seem to find any online. I also heard that Adobe might be developing plugins for this, but that news was back for CS3 and I've got CS4 and see no plugin.

Anyone know of any such programs?

Thanks! — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 19:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, JPEG snoop is out there - it mostly talks about examining the 'exif' data (basically file headers and such) - which isn't really a good indication that the image has really be falsified - maybe someone just tweaked the brightness or cropped it or something. Detecting use of the clone tool is something that seems simple enough to do - but surprisingly, the blurb for JPEG snoop doesn't really push that aspect of it's supposed capabilities. SteveBaker (talk) 03:42, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Is upgrading a CPU easy?

My motherboard is an ASRock P4VM8, socket 478. It currently has only a 1.8GHZ CPU, but according to the ASRRock website, it can take a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 with a 1MB cache.

1. Is changing a CPU difficult?
2. Would it make a noticible difference in performance?
3. Is the 1MB cache built in to the CPU?
4. Is a change like this going to cause any problems with the WinXP verification?

Thanks 84.13.162.136 (talk) 21:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I've refactored your question to number the individual parts of it; I hope you won't mind Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

1. Changing a CPU generally isn't difficult. Sometimes unhooking the heatsink from the motherboard can be a pain, and you'll need to clean off and reapply fresh thermal paste between the CPU and the heatsink
2. Noticeable: probably, but I wonder if it'd be cost effective. Generally I recommend people wait and then upgrade the whole of the core system (CPU/motherboard/RAM, and for gamers the graphics adapter too) in one go, which means you can use the old system for a backup PC, a gift, or a media server. Changing components incrementally tends to leave you permanently with one component faster than the others, which means it doesn't get utilised to its full potential.
3. Yes
4. If you're just changing the CPU (and not lots of other things at the same time) then you'll should be fine.

-- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not too difficult to change the CPU - but you do need to take care. Make sure you're not going to zap the chip with a static discharge - grab the frame of the PC so you're at the same voltage as the case - and sit the plastic box that the CPU comes in on top of the PC case as you open it - so it too is at the same voltage. Try not to touch the pins on the chip. You'll need to take care with re-inserting it - apply some silver paste to get good thermal conductivity between the chip and the heat-sink/fan. It's not that hard...but you do need to take care and pay attention.

Will you see a marked performance improvement? Well, it depends on what kinds of applications you run. You aren't going to see much difference in things that are bottle-necked by disk speed - or heavily memory performance limited. You'll probably see significant improvement in graphics/games - but it's not going to be double the performance because the graphics system isn't going any faster. But if you're doing things that are heavily CPU-dependent - then you'll see a stunning improvement. It all depends what you're doing - and how much spare horsepower there is elsewhere in the system that's just stuck waiting around for the 1.8 GHz CPU.

You may find that your power consumption goes up a bit - if your power supply is near the limit - that might be a problem - but I really doubt it. It's also possible that whatever cooling solution you have with the existing CPU won't be enough - again, it's hard to predict. Modern CPU's often throttle their speed down if they start to overheat - that would mean that your fancy new CPU would simply be throttling itself back down to the speed of the old one! There are software tools out there that let you see if that's happening - and it's definitely worth checking what the deal is when the CPU is working hard. So make sure you don't have stuff like cables draped over the CPU's fan - if there are expansion boards that you can relocate down the far end of the rack from the CPU - so much the better. Sadly, the one card that would help would be the graphics card - but you probably can't relocate that. But generally - if you can keep cables away from the fans and electronics - that'll help the most.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:49, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I was adding changes to the website for a Client and now my page has been deleted.

As this question is about a specific Wikipedia article, I've moved it to the appropriate place, Wikipedia:Help_desk#I was adding changes to the website for a Client and now my page has been deleted. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

November 24

Formatting Text in Java

I asked about String vs. Pattern delimiters earlier. Anyway, I have a really basic program that will read in the file using the scanner and break it up into pieces and can assemble them the way I want. Just one question --- it reads only from .txt as far as I know (a Scanner with a File) so I put all my file from a .doc into a .txt, losing all the formatting (i.e bold, centered text). Is there any way that I could redo that formatting using my program. The delimiter breaks my file into chunks and I'm trying to format a piece of that chunk, not the whole chunk. I just need to make text bold and centered. Is there any way possible?

I don't think I explained it very clearly so: What I mean to say for a chunk is that my delimiter is TEST. So I have a set of text that goes TESTTOSS-UP Math Short Answer Question. Answer. TOSS-UP. All I'm trying to do is make the TOSS-UP bold and centered.

---

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.196.152 (talk) 01:15, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You should read our article on plain text. A document that is saved by Word (for example), as a .doc, includes significantly more data beyond just the text that appears on screen. There is formatting data, and significant amounts of other metadata. Unless you have the file format documentation, or if you are using a pre-written library to access .doc file formats, you will have trouble with plain text operations. Nimur (talk) 01:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

EDIT: I'm dumb nm 66.133.196.152 (talk) 02:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

An alternative option would be to save the text as HTML which can then be relatively simply parsed and changed. --Phil Holmes (talk) 12:10, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Getting only part of an integer with Mathematica

In Mathematica, I am trying to make a function that inputs an integer and outputs the integer mod squares. Hopefully that makes sense, but an example would be if I plug in any square integer, I get 1. If I plug in a square free integer, I get itself back. If I plug in 32, I get 2 because it removes an even number of powers of 2. If I input 2^5 * 3^4 * 5^9 * 11^13, I get back 2 * 5 * 11. I have tried factoring the integer with FactorInteger and then using the Cases command to take only the prime factors which have odd exponent, but I am not getting it. Any help would be much appreciated! StatisticsMan (talk) 02:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

mv command with three arguments

I'm trying to install an application called Drupal and one of the instructions is to "Move the contents of that directory into a directory within your web server's document root or your public HTML directory" with the command

mv drupal-x.x/* drupal-x.x/.htaccess /var/www/html

I'm a little confused as to why there appear to be three arguments after the mv command, which mv doesn't seem to support. Can someone please clear up my confusion? Thanks! — Sam 76.24.222.22 (talk) 04:10, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You have a bad reference. (Or a weird mv but that's unlikely.) See 'man mv', 'mv --help' and possibly 'info "(coreutils) mv invocation"' for proper info. The leading arguments will go to the last argument and the last argument should be a directory. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 07:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

In other words, if you supply mv with more arguments - like mv a1 a2 a3 b, then it moves a1, a2 and a3 to directory b. Better description of mv on the web is for example here. Lukipuk (talk) 10:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Windows 9x

Why haven't there been any DOS/9x Windows versions since ME? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 09:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

As those versions ran on MS-DOS which is 16-bit they had all manner of limitations (the total amount of usable memory being the main one) and the way forward was to move to a true 32-bit platform and now becoming more common is the 64-bit platform. ZX81 ^talk 12:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The Windows 9x family of operating systems was very unstable. If one program crached, the entire OS was likely to crash. Also, there were no such thing as "security". The entire platform was very obsolete. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

What 'mainstream' applications use .NET?

Most .NET development is (generally speaking) focused on creating web applications or in-house business applications. What 'mainstream' applications also use .NET? By 'mainstream' I mean, non-business apps and something that a non-programmer might use. I can think of Paint.NET, Windows PowerShell and SyncToy. Are there any others? 12.165.250.13 (talk) 16:05, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Many modern PC games use .NET as you learn with the inevitable DirectX and .NET updates with so many games you install. I can't think of any examples outside the ones you provided when it comes to productivity applications. I'm not sure what level .NET is used in most games either. Someone who is more familiar with the framework may be able to provide a more complete answer. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 17:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

QuickBooks, PowerQuest Backup, the ATI control panel, Microsoft Expression, and Hallmark Card Studio are some of the apps I know of.--Drknkn (talk) 20:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

MediaPortal, Beyond TV and other stuff I can't remember (I usually just install .NET and then don't have to care if an app requires it). Many specialised simple apps that you find in forums and in user websites also use .NET. You also need the .NET framework for the DirectX Video Acceleration on Windows XP I believe (you definitely need it for the EVR renderer). An interesting this is to try searching wikipedia for ".NET framework" [8]. While some of these are discussing other stuff, some of them are applications that require the .net framework. For example I found out that the Nokia Map Loader uses it. Obviously this only finds a small percentage of applications using it. A Bing or Google search for 'requires .net framework' [9] [10] is also likely to find some interesting stuff. For example I was reminded Nero 9.0 requires .NET Framework [11]. Precisely what component needs it I don't know (possibly the media portion) but it won't install without it no matter what you choose... This is of course all on Windows. Somewhat controversial I believe a number of Linux apps use Mono (software)#Software developed with Mono, Tomboy (software) probably being the most prominent, and there may be more in the future [12] Nil Einne (talk) 22:39, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Symbols, colors, fonts won't copy into email

Referring back to this question:[13]

I now find myself unable to copy and paste this information into emails. Is this something new in Internet Explorer 8?

I do recall warnings that I was telling the computer to do something unsafe and that was stopped, but I hardly see where just the symbols would cause a problem. I do remember video or something else moving and I was told don't use Explorer. I stay away from Firefox and use plain text when possible, but copying the symbols manually is such a pain. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

No. The problem is not IE8. Probably, your email client is set to using just plain text. If you switch to using html, it should work (at least sort-of-work). See E-mail#Plain_text_and_HTML. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:14, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Need another printer suitible for cartridge refilling, or renovate the old one

My HP Deskjet 930C has got blinking error lights which prevent printing (I do already know what the manual says about them thanks), and despite several times in the past being able to fix the same pattern of blinking lights and get it working, this time I have not been able to. It has been a robust printer in the past, pity I cannot get it to work this time. a) I refill my own black-ink cartridges to save money. What robust reliable model of printer would suit this please? I have an old computer with WinXP, and thus cannot run some modern printers. I am happy to buy a 2nd hand printer. b) Are there any unofficial instructions about how to renovate this model of computer? HP says nothing about removing the cover etc. The printer is too old for paying for maintenance to be worthwhile - buying new would be cheaper. c) Is there any way to find out more specifically what the problem is? None of the HP software can do this, it would have to be some diagostic program an independant programmer has done, if anything exists at all. Thanks 92.24.170.160 (talk) 21:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Check eBay! There is a used HP Deskjet 930C for sale (with about 13 hours left to run at time of writing) with no bids on it so far, another with a "Buy it now" price of $16 and yet a third with "Buy it now" at $10. Beware the $25 shipping...but maybe you can get a good deal. I've been getting HP OfficeJet K80's from eBay (I have three of them now) - they are easy to fix when you have spares, and I agree profoundly about refilling ink cartridges. Sadly, modern printers have fancy electronic ink carts that won't work even if you do re-fill them...manufacturers sell printers at a steep loss and make their money back from ripping you off on ink to an insane degree. So if you have one you can reliably re-fill, stick with it! SteveBaker (talk) 00:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I wish it were possible to buy or unofficially modify a printer so that instead of having to play around with injecting ink into cartridges, you just poured ink into it like filling a car. If it were not for the business model used, that would be how they would be designed. Roll on the days when we have fabrication machines and can make freeware designs of objects. 78.146.176.198 (talk) 23:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

November 25

Google Books results

What accounts for the variability in Google Books results? I was able to find two sources the other day that now, will simply not come up no matter what I do. They are fairly old books, so I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. Viriditas (talk) 10:13, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Google's search algorithms are proprietary - they are not explained, and they can change any time Google wants. The variability could stem from a variety of technical issues (e.g. database server temporarily unavailable) or algorithm changes (new server software version doesn't recognize your keywords) to malicious censorship (Google noticed a search trend with that search result, and decided to censor it in order to promote commercial competitors). In fairness, it is also plausible that you aren't searching with the same exact query (or you were logged in last time, etc.) Google is known for location-based, login-based, and other context-sensitive results. Because Google's search algorithm(s) are proprietary, there isn't any way to know for certain which is the case. Nimur (talk) 13:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Why did my CD/DVD Drive Disappear from My Computer and Device Manager?

Please forgive me if this has already been naddressed elsewhere. If so, I'd be grateful for the link. I searched and didn't see anything resembling this, though.
I have a HP Pavilion DV6646US laptop computer-- 160gb HD, 2gb RAM, running Vista (64). I have owned it for around two years. I still have a little over a year left on an extended warranty. (Phew.) Here's the story:
On three different occasions in these past two years, my CD/DVD optical drive (E:, on my system) has simply disappeared from My Computer and Device Manager. Nowhere to be found. The first time it happened, a little over a year ago, I presented my problem to the extended warranty people, and they had me send it in for service. I think they replaced the motherboard and the hard drive. They returned it in almost brand-new condition. I reloaded all my programs and data and everything seemed to be OK. Then, about four months ago, it happened again. I called the extended warranty people again, and the representative was convinced that it was a driver conflict with a Windows Update,and basically chewed me out (!) for installing all suggested updates (setting my computer to "automatically update"). He recommended either doing system restores, stepping backwards, until my CD-DVD drive reappeared, or uninstalling Microsoft Updates individually until I found the "culprit," or if neither of those worked, doing a complete system restore. I tried what he suggested, and it didn't work, so I did a system restore from a partitioned "D: Drive" used exclusively for recoveries. To my relief, the CD/DVD drive was back, and working-- but a week or so later, it disappeared again. I called the warranty people back, and they had me send it in again. When I got it back, the invoice said that the motherboard and the hard drive were replaced (again). I was smooth sailing, doing automatic updates from Microsoft and HP, until a few days ago when I noticed that once again, the CD/DVD drive was missing.
I would certainly prefer not to send it in a third time if I don't have to. It's not a question of cost, as it's covered under warranty-- I'm just not convinced that it's a permanent fix, AND, it's a round trip of about 2-3 weeks. I checked the HP website for a fix, and they seem to mention it here, but neither clicking on the "fix it" link, or following the provided instructions, will fix the problem (in my case). This is because it's not even FOUND in the device manager, and choosing "scan for hardware changes" doesn't find the missing drive, either. I would say that it's a dead or dying CD/DVD drive, and I could support that theory, but it IS getting power-- the light blinks when I'm booting up, and it opens/closes OK. (I realize that there's more to it than that....)
So here's my question: Has anyone else out there had this same problem, with a different result? And what did you do? Or what should I do? Could it be something with the BIOS? I'll check it when I get home from work tonight, and update accordingly (but I'm not too confident in that....)<br.> Sorry this is so long. Thanks a million-- Kingsfold (talk) 14:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the steps here? Looks like the likely source is a conflict with bad DVD burning software. The KB includes instructions to fix the problem. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 14:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I tried the "fix it" link there a few days ago when I first noticed it, but I didn't try to fix the registry myself. (Not afraid to, per se, I just figured that the "fix it" thing would do the exact same thing.) I will check my registry when I get home tonight and see if it does any good. Thanks for the link. Any other suggestions? Kingsfold (talk) 15:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the software fixes found online don't work, you might take a stab at replacing the DVD drive and related cables. A new DVD drive runs about $20 last I checked. The tech support morons apparently made no attempt to replace your DVD drive, they just replaced the motherboard and hard drive. Try getting a new DVD drive (from a different manufacturer just to be certain) and installing it (borrow a neighborhood geek to help if needed). This way, if the problem is either the specific hardware, or the manufacturer's drivers, you've replaced both, and should have a decent test bed for comparison. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 15:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Could it be a wobbly cable/connector? Most of the time it's connected, but it gradully works itself loose with temperature changes and transporting the laptop. Sending it away for a new motherboard fixes it for a while because they have to reseat the connector when putting your laptop back together. I've no idea what you would do about it if that was the problem ... ask HP for a new DVD drive, perhaps? Astronaut (talk) 19:10, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It's connected, at least to the power, because it blinks and opens/shuts. But yes-- perhaps the connector itself has worked itself loose. Hmmm. Interesting thought. Kingsfold (talk) 22:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, damn. Didn't notice it was a laptop. With frequent movement, a bad connector, or even a bad case (a little warped, so the drive isn't fixed in position properly) could easily be the problem. And it also means a replacement drive will cost a bit more than $20 (and may not be possible if the computer isn't built for swapping). —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk)

Right. And thankfully, it's under warranty still, so I'd rather not get too deep into the nuts and bolts. Literally. Good thought, though. Kingsfold (talk) 22:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I had a similar problem at a customer's house a while ago. I fixed it by doing a system restore (Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> System Restore). You should also look in the Device Manager to see if the drive has an exclamation mark next to it (right-click on My Computer and choose Manage). If it does, then try uninstalling the device from there and rebooting. Windows will automatically re-install it.--Drknkn (talk) 19:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Appreciate the idea and the input, but the system restore has been tried, with no luck. The drive isn't showing up at all, exclamation mark or not, in Device Manager.  :-(

I mentioned to the warranty guy that next time I buy a laptop, it might be one of those mini ones, and I may just get a USB CD/DVD drive along with it. He said, "Yeah, you could do that." Kingsfold (talk) 22:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Illegal content uploaded to website

I'm looking for links to relevant articles for the following scenario. Note that I'm not asking for legal advice, only links to articles.

Hypothetically, someone in the UK hosted a small website on their home computer which allowed anyone in the world to post text and images, like a forum. An illegal image was uploaded to that site, and the site owner deleted the offending image as soon as he / she noticed it, and banned the ip address of the poster. What consequences could the host face? Would they be jailed, fined etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.114 (talk) 16:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

A similar question was asked on November 18. As before, it's virtually impossible to answer your question without giving legal advice. But, as before, you might be interested in the following academic review of prior cases: Liability of System Administrators. This paper points to a lot of related articles of both academic and legal interest. Nimur (talk) 17:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

You might find The Pirate Bay trial of relevance.

Are you talking about copyrighted material or illegal material such as child porn? Most sites I've encountered say in their terms & conditions that copyrighted material will be removed on sight or on request from the copyright holder; and uploading of illegal material will be reported to the police. As to how binding the T&Cs are or whether a website owner can use their published T&Cs as protection from the law, you will need to ask a specialised lawyer. Astronaut (talk) 18:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Best computer?

Short list of laptops from Newegg

Hello, I am in need of a new laptop computer and I was wondering if you could help me out. I will give you guys a short list of laptops and then if you have the time could you suggest which computer is the best bang for the buck out of the provided list? Thanks, I REALLY appreciate it!! --96.230.224.100 (talk) 16:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The 2.8 GHz 15" MacBook Pro with 8GB main memory, 256GB SSD and antiglare screen. The extra 300,- for the 3.06 GHz processor are not worth it. ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

A more serious reply is that it depends greatly on what you are using it for. If you plan to play games or do serious video editing, you'll want dedicated graphics (which rules out all the Intel GMA machines). Every one of the machines listed has 4GB of RAM; more than that is unnecessary for 99.99% of tasks, so you're fine on that score. CPU speed rarely matters anymore, and every one of them is at least dual-core (the extra core is handy for when a process goes haywire, but more than that isn't usually needed). Hard disk space is up to personal need; I've got 1.7 TB on my home machine, but most people don't even use a tenth of that. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If I were buying a new laptop, this is what I'd buy: [14]. I'd choose the RAID-0 option with a quad-core CPU.--Drknkn (talk) 18:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If you intend on carrying it anywhere, get something small and light. You will soon get sick of carrying a 15lb, 17" monster around. You can always get a large desktop monitor and external keyboard for use at your desk. And check how big the power pack is - it's no good having a 4lb laptop with a 6lb power brick! If you are using it at school and don't have access to a power supply, you might need to consider battery life. For gaming, forget it and get a desktop machine optimised for that purpose. Astronaut (talk) 18:33, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed on weight and battery life. If this is a desktop-replacement laptop it doesn't matter, but if you're toting it everywhere, every ounce counts. Ignore the people lusting after over-powerful machines. Alienware and Mac Pro laptops are *massive* overkill for anyone not using them for gaming, video editing or similar CPU/GPU intensive tasks. Heck, for most people, even the laptops you indicate are excessive. A light, quasi-netbookish machine (it's a little large to be netbook, but smaller and lighter than most laptops) like the the Asus UL30 series will do virtually everything you need, while weighing only 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb) with a 6 hour battery life (advertised, probably an hour less), or for slightly more weight, a 12 hour battery life (again, probably a little less in practice). The UL30A and UL30Vt differ only in the presence of a dedicated graphics card, so my earlier notes on the intended usage remain relevant. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I have a 15" MacBook Pro (the tongue-in-cheek suggestion above is what I hope will become affordable by next spring, when it's due for renewal - but I won't hold my breath ;-), and use it as my sole computer. I'm very happy with it. It's great in a hotel or on the train. But it's too big for flying (coach class) or longer cycling trips, and while sufficient for most tasks, I would very much like a bigger and more ergonomically placed screen when stationary. And while it's quite reasonable value for money, it's hard to rationally justify the value when I can get a EUR 400 Acer laptop with Linux that is sufficient for 95% of all my tasks - web surfing, programming, email, photos, music, movies, writing. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Javascript: Resetting a Form

Hi All,

I have a search-form with some <select> elements which are filled using ajax (drill-down search?). It's working fine for the most part but I want it to reset (ie as if the reset button has been pushed) whenever the user navigates back (using the browser buttons/shortcuts) from the search-results-page. I tried putting "document.getElementById('myFormsId').reset()" but it doesnt work. The site im developing is here.

To replicate what I'm trying to do, just select a manufacturer,make,model, hit submit, then from the search results use your 'back' button (or alt+left,etc). I wanted to make it that if the user goes back the whole form is set to its initial state.

Side question, why doesn't disabled="true" for the <select> work on firefox? PrinzPH (talk) 18:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

My screwed up SVG file

Hi there, I recently wrote a python script to colour in maps with specific colours. The code for it is here. Unfortunately, while it seems to create state maps correctly (see here), the county maps it creates can be rendered by firefox, but not Inkscape or GIMP and apparently not whatever Wikipedia uses to display it in articles. Gimp says it has an "XML parsing error". The map is File:US Poverty Rates.svg and can be viewed here. Does anyone know how I can fix this problem? Thanks a lot, TastyCakes (talk) 22:00, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If you can tell me where I'd get the CSV file you used to generate it, I'll have a look see. In the meantime, I note that it is a very big SVG source (it's nearly 40 times bigger than the blank map) and renderers will likely allocate a fair amount of memory during rendering. The problem may simply be that the SVG renderers in libsvg (which I think MediaWiki runs) and the others are just running out of memory (or another resource), either due to design limitations or to a hard limit to avoid denial-of-service attacks. If that's the case, the first thing to to is to run it on just a subset of the CSV file, and see if size, rather than content, is the factor that kills it (if I'm wrong then it should fail even with a handful of counties). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:28, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I also notice that the SVG contains non-ASCII characters, and doesn't declare a character encoding. Viewed in emacs you see "C:\Users\Emil\Desktop\Matt<E9>'s Work\Pix\svg" - that E9 character should probably be escaped, or a compatible encoding specified. The W3C validator barfs for what I think is this reason here. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm sorry I wasn't entirely clear, I made the screwed up map using this blank map, which is actually bigger than the screwed up output map. If you go and look at the blank map, I think you see the same non-ASCII characters... TastyCakes (talk) 22:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm the validator seems to have some problems with the blank map as well... TastyCakes (talk) 22:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

But the blank state map does validate... TastyCakes (talk) 22:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Oops, the "40x" thing was a snafu at my end. The character literals in Matté aren't the same in the two: in the blank one that é is encoded as c3 a9, but in your one it's just a naked e9. So I think you need to get the thing emitting the XML tree to force utf-8 encoding (and emit an svg header to that effect). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

adobe digital editions

I'm trying to install adobe digital editions on my computer, in english. My computer happens to be in the Netherlands, but I don't speak dutch. Somehow adobe seems to know I'm in the Netherlands, and I can't figure out how to install in english instead of dutch, or to change the language to english once the app is installed in dutch. The adobe sight assures me that the app is available in many language now, including dutch...but how do I download and install it in english? Thanks for your advice.